imperfection in the tapestry

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Let Go Before You Think You Should

Those were the words of instruction on the Chucker package. A chucker is a long, bent piece of plastic with a claw on the end. It is designed for people like me who throw like a—well who can’t throw a ball more than 3 feet, but have a dog who’s fast and likes to run after the ball.

The first time I used it, the ball, instead of sailing gracefully down the dog park, landed one foot in front of me. Tessa (our dog) was not amused.

So I read the instructions. Something about winding up, lifting your arm straight, and then with a flick of the wrist the ball will sail down the dog park. The hint was: Let go before you think you should.

Well, of course. Let go before you think you should.

Letting go is actually pretty easy, I’ve learned. The difficulty is in discovering what it is I need to let go of.

Today, it has something to do with my Writing Shed. The actual shed. The place that became a place of refuge for me. A place where I wrote.

In about five weeks, I will be leaving it behind, turning it over to the new owners to do with it what they want.

I’m afraid I won’t be able to write without my Writing Shed.

It’s early in the morning. The birds have just started awakening, calling out to each other, perhaps battle cries as much as joyous greetings to the new day. A chicken bluck, bluck, blucks.

The arms of the butterfly bush flutter in the soft breeze at the edge of my Writing Shed. butterfly bushI planted the bush in honor of Ed, my high school teacher and mentor, who died nine months after we moved to Livermore. To the right of my Shed, a cat plays next to a pond—a fountain I bought shortly after Rug died. cat fountainRug, our bunny-soft-furred cat who was killed by a car three weeks before Ed died. And, of course, this is the shed that Gene built—Gene, my father-in-law. The man who called Tom Sweet Man when he was a little boy. Gene died three months after Rug and Ed.

My Writing Shed is a big part of the tapestry I wove while I was here in Livermore—the hometown I returned to.

As we prepare to leave, friends around us are experiencing major life events. One friend lost his brother to a grueling struggle with Parkinsons. Another learned he was going to be a father. This last weekend we attended the wedding of a friend who was widowed ten years ago, his heart mended by the grace of love.

We also learned that a writer who attended our salons had died suddenly of a massive heart attack. His widow thanked us all for listening to his words. I was grateful for the salons. Grateful that a writer had the opportunity to be heard.

I guess life really is a series of letting go, of knowing when a piece of the tapestry is complete—imperfection and all.

Writing this, I realize that I take my Writing Shed with me. It is a part of my tapestry. But, I don’t know what’s next, other than that we are moving to the North West in a few weeks. That is both exhilarating and scary.

Let go before you think you should.

Okay.

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The Imperfection in the Tapestry

Those times of depression tell you that it’s either time to get out of the story you’re in and move into a new story, or that you’re in the right story but there’s some piece of it you are not living out. — Carol S. Pearson

I had heard for years that Indigenous American weavers purposely wove an imperfection into their tapestries to show their humility. God was perfect. They were not. Then I read somewhere, someplace, sometime that no, it wasn’t about humility. The intentional imperfection allowed life to come through.

I like to think that our lives are tapestries, with each experience changing the warp and woof, giving a rich texture to our life stories.

We are smack dab in the middle of staging our house for sale, which means we are ridding it of the tapestry that was us. Tom’s 7000 (that’s not a typo) classical CDs are packed, as is our collection of 3000 (also not a typo) DVDs. The pieces of art and craft we have gathered over the years are being carefully wrapped, packed, and stored until the final move. My writing shed is not longer my writing shed, though it will be where I write once the staging is complete.

I will create a new writing shed when we reach our final home in Sequim. In the meantime, writing shed has become a state of mind for me.

I started this blog so I could change my story.

My generation was the great believer in closure. Where my parents ignored, stuffed, guarded secrets, let shame isolate them, I dug up buried secrets, analyzed them, learned that that which seemed shameful was shared humanity.

I thought I would understand and by understanding would be able to unravel the parts of the tapestry that had haunted me, press a delete button for those parts of my life that were painfully without understanding.

During that last eleven years in my hometown Tom’s dad died, my mentor died, our beloved cat was killed by a car. My mother died.

I spent a good deal of the time trying to undo the loss of innocence I experienced when my uncle molested me, and in so doing, lost even more innocence. In a way, I hit bottom. Bottom is a good place. It shows you the boundary. I learned that trust is about boundaries. Mine. It is up to me to set them, protect them, and act when they are violated.

It occurred to me that until that moment I sat on my uncle’s lap, laps were a safe place, a refuge, a sign that I had found home. I think a good portion of my life I have been trying to get back home.

I did find home when I returned to my hometown. The home that is me—my life. I became my own refuge. I also found my family. Tom and his children and grandchildren. They are the children and grandchildren of my heart.

Uncovering secrets, shedding light on shame, analyzing, attempting to understand are all good things. They do not, however, give one closure.

Life doesn’t give us that. What it gives us experience. As we live and love, we cross paths with humans whose warp and woof reflect a wide realm of human experiences. Some have been damaged by their experience. Others have learned compassion.

We can direct the warp and woof of our tapestry. If our aim is perfection, it lacks texture. It is lifeless. If we let our experience change it, we learn to endure and celebrate.

Experience. It is the imperfection in the tapestry that let’s our life through.