THE WAY BACK TO YOURSELF

I lather up, glancing casually in the mirror as the water works its magic and signals my hands and fingers to begin their unscripted dance: a hybrid prayer-handshake of sorts, at once a greeting, a thanking, a hoping. They instinctively slip over and through one another in their unconscious routine, their own miniature tai chi sequence: right hand curl over left, left hand grasp right thumb, right hand grasp left fist, left fingers slide down through right fingers, right thumb grace left wrist, add more water, repeat. Water is to soap as music is to choreography in dance, as silence is to movements and postures in tai chi. Water both initiates and ends this secret handshake with myself. Without the water, the dance wouldn’t begin.

As my hands conclude their mundane work, the images hanging on the wall to the right of the mirror draw me in — snapshots of a dance of color, a freeze-frame of the grace of movement. Others who see the images might never imagine they could be anything but what they aren’t. They’re that good — they’ve captured those moments of movement and light with such exactness that they could be easily mistaken for photographs, but they’re not; their origin is the work of inspired human hands, layers of pencil on paper, light illuminating darkness. These are the hands of a woman I hadn’t known, whose work I didn’t know existed, whose foundational skills, I came to find out, had the same origin as my own. We had both learned from my father, in the same art classroom where we were guided and given the confidence to experiment, no erasers allowed, surrounded by years of sketches and the smell of cured clay and drying paint. Without knowing that connection I still would have been drawn into her tent to admire her work, which called to me under summer’s green hardwood canopy in the place where our attraction to nature had been nurtured, where our awareness had been heightened. We had each moved away, yet were both called back to visit the source of our inspiration. She sharing, I admiring, the initiative of conversation revealing the intersection of our paths. Our encounter was as fleeting as the light upon the petals and water’s surface she captured in her drawings, but with the same lasting impact. I turn off the faucet and glance up, the mirror capturing who I am at this very moment, the now timeless images to its right embodying our points of connection, our common influences in person and place. My reflection bears witness to how I have changed over the years in my chosen home, to the mystery of all that is yet to come.

Beyond the door to my right, I am called outdoors onto the bridge between seasons. Walking attentively through the forest, senses heightened, I open myself to answers to the patterns that I’ve yet been unable to release. On my return along the ridge, I feel the land rise up to cradle me, usher me along toward home, like that leaf being carried by the stream in her drawing above my sink. In my solitude, as I gain sight of our home, I suddenly experience the presence of myself on the other side of this world, like finding my own self on the other side of the mirror. I am greeted by this unseen one who has been here all along, bearing  witness, holding space. She’s been ever-present — my spirit sister — there for me to call upon and ask for guidance and support when I rally against myself. I had finally done it — I called out to ask why and for guidance on how, and she appeared. She urged me to get out of my own way. She said to treat my spaces as if they were hers, not mine, to step back, to gain some perspective on what I’ve let in, for what I’ve taken responsibility for. What was once a derelict house had become a home, inhabited by intangible whispers of memories only known to those of us who have created them over our decades here. The soundtrack of our home plays in my mind: the squeak of the wood stove door, the uninhibited squeal of fresh voices that came to Earth through us, the music inspired and played, the chorus of barks and meows, the warmth of unabashed laughter. 

As I enter the yard, I realize how nature’s montage of songs shelters our home: the white pines catching the wind in any season; the cacophony of the peepers when they awaken from their winter slumber; the morning birdsong of spring; the echos of the bullfrogs on a warm summer night; the crunch of fallen leaves beneath our feet; the sounds of the season’s first snow, falling and blowing. Those intangibles that occupy the least amount of space remind me that they’re the things that hold the most meaning, not the accumulation of the physical remnants of years lived. When there’s enough space to keep it all, when there’s no urgency of a move to necessitate sifting and sorting, these untended collections can dampen the sounds of what matters, can dull the colors of what inspires. My attention to the constant generation of what’s next has distracted me from the accumulation of the material remnants left behind in their wake. Our progeny lies in the people, the creations, the outcomes of our life’s work, not in the things we need to shed to move forward.

“But where do I begin?” I ask my spirit sister. She steadfastly replies, “Go back to the drawings next to the sink. Grab the cloth hanging next to the door. Clean the spots from the glass, wipe the dust from the frames. Treat what inspires you as the sacred things that they are. Embody all you have and will become — the people, the places, the things, the ideas. Let go of the attachments and shed the accumulation of things that have served their purpose. You are the present-day culmination of all who have come before you. Retain the soundtrack of where it’s all brought you.” After I hang the drawings back in their rightful homes next to the mirror, my hands return to the sink. The soap does its work and vanishes down the drain, as the water cues the sequence’s end, until the next time. Before I leave, I clean the mirror.

The clean glass reveals the untold layers embodied in the images behind it. The artist had been drawn to that moment in time when the spring light hit the purple petals of the crocuses, illuminated the contrast of the orange stigma, and captured the dewdrops on the fresh, green leaves before they evaporated in the sun’s warmth. She was drawn to that moment when the flowing stream cradled the newly-fallen autumn leaf in the molten-like downstream flow of cold, sweet water. In the clean reflection of the mirror, I saw my own potential. The captured stillness beckoned me: trust the way back to yourself.

Image by Alexa from Pixabay