The Swinging Pendulum
For sanity’s sake, I choose to believe in Emerson. His compelling essay “Compensation” offers hope that wrongs will be righted, and that good deeds—and diligence— will be rewarded. In other words, do the right things and the universe will restore balance: gifts and burdens are the extremes on the spectrum, the balance is the middle and the universe always returns to this. I sure hope so; the news around the world shows the pendulum swinging in the wrong direction. Add to that our own daily struggles to feel balanced, and we need all the wisdom we can find.
The month of July has both gifted and burdened me. The nadir came when my dear husband ended up in emergency surgery, with veins sliced out of his legs to replace three failed arteries in his heart. A surprise to us, especially since he sees a cardiologist yearly. But when he felt a tightness in his shoulders and chest, he knew to respond immediately and a heart attack was averted. A reminder that life is unpredictable and can change “on a dime”. He had been feeling fine and staying busy with his music and other projects, without a hint of what was happening inside his not so steadily beating heart. His recovery is going well, although it will take a few months to even get back to ground zero in energy.
My husband’s surgery reminded me of the important things in this time of my life, which did not necessarily include the blind drive and determination I have had these last two years of finding a publisher for my memoir, to get over that one offer which came apart in negotiations. I had to rethink and rework my writing life. The obsession of searching for the perfect publisher for my book has to take a backseat.
The publishing industry is on the feast end of the spectrum right now. Acquisition editors slog their way through piles of submissions to find the next great book. Many presses and agents are closed to submissions. It’s an overwhelming time that requires patience from writers and publishers alike, along with diligence and trust in the universal balance. I’m looking forward to great books to read, but can’t help but think of those that will fall by the wayside in the frenzy.
Another upside to letting my obsession go is that I am also able to set free the ghosts that have been with me since I began my book. When I first began researching my family’s story in 2016, I accumulated more questions than answers. Years of digging brought satisfaction for some of the unknowns, but too many had to go unanswered because the ones who knew the truth were dead. They became ghosts in my psyche, ones I have dragged around for all these years, hoping they would speak. Hoping for those revelations that kept eluding me. When I stayed at my maternal family’s home, the medieval tower in Bavaria where everything began, I would lie awake nights hoping the walls would talk. Several times a year I would go, be hopeful, and leave no wiser.
So, what I did know, I wrote about. What I didn’t, I openly speculated on the possibilities based on the facts I did know. But there are truths that will never be known. These haunted me. Some of the truths deal with my life directly, and those have been the most difficult to let go. My mother and I needed to talk about the beginning of my life, the choices she made, and why she made them. Our prickly relationship didn’t allow the conversation to happen, and then it was too late. She too, became a ghost I have been hanging on to. I’ve determined to let her go. To let them all go in peace.
I don’t need to know more; I know enough to understand, to forgive, and hopefully leave a balance in their legacies that was not there before: the balance of acceptance.
P.S.
Another gift from July is a new professional website! Designed to offer an expansion of all my writings, my children’s books are now featured on the new site, along with a couple of the anthologies I was fortunate to be included in. At heart I’m an essayist and am back to writing creative nonfiction. My blog is now called Ruminations. If you are receiving this, you signed up at some point to receive my (somewhat) monthly thoughts on writing, family, and life’s liminal spaces. I welcome comments—just drop me a line on the contact form.
