Month: May 2013

I sit here in my 150 year old house in a small town on, quite literally, Main Street.  The air outside is cool and humid.  I know because I just opened the door to check.  A car drives by in the deserted darkness and I wonder where it’s going and I wonder if they wonder why I’m looking out my door; two people, wondering.    It’s 3:33 a.m. on a Tuesday and I am unable to sleep.  Not a restless or worried unable…just a wakefulness that invites settling in and making friends with it.  And so I do what I should not….I brew a cup of House Blend coffee and lace it with almond coconut milk.  It somehow feels like I’m living dangerously, caffeine in the middle of the night, and I smile at myself. 

On Mother’s Day, I was standing in front of the mirror, watching myself as I put in my earrings.  My 13 year old called out from the other room “Oh mom, I wrote on your wall this morning!  Don’t forget to read it”.  It struck me what a different world she and I grew up in.  My mother might have grabbed a towel and some cleaning spray, had I said that to her. And then I got to thinking about the mercurial world of words.

Ernest Hemingway once said “All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.”  That intrigues me.  When I think of the account of the Tower of Babel, in which our language was “confused” for the very first time, I’d imagine those there that day felt very much like Mr. Hemingway.  Anyone who’s ever gone to a country where a language other than your own is spoken , knows the frustration of trying to ask for something, the vulnerability you feel at not being able to communicate.   It occurs to me that even when the same language is spoken, we live in a world of Babel.

Words.  We mince them, play on them, eat them and hang on them.  We sometimes can’t find the right ones or we loose them altogether.  Some of us have a way with them, others of us use them as weapons.  Words can echo or fall on deaf ears.  There are careless words, idle words, words fitly spoken.  Sometimes they’re priceless, sometimes they’re a dime a dozen. We can write them, yell them, read them, whisper them, sing them, rhyme them or keep them to ourselves.   We can start fires with them.  We can put fires out with them.  They can be gifts or they can be death sentences.  We can mislead with them or point others to the truth with them. Those of us who believe,  have a relationship with The Word.

When I think of the electricity surrounding words, the power that they hold, what our world would be without them, what it is with them, it gives me pause before I consider adding to the fray.  But only for a minute…..because I have something to say.

On the occasion of his 24th birthday…..I sat down to write my son a note in his card:

“Caleb,

___________________________

Mama, I am so indescribably grateful to have gone through every milestone thus far with you at my back. The very fact that you and I both are still here and have what we have is a miracle in more than one sense. Our livelihood as well as our lives themselves have come under attack even from day one. I love you more than you will ever know. I always have… through the trials, and the pain, the anger, and yes even momentary hate, I still loved you.

I respect your ability to not only let me go forge my path, not only let, but push me to succeed and I know that takes effort and includes many nights of sorrow as well as joy. In short, we have many more paths to walk and joys to be had. And I look forward to having YOU Tamara Gray Belanger, as my mother to experience it with.

Much Love,

Caleb