The sense of being alone is far too common in this world. Some of the most obvious reasons are the widow, the orphan, the misfits, the divorced, and yes, the unhappily married…just to name a few.
I imagine the ways each person who finds themselves in alone places either regularly or from time to time are as unique as the person.
There is a quotation I’ve liked that came from James Taylor in one of his documentary interviews: “To me, very much of what is artistic is people’s very creative and inventive ways out of impossible situations – life situations – and they show us a path when they do that. They make a trail or they make a mark of some sort when they do this thing – this daring daylight escape. And when we see this, it look like ART.”
Often I find and create my own joys and rituals to carry me through difficult days. Sometimes I notice things that others do and incorporate them into my life, as well.
I know an older woman who seems a bit isolated – she lives and cares for her husband who is significantly older, needing physical care. She also can be found sitting out back almost daily making beautiful jewelry which she wears, along with beautiful and unusual perfectly-tailored-to-her dresses she sews for herself. She’s an excellent seamstress, with an interesting womanly-manikin in her sewing room. Her property is quite large and her lovely flower and vegetable gardens are extensive and amazing.
She can be seen riding her mowing tractor in a dress, wearing jewelry and lipstick. She came to this country many years ago from Europe and speaks with an accent that makes me think of the actress Meryl Streep who has played a number of European-accented film roles.
When I look at my neighbor’s kind, joyful demeanor and smiling face, in my mind’s eye I metaphorically envision her as “72-year-old-Barbie-Beautiful!” Her simplicity and almost hiddenly stoic expression of her feminity, strength, dignity and perseverance inspire me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in jeans or casual work clothes. I was over once and found her out back in beautiful attire, soaking her feet, after re-tarring the driveway.
This world holds seventy-times-seven ways to wound us and lead us on private, inward paths of poor self-image, ruthless self-critique of ourselves and our lovability leading to forms of self-rejection.
With the plethora of ways we, others or the world in general provoke us to question our own worth – worts and all – we must find ways to practice self-affirmation. And this, can be quite daunting for most of us.
I’m reminded of a story from WWII where Allied soldiers liberated a concentration camp. As they saw the wandering, emaciated men and women and lacked provisions of any great substance to intially provide, they realized they had many cartons of lipstick. I don’t know why soldiers had cartons of lipstick on hand but they did, and they began giving them out to the hollow-eyed women who rapidly smeared them onto their lips. I first heard this story in a book by Rob Bell, and his comment was “sometimes a little lipstick is the difference between heaven and hell.”
The Lipstick Miracle of Bergen-Belsen
As God’s beloved children created in His image, we who find ourselves alone in some sense, who find ourselves rejected and self-rejecting at times, can take comfort in knowing that Jesus in lowering Himself to be fully human with all its inherent sufferings is intimately acquainted with every aspect of our lives- being ever-present. Emmanuel – God with us.
Sometimes in our alone we are just thoughts away…songs and verses away…prayers away…small, private acts away from entering into His ever-present love relationship with us – yet equally true we find ourselves in places and times of seeming non-entrance.
Sometimes, I wonder…what are the rules?
Are there rules of creative self-care or can (and should !) we freely explore our own pathways of healing?
I believe we all find our own creative joys and comforting rituals – and I imagine that many of these might seem too personal for us to easily share with others for a number of reasons.
On this lovely Saturday, as I planned out my day, I decided to put on a casual dress. I decided to let my hair down and even style it slightly. I decided to fish through my jewelry box and find a necklace to put on.
I dug into various compartments until I found a charm my youngest son had made (it is soldered metal surrounded by decorative wire) and given me several years back. It was on a piece of short leather but I found a chain – a thin chain with a thin silver cross that had belonged to my Aunt Virginia and been given to me after her death in 2008 – and I slipped this piece of jewelry my son made me next to the cross and put it around my neck.
I have seen this son once in the past two years and don’t know when or if I will see him again or hear from him again. When we give life, we cannot see into the future and even now, I hold out a mother’s hope that I am only in the middle of this difficult story…the ending is not yet written…and with that thought I walk outside in my green-the-color-of-life dress wearing these simple jewelry gifts into the sunshine of this day God made.
I walk outside to pick grapes. Yes, grape-picking in my own backyard wearing a dress and jewelry…because there are no rules…
On most days around here, I wear old tee shirts and jeans spattered with paint and dirt stains. Basically, work clothes suited to the types of work I do around here – both outside and inside. I pull my hair up, sometimes maybe appearing not to even have hair. Definitely having less hair than I had the day my son was born over twenty-seven years ago!
Today, I took some time to write this. To express. Because art is to be shared. And there is an art to just about everything in life – including finding contentment in solitude.
It is not always easy, but if life and matters force us, we can carve out a pathway forward through aloneness.
I recently found a little booklet among boxes still being unpacked that my Aunt Virginia had given my mother during the 70’s, which I used to read regularly when I was younger. I was flipping through it and reading again pages I hadn’t seen in many years and was encouraged by its simplicity and my memories of other times in my life.
It is a collection of inspirational poems and I share below the first in the collection:
A Faith That Smiles
by Helen Lowrie Marshall
Give us a faith in the worth of ourselves,
And faith in our fellowman;
Give us a faith that right will prevail
In the Infinite over-all plan;
Give us a faith in the future –
A farmer’s faith in the sod,
A faith in Eternal justice,
A faith in the love of God;
Give us a faith for the journey of life,
A strength for the winding miles,
A faith to sustain – but above all, Lord,
Give us a faith that smiles!
Thank You For Reading
Please Feel Free To Express Your Thoughts Below
