When my dad showed me this piece of wood, he was excited. He said, "Mandi, you have to see this piece of wood. I'm going to do something special with it, I just don't know what yet."
Keeping in mind that my dad is a carpenter and woodworker by trade, and my life experiences don't include much of either of these two things, I honestly was not quite sure what this was. I do appreciate uniqueness and novelty being an artist of sorts, so I replied, "That looks really cool, Dad...Umm, what is that?" As I pointed to the embedded walnut.
"It's a walnut, Mandi!" He replied, as the corners of his mouth turned slightly upward and his blue eyes sparkled with mischief. I could almost see the snarky comment forming inside his head. "Don't you know what a walnut looks like, silly?"
"Not when it's fossilized and sliced sideways like a cross-section of a human cadaver I don't! I eat walnuts and cook with them, I don't study them, ok?" I replied in my sassy, sarcastic, perpetual-teenager voice. (My dad and I frequently use sarcasm to communicate, this is nothing new)
"The walnut probably fell into the crux of the two trunk sections of the tree, oh probably 50 years ago, got stuck, and the tree just grew up around it and enveloped it. Then Ben (my younger brother) & I found it when we were planing the wood to use for the cabinets in Ben's house. I'm going to do something with it, like I said, just don't know what."
Being artistic and having a flare for designing unique pieces of art, I thought it was amazing. I started thinking about the amazing wooden artwork my father is capable of designing around this fossilized uniqueness. My dad is an incredibly gifted woodworker. As usual, I began chattering endlessly with my dad and soon forgot about the piece of wood. I didn't think about the silly thing again until insomnia struck last night and thumbing through my iPod for some relaxing music, I found the picture I'd snapped in the woodshop. Then my mind started churning with ideas, but then I started getting sleepy. I woke up knowing that there was something symbolic, and perhaps even metaphor-like about this oddity. There were a few dark metaphors that initially surfaced. Most of these describing the tragedy of the walnut's unfortunate, unlucky fall from the tree, into a dark crack, shriveling up, dying and becoming fossilized into a tree that ended up dying and falling in the woods left to rot. A year ago, I would have accepted that as a good metaphor. No way, not anymore, that seems too easy. Anyone could have ascertained that metaphor. In the past year, I've been given the time and grace to view life as an optimist, and it is the best gift I could have ever asked for. Funny thing is, I never asked.
Having spent the past several years in some really awful and dark places, terrified of even my own thoughts and/or shadow (this is no exaggeration, PTSD can reduce even the most sound, rational, intellectual knowledge to shreds of terror at even the slightest sounds or illusions), has taught me that when we want to give up and accept that things cannot get better, something within us knows that there is light...somewhere. At one point I was sick of fighting the PTSD, the eating disorder, and the pain and I resigned that it was hopeless and a waste of energy to keep fighting, but for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to give up either. I was stuck in a dark place, sort of like the walnut was stuck between the two sections of tree trunk. One night, a therapist told me, "Mandi, I'm not going to pretend you aren't hurt or sad, but you have a choice whether or not you believe it will last forever. You know somewhere inside that it can't stay this way. You know that it can't stay this dark forever. You know better than that, come on.'" She was right. It isn't, and it wasn't dark forever. Life is actually really beautiful, even if it hurts. So, this silly little walnut isn't about darkness or the "well, that sucks" -type of misfortune! It's about something far more vast--Beauty. It's about choosing what is beautiful and believing in potential. So, here is what I've learned:
Trees in and of themselves are beautiful, yet not a single tree looks exactly like another tree. We don't really point at trees and say, "that one is too fat. It's ugly. It doesn't deserve water, food, or light." That's ridiculous. So, why do we do it to each other? It sounds just as stupid when we say that to ourselves or to each other. We don't question a tree's deserving to stand where it is planted. So why do we question the space that either we ourselves occupy, or that is occupied by another. We were all "planted" where we were meant to be. We have a quiet and unspoken acceptance of the beauty in nature around us. Most of us can appreciate the beauty created by each individual tree that collectively creates forests and landscapes around us. Likewise, most of us cringe at the destruction of this beauty for the sake of enterprise or industrialization. We have all been taught that.
