Telling the Whole Story of My Life

GIFTS XXII. December 28, 2014

It might be said that the gifts we give at times of transformation are meant to make visible the giving up we do invisibly.  And of course we hope that there will be an exchange, that something will come toward us if we abandon our old lives.  So we might also say that the tokens we receive at times of change are meant to make visible life’s reciprocation.  They are not mere compensation for what is lost, but the promise of what lies ahead.  They guide us toward new life, assuring our passage away from what is dying. –The Gift, Lewis Hyde, p. 44.

My life is undergoing change in subtle
yet unmistakable ways.  The writer 
emerges more strongly, with a new
force–call it satyagraha, truth force.
Losses are part of this new life.  My elder
daughter says she is “done with me.”
I have fewer students, yet my book
that opens wide a true story, once
hidden, is praised.  People want to
come near, touch, and be held by its bold
truth tale.  I knew this was my destiny:
to tell the whole story of my life.  
Meantime all my window flowers
are blooming.  The orchid found its
happiest place in my writing corner and
now maroon leaves, which have swarmed 
out into the room, put up buds.  An orange
cosmos found root at the water line
of the red-flowering succulent and
makes its second bloom.  My two
Christmas cacti are flowering in the
kitchen window where there is barely
room for their long, pink, extravagant
blooms.  This next stage takes a strong
spirit but will crown my life and
pull all the threads together, and if
I’m lucky, knot them for eternity.
I look back and see a year of more 
poverty but also more people reaching
out to prevent me from falling.  I
shall know bewilderment, confusion,
self-doubt, but my Guide will help me
and those around me who see my inner
gifts and want to ease 
my difficult way forward.