I called my old blog, Thirteen Ways - it was from a poem I love by Wallace Stevens - "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Each stanza is it's own little image that paints a different picture or creates a different meaning of a blackbird. What it represented to me is that there are many ways of looking at the same thing. To me Thirteen Ways was about the way our thoughts shape our reality. And how we have a choice about how we want to think- defensive, positive, self-critical, self-accepting, etc.
But in the past year and a half my life has been one of great change -- some tragic, some hopeful, and most of it beyond "thought" - my body and my heart and my mind all turned upside down, broken apart, lifted up.
So I had to take a break from Thirteen Ways to experience all that. And during that time, a friend sent me an email about the "window in your heart. Everybody sees you're blown apart" - these lines from Paul Simon's song, Graceland. He said, 'when your heart is blown open, there is space for something new.' Those words meant a lot to me not just because they put a hopeful twist on something that felt awful, but because they brought to mind another part of that song -
There is a girl in New York City,
who calls herself the human trampoline
and sometimes when I'm falling flying or
tumbling in turmoil, I say
'oh, so this is what she means'.
She means we are bouncing into Graceland.
The poet in me loves those lines and I feel them in my bones.
I can tell you something I've learned: sometimes you just have to feel it. You can't just think it. You have to be it. Life happens. As I tell my kids in moments of great parental wisdom and eloquence: shit happens. (If your kids come home from my house saying 'shit' please don't blame me - I try to teach mine to only cuss in front of naughty children). We have far less control than we think we have or want to have.
But, I believe it is possible to bounce - bouncing to me means resilience...it means that you come back or go forward and you are changed but you are not sick or damaged forevermore, you are simply a new version of YOU. Bouncing to me means a little faith. You don't necessarily know where you're going to bounce to, but you're going there and you're going to be okay once you get there.
And Graceland. What is Graceland?
Graceland is a journey. And to me, a journey is mysterious. I believe in Mystery and sometimes I call that Mystery, God or Love. Graceland is the place where we end up. We don't know how we'll get there - what the journey will be - but in the end, there is good and love. Even after pain, there is good and love. Maybe especially after pain.
So Bouncing into Graceland will still be my thoughts (how else could I write it?!) - but I hope to make connections and keep learning in a way that continues to open my heart and the hearts of the people who read it. Maybe equal parts heart and brain.
There are a lot of questions in this life and many times we feel afraid - but what I've learned is that fear will weigh you down in your journey. Sometimes it will stop you. Letting go of fear, accepting when you are blown apart - in this great unknown, you will find yourself lifted up and on your way.
