I call on the Beloved and easily sign my name on an agreement to lease out my late mother’s house. While the new tenants sign, I glance at the kitchen where we stand, its white counter and clean paint. Though darkness settles out the window, here all is bright.
But later, back at my own house, as I eat my chicken and green-bean dinner, a tear drips down my cheek. I don’t know why.
Later still, in the night, images come of times in that house.
It’s a kaleidoscope of kindness, anger, patience, impatience, joy, sadness, forgiveness and love, some 25 years between those walls with my mother.
The time I scalded the kitchen counter with a hot pan, only to lift the pan to the sink where it broke the porcelain, only to transfer it to the floor where it burnt the linoleum, all in less than a minute.
And my mother forgave me.
The time when Mom and I studied our scuba at the dining room table, trepidatiously preparing for our final checkout dive at the crystalline Blue Hole, a sinkhole in eastern New Mexico.
An afternoon of trying on wigs and headscarves during Mom’s chemo, when she’d lost her hair.
Mashing three times the number of potatoes for Thanksgiving in Mom’s Kitchenaid mixer so that she could have days of leftovers.
The time after her brother, sister and neighbor died that she took too many pills and I found her on the bedroom floor.
She lived.
Just hours ago, the house empty, I gave a key to the new tenants.
They strode through to the living room, discussed where to place the TV, the armoire.
Now, in bed, I’m drawn to a poem by Rumi:
“And God said, ‘Why should I not sever from Myself
what I want and know is best? All is literally part of Me.
What of existence’s perfection and all events therein
can any eyes know . . . until their mind and all one’s
awareness is one with Me?’”
In the quiet of the night, in my own bed, with my cat Arjuna cushioned into my legs, I cry deep sobs, and then I see: This house that has been such a part of me is not mine, nor my mother’s. It is the Beloved’s. I own nothing. All is It.
I am no thing. I am the vibration of love.
My mother, that house, have been severed for my own good—like a tree pruned in infancy so all its power can shoot upward to the heavens.
This was our control center where we planned our adventures. We read guidebooks about Guatemala, Bolivia and Tuscany.
We fell asleep next to each other in the warm afternoon sun, her oxygen machine pumping a steady heartbeat.
This house was so much more than a house. It was a cocoon where we retreated from the world. It was a time machine where we journeyed to our childhoods and to our futures, a botanical garden where in spring we planted clematis and petunias.
We shed a hundred tears between its walls, laughed a thousand laughs over lost love, sick stomachs, aching limbs and heartfelt movies.
Our own ridiculous attachment to who we thought we were or should be, or wanted to be, but weren’t.
Me a successful writer, friend, mate, daughter.
She a successful mother, grandmother, companion, traveler.
We succeed and fail and fail and fail and yet we continue to love each other.
And with each parting I would hug her, and with each passing year we would hold on longer and more tightly, somewhere knowing, understanding, how precious the moments were.
She loved to talk of our adventures, to tell her caregivers, and even strangers, of our game of gin while sitting on the floor of the train station in Seoul when Korean men surrounded us. They sat on their haunches and hummed and hawed over each of our plays.
Of a flight from Bangkok to Katmandu in which most of the other passengers were small of stature but oddly bulky in their attire. Through whispers on the journey we learned that they were smuggling layers and layers of clothing into Nepal.
Of when I spent days doubled over in pain from amoebic dysentery in Kenya while a riot waged outside our hotel. She organized our clandestine escape from the country.
And so I recall how easily I slipped those keys into the tenant’s palm.
Keys to a box that appears to hold all of that love inside.
My mother and I both dreamed about houses: grand palaces, little shacks floating in a current, ones with Technicolor gardens, ones with hidden rooms that suddenly appeared.
And now, this dream of a house opens its doors to new inhabitants. And I release it, for I am not in the house, the house is in me.
All those memories, just experiences in the long road of eternity. All the Beloved.
All love.
Home art and images: Colleen and Jolene Buchanan
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I am touched…..
Loved this and can relate so well. Thank you.
Whew, Lesley! I was in pain reading this piece by you. Thank you for your courage and willingness to put parts, sometimes painful, of your life on the internet. What stood out for me is the power that memories can demonstrate to solidify attachments to this world, be it people, places or things. I have twenty years of such memories and my experience with negotiating them, and am amazed that they still have an emotional charge.
Another sense-impression for me was a knowingness of your deepest desire to relinquish all in favor of the Highest Ideal. This “desire for the Highest”, for lack of a better phrase, is the surat’s very essence. The mind’s talents lie in keeping our love and attention here, in this world. The soul’s inherent magnetism is towards the Supreme Lord, inward and upward. Therein is our struggle, for all wordly attachments must be encountered and conquered eventually. When the student is ready, the Shabda Master brings the thicker strands of the spider’s web to our attention. This web is world-wide, pun intended. I salute your experience, as more layers and veils are shed.
