Trees Tall as Mountains (The Journey Mama Writings: Book 1)

by Rachel Devenish Ford

  Last night I had my first flying dream ever. I think that it was the glimmer that started the thoughts behind this post, because although I've heard of people talking about dreams of flying, I have never actually flown. In my dream I was walking and suddenly the horizon dropped beneath me and at first I had no idea about what was going on. But I was flying, and I've never had such a wonderful dream. Never. During the rest of it, I was trying to show other people that I could fly. And there we were, trudging along our own dusty paths until we were lifted suddenly above it all.

  I think that this another way to look at the Bible. Here I am, walking on this dirty road and I read some words, words something like these: "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others as more significant than yourselves,"* and these words are like my feet being lifted from under me, like that rush of air on my face. Do you see how they are dreams of a different world? How beautiful, a place where we generously bestow significance on one another rather than clinging to it for ourselves. Where we are never rivals. If I make these words into a measuring stick which I beat myself with, I lose the dream, the one which will ultimately change me. These words lift me, rather than popping me on the head and forcing me back down.

  When we dream, we walk into large fields where anything is possible. Where a world without rivalry or conceit in our hearts exists. This is at the heart of meditation, I believe. We lift our eyes from what we are, we drop the stick, and we dream true dreams of what we actually desire, which is real love, real beauty, and this we find in God. It is a very restful thing to realize that all of the things we so desperately want are found in one Being. There is a place where these dreams are true, which is why we aren't stupid for still dreaming.

  This morning, trying to pick myself back up from yesterday's mud, I wrote for a while in my journal trying to work a new pattern of thinking into my brain, and this is a little of what I wrote.

  Today is a day when I can be meditative instead of frantic, rhythmic instead of chaotic, positive instead of negative, loving instead of resentful, and a wise child instead of an immature adult. Today is a day in the forest, a day of sweet breezes, a day of clean laundry. Today is a day to settle accounts, to make things balance, to check a few things off of my list. Today is a day to laugh with my kids, to notice them, to call their beauty out. Today is a day to knit with my friends, to listen to words of wisdom, to make bridges between our hearts. Today is a day to reach out, and a day to rest in near silence. Today anything can happen.

  It's another way of listing out the things I need to do, my routines, my cleaning, my office work, taking care of my children. I could make a list like a slave driver, and forget the holy ground that I stand on, but I don't want to live that way anymore. Unfortunately I need to be reminded ten thousand times that it doesn't work.

  Another way to say what I wrote might be, "Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the Lord has been good to you."

  *Philippians 2:3

  February 9, 2007

  I Am

  I am five feet eleven inches of vertical space, taller than most women but shorter than most trees. I am the woman who said "okay" when her husband proposed, and then laughed, the one who threw sand on the beach in joy, the woman across from my man at the fire, glowing with our secret future. I am wanted, I am captured, I am wearing white under a large tree on a sunny day beside a green lake, saying "Yes."

  I am bare feet among jelly fish in clear warm waters, longing eyes reaching off the back of a rumbling train, watching the giant red sun in an Indian field, shoulders swaying on the back of an elephant, a camel, a rickshaw. I am lost in the Himalayas, walking all day until my feet are raw and I fear we will never be found. I am limp in the heat of a warm Thai rain, waiting for a bowl of noodles on the side of the road. I am standing under a waterfall, I am watching the stars in the desert. I am incense, I am smoke, I am jasmine scented air. I am tossed around the earth like ashes, little pieces of me lost in places I will not see again soon.

  I am shared space; it will always be written in my heart that three other people have resided with me for a time, in my own space, the warmth of my body which has grown and nurtured three young wild things, given to me but not mine. I am a mother, needed in every waking moment, my hands are always touching a person needing to be touched. I am the midnight hours, I am giving water, cleaning sick children, going without sleep. I am panicked, not knowing whether I can do this again, night after night. I am doing it. I am chapped hands from washing dishes, bent over picking up toys, breaking up quarrels, I am exhaustion, I am dull from repetition, I am safe, I am blessed.

  I am the quiet space between night and morning, opening up the day with a cup of coffee and a pen. I am paint thrown onto a canvas, words wept onto a page, I am always longing, always seeking. I am a camera, I am oils, acrylics, charcoal. I am dancing while I paint, I have never felt so free. I am lonely, I am afraid, I am sad and away from my easel too often.

  I am the young child who read for hours, the woman who sneaks a few chapters between lunch and nap time, the girl who told her brother and sister to "Go away, I'm reading." I am a loner surrounded by friends, I am helping, I am wanting to make you happy. I am stormy, emotional, I am too many words when I should be quiet, I am apologies.

  I am from a proud gentle northern country, I am a girl who knows black ice and windchill well, chapped hands and lips and frozen toes, who knows Northern Lights and loons on lakes and prairies and forests with great wide space.

  I am cupped hands, I am tossed like a flower, a well trodden street, I am known. I am hopeful, I am not alone, I am written on the palms of the hands of God, I am adopted, I am not afraid. I am loved.

