“LOVE OF NATURE AND THE END OF THE WORLD”

This will be a sort of in-between posts.
Such readings usually invite us to dive into our own little worlds, our personal memories.  «Our sense of home» (Nicholsen, 2003, p.36).
I realized in Creative writing class that I could never write poetically in English. Should I say poetry at all perhaps, since I have no claim of being able to do so in French either. For poetry to emerge I believe means listening carefully to your senses, which is something each of us can do, if we choose to engage in it. And then we can express ourselves in many various forms.  But in terms of writing, what happens if you can’t name things, impressions, feelings; what if the metaphors don’t exist in your mind, in your body, to make the connections between your thoughts, your senses (I voluntarily don’t use your soul) and your language. When your mind almost needs a dictionary to be able to think and share it sensitively.  Or at least with a common language.   Should it be thought of as being our own voice, no matter who is listening? Perhaps, then, you can turn to other forms of expressions but the verbal.  Creativity is such a vast and complex part of ourselves.  Just as it is life finally.

I started wondering if speaking with the heart could be done in another tongue then the one gifted to you as a child, your mother’s natural way to reach out to you and to say how much she loves you (or for some experiences, the opposite, an inability to do so.) Reading Nicholsen offered a path to these musings, «the vividness and loss of it (childhood) are connected with the fact that this is not a world of words». We see poetry all around us. Poetry isn’t all colorful, but it still feels like deep beauty to me.  It brings us to life, love, emotions, memories. It brings awareness. It often brings me to sense my mom.

How people saw or were not able interacting with the «Alzheimer-self of my mom» was something they truly missed.  She had learned « a mysteriously living silence» (1) she was initially so afraid of.  Of loosing the ability to talk, to recognize the ones she loved, to forget her own stories, her past, to forget how to say how much she loved me, she would say. Starting to read Shierry Weber Nicholsen’s, which Renee recommended as an optional but meaningful reading, reaching chapter 2, I knew I couldn’t write poetically.  I lacked words, but not emotions and reading often brought those emotions to the surface, as much nature does for me.  And it was also part of the reason I was here for.  A story which starts in childhood, like for all of us. My life with my mom is a long beautiful journey, I cherish so deeply.  Since childhood, it helped me feel love for all other beings, I am sure of that, from my friends and our children, for our little -tribe-, to strangers, to all species, to nature itslef. To feel our connection to the world.  A journey she gave me, and which brought me here as well.  She gave me words to speak for myself, they were French, but the words of love she would say either.  I keep being fascinated and grateful how those were the only words she never forgot. I love you. I love you to. And July is a month I always think of both my parents. I adored my dad who said he would wait til I he could celebrate a last birthday and wait for me to be back before choosing to leave us to ourselves. I was convinced I would marry my dad until I was around 6 or 7. I even asked my mom if she was okay with that. She smiled and said of course she was. It later brought me to see how things repeat themselves. My daughter asked me, when she was maybe...4, if women could marry.  Her aunt had a girlfriend.  Like my mom I said -of course they can, and she said : Because I want to marry you...  How can you not trust the power of love when such unconditional thoughts are expressed.

Maybe for the same reasons Nicholsen had chosen those words for her chapter : «The love of nature and the end of the world.» In my mom’s case, the end of her known safe world, the one of her spoken words, of memory, and feeling connected. Loving my mom so deeply probably helped me to reconnect with my own «separate self».  She was like a little bird who could not sing anymore, wondering why.  Reading Nicholsen say we were «made of the same stuff as the rest of the world» has always been a profound feeling as a child. It quickly became a meaningful reality. One we can now name «the whole», the «interconnectedness».  The link. But the «same stuff as the rest» was quite clear.  We have all say goodbye to the child within at our own pace. I perhaps never completely did, until my mother said goodbye herself. The «sense of home» (p.35) I had always tried to find inside me, needed all that love to be fed and hopefully found. Hoping to provