Scars

It has been a long ass day.

I’m sitting at the kitchen table fighting the urge to throw my computer across the room.

Expectation is the mother of all frustration says Antonio Banderas.

Technology can be such a nemesis. I agree with Dave Barry, “user” is the word used by the computer professional when they mean “idiot.”

I’m struggling (utterly insufficient) to connect with the servers at Notre Dame so I can adjust lesson plans and fiddle with my files. This is why I’ve been living at my office lately, I’m beginning to resemble the form of my chair (wide and squarish), because it has become my most intimate relationship. It rocks, and swivels, so there’s that.

My computer could be more encouraging. You know, instead of “invalid password”, why not something like, “Ooooh, you’re so close!”? Lisa Porter

The scars on the hardwood floors in the kitchen capture my attention (or shall we say divert), I can picture the kids rollerblading from kitchen to dining room, with hockey sticks they found under the Christmas tree, a bright red puck passing from player to player. It was late December, too cold to play outside, so we laid the chairs on their side to act as goals, while Larry and I slipped off to the family room for a much needed cup of coffee. The noise and confusion all part of the fun until someone got smacked in the face with a hockey stick. I have to say the amount of blood was surprising.

This is family. Our most basic domestic unit, where one learns empathy and compassion, or rejection and apathy, hope and faith, or hate and mistrust. Greg Boyle says, children find themselves adrift not because the informational signposts are illegible, but because there is no one around to guide and accompany them. I’ve often considered what it would be like to grow up in an impoverished environment, not impoverished as in poor, but impoverished as in lacking the opportunity to experience love. How would that affect my ability to maneuver in this world. I believe the impact would be significant and possibly inescapable in the long run.

I don’t want to perpetuate stereotypes about middle-aged people who compulsively reminisce about the past, struggle with technology, and grouse about change, but that hockey game happened at least two decades ago, and now I’m more inclined to preserve the scarred floors, then sand away a potent memory.

“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.” Cormac McCarthy

Life is a crucible. Is it not? A place or situation in which different elements interact to produce something new. I think memories are strange because we don’t really capture a memory as much as we interpret a past event and then ascribe some sort of meaning to the experience. It is these interpretations or attached meanings that define who and what we are because we go about life collecting evidence to confirm and validate these interpretations. It a vicious cycle. This is why I write. I’m trying to ascribe meaning to something that is perhaps meaningless. This could be a midlife crisis, let’s move on.

In a workshop on curriculum development from Facing History and Ourselves I read an important story. It peels the onion a bit, opening up wounds we’ve all endured, and urges us to question our most basic need to belong. I want so desperately to understand why people do the things they do? Especially intentional cruelty. Don’t you? But that requires coming face to face with my own failure to love, honestly I’d rather sand, and cover with a dark shellac.

“I also have a memory of a different kind. There was another girl in our class who was perhaps even more rejected than I. She also tried harder than I did for acceptance, providing the group with ample material for jokes. One day during lunch I was sitting outside watching a basketball game. One of the popular girls in the class came up to me to show me something she said I wouldn’t want to miss. We walked to a corner of the playground where a group of three or four sat. One of them read aloud from a small book, which I was told was the girl’s diary. I sat down and, laughing till my sides hurt, heard my voice finally blend with the others. Looking back, I wonder how I could have participated in mocking this girl when I knew perfectly well what it felt like to be mocked myself. I would like to say that if I were in that situation today I would react differently, but I can’t honestly be sure. Often being accepted by others is more satisfying than being accepted by oneself, even though the satisfaction does not last. Too often our actions are determined by the moment.” Eve Shalen

I know what it feels like to be an outcast, to be rejected, for no apparent reason other than I was someone the “in” crowd decided to spurn. Eve Shalen questions, it’s as if the outcasts were invented by the group out of a need for them? She goes on to say differences between us do not cause hatred, hatred causes differences between us. It was a disorienting experience to be rejected until a trusted companion wisely counseled, “do you really want any of those people to be your friends?” And I realized rejection can be a gift if you’re open to new relationships, ones that might be more authentic, and life-giving. I wonder if I would have allowed myself to be pulled back in, given the opportunity, and if I was honest I believe I would have run right back to the hornets nest. #truth

“Forget that old adage ‘forgive and forget.’ It’s an impossible standard. The human heart never forgets its pain. We can and often do choose to forgive and heal and move on. But the scars remain. Like words pounded out on an old typewriter leave impressions that can never truly be erased, the heart remembers.” L.R. Knost

Humans leave scars on each other, on their communities, on the world. Maybe it is our longing to be remembered? Or possibly the result of not allowing our hearts to become attached? A blatant failure to love. Regardless, they are powerful reminders, our actions have consequences, intended or not. Maybe that is where we begin? With the scars, with the stories, with the wisdom that comes directly from the heart? A heart that can see what is invisible to the eye, exposing our deepest fears, that of isolation and loneliness.

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” Kahlil Gibran

I’m Living in the Gap, drop by anytime, we’ll talk wound care.

Anecdotes:

The kitchen is the heart of every home, for the most part. It evokes memories of your family history. Debi Mazar
I think we spend so much of our lives trying to pretend that we know what’s going to happen next. In fact we don’t. To recognize that we don’t know even what will happen this afternoon and yet having the courage to move forward – that’s one meaning of faith. Sharon Salzberg
A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.” Leonard Cohen

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Previously published on CherylOreglia

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