  February 14, 2007

  Sometimes when life has become a little humdrum (remember that I am addicted to excitement) and things are just SO routine and SO repetitive, one of my kids will come into a season that is just like clouds moving away from the sun and we are all blasted with sparkling light.

  This is where Kenya is lately, and I want to record every moment of her existence, I want to write down every single thing she says. She's almost three, my baby girl, and somehow in the last couple of months she stepped into the spotlight, she grew up a bit, she came into her own.

  Now she says she loves everything. Yesterday when I was getting her ready for bed she wriggled all over with a happy smile and said, "I LOVE it."

  "What do you love?"

  "My pull-up."

  Kai told me today that when they go to the river she says she LOVES the river, and when we eat chips and salsa she says she LOVES chips and salsa. She has entered the world of her very vivid imagination and naps are no longer any problem (they rarely were to begin with) because she will lie in her bed and make her dollies talk to each other until she falls asleep. This is a typical conversation between her dollies. (Everything is "super" in our house. The babies are super-babies, the dollies are super-dollies, the kids have a super-cat and a super-horse and a super-monkey, and when they wake up they are super-dooper hungry. So hungry that they fall on the ground and claw at my ankles.)

  Super-dolly # 1: I love you and love you and love you.

  Super-dolly # 2: You're the good girl in the world.

  As a result of Kenya's Uncle Matty calling her the cutest girl in the world every day that he sees her, Kenya uses the term "in the world" a lot, although she is a little shaky on how to use it. It doesn't stop her, though, and I don't stop her either, because I like to hear her say it the way she does. I figure she'll get it soon enough.

  "I love you in the world." "You're the good one in the world." "It's big in the world."

  Sometimes it is very, very rewarding to be this mama in this family.

  February 16, 2007

  My thoughts are like clouds, driven by a stiff wind.

  1. I love to sit and drink an Americano with two shots of espresso.

  2. I'm so glad that Elena bought me that little espresso machine. She's prescient like that. Probably
knew I'd be using it everyday.

  3. The sky is so pretty today.

  4. I want to knit myself a sweater with a hood that's big enough to fit over my gigantic head (actually my head's not that big, it's just that my neck is so long) and some socks, and a shawl, and some slippers and everyone I know linen hand towels and cotton dishcloths and soft wool blankets.

  5. How long will that take me?

  6. I want to write about something kind of intense, but I don't want everyone to feel sorry for me or have sympathy for me.

  7. I want everyone to feel sorry for me and have sympathy for me.

  8. No I don't.

  9. Shoot, that Leaf Baby is cute.

  10. I want a burrito.

  11. My friend Devon looks so pretty with her new hair color. I wonder if I should dye my hair? Maybe black?

  12. Black is a bad idea.

  13. I want some stuffed pizza like we had on my last day in Chicago.

  14. I hate that a lot of my friends live far away from me.

  15. This coffee is really good.

  16. I'm proud of myself for writing over 6000 words in the third first draft of my novel this week.

  17. My novel sucks.

  18. No it doesn't. I love my novel. It's my fourth child.

  19. Okay, so the kind of intense thing is this: I've lived in community since I was eighteen years old, which is eight years, for those of you who don't want to do the math. It's all of my adult life. I've never really lived any other way. And when I started out, I had a lot of ideals. I was really starry eyed and intense about loving one another and looking out for each other and considering others before ourselves. And then, over the years, I began to get slightly jaded. And as people wandered in and out of my life, I started to more often have my arms crossed over my chest, to protect myself. And then I started to think things like I'd better look out for myself, because no one else will. And actually, even I can't look out for myself, so I guess no one is. And then I even thought things like I can't tell anyone how I really feel inside. And that turned into I'd rather kill myself than feel like I do. And then, there's no way out. And then something broke, and I started to talk to people more, and my fists unclenched a little, and life looked a little more beautiful, and I started to notice wildflowers again and to feel happy when I was hanging out with my friends, rather than alone. And thoughts of death didn't come so suddenly, and I began to take pleasure in my kids, and the forest was healing to me.

  And yet. There are always new corners to be turned, and I have gradually realized that I still have my arms crossed over my chest, and I have completely missed the point, somehow. To put it very practically, I spend very little time wondering how I can turn someone else's day from a speck on the calendar to a brilliant spark on their path. You know, the special things. Above and beyond. I spend my time playing out my role in the community, defending myself and my commitment, doing the office work that I tolerate. But what about life on the mountain? What about washing other people's tired feet, dammit? What about encouraging others, even at my own expense?

  I've learned a lot of simple things in taking care of myself when I'm feeling depressed. Remember my rules? 1. Wash your face and brush your teeth. 2. Eat at every mealtime. 3. Sleep at night. I've expanded these to include, 4. Take breaks throughout the day. 5. Write everyday. 6. Get on the floor and play with your kids. And there's more.

