Sunday, while wrist deep in dirt, it came to me.

Not the answer to "When are we going to be done gardening today so I can shower and stop feeling so fucking crusty?", and not "How many digits of pi do I really know?" (I know 3.14159. That's it. That's really more than I need to know considering pi and I cut each other off our Christmas card lists a long time ago.)

Sunday, while ripping bushes out of the front garden (we have become like the Faye Dunaway of greenage we are so anti-green-the previous owner had ferns and bushes everywhere, and we are fighting back against the green now by ripping it all out and planting massive fields of colorful flowers), I had to sit back on my very muddy heels and realize it. "It" being the following-at some point, I figured I would feel a shift, a change, an actual turning point. I always reckoned this turning point to feel like I'd put the back of my heel on a tarnished 1960's penny and swung around and faced the other direction. I always hoped it would be like this. It would feel weird-I'd lose my balance for a moment, and my perspective would shift completely as I faced a new way. It would be a different view, but more importantly, it would require the use of sunglasses.

The future being so bright and all.

And sitting there, gently re-planting the earthworms back in the ground and sitting on my heels, I thought back to the visit we'd just had to Seattle. I thought about the little house on the little lane that I outgrew. As I thought about it, images came back to me. I remembered playing with sheets drying on an outside clothesline. I remembered walking through the trees on my way to school. I remembered picking blackberries and squishing them between my fingers.

And in my remembrance the blackberry stain on my fingers was a deep port wine color.

It was in color.

I smiled to myself.

The memories may be of no consequence, they may not shed any light on what went wrong inside of me, of why I became so profoundly fucked up for the entire duration of my life, but my memories were no longer flickering 8mm black and white images. Everything came in a gently faded color now, maybe that color from a gently washed square picture that we had in the late 70's, maybe that color looked like the intro to The Wonder Years, but color was there.

I thought about the pale peach color of the dress I wore walking to school. I remembered a pink bedspread. The dark blue of some Osh Kosh B'Gosh overalls I wore popped in to my head.

I thought about where I am in my life now-I had a magical holiday that included de shiny shiny on my left hand, which I stare at a thousand times a day still. I thought about the bouncing barking maniac dog currently chasing garden smoke in the back garden. I thought about the house we live in, and the improvements we've made on it and are still to make on it. I thought about my lovely boy, whose eyes still (after all this time!) light up when they see me. I thought about my therapist, whose guidance has sunk in, whose voice I hear in my head when I start to trip down unhealthy paths. I thought about the darkness I'd had in the past Autumn (Autumn-why is it always Autumn?) and how it's largely passed thanks to crying and trying and people and a little silver bracelet. And I thought about my father, who rings me constantly on Skype and whom I love hearing from every single time.

And after all that thinking, I felt my heel on the cold shiny surface. I felt a slow, easy swing and my ankle moved to the right and made the penny turn. It happened just like that, just like I thought it would, just like I hoped it would. I swung my hands out to keep my balance and by the time the turn stopped, I hung them back down by my sides again, still firmly on that coin. I looked around and didn't recognize the landscape-the grass was green and the daffodils so yellow they made my gums sore. Everything tasted like warmth. This wasn't where I was. Where I was consisted of grey 8mm screaming. This was new. This was in color.

I don't really know where I'm headed to next. It's not like the fucked up disappears overnight, from what I understand I'll be much like an alcoholic the rest of my life, always fighting the temptation to slide back down into the scale that I've spent most of my life in. I know that I am far from suffering the darkness-I might be re-learning my behavior patterns, but it doesn't mean I'm not going to try to pound the box into the round peg. I know that there will still be darkness. People like me, we don't get to think we're above escaping. Bad things are ahead, there are things that will hurt terribly, there will be times that I will think I am broken and struggling again. But what it does mean is that I now know is that it doesn't always have to be that way, there is an end to darkness.

There will always be an end to darkness.

I trust myself, my family, and my life to know that we can get through it. I can get through it. And I can do it without hurting myself and everyone around me.

I sat there and grinned like an idiot and relished the feel of my heel on that 1960's penny. I think I'll keep my heel there for a while, just to remember, just to know that I came this far. In my head, I stood there with one foot on the penny (must exfoliate, while I'm at it). I looked around and realized that the world was in color, gently faded color but color all the same, and that I needed a new map to get through it all. I'm pretty scared, actually. I don't know where I am, but I know I worked hard to get here, and I'm going to make the most of it. I'm not leaving my penny just yet, but I will, at some point. I wonder how the grass feels.

I can almost imagine it.

In reality I stood up and brushed off some of the dirt. I went into the backyard to an apple tree-pruning Angus, and I hugged him and told him of my new view. He told me he was happy for me.

I'm pretty sure I'm more happy for me.

I'm never happy for me.

It really is a new view.

I'll send you a postcard so you can see it for yourself.

-H.

PS-thanks to those of you who came forth last week and the week before and said hi. De-lurking is pretty scary, I know-I seldom do it. But thanks. And nice to meet you. And see you same time next year, yeah?

Posted by: Everydaystranger at 10:53 AM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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