As a part of this tree, this walnut was a piece of that beauty, too. It was just unseen for a bit, hiding safely in the crux of two trunks, away from birds and squirrels that would steal it. The tree kept it safe. Some things take time...sometimes a long time. I spent years struggling with self-doubt, self-hatred, painful memories, and difficult choices. I tried to "improve myself" only to make the same mistakes, and fall on my face, again and again. My 20's felt like an eternity. I was exhausted, sick, sad, and despairing. I don't remember a lot of those years. At 26, I didn't want anymore birthdays, I felt as if I was 95 already.
I just had to wait. Waiting has been dark at times, as I assume it was for that walnut. Waiting probably 50 years before it was ever seen! There comes a point when you know you can't give up, because people care too much, even if you don't...sort of like the tree growing up and around the walnut? Yeah, sounds pretty familiar to me. If you can't figure out why people care so much about you, stop trying to figure it out. You won't. Just rest in it. You're safe. Even when the rest of the tree was ripped from the ground, uprooted by a straight-line wind, lightening bolt, or decay, that little walnut was perfectly preserved. Likewise, I'm sure the fall from however-many-feet-up wasn't pleasant. It might get worse before it gets better for us, too. We're not promised an easy life. In fact, we're told quite the opposite. "In this world you will have troubles, but take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33 So, we wait. Sometimes we wait for a long time. I don't know how long that tree was down in the woods. The tree was dead, fallen, perhaps rotting in some places, and even that wasn't the end. Instead of picking any of the other upright trees, my brother and dad picked this one. Most of the tree is displayed in the beauty of artful woodworking in my brother and his wife's new home. Polished and perfectly sanded, chiseled, and constructed it will be loved and seen for many, many more years. Then there's that one piece, the one with the imperfection that the saw exposed. Unlike the rest of the wood, it was unfit for a cabinet door, but it's reserved carefully on an artist's woodworking bench, proudly displayed as a wonder of how nature operates, bragged about by a tender-hearted craftsman who is waiting for the "perfect project" to display its beauty. It's not hiding anymore. The unfortunate fall into a crack, has been realized for the beauty that it always has been.
I just had to wait. Waiting has been dark at times, as I assume it was for that walnut. Waiting probably 50 years before it was ever seen! There comes a point when you know you can't give up, because people care too much, even if you don't...sort of like the tree growing up and around the walnut? Yeah, sounds pretty familiar to me. If you can't figure out why people care so much about you, stop trying to figure it out. You won't. Just rest in it. You're safe. Even when the rest of the tree was ripped from the ground, uprooted by a straight-line wind, lightening bolt, or decay, that little walnut was perfectly preserved. Likewise, I'm sure the fall from however-many-feet-up wasn't pleasant. It might get worse before it gets better for us, too. We're not promised an easy life. In fact, we're told quite the opposite. "In this world you will have troubles, but take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33 So, we wait. Sometimes we wait for a long time. I don't know how long that tree was down in the woods. The tree was dead, fallen, perhaps rotting in some places, and even that wasn't the end. Instead of picking any of the other upright trees, my brother and dad picked this one. Most of the tree is displayed in the beauty of artful woodworking in my brother and his wife's new home. Polished and perfectly sanded, chiseled, and constructed it will be loved and seen for many, many more years. Then there's that one piece, the one with the imperfection that the saw exposed. Unlike the rest of the wood, it was unfit for a cabinet door, but it's reserved carefully on an artist's woodworking bench, proudly displayed as a wonder of how nature operates, bragged about by a tender-hearted craftsman who is waiting for the "perfect project" to display its beauty. It's not hiding anymore. The unfortunate fall into a crack, has been realized for the beauty that it always has been.
No, life wasn't meant to be dark forever. For me, I can say that I have an idea about why it was so dark for so long. I had to let myself be ok with being stuck in-between the two trunks for awhile. Waiting is hard! I don't usually do it gracefully. I cry and I yell a lot. I throw fits and sometimes mean-spirited words and comments. It was ok to do that. Like the tree, my friends now were my friends then as well. They never left, I didn't fall any further than I needed to. I can look in the mirror and appreciate the imperfection and the beauty of that imperfection, bruises and scars and all. We all have some of this in our life. It's about how we choose to continue (or not continue) the story. Mine isn't over yet. I'm still like that piece of wood on the workbench...waiting and learning to become what and who I was meant to be all along.
"There will come a time when you believe everything is finished; that will be the beginning"
-Louis L'Amour
No comments:
Post a Comment