  But life can't only be reduced only to these things. I had a realization this week that I've begun to think of a community as a place where we co-habitate, rather than a living journey, a walk together where we strengthen each other along the way. And not only that, but have I begun to think of my marriage this way? I've done so many things that are unintentionally hurtful to my husband over the years that I'm surprised, in a way, that he still looks at me with hope.

  I have a little sermon that I give about condemnation versus conviction. Condemnation comes from the enemy of our souls and leaves you gasping in the creek bed, wondering whether you should just lie at the bottom until you drown. Conviction takes you to the edge of a vast ocean and shows you a new way to be. It hurts, sometimes, to realize you've been stuck on the land when you could have been sailing, but the beauty of the ocean soothes you and draws you to itself. And that's where I am, I'm not lost in this, I'm afloat, God is beside me. The sky is pleasant and I have years ahead to try again.

  But I feel like I need to apologize, to any of you reading who have been a part of my community. I'm sorry. I forgot how beautiful it could be. I don't even know if I'll be able to do any better right now. The old defenses come up so quickly. But I can try.

  20. That was hard to write.

  21. I like the music that's playing in this café.

  22. I need to download some Otis Redding.

  23. This coffee is really good.

  February 20, 2007

  There is no greater happiness than a Saturday afternoon, after I've put my younger two in bed for a nap and I sit on my little couch with a cup of tea and read, or write, or lately, knit. Oh happiness. On weekdays I am very, very busy. As soon as my little ones are napping I am rushing around doing various office work and administrative blahdee blah blah, and I think that the idea of the impending week kills me on Mondays.

  But, I can write again, because it's Tuesday and I am not paralyzed with fear and dread anymore, so I can write my way out of it. Like, I can tell you how I'm going to start calling chores "meditations." We will not use that word, chores, anymore. "I'm getting up from the table now, because I have to do the dish meditations," or, "I can't come out and play just yet, I have to do some meditations." Plural like that, because I think it sounds cuter.

  I'm not talking about in a lofty, detached way of doing things, but more a trippy, "dude, this soap is really sudsy and it feels soft on my hands" way. You know, noticing. Marveling. Like a kid who loves to use the vacuum because it's so cool.

  Think about the way it feels to bathe your newborn for the very first time. You hold them so gingerly, you are a little scared of all this water near their little open nostrils. They are tiny and bird-like and they might cry, if they are like Kai, or smile, if they are like Kenya. But you are so reverent. Then think about the way you bathe your little kids now (maybe this is just me) as you dump a cup of water over their heads and hurriedly wash their hair. You're thinking, "Didn't we just DO this?" I'm saying that I want to bathe my baby slowly, marveling over his toes and how they look more and more like his dad's, aware of the water, my baby's skin, and how intricately he has been formed, what a miracle he is.

  So, there you go. I'm just writing over my reluctance to do things I consider mundane (like make the bed for the sixteen thousandth flipping time in my life) trying to tattoo my hands with the words: slow down, be thankful, consider, and above all: give a sacrifice of praise.

  February 21, 2007

  Today I am getting ready to go visit with my Grandparents, and have to skip off to the office now (on the other side of the Land) to play with numbers (like a child, right?) and documents and endless sheets of paper, so I want to quote something that I find to be very profound.

  When I thought, "My foot slips," your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up.

  When the cares of my heart are many, your consolations cheer my soul.

  Psalm 94 verses 18,19

  How many of us have thought, "I'm slipping," and have looked around wildly, trying to find a firm place? I have, I know, many times, only to find that I'm not, really, because steadfast love is holding me up, is holding me together. And how many times have wild anxieties threatened to overwhelm us, only to be answered by the consolations of a gentle Father?

  May today find you delighting in your meditations and your consolations.

  Update: Later as I was thinking of this again, I remembered a day when Chinua and I sat in a hot little room on an Indian island, trying to write a song with these words in it. I had my little Indian violin, and he had his guitar, and we were stuffed full of pap
aya, trying to keep cool under the fan. Even back then, maybe six years ago, I loved this verse, and these words spoke to me. I think it was because I can always look back at times in my life and realize: I thought I was slipping, thought I was about to go off the edge, but God's unshakable love always supported me. Even when I couldn't see it.

  February 26, 2007

  Over the weekend I became convinced that I can't write. What a crazy girl I was to think I could! I've been fooling myself all this time. It made me very, very sad to know this. I reacted by going into town on Saturday, drinking an Americano with a double shot of espresso too late in the day and then sitting in my van, while the rain poured down all around me. I sat there reading a book until the sun started to go down and the light got too dim. Then I turned on my dome light and read some more, until it was really, really dark. Finally I shook myself, bought some groceries, and on the way home I listened to the same two Innocence Mission songs over and over again. Remember that I live half an hour away from town, so they repeated about a thousand times. When I got home I told my husband all about it, about how I can't write! I'll never live my dream! What a sad reality, to want something so badly and never have it! What kind of a cruel joke is this?!