This is my dreamboard for August as I pray/wish/hope for shalom in my physical self.

Last month’s dream of curtains and spotlights is still alive and kicking. I’m still playing guitar, and I’m working with a life coach to figure out what that mysterious phrase might mean for me.

For more information about dreamboarding click here. Good shabbat to you!

“Tell me true things,” she said as fear raged around her. So I read to her from words on a page, novels and psalms, poems and stories. What amongst them were true? What amongst them was fiction? In truth, I cannot tell. But every word was like a slat tied on to the other across a great chasm, until at last we reached the other side across a swaying bridge of stories.
—

I’ve written/podcast before about the importance of stories and the power that lies in their telling. It’s a theme that keeps occurring and re-occurring around me – a strong theme of the postmodern cultural milieu in which we all dwell. Last week I went to an expat’s writers group here in Copenhagen and the talk turned to the topic of truth and storytelling. The personal essayists were struggling with the reality that whenever they told a story it was but one version of the truth. Another person telling the same tale would have different true things to say about how the whole thing went down. So were we, in fact, writing ‘true life tales,’ or a form of fiction? Furthermore, how should the very knowledge of that question affect our storytelling? Then again, the novelists among us were using real people and situations to form the basis of their characters and scenes – so perhaps they were not creating fiction, either but telling a version of the real, of the true? And which was more honest – calling the real fiction or calling the fiction real? Which is it then…all truth, or all fiction? Ah, there’s the rub. In a postmodern world, the answer is: both.

When we tell our stories, they intersect with the stories of others. There is overlap there, between my experience and yours, and that makes the telling of the tale tricky at times. This is never more so then when we write about the people most embedded in our hearts: mothers and fathers, children, soul mates, lovers. So when we tell stories that involve the hearts of those who are dear to us we tread lightly, trying to be faithful to our truth, without trampling the experience of the other. This doesn’t mean we don’t tell the hard stories – the failures or the confusion or the break ups or the fights. It just means, that on our best days, we try to balance being as honest with ourselves and our memories, with the act of treading with kindness. After all, it is not all that often that people invite us into their hearts. We should be a careful while roaming around in there.

This balance of brave truth telling and tender care is but one of the reasons I love the way Sylvia brings honesty and gentleness to this complex story which is, among other things, about loss. Here she must tell the story of herself, her lover, her child, and her mother –each on embedded deep into soul territory. This is no easy task. Yet as she begins to sing her hidden tale here in spare and simple prose, she brings to us all important thoughts about surviving loss, confronting expectations, and mothering our own hearts. I hope you will receive her story with kindness, and give her encouragement for the telling of this tale. May Sylvia’s story be a good with mate for you on your journey today. Namaste.

—

Mothering, Lost and Found
Guest Blogger: Silvia@ Dreamer Girl

A little over two years ago I almost became a mommy, without forgetfulness, planning or expecting—just loving and some magic dust from the Universe. For a long time I wondered why it was sprinkled on me and why it didn’t last.

I can remember the moment when the magic dust evaporated into thin air very vividly. At the time I didn’t know it was (had been?) nesting in my body. Looking back there had been many signs but I didn’t pick up on them until the very moment it was over. In the blink of an eye I knew. I knew what all those weird feelings had been; those moments of crying without a seemingly good reason, why my body had been so tired and why I felt more resistance to food than appetite. As soon as I realized that I was no longer alone, fate conspired to make me ‘one’ again.

Of course I thought, “this isn’t a big deal”–although it scared the person I loved at that time so much that he ran away and never looked back. Even though I was hurting and read about this kind of loss and knew how it can have a very big impact, I still thought it wasn’t a big deal –or at least that’s what I told myself, because that is what I was told by my mother.

After telling me that I probably imagined the whole ordeal, in spite of what the doctor had said, she acknowledged it in the end. But at first, she told me to just get over it. Because really, who wants to become a mommy at twenty two? “I do,” I thought. I had always wanted to become a young mommy and even though there had not been any planning and even though there was no more loving between him and me, there was still lots and lots of longing inside of me. But I soldiered on, without grieving, without acknowledging the sadness in my bones.

Looking back I haven’t taken good care of myself these past two years. I poured all my love in taking care of others, ignoring those feelings of hurt and anger inside of me. I felt that not only had I lost a chance of being a mommy, but that I had lost my own mother as well.

I wondered for a long time how I could take better care of myself and I think I’ve finally found out what the purpose of the magic dust was. I no longer act according to what I was taught, instead I teach.

I teach myself to love myself like I would tell my child of my love for him/her. I tell myself to sit with my feelings, that they are genuine and sacred, like I would tell my child that his/her feeling are genuine and sacred and should never be pushed back. I take care of myself like I would take care of my child.

