GRAINS OF SAND

On the rare Saturdays when my mama would release me from my chores, we’d pile in my denim blue, ’63 VW convertible and head to the beach. While the others would plop their bodies right down in the middle of the sand, I took great care in spreading out my blanket so that its edges mapped out a pristine island, my conveyance of necessary boundaries to ward off the inevitable mess.

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I am accustomed to fixing messes. The homes that call to me, that beg me to get covered in drywall dust and paint from head to toe, speak to that teenage girl who spreads the blanket as if an oasis in the midst of a constant changing scene.

This is a picture of the woman who strains to pick the tiny grains from face and fingers, simultaneously understanding the impossibility of the task. I am made for the cleaning up, for noticing every seemingly insignificant detail.

Enter in the moments of life not often talked about, those that stick with and to us, abrasive and chaffing, It seems that I’ve been the designated “fixer upper” since I was a child.

Every one of us can testify to brokenness somewhere in our lives, the unspoken parts of of our history most likely to have shaped us, yet the ones we most often keep to ourselves.

HOW THEN DO WE TRULY KNOW SOMEONE WHEN THERE ARE SO MANY STORIES YET TO BE REVEALED? DO WE MEASURE THE INSUFFICIENCY IN ANOTHER, OR MARVEL AT THE EVIDENCE OF PREVAILING OVER ALL THE DISORDER IN OUR MIDST?

Sand, kicked on the blanket. This is how my life feels sometimes. In response I am of late what some would call, “gritty” with my words. Ron asks, “Why are you shouting, I am right here?” I had until just recently dismissed the question as rhetorical, until I heard the answer to his question laid out like a prayer—

We shout, even when someone is very near because [are you ready for this?} in the moment our hearts seem so very far apart. We shout NOT to make more space but in an effort to close the distance between what is meant and what is felt. Little blanket islands of words strewn and spread about.

HOW EXTRAORDINARY THAT THE CONVERSE IS TRUE—WHEN WE WHISPER, WE DRAW THE OTHER IN LIKE A WARM EMBRACE.

Shall I whisper when I tell you that there was a measure of shouting in my home growing up? I preferred this ‘loud conversation’ to the quiet that came less from introspection, than from dejection and defeat.

Time heals. Or does it? As part of my cancer journey I am asked to write about the moments remembered that may mean something now. What comes up is not nothing by any measure, but excruciatingly necessary—

~As a child I was philosophical and dramatic, rocking myself under the piano, writing songs and poetry, reading poetry books, and memorizing the poems I read.

~My parents had a loving yet volatile relationship: They argued frequently throughout my childhood. I learned to flutter my eardrums to keep from hearing the disagreements, the content of which I never fully understood. Mine was a beautiful childhood. cloaked in measures of pretend. There’s was a life of overcoming , of getting over and through piles of real.

The memories, it turns out, cling to us, reproduce themselves as grains of unhealthy cells.

THERE IS NO ISLAND WITH DEFINED EDGES SURROUNDING US OR WITHIN. NOT EVEN THE EXPANSE OF YEARS CAN CREATE THE DISTANCE NECESSARY TO RUN FROM THE HIDDEN PARTS OF OURSELVES.

We separate, to our detriment, the physical and psychological as if the two don’t inhabit the same space. But they do! What goes on in one room of the sanctuary is never hidden from the next.

Our body is a family, a gathering of entities that modern medicine has convinced us are independent from one another. Yet, each entity powerfully reacts to the shouts and whispers behind the closed doors of—

unfulfilling relationships
yearnings of the heart
hurts not remedied
growing separate and apart.

Tiny grains of nothingness, we tell ourselves. We brush off what is felt in the moment. Until we become blanket islands of disappointment…that turn into isolation or maybe something even more.

NOTES:

While listening to my recording of this entry I wondered if maybe it seemed a little...depressing. Let me tell you, in every possible way, it is meant to be exactly the opposite, that is, revelational and real. Sometimes, that "real" is hard but necessary to face. I hope you hear the love behind it, and the overarching intention of speaking to the mandate of awareness of our life experience...in order to heal.

In my work I always start with a life chronology, not only to uncover the imbedded likes and perceptions that we use as inspiration in design, but to reveal the blockers that hold us back, keep us from creating the beautiful life we crave. 

I ask things like—
Where do you go within your sanctuary to become reconnected with yourself?
Is your sanctuary a place you run to or from when you need to retreat from the world?
What is “sticking with you” like tiny grains of sand? What hurts, ideas, dreams, aspirations have you been brushing off as irrelevant or unnecessary to who you are and how you live?

Our memories are not some random cataloging of life experiences but whispers to our bodies to behave a certain way. Remarkably, the Creator of our physical and psychological beings has much to say about taking our thoughts captive, not simply for the health of our minds, but our bodies as well. Miraculously, just as in our relationships, our cells are dependent upon healthy communication with one another to overcome the stress and toxins that make us vulnerable to dis-ease. 

Learn more about my journey here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/janene-kraft-medical-treatment-foundation