Edition #68: Weaving Webs and Turning Over Stones
Creating The Webbd Wheel: Water in the Desert
When people ask me what I blog about, in most cases I say, “Emotional intelligence.” While it’s true the blog is firmly rooted in EI (as is my fiction), the brevity (and current overuse) of the term renders it laughably inadequate, because emotional intelligence is inseparable from the human experience. It would be truer to say I blog about the human experience, or even our shared human experience.
I was raised with the mandate that any show of emotion is “unladylike.” This included, of course, tears.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
If we want to be strong, resilient, self-insightful, self-loving, grow our compassion and empathy, and express ourselves authentically while we build healthy, meaningful connection with others, we must learn to cry. We must learn to laugh. We must learn to play, express our sexuality, and nurture our passion.
For years when I cried I felt ashamed. I apologized. I said I was “just being silly.” I said “crying doesn’t help. It doesn’t change anything.”
I was wrong. The ability to express grief is deep wisdom. Crying does help. Tears are healing and regenerative. Tears can express awe, gratitude, relief, fear, and compassion as well as grief. Many women are familiar with shedding tears of rage.
In post #68, Maria and her sons’ disembodied eyes weep together, and those tears bathe her loom, her tool for her work in the world, made of her sons’ bones. Those tears call forth water from the sky, from the earth, and bring water into the desert.
Weaving Webs
I’ve lately returned home from ten days in Colorado where I went to hold a living estate sale with my brother on behalf of my mother, who is living in memory care under hospice for the last part of her life. With the help of my old community and Mom’s community, we cleaned out the house and watched a lifetime of accumulated belongings and memories sell and walk out the door.
When I arrived back home to Maine a few days ago I felt utterly dislocated from my life and myself. It scared me a little. I couldn’t focus. I refused to feel. I didn’t want to manage, cope, make a list, make a decision. I didn’t want to be strong, brave, self-sufficient, productive, or capable. All I wanted was to be left alone and quiet to sleep, to drift. I had nothing left to give anyone, not even myself.
The second day I was home I worked in the garden among exuberant spring bulbs and buds. With my hands in the dirt and my knees wet and muddy I felt better, more grounded. I could recognize gardening. I could recognize myself gardening. Swimming helped. Going back to work helped. But I worried about myself until I read a post by
as I was cleaning out my overflowing Inbox, which I had no time to attend to while I was in Colorado. In the post, she writes a letter to her younger self, an idea I’ve heard many times before and am not especially attracted by. The letter was only a part of the post, well below the main body. I was reading mechanically, not paying much attention. Something about the honesty and vulnerability of her letter to her younger self penetrated the thick dissociative blanket I was muffled in. The letter made me laugh … and then I was crying. Cracked open and crying. And I knew I was going to be fine. She reminded me that for most of us life is long, we make mistakes, we make choices and live with the consequences, we learn, we grow, and we’re okay. We really are okay.I sat down this morning to work on this weekend’s post and reread this particular excerpt. How timely. Water in the desert. Healing amidst pain and grief. New life. Movement. Letting go and going forward. I knew, but I had forgotten, and Cheryl reminded me, like a friend who puts their arms around you and says, “Remember what you know. You’re all right. You will survive this too, and go on.”
Thank, you Cheryl. You were there at the exact moment I most needed you, waiting in my Inbox.
Water in the desert.
Turning Over Stones
Questions:
What waters your desert?
What did you learn about crying? Was it okay, or was it a shameful thing?
If you’re a writer, what’s more valuable to you – getting the kind of feedback I offer to Cheryl in a specific comment from one reader or stats indicating lots of readers with whom you never interact?
If you could ask Nephthys a question, what would it be?
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