lesson # 3

I first read about semilla besada in a Barbara Kingsolver novel. [For those who haven't read her, do.... she is an amazing writer]. In some gardens one can see a tree that abound with fruit while around it are trees that remain indifferent to the season, all the nurturing and the gardener's plea. It is as though only this tree has found some secret fountain of vigour for its roots to draw from. The Spanish have a name for it. Semilla Besada - the seed that got kissed.

I suppose there is a lesson here as well. For every dozen memories that drag us down and crush our spirits, there is one semilla besada. A memory that will feed, sustain and leave an indelible smile on our souls....Like a burgeoning tamarind tree on a highway, a dusty and stunted frangipani that stands laden with gigantic blossoms, a potted plant on the windowsill of a grim block of flats, it's there if we seek it.

We just need to look for it within us.

lesson # 2

Some years ago, I decided to plant a garden. One of the men helping me said: you can't hurry plants. You are not building concrete boxes. You must let it grow at its own pace.

Many summers and winters later, despite all the nurturing and care, a part of the garden remains patchy. It is as if that part of the lawn would like to teach me patience. A quiet acceptance of how things could go despite our best efforts.

Memories are tricky too. They relinquish us; not vice versa. In response to my previous post, I was advocated forgiveness. I agree. But I also do think forgiving is easier than forgetting. But these are all words.

Can someone tell me a true life experience? I know the world treads carefully around writers. We are scavengers of sorts always seeking material. But what I seek here is to create a forum. To see if there are tips rather than answers. What works. What doesn't. It could be a book, a song, a day with a child, the sight of a kitten playing... tell me.... I am curious....our stories are not ours alone!

lesson # 1

Imagine then our mind to be a garden. The kind you and I pause at when we see captured within the pages of a book. It is the garden you and I dream about. With stone cherubs and grass as green as jade. Where flowers bloom and leaves glisten. The splash of water and the singing of birds, the hum of bees and arc of rainbows as butterflies drink deep of this glorious world....into that serene landscape suddenly something sets loose a monstrous creature, a wrecking ball on a chain.

In a moment that radiant and beautiful world is no more. Bits and pieces fly. A flower is crushed; a butterfly's wings are torn. A tree lies uprooted and a side of the cherub's head is smashed in....what is left is a bleak demolition site and devastation.

Some memories are like that. They have a way of creeping up on us out of no where. Anything could trigger it. A scent, a paisley, a line in a song, a particular shade of lilac....

I think we all know what it is to be stricken by a hurtful memory. Of how it can tear us up and squeeze the very air out of our breath.

So where do we begin in our road to recovery? How do we create that garden again?

What is that first lesson in forgetting?