reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: life review


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moonglow. [kerri’s blog on k.s. friday]

it was late night on the train platform. though we had walked from the station when we arrived, our boys dropped us off for the way back home. the train was a wee bit late and there were a few people on the platform waiting, some a bit impatiently. we were tired but not impatient, grateful to not be driving home from the city.

the clouds and the moon got together, plotting a bit of choreography. nearly full, this waxing gibbous was extraordinarily bright, backlighting the cotton balls of clouds passing in front of it. with wildfire smoke particles catching the light, an orange glow encircled the white moon peeking out, the glow much like the salt lamp emits in my studio. we stood on the platform, waiting for the train, completely captivated by the sky above us.

in recent days i have been reading old journals. journals almost fifty years old. these were the days when i passed through teenage years. when my days and nights were long and full of adventures: dancing at discos and early sunrise photo shoots, beach-camping and scuba diving, fishing and arboretums and county parks and apple-picking, skiing and my red round transistor radio on a picnic blanket. they were days of my little blue vw bug and growing-up-nuclear-family time, guitars and poetry, climbing trees and frisbee and term papers, bike hikes, the mall, my dog missi and a plethora of friends. i was often writing in my journal at 2am, wide-awake, reviewing my day, waxing poetic, loving life. it is a pilgrimage into the innocent.

my late-nights are different now, indeed, than way back when. sleep is now something i really adore, much more so than when the most minimal amount seemed – maybe – necessary.

because i am reading and reading and reading, i am feeling somewhat immersed in back-then.

these days i turn on the salt lamp that sits on the chifforobe. i don’t do it every day, but right now seems a good time for it as i hold space for the going-through of things of the past. from this vantage point – looking back – i know the shatter of innocence comes. the voice in my journal changes.

the glow stays with me as i pass by the studio door.

and now, as sleep eludes me at night, i lay under the quilt and gaze at the moon illuminating the blinds.

*****

IN THE NIGHT © 1997, 2000 kerri sherwood

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a ruckus. [kerri’s blog on not-so-flawed wednesday]

the tracks tell the story. they came in and mowed down underbrush and trees, grasses and cattails. all in the name of habitat restoration. apparently, there are buckthorn and cottonwood and boxelder and various other invasive species that are suffocating the growth of young native tree seedlings. it looked absolutely devastated. as did the back half of the woods earlier this year after they attended to that section. but there was space for the sun to get through, for air and a bit of new growth. it was necessary.

now, admittedly, the back half doesn’t look as raw as it did right after that earlier eradication. but – it does look different. just as – i suppose – this section of the woods will look…eventually. it’s the meanwhile that is a bit tough to take. it’s stunning to see such emptiness where there was lush. it’s bracing to recognize how long it might take for this area to grow back – to fulfill the potential the ecologists plan for.

but devastation is like that.

in devastation-light we have the basement/attic project. this will all look decidedly worse before it looks better. the categories – keep, donate, sell – are staged all over the basement and have spilled into other rooms in the house. eventually, this will get better. it will look different. right now, though, it is a ruckus of stuff.

all this review of the past, though…it’s good for my heart. tiny salvageable moments derived from these seeming willy-nilly piles…i am wrapped in the after-devastation feels. for this is chosen devastation – choosing to touch all that is in the house and decide about its fate. and maybe devastation isn’t a good word for that kind of parsing out. just because it looks like devastation doesn’t mean it is devastation.

but there will be more culling before there is something that looks and feels good: the cleared out, organized space that honors the before-stuff and makes way for the next. the same way it is for emotional clearing-out. it will all get much messier before it gets air.

the tracks from the backhoes and heavy equipment punctuate the trail. we may wait awhile – maybe a few rains – before we take that loop again. in the meanwhile, we’ll go along the river where the trail is longer and quiet and the trees and underbrush are untouched – at least for now.

we’ll continue our quest in the basement and the attic and every other nook and cranny. we’ll make messes and piles and categorize each thing we unearth.

and the emotional stuff, well, it will surface and it will recede – both. it will be like a tide – just like the basement, it is a choice to pull things out of their previous compartmentalization. just like the basement, it has the potential to be really messy. and, just like the basement, it will be tedious and time-consuming and it is possible for a bit of anxiety to creep into the spaces previously left wide open by keeping it all in boxes and on shelves. suddenly, it’s all free-floating and there are fragments of emotions and tangible pieces of the past right there in front of us.

so we climb aboard our front loaders and excavators and bulldozers. and we start plowing down all the invasives.

and we just may feel restored after it all. we will have relived many memories, touched – really touched - the evidence of time passing. 

and we just may be rejuvenated. the new saplings will be free to grow. 

and we will look forward to lush, breathing easier and feeling the sun on our faces.

*****

read DAVID’s thoughts this NOT-SO-FLAWED WEDNESDAY

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there is a peace in that.

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for weeks now i have been going through old photos. now, this is an enormous task – 35 years of life, 35 years of memories, 35 years of pictures…uhh…let’s make that 35 years of disorganized pictures…and i haven’t even gone back all the way (“obviously”, you all think, as you do the math between 35 and 57!) the rest of the journey back i’ll make another time. it will take me another long while.

some of you may have every picture you ever took in albums, cleverly captioned. some of you may have every picture you ever took in boxes, neatly labeled. i would like to say these photographs fell into one of these categories, but, uh, no, as my momma would say, “that ain’t so!” (she never used the word ‘ain’t’ unless it was in this context; she prided herself on vocabulary and grammar, and i (and my children – the girl and the boy) have been cursed (?) with this as well.)

so, my task involved bins and bins and boxes and envelopes and more envelopes of pictures, pictures, pictures. organizing photos into categories and sorting out thousands of duplicates that are helter-skelter likens to playing the match game…where did i see this one before? i spent the first week using a system to sort that quickly became ridiculously impossible. there were piles everywhere, spilling into other piles. this is a tedious task, at best, but i needed a better system. so the categories became more specific and boxes were labeled and placed all around the dining room, which became inaccessible to anything else for the weeks (literally, weeks!) this took place. labels like ‘baby-baby’, ‘random cuteness’, ‘winter’, ‘summer’, ‘christmas’, ‘easter’, ‘the pumpkin farm and fall’, ‘thanksgiving’, ‘pets’, ‘house stuff’, ‘trips’, ‘outdoor fun’, ‘family visiting’, ‘friends’, ‘school’, ‘music, sports, ballet’, ‘losing teeth’….the list goes on. it was daunting. bins of mixed-up photos surrounded me.Scan2

and i just finished.

now to find the place to bring them all to so that dvd’s and thumbnail print books may be made. i’ll download onto flash drives all the photos on the computer post-physical-picture-developing. and this task – at least 35/57 of the task – will be done.

last night at ukulele band i told everyone on the patio if they ever thought of doing this that they should either decide not to or to procrastinate it…forever. but on second thought, i am thinking that there has been some real living for me -even in the midst of wanting to scream from the tedium- in these last weeks. i have had the joy of re-watching my children born and grow, the joy of seeing my family – even those who have moved into a different plane of existence, the joy of seeing relationships at their best and through challenge, the joy of seeing what time really is.

there is a peace in that.

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