Do you remember standing in a line in the school gym, with an index card over one eye, trying to read the chart with the big E on top?
I do! And I did pretty well on the test. What I had no way of knowing was that I wasn’t actually seeing the letters. I was memorizing what the kids in front of me said! And it helped that I could hear really, really well.
My 4th or 5th grade teacher ratted me out. And I discovered that, with a pair of sturdy (read that ugly) glasses, I could see individual leaves on trees! And I could still hear really, really well!
What I didn’t know back then was how much our brains have to do with what we think of as seeing and hearing. Also, feeling… as in touch and movement and emotion.
Now, as the old story goes, I know more!
It was pretty strange for me, at first, to begin to hear the paintings whispering in my sleep, but I’ve gotten really comfortable with that by now. (Which, as you’ve probably guessed, is just as well since the walls are covered with a whole choir of whispering images!)
Another thing just shifted for me, though. I realized that all those voices – each in their own way – are actually my voice, filtered through various experiences and wounds and dreams. And I wouldn’t blame you if you might be thinking that I sound a wee bit like I’m headed for the place known as round the bend.
Instead, I’m headed for more fully me! And, as I move my fingers to make these words appear in the land of WordPress, I keep glancing up at a sign hanging above the door to the hall, across the room from my chair.
And our stories – yours, mine, all of ours – do matter. They are some of the filters through which we experience the world. Through which we form questions and create things.
I had a really big experience of that today! The first pdf layout of my new book appeared in my email! And, even though I chose all the words and created all the art, it was still a surprise in its externalized form! A whole, if you will, instead of a bunch of individual pieces. (And, yes… there’s more work to do!)
My dear friend, and first reader, Natalie, put language on what I was feeling!
It feels like holding a newborn infant!
And, it does!!! A whole, separate, unique individual with multitudes of ancestors and traditions, complete with a whole batch of needs… and, frankly, what feels a lot like expectations!
Final choices on fonts, and re-sizing some art, and rounding up reviews and all the things that we book-parents do…
And, no… it’s not To Kill a Mockingbird. (Though it might grow up to be!)
What it is, in this moment, is the very most I have to offer to all the Metamodern Littles growing up in our world, now… and to the adults who love them.
Complete with some invitations to listen deep and imagine!
My dearest hope is that it will help us all travel the mountains and valleys of this world, and to make space for more and more of us to feel at home and to hear our own voices in the midst of the din!
ps… the painting at the top is a glimpse of the cover art for the book-baby!
pps… this glimpse of a painting is shorthand for the absolute best thing I know. I’m ready to share… and we have to start with ourselves!!! Just ask the calendar elves to hook you up!