I have no idea what it is like to mother a child, but I do know that mothering oneself is harder than I ever could have imagined, but more rewarding too. In the end this is a lesson that I think I’m learning so when I do become a mommy I can mother by example. I never felt I truly had one, but now I do.

*8 Things to Love About Housemates

1. The adults out number the children.

2. Hearing the night owl’s desk chair squeak in the room next to you when you’re up with insomnia.

3. There’s someone to water the flowers/feed the cat/walk the dog while you are gone.

4. If you hear a bump in the night, it can be your housemate and not anything scary.

5. When you need to be zipped up, someone’s around.

6. Extra kitchen wisdom from someone who’s lived ahead of you.

7. There’s always a reason for beer on the porch swing.

8. Getting to live with the family you’ve adopted by affection.

Got *8 Things to love about living with housemates? What about *8 Things to love about living alone? Drop ‘em in the comments…we’d like to know!

Last Sunday evening we got home from a wonderful trip to tiny Bornholm Island in the clear Baltic Sea. I was nervous to come back to our Copenhagen, fearing that it would not feel like a homecoming at all. When we finished our London spree in the Spring, our return to our flat was just that – a return. We were still too displaced to feel as though we were coming home. Thankfully, this time when we cracked open our door and wadded through a week’s worth of unnecessary mail, we found that we were happy to see our apartment, to wander through the rooms raising the shades and opening the windows, and to sleep in our own beds.

After the first few minutes of re-orientation though, I started to feel a bit ill at ease. Sure, part of it was just the let-down of coming back to the mundane tasks of the everyday after a week in a sunny slice of heaven. But there was also an underlying twitchiness that made me feel as though there was some uncompleted task following me through the quiet rooms. Then it struck me – where were the housemates?

Since 1998 we have always lived with wonderful housemates–some for short terms during life transitions, some for years as we watched our histories weave together. After ten years of coming home to someone, the sudden nuclear family-ness of it all has left us disoriented. Now, once we’ve unlocked the door, flopped down our bags and grabbed a drink of water we start to wonder…where are our housemates to talk to? Who can we tell about our trip? Who can we ask about how work is going, or whether or not the garden survived the record heat? And most importantly who’s around to explain why the dog’s tail is purple?!?!? (Yes, once our housemates dyed the dog’s tail with kool aid. She’s quirky, that Emily.)

It’s odd to live just us four after ten years of living with Sharon, Susan, Lindell, Duffy, Amber, Josh, Kristen, Rebecca & ‘Ren. I don’t dislike it, but it’s strange, so strange it’s affecting my dreams. Last night I dreamt we were moving into to a sublet rental. It belonged to someone we knew, and we had thought we’d let them leave their office set up in the spare room. Then I realized, “Hey! We could have another room for someone to live in!” Next scene: a garage sale and a guest room.

My guess? That communal living thing, it’s not just a part of our past… it’s simmering on the back burner. I hope so. I certainly do.

I enjoy the architecture of holy spaces: churches, abbeys, monasteries, temples of all types. Europe suits such a fancy, and lets me see a wide variety of structures meant to honor something – though what they honor is sometimes a bit off from the original goal. This week we are on holiday at Børnholm: Denmark’s only rocky island! (Sometimes the Danglish on signs can be quite amusing. My favorite so far is “Feminism Squats my Heart”…but I digress.) Børnholm has proven to be far more charming than its English tourism by-line. It’s a pretty leafy island in the Baltic Sea, with fine sandy beaches, clear water, and pretty woods through which to bike. In addition to home brewed brown ale (quite nice) and smoked herring (not so nice), Bornholm’s claim to fame includes several Rundekirks – round stone churches white washed to a gleaming brilliance. We were lucky enough to visit a couple of these unique bulwarks, which have served as a combination places-of-worship-cum-look-out-towers since the early 1100’s.

I was particularly struck by Nylars Kirke, the smallest and least significant of the bunch. It’s stolid bulk and cool interior is just the type of space that appeals to me – old, earth-rooted, and simple. I was compelled to touch things there. I ran my fingers along the rim of the grey stone of the baptismal fount, planted firm in the center of the building; placed my palms on the stout center column and felt the wisdom held in its age; ran my hands along the curving outer walls to feel the warmth of the sun-kissed wash and the underlying chill of the hewed stones.

These are the kind of places that speak of home to me—these simple rooms with history in their walls, with time poured into their mortar. It is in these nearly abandoned places, anchored deep in the unwinding days of time, where I my footing can be found.

A dreamboard with milagros from Artchix Studios and lyrics from The Decemberists The fortune cookie paper at the top says, “Your curiosity may mean your success.’

