It was no mere happenstance that I plucked Mary Pipher's Writing to Change the World from the living room bookcase before heading out to Be Well for an early morning cuppa & a granola/yogurt parfait. It was kismet!
Purchased this past February, the book had been bidding its time to be read. In the midst of last winter would have been too soon, while waiting much longer would have been too late.
On this day next month - the 2nd Sunday - I will be at Rowe Conference Center, experiencing the final hours of Nancy Slonim Aronie's workshop, Jumpstart Your Memoir ~ writing from the heart. I devoured her book of the same name over a year ago & have been longing for this opportunity ever since. Still, reading Mary's book before going wasn't intentional, at least not on my part - me thinks the Universe had its own plans for my prep work!
For almost twenty years, Mary Pipher's been part of my inner circle of unknowning mentors & counselors. The Shelter of Each Other helped bring clarity & compassion to my understanding & experience of family dynamics that constantly confused & often convulsed my life.
I'd hoped to get to earlier workshops with Nancy, in 2014 & this year, but couldn't afford the lost work time & the cost. How profoundly different my experience would have been if I'd managed to get there earlier! It was not until 11/29/15 that the unspeakable was finally spoken by someone other than me, changing everything in ways I don't claim to understand.
It was Gray, one of Mim's very nearest & dearest, who spoke the-thing-that-must-not-be-named ~ that MIM could be "tough as nails," that it could not have been easy on me.
No one, not a single soul in all my 63 years, had been able or willing to speak that truth. Gray was all I needed, just one person willing to see the situation as it was, with clarity & without judgment.
Gray stood in front of everyone who'd gathered at Cairnwood Village to watch Mim's online memorial tribute & shared a hard truth without a hint of condemnation, simply as part of a beloved friend. While it would have been life-changing for me if Gray had share privately that she knew Mim could be brutal, bringing it out in front of everyone opened the way for others to honor, with love, the whole of my sister.
That happened two weeks ago, today. And it was this past week that I, on an apparent whim, got back to reading Writing to Change the World. Kismet!
Knew from the start it was a timely book, was looking forward to posting about it - once I'd finished. Then I got to Chapter 7, The Psychology of Change. Two of the three quotes Mary uses to begin the chapter slowed my breathing & made my heart race. Time seemed stilled:
- The purpose of life is to be happy & to make others happy. (The Dalai Lama)
- A book ought to be an ax to break the frozen sea within us. (Anton Chekov)
In spite of being ridiculed by my sister, painted as haplessly shallow, I've believed the first for all of my life. We're each created to be happy & we are each charged to do all that we can to make others happy, knowing that doing what can help them find true happiness, rather than simply what they want, are often not the same thing. As for the second, for 25+ years books have served as axes breaking the frozen seas within me, helping me gain the sense of healthy alignment & wholeness that always seemed right & natural, yet impossibly elusive.
Two weeks ago this afternoon, Gray's words served as the final ax, the coup de grace breaking up the last skim of ice. Far from dishonoring Mim with her frank comments, in speaking them Gray accepted my sister's entire being with love & compassion.
How fabulously freakish to be reading Chapter 7 at this moment, putting in perspective the gift that Gray gave me & the full loving honors she showed my sister. Kismet to the max!
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