I'm home from Salem after spending nearly a full week at my Mom's house for holiday sharing but also to spell my sister who is shouldering the lion's share of her care since she fell and was discharged from rehab. Last night I had trouble sleeping. The nightmare that disturbed my sleep was of me, stepping outdoors to find men with chainsaws cutting down immense pine trees. As I stepped through the door, I began screaming and crying at the top of my lungs and I couldn't quite identify where I was...I wondered if I was here at my home or if I was in the front yard at Cambridge Street. Both places have grandfather pine trees nearby. In fact it was a huge old pine that was removed from the sunny side of our house here in Maine when we were preparing to move in 2008. At that point in time, I had a dream that suggested that the removal of the tree would be acceptable. I still felt terribly guilty because it was immense and the reason it was being cut down was to allow for more light to penetrate the building. I dreamed that the base of the tree would become a totem pole to honor the life of the tree, the people who had lived here prior to us and to give respect to the animals who have become so important to our family as totems, friends and neighbors. I had a vision of the tree trunk and where the trunk split into two trunks. I requested the men who were cutting it down to make sure they left several feet of trunk above the fork because I could see the Bald Eagle that would be at the top of the totem with it's wings spread and carved from the two separate sections. Somehow, the art form of honoring the tree's life in a totem pole made it OK with the universe that the tree's life would come to a sudden end. My heart felt peace. It's a growth I've had since leaving Marblehead...making peace with killing meat for food and cutting down trees for light. The spring before my Dad passed away, I was working as a crossing guard at the Tower School corner. The school was preparing to add a large addition to the school and preparations were underway that included cutting down trees. I was born a tree-hugger...long before the term emerged, my soul was a bird that loved and depended on trees in ways that I couldn't comprehend consciously. That June I stood at that corner with my stop sign crying my eyes out as the saws took down tree after tree. The kids stared at me but seemed to understand my deep sadness for the loss of life. I wrote a poem about it and sent letters to the newspaper but it didn't matter. I think of that time now as I try to get a sense of what my dream last night was telling me. I love trees. I care about their lives and I thrill inside when the birds return and the bare tree limbs can feel the little scratchings of birdclaw arrival in late spring.
As I've been writing this blog entry, small brain firings illuminate connections. I feel the act of writing allows some bridgebuilding in my brain and aha's happen like a cerebral shower of stars. I feared I might be short with my mother. Especially when overtired. I never sleep well at her house. The night shadows and lights, the sirens and sounds of city...the unfamiliar feel of the bed and the hypervigilance of wanting to be awake for her every move. I expected to be moody and emotional. Instead, caring for Mom gives me a deep peaceful feeling. I feel so grateful to be able to spend all this time with her. I feel grateful my sister has opted to live with her and I feel totally committed to providing her repite with my visits...it's all so right. I've had some really hard conversations with her about her end of life desires. This weekend it was a conversation about moving her bedroom downstairs. It seems the most natural place for her to sleep given the inevitability that in the near future she won't be able to manage the MacIntyre staircase that is a challenge for even the unchallenged. As I wrote my dream above, I remembered helping Mom down the stairs twice after Thanksgiving. As we descended the spiral staircase, she looked intently at me and said...Dear...do we know where I am? I said, I don't have a stairway like this at my house Mom, so we aren't there. And she said...you mean I'm right in my own home? Yes Mom. You are right at home. That moment in time created a portal...a portal I passed through when I couldn't figure out if I was at home or at Mom's in my dream last night. It makes me wonder...if I can be so passionate about the life of trees, so sad about their end of life, so moved to honor them in song and art, what will it feel like when Mom slips through the final portal and her life on Earth ? Will I step out and weep and scream and send out a wave of fury into the universe? Or will her passing open my home to more and more light? And will her soul still visit me in imagination and in dream? Will she come to me...a tree, and alight with a soft brush of feather or a sweet scratching of claw? I don't know. And I won't know. Until it happens.
Meanwhile, I savor the fragrance of her confused but radiant presence. Perhaps it is the unnessesary, irreverant removal of life for the convenience and wastefulness of humans that causes me to dream of screaming outrage ...or perhaps I am simply giving voice to the dying trees.
No comments:
Post a Comment