Over at Suzie’s Sacred Space, Miss Suze has once again invited people to make a Dreamboard. Using the Full Moon as a reason to focus, and images and colors as a means to communicate, people join Suzie every month to make their dreams a little more concrete and to offer them up to — well– to God/ess, The Universe, their own internal strength and Divinity…(It’s flexible…you get the idea.)

This is my first dreamboard, made on the only painfree afternoon I’ve had in a fortnight. Realistically, I should have made something envisioning health. But instead I followed The Muse deep into my six month obsession with the lyrics of a song–determined that, somehow, I Was Meant for the Stage.

I don’t know precisely what this means, but I am very curious. Is it as simple as my newfound longing to sing and play at some small open mic for my 40th birthday? Or is it more subtle — maybe something about teaching and preaching again someday? I’m not sure.

All I know is that when I watch Alanis impart wisdom to the crowds, I weep at the wonder of it. And when I speak into my microrecorder for some tiny podcast, my heart soars. And that in addition to my longing to write, and write, and write some more; another lover stands patiently in the shadows. He looks like a mic-stand and a stool, and the dimmed lights of a room full of listeners. And in my better moments, when the pain and strain of day to day life makes way for dreaming and vision, I know in that strange clear stillness, that “I was born to raise these hands with quite all around me.”

So here it is, for what it’s worth, for God and the Universe. Amen, may it be so.

What are you dreaming into reality? Write it in the comments below, or make a dreamboard and link us up to it. Watch for an interview with Suzie this Monday or next in my weekly column at BlogHer.com.

I know I’ve been on a bit of a depressive bent lately, but I’m a big fan of being in the moment, and this is the moment right now. Hang in there with me. We’ll turn the corner eventually.

If you are mourning some loss in your life — a loved one, your own youth, your health, a dream unfullfilled–these books could give you some companionship for the journey. And as always, please add your own good resources in the comments. Shalom.

The cover from my current journal, made with a postcard of Picasso’s “The Old Guitarist”–my personal icon of mourning.

I am coming to the realization that I have two functional weeks a month. Otherwise the pain level is too severe. I can’t write well when I’m this foggy.

For awhile there, for a beautiful hopeful season, I was in better remission and I had most of the month free and clear. But now, it’s back to just two weeks. If it gets worse, if it gets to be more than this, I’ll have to fly home and see my super special Dr. Woo-Woo and get back on top of this. You all have to hold me accountable to this okay? If I’m out of it more than two weeks a month you have to say, “Rachelle, it’s worth the money. Fly home. Spend a week or two on Dr. Lewis’ treatment table.”

Chronic pain is such a complex creature. It is a large part of your life, but it is not your life. It is a big part of you, but it is not who you are. Living within those paradoxical realities is challenging, perhaps as challenging as figuring out the physical bits and pieces of it–the medicines and the food allergies and the exercise and sleep needs and all the more attainable nuts and bolt-ness of it all.

I’ve wanted to write something about this for while. Something like Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Lament of a Son which not a self-help book, but the author’s story about the death of his son. The telling itself though, is helpful. The telling itself is the companionship for the journey.

In the beautiful children’s book Frida, the author says “she turned her pain into something beautiful.” I’d like to do that. I’d like to tell true things – stories that are also helpful.

I don’t know why I always leap to the idea of a book, when clearly articles and essays are my most natural length. (I just get so distracted by sparkly things, and without a real deadline I skip from project to project. This is not a boon to my agent.) At any rate, maybe an article would be more reasonable here….maybe something for The Sun. I have a couple little bits that might turn into something. This one for instance, or this artsy bit here, or here. Or maybe these more practical stories. And then there is what I wrote this morning, based on an image that came to me while I was doing Shavasana on the living room floor:

I offer this pain to you on a gilt platter.
No, held aloft in a silver bowl.
I give it to you coiled, or swirling and boiling.
A dark depth. An oily surface.

What will you do then,
with this pain that drains from the trinity of my eyes and the bridge of my nose?
What will you make of this dark offering?

Play us out Sister Alanis.

That’s my daughter in the water….

It’s been a long week folks: migraine, insomnia, a lack of writing time, homesickness. On weeks like this, hell, on just one day like this, I need a fistful of these tunes to keep me where the light is. You can watch them all in a row here (except for Hothouse Flowers, which I couldn’t find.) I hope one or two of them give you sustenance and joy this weekend.

Do you have a song that gets you through the tough spots? Got a list of *8 over at your place? Link ‘em in the comments, pretty please!

1) Gravity, John Mayer

2) These Streets, Paolo Nutini
(brought to me by Dreamer Girl)

3) Yahweh, U2

4) Strange and Beautiful, Aqualung

5) It Will Be Easier in the Morning, Hothouse Flowers

6) Light and Day, Polyphonic Spree

7) I Was Meant for the Stage, The Decemberists

8) We Crawl, Polyphonic Spree

Other *8: about, I Believe