Destruction-Creation

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I have returned from our summer vacation and we are gently settling in to a slow summer rhythm. I will be posting from time to time this summer, but focusing more attention on my kids than blogging since they are home all day. I am the kind of Mom who LOVES this aspect of summer...we are not big on summer camp...but lazy days hanging out, enjoying each others company. I have a zillion photos to share...many (maybe too many?) of the gorgeous skies I observed between NH and MD.

This week, however my attention is divided and part of the focus is on Tisha b'Av (the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av) as we remember the destruction of the Temple...and many other terrible losses throughout the ages. Jews around the world read Eicha, the book of Lamentations...we fast. It is a time of mourning for what has been lost... it is a time to come together as a community to grieve. I will not offer a history lesson here...just my-story. The simple pleasures of summer living are interrupted by sadness. This is the way of living is it not? Joy and grieving co-mingling, each informing the other, opening us to gratitude in equally important ways.

I cannot but think of my own personal losses...the destruction of myelin that once protected my nerves and allowed my body to function as it should...the desecration of my body through the disease process of Multiple Sclerosis. In between the heights of love and joy I have been spending significant time grieving this past year and a half...awakening more and more to the fullness of my humanity...to the engaged experience of living. I uploaded my photos from our family vacation and over and over again I am drawn to a series I captured at around 5am...(one of the oddities of MS for me is that I wake up very early-sometimes 4, or 4:30 even though I'm always tired!!!) The first photo reminds me of the story of the second day of creation as recorded in the Torah-the separation of the waters from the waters...I can imagine the first Divine viewing of the seas below and sky above.


In my immediate experience, rolling clouds and waves became more distinct with the continuous emergence of light filling the sky, a blush of pink illuminating the ocean, the water and light kissing the shore.



What I see above/beneath/through each image is a powerful force beyond my small self that certainly can destroy, like a wave erasing what had moments before been etched into the sand, yet with each braking wave a new line, (a new story?) is carved into the beach. Destruction becomes Creation.


And so it is with my life...a loss opens me to new ways of being, of seeing, of listening...deepens love and appreciation for friends, for family, for the beauty of Creation, for Divine presence. I am walking more now each day in the mornings when the temperature is relatively cool. I can successfully walk about a mile now...It is an amazing feeling! My voice is mostly back to normal, except when I am hot or fatigued. Gordon and I keep wondering how much of my improved health is medication? How much is simply time? Or is it the blessing of summer light stimulating my brain? Probably a combination of all of the above... but I really love the thought that light has the capacity to heal. I was not able to go on the beach at our condo...it was way too hot and far for me to walk the width of the beach to the waters edge. I truly enjoyed our balcony for the first time in 30 years.


Not that I hadn't always admired the view, but it was so different for me this time. I was fully present to the experience of seeing from the height of the eighteenth floor, with and without my camera, because that was my connection to sea, sky and sand. I did not think my feet would have an opportunity to sink into the sand and water. (Until this very moment as I am writing this entry, I never thought about the significance of our apartment being on the 18th floor...the number 18 is written with the letters chet and yod in Hebrew...it spells chai...life. Wow!)

On a slightly cooler and gently breezy day, we took a little boat ride out to Assateague...and I was able to step carefully off the gangplank and onto the sand...a joy I did not believe to be attainable for me this summer...but it was!

I leave you with this last image...perhaps not an aesthetically pleasing photo, but one of deep significance for me.

This is a valuable lesson I am receiving from Tisha b'Av...rising again through the destruction, the grieving, I find myself still able to stand with my feet upon the shore (and though there are tremendous gains in understanding and treating MS, perhaps even a cure down the line one day, at this time losing my ability to walk is a real possibility)...I recognize the strong metaphor standing on the edge of the sea offers and trust completely that if at some point I can no longer physically get up again on my own, I will be shown another way to understand the beauty of living. Destruction of one thing will become the creation of something else.

Gentle steps my friends,
Laura