Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis

A Journal Excerpt from 2014

I recently came upon this excerpt in a journal I’d had packed away and pulled out to bring back on one of my trips between Mexico and Michigan. At the time of the writing, I was recently divorced and about halfway through what I would discover was a frightening and emotionally abusive relationship.

The photos and writings that follow show a young woman in transition. My steadily growing smile evidence of the hard work in moving forward from hard times. 

A Metamorphosis.

It’s the day after Christmas. I’m sitting on the couch, trying to calm the anxiety I hoped would dissipate after the holidays were over. Instead, my heart still beats too fast, the worry line at the side of my mouth keeps deepening—am I frowning in my sleep?
I feel like I’m caught in a dance I don’t know—always moving out of sync with the rest of my world; my family, my friends.
They say they aren’t mad at me for my divorce and new boyfriend, but I sense it wafting through the room, encircling my neck like a noose. Looking each other in the eyes isn’t easy anymore.
Wedding pictures are gone from shelves and fridge, their absence as palpable as their presence.
I brought this upon them. Brought their pain. Caused their discomfort. Brought a stranger into their midst and took away what was familiar.
I straighten my neck and shoulders, aching with the weight of guilt and pain.

August 12, 2016 Excerpted from the essay “The Mechanics”

I mow approximately an acre. With a push-mower. I understand the lawn isn’t, technically, necessary. However, it helps keep the bugs down, or so I tell myself. In Deerton, bugs are a constant battle. I will also argue the lawn was mowed this way before, and it’s easy to follow the yard line. I also love how it looks. Untamed wilderness at the lawn’s edges makes a startling contrast to thick, impenetrable brush and trees forming a border around the yard line.

I learned how to use both a push and riding lawnmower when I lived with my husband. I liked the rider, as I could have a beer or glass of wine and enjoy my yard one, ever-smaller, concentric circle at a time.

My cabin didn’t come with a mower, so I went down to a dealer in Skandia and looked for something used, aka in my teensy-tiny budget. When I walked into the show-room a gentleman was in the process of buying the only used one available, but changed his mind at the last minute, and for $150 the mower was mine.

I arrived home, unloaded the mower, and surveyed the waving grass blades and bobbing daisy heads. I had just purchased my first lawnmower. Before me were hundreds of laps around the rocky yard, a lot of bug bites, and moments of deep satisfaction, sipping wine and surveying the results of my efforts.

The work is hard–the yard dips and plunges. It’s full of rocks, and unexpected tree stumps popping out of tall grass to quickly stop a mower blade. The bugs are horrendous: black flies, mosquitoes, horse flies, deer flies. I’ve often eaten as many as five mosquitoes in a couple hours just opening my mouth for a deep breath.

But somehow, I don’t mind that much. Perhaps it’s doing it myself; a sense of accomplishment; stubborn pride; single-woman-goal-achievement; forced exercise.
A chance to touch each inch of the land I own and inhabit.

The lawnmower wasn’t my first triumphant act, and it certainly won’t be the last.

I learned how to use a weed wacker, switch the propane tank for the two-burner stove, change the water filter, build stone walkways, swap my brakes (with assistance), and carpentry work will soon be an addition to the list.

My education came out of necessity–I don’t have money to hire someone to do these things, and I’m perfectly capable of learning. But the honest truth is: I probably wouldn’t have learned if I didn’t have to.

My mother asks: “How can you stay alone there, night after night?”

Because I have to. Because it’s my home. Necessity.

I lost my fear of the dark. I lost my fear of being alone. Because I had to–either that or leave my home. Give it up to fear.

June 26, 2017–Excerpted from the essay “A Difference of Seasons”

I’ve shaken with anxiety, awoken from nightmares screaming, pounded stone walls with fragile fists, frustration gasps choking me.
The divorce from my kind ex-husband hurt deeply.
Leaving behind the abusive relationship that came after my divorce, however, takes everything I have.
I stretch my fingers. Stare down at the tattoos, ink and meaning embedded in my ring and middle fingers.

Reminders.
Remembrances of how easy it is to lose yourself. How love can become a slowly tightening noose.
He was always sorry, later.
Every day fading, a living ghost, shrouded in layers of self-hatred, sadness, confusion, fear, exhaustion, anxiety. Always trying to get back to that place when things were good. Until days went by looking in a mirror reflecting, nothing.
I’m one of the lucky ones–a woman who remembered. A woman who pulled apart the veils and shrouds and found her voice again.

Found it living alone.
100 year old, one-room cabin.
40 acres in rural Upper Michigan’s wilderness.
¼ mile Laughing Whitefish River tangling itself through the property.
Found myself in warm summer nights standing barefoot in cricket-symphony darkness watching fireflies wink and float like tiny lanterns.
Found myself in lazy afternoons alone on the river watching iridescent damselflies dance above eddying currents.
Found myself in back-breaking wood hauling and stacking. Hauling and stacking. Hauling and stacking.
Found myself in nights so cold the split log walls popped and shifted and if I didn’t feed the stove every four hours I’d awake shivering, breath hanging in smoky puffs.

Found myself walking wooded paths, Bea-pup by my side–each mossy rock, knobby tree-trunk, and curled leaf edge familiar. Known.
Found myself in long nights half-slept, a loaded gun at my feet, a knife at my head. Stretched between the two stone pillars of fear and determination.

Found myself in a solo July trip to my beloved Isla isle, when the familiar voice of past and future called out together and my answer was laughter and a one-way ticket to Mexico.

March 20th, 2018

I see myself walking across the yard—tall, strong, surefooted, tangled blond hair tumbling down my back.
Apple and wild cherry trees tilt green-leafed branches in a soft summer breeze.
The river chuckles.

I walk, head high, eyes forward, through the gateway between two balsams—straight into Isla’s waiting arms.
Changing apple and cherry blossoms for palms and bougainvillea flowers.
Leaving behind lonely independence for the loving heat of a good man, and a baby in my belly.
The river, cabin, bouldered 40 acres, years of growth and perspective a snow globe in my chest, next to my heart, I shake sometimes. And it makes me smile.