I never thought of an iliac wingspan before. What a great metaphor!
Your description of the crack reminds me of the Japanese Art of Kintsugi (filling the cracks in a broken pot with gold dust and laquer) ~ embracing the flawed and imperfect and transforming it into beauty...
Yes! Kintsugi is such a perfect visualization of the unfixedsynchronosophy. ;) I have an unfixed episode featuring one woman's story that I like to call "kintsugi woman." I think I'll share it next week.
I hope you've been feeling better. This is such a spectacular, poignant line: "I steady myself with metaphor and meaning while an abyss readies to open, greedy and wide beneath my feet."
Thank you friend. The spiraling into darkness continued for quite some time, some unexpected twists and turns are underway in the memoir, but I can say now (8 years later) that I survived and yes, I'm feeling much, much better. x
I am very late to this read, and I’ve been looking forward to it, and of course, I was not disappointed. Another gorgeous piece of writing. Your use of metaphor is luminous.
Renée! I was literally just opening up an email to write you. I'm ecstatic about the Cura serum. I've been using it for a week now and every time I put it on, I swear my skin says, "Wow! Thanks for this treat!" Feels like Kombucha for my skin. It's a beautiful product and I will share it with all my people... so thank you for sharing it with me. Are you home from your travels at last?
Ah yes, look at those warm, almost womb-like tones on the right. A promise of rebirth, which very much exemplifies my own journey, though first, more years of a hard descent into darkness. Total hip replacements are no joke! Hoping you, too, are finding/found your own rebirth as well.
Also, I'm enjoying how you link your physical and exterior experiences with the interior, heart and psyche. Just the title of this piece, 'A Crack in the Foundation' speaks volumes...
You are very astute! I'm glad you're picking up on my weaving between the interior and exterior realms. I never like to spell things out too much (probably to a fault) so it's very satisfying to know that you are recognizing this link. Thank you friend!
So we share a love for Pema Chodron? My very first "a ha moment" book was Poem's The Wisdom of No Escape. That book really did a welcome number on my 19 year old brain. ;)
I'm not sure that I love her yet hahaha... But I read 'When Things Fall Apart' this time last year and it got me through a tough festive season. She's tough love I guess 💭 I've dipped a bit into 'Wisdom' and 'Start Where You Are' and there are certainly times when she's a compassionate, encouraging voice for an inner challenge ✨
Tough love is a good way to describe Pema, and Buddhism in general, since it encourages us to meet life as it is. Glad she helped you through last year!
Indeed - meeting life as it is... The practice of being human! 🧘♀️ I think anything creative does the same too... Whether that's darning socks or writing from the heart or making documentaries about the human experience 😉
Oh Kimberly, I have cried many times through your mémoire words, but these... If I put myself where you have been, and I do often due a huge and debilitating, all encompassing fear of injury that would leave me incapable of normal movement - again, (I think I told you of my own ‘fatal kiss’ at 7 months pregnant) I can feel myself turning inwards, tears are a mere irrelevance compared to the silent screams of terror.
And this horror that befell you is doubly poignant... my father, at the age of 42 had a car accident that resulted his femur smashing a hole straight through his pelvis. As a family we cared for him for 18 months while operation after operation failed to repair shattered bone to both parts. His depression was deeper than the injury itself, he turned to drink, he chain smoked his pipe, he spoke to nobody... he isolated himself from the world.
I think, no, I know... you are uncontrollably brilliant... you are one of life’s survivors and somehow, despite every obstacle thrown in your path you shine, still. X
Gulp. So much to absorb, no, let in, here. Your father. Our femurs. Mine too, the culprit of the pelvic fracture. But his, so much more tortured and unrecognizable. How painful to watch your father endure and endure and endure. Feeling fragility in our very core is quite something, almost like a tree trying to carry on without its trunk. I’m not surprised your father turned to substances, anything, to re-earth, find ground, stabilize. Thank you with all my heart for your generous, deeply-feeling presence. Oh how your hill would’ve healed if I had known you then!
I cried when I read this line: “Charlie crouches on the ground, a close-up of his hands pointing at meadow vole droppings. Those. Are. Undeniably. My. Hands.” That moment must have been so beautiful and so stunning. Jarring. ALL THE EMOTIONS.
A cracked pelvis 😭 I’m so sorry. I haven’t read many emotional accounts of physical injuries and I’ve never really thought about the emotional aspect of being bed ridden whilst we physically heal. How scary and isolating it must have felt coupled with the gargantuan task of trying to piece together your beginnings with your present. Here I am again with bated breath waiting for next Sunday!!!