Al, what you write is beautiful and spot on. As I wrote this, I wasn’t really sure what it was about because it seemed to encompass so much. But even while eating breakfast this morning I was reminded that, “we have to go through the mind to get to soul.” These memories really do have to come up for processing so that they can be put in their rightful place, so that we can say to them, “Yes, you were beautiful, or hard, or whatever,” but you are just a memory and I am choosing my Beloved. I salute your journey right back, dear soul.
The emotional charge that some of our memories have is astounding. Just this morning the Shabda Master has brought up a real life attachment which I, in the past, flippantly regarded as insignificant and miniscule….WRONG!! The manhole cover was thrown off with the buildup of steam pressure within and I exploded in rage. My ego was confronted, exposed and denuded…and it reacted with fire and brimstone. Lesley, we really don’t know what these experiences signify in our karmic bleed-off (love this term), but I am convinced that the juicier the karma, the more painful is the purification. Therefore, fellow traveler, let us both rejoice in His manipulation of our lives for the eventual release of the soul from the lower worlds in their massive entirety. Many blessings, Al
Smiles of pleasure seeing the home of the wee tree dwellers.
Recognition of the lesson He gifts to us all, about where our home truly is, and how we are brought to awareness that the physical is merely a reflection of that Truth.
Mine was brought with fire – the Maneulitas fire of 2001 which destroyed the two dwellings next to mine. I was given the opportunity to save my physical space only after I’d relinquished my need to do so. Now it is His space, that I occupy for as long as He wishes me to be here.
The memories, the acquired wisdom, are within and therefore everywhere, without connection to space – or to time. We are thus so blessed.
Niki, my response to the tree dwellers was pure joy as well. I was happy that Colleen agreed to let me post them.
What an experience that must have been to release your house in the face of that fire. I seem to need release after release from my hold on my earthly home. Fortunately the Beloved has graced me with many kind lessons such as this one in order to show me, as you so eloquently say: The memories, the acquired wisdom, are within and therefore everywhere, without connection to space – or to time. We are thus so blessed.
Oh Lesley, I have been overcome by waves of emotion as I read this piece. It brought back so many memories of my own that I keep tucked away. Thanks for sharing your incredible gift of love, and life.
Beautiful sharing, Lesley.
Thank you. It moved my emotions too, for you, for your mom, beautiful Barbara, for memories of my own folks, their house we sold this summer.
Yet very different memories which just goes to illuminate how we each have our own unique path back to the Beloved, back Home
The waves of grief I now understand are merely waves of letting go of the past, so that I can live fully in the present.
Really enjoyed the pictures of the pixie homes too, which may inspire me for activities with my granddaughters at some point.
I am grateful for your open giving, your wonderful writing talent
HU hug, Sheila
Beautiful surrender sweetheart! Just listening to a tape today about how much courage it takes to walk a Light and Sound Path ………and you exhibit that so perfectly. Thank you for your courage in walking the front lines with the Beloved……..”It is not easy, but it is simple”
so much Love!
Brilliant Lesley. Thank you.
bless you, dear Lesley!!
You are so fortunate to have this experience of family. Many lessons
The house doesn’t hold the love inside, dear Lesley, you hold it within you.
You are/were blessed with a wonderful mom and magical memories.
Thankyou for giving us a glimpse of such wonder.
Thank you, Lesley, for this beautiful post and for the glimpse it gives us of the richness of your extraordinary relationship with your mother.
Much love
♥ loved reading this piece. Thanks
Lesley, this piece of writing took my breath away! I have been reflecting lately on the cocoons of our lives, and the gorgeous metaphors they give us of our own emerging soul. Our bodies, our families, our work, our loves — our homes — are all sanctuaries until we are given understanding and courage enough to see past them to a freedom beyond. Only after the experience is over can we see clearly enough to grasp that the karmic chains were forged of the coins of wisdom, and they are our own unique gifts. The statement that you are not in the house — the house is in you describes and summarizes this royal journey we are all on. I continue to be agog at your perception and your courage to share it. This article is a true Thanksgiving gift, and the touching comments it has generated bear out our gratitude. Profound thanks!
Cherish then release. It is like giving birth in that it happens in waves until the new is born. I love very much the way you wrote about your attachment to your mothers house and those memories <3 big long hug <3
Lesley, What a beautiful reminder of the beauty and complexity of meaningful relationships…and the rich learning they bring.
I’m grateful for your insights.