Oh Jenovia, I admire how deeply and easily you feel. Truly. I think I still have some sort of synaptic freeze when things are heavy, usually accessing the emotion 24-48 hours after the fact. ;) Or in the case of this loaded chapter of my life, I may still be thawing. So thank you for feeling ALL THE EMOTIONS for me!
I knew of your accident but this is the first I’ve learned of the details...This was a life-changing injury! As you know, I took care of my husband throughout his life-changing injury and recovery, and as a caregiver I especially relate to your expression, “I steady myself with metaphor and meaning.” I had never put it into words, but that’s exactly what I found most helpful to him. It was a time to immerse ourselves in the mystical depth of things. I suppose some would say that is a gift of illness/injury, but I see it more as a coping tool. Love the O’Keefe image too. I hadn’t seen Dark Abstraction before.
Fascinating Shaler! But with your archetype and Jungian studies, I'm not surprised. :) It can certainly be a helpful tool to help us navigate through the dark, a torch of sorts. I also think it was a way to skirt around feeling the depth of emotion I needed to feel. So sometimes a torch, sometimes a crutch.
I never thought of an iliac wingspan before. What a great metaphor!
Your description of the crack reminds me of the Japanese Art of Kintsugi (filling the cracks in a broken pot with gold dust and laquer) ~ embracing the flawed and imperfect and transforming it into beauty...
Yes! Kintsugi is such a perfect visualization of the unfixedsynchronosophy. ;) I have an unfixed episode featuring one woman's story that I like to call "kintsugi woman." I think I'll share it next week.
Oooh so gripping! Bloodhound as a verb and a noun. The lightning bolt crack, your wrestle with time. Beautiful writing!
Thank you Jan! I like bloodhound as a verb too. It just sounded right. :)
I hope you've been feeling better. This is such a spectacular, poignant line: "I steady myself with metaphor and meaning while an abyss readies to open, greedy and wide beneath my feet."
Thank you friend. The spiraling into darkness continued for quite some time, some unexpected twists and turns are underway in the memoir, but I can say now (8 years later) that I survived and yes, I'm feeling much, much better. x
I'm heartened to hear that. And I know exactly what you mean about spiraling into darkness.
Kimberly,
I am very late to this read, and I’ve been looking forward to it, and of course, I was not disappointed. Another gorgeous piece of writing. Your use of metaphor is luminous.
Renée! I was literally just opening up an email to write you. I'm ecstatic about the Cura serum. I've been using it for a week now and every time I put it on, I swear my skin says, "Wow! Thanks for this treat!" Feels like Kombucha for my skin. It's a beautiful product and I will share it with all my people... so thank you for sharing it with me. Are you home from your travels at last?
Dark Abstraction is me and my wife. I am the large dark part.
I read your post and empathize due to a far less serious encounter with a total hip replacement followed by a kidney infection.
Returning to the painting if you can imagine it as a momentary view from a camera, slowly pan to the right. That is your recovery.
Be well today and continue so.
Ah yes, look at those warm, almost womb-like tones on the right. A promise of rebirth, which very much exemplifies my own journey, though first, more years of a hard descent into darkness. Total hip replacements are no joke! Hoping you, too, are finding/found your own rebirth as well.
Thank you. I will send you a funny song.
Snagged On My Fishhook
https://youtu.be/PxKMuQHcY3Q
I am a bold brave fisherman
I ply the briny spray
To fill my hold with silver
And my obligations pay
One day I hooked an item
From the bottom of the sea
In my mind it will remain forever
Burned indelibly
You could have knocked me over
With a tiny two inch snook
Something not of Neptune's realm
I'd snagged on my fishhook
The strangest haul I ever had
Did give me quite a thrill
Cause it was seized from my possession
By a bomb squad from McDill
Weigh hey up she rises
Mate what can that be?
Something long with funny fins
Rising off the lee
Weigh hey up she rises
Mate do take a look
It's a blessed guided missile
And it's snagged on my fishhook
It happened on the first day out
I stayed out nine days more
I had to make expenses 'for I
Ever sailed for shore
Then I found out how my fate was bouyed
By angels circling nigh
The damned thing was corroded
Could have blown us all sky high
Weigh hey up she rises
Mate what can that be?
Something long with funny fins
Rising off the lee
Weigh hey up she rises
Mate do take a look
It's a blessed guided missile
And it's snagged on my fishhook
I have posted some new stuff you might like.
Thanks for the listen.
Also, I'm enjoying how you link your physical and exterior experiences with the interior, heart and psyche. Just the title of this piece, 'A Crack in the Foundation' speaks volumes...
I think not spelling things out suggests you're a poet even if you write prose 😉 and I'm glad to know my mind is still sharp! 😂📝
You are very astute! I'm glad you're picking up on my weaving between the interior and exterior realms. I never like to spell things out too much (probably to a fault) so it's very satisfying to know that you are recognizing this link. Thank you friend!
Also, it is a fine line to walk as a writer - between saying too much and saying just enough and hoping the reader gets it 🤞
I love that Eliot poem, it's almost buddhist, reminds me a bit of Pema Chodron's teachings 💭
And 'Dark Abstraction' is beautiful 😍 much better to stare at than an orange chandelier 😉😅
So we share a love for Pema Chodron? My very first "a ha moment" book was Poem's The Wisdom of No Escape. That book really did a welcome number on my 19 year old brain. ;)
I'm not sure that I love her yet hahaha... But I read 'When Things Fall Apart' this time last year and it got me through a tough festive season. She's tough love I guess 💭 I've dipped a bit into 'Wisdom' and 'Start Where You Are' and there are certainly times when she's a compassionate, encouraging voice for an inner challenge ✨
Tough love is a good way to describe Pema, and Buddhism in general, since it encourages us to meet life as it is. Glad she helped you through last year!
Indeed - meeting life as it is... The practice of being human! 🧘♀️ I think anything creative does the same too... Whether that's darning socks or writing from the heart or making documentaries about the human experience 😉
This.
Explains. No. Measures and illuminates.
Probably barely hints.
Shit damn!
Haha. A light in the dark, but maybe needing new batteries soon. 🤣
Oh Kimberly, I have cried many times through your mémoire words, but these... If I put myself where you have been, and I do often due a huge and debilitating, all encompassing fear of injury that would leave me incapable of normal movement - again, (I think I told you of my own ‘fatal kiss’ at 7 months pregnant) I can feel myself turning inwards, tears are a mere irrelevance compared to the silent screams of terror.
And this horror that befell you is doubly poignant... my father, at the age of 42 had a car accident that resulted his femur smashing a hole straight through his pelvis. As a family we cared for him for 18 months while operation after operation failed to repair shattered bone to both parts. His depression was deeper than the injury itself, he turned to drink, he chain smoked his pipe, he spoke to nobody... he isolated himself from the world.
I think, no, I know... you are uncontrollably brilliant... you are one of life’s survivors and somehow, despite every obstacle thrown in your path you shine, still. X
Gulp. So much to absorb, no, let in, here. Your father. Our femurs. Mine too, the culprit of the pelvic fracture. But his, so much more tortured and unrecognizable. How painful to watch your father endure and endure and endure. Feeling fragility in our very core is quite something, almost like a tree trying to carry on without its trunk. I’m not surprised your father turned to substances, anything, to re-earth, find ground, stabilize. Thank you with all my heart for your generous, deeply-feeling presence. Oh how your hill would’ve healed if I had known you then!
I cried when I read this line: “Charlie crouches on the ground, a close-up of his hands pointing at meadow vole droppings. Those. Are. Undeniably. My. Hands.” That moment must have been so beautiful and so stunning. Jarring. ALL THE EMOTIONS.
A cracked pelvis 😭 I’m so sorry. I haven’t read many emotional accounts of physical injuries and I’ve never really thought about the emotional aspect of being bed ridden whilst we physically heal. How scary and isolating it must have felt coupled with the gargantuan task of trying to piece together your beginnings with your present. Here I am again with bated breath waiting for next Sunday!!!
Oh Jenovia, I admire how deeply and easily you feel. Truly. I think I still have some sort of synaptic freeze when things are heavy, usually accessing the emotion 24-48 hours after the fact. ;) Or in the case of this loaded chapter of my life, I may still be thawing. So thank you for feeling ALL THE EMOTIONS for me!
My pleasure 🥹🥰
I knew of your accident but this is the first I’ve learned of the details...This was a life-changing injury! As you know, I took care of my husband throughout his life-changing injury and recovery, and as a caregiver I especially relate to your expression, “I steady myself with metaphor and meaning.” I had never put it into words, but that’s exactly what I found most helpful to him. It was a time to immerse ourselves in the mystical depth of things. I suppose some would say that is a gift of illness/injury, but I see it more as a coping tool. Love the O’Keefe image too. I hadn’t seen Dark Abstraction before.
Fascinating Shaler! But with your archetype and Jungian studies, I'm not surprised. :) It can certainly be a helpful tool to help us navigate through the dark, a torch of sorts. I also think it was a way to skirt around feeling the depth of emotion I needed to feel. So sometimes a torch, sometimes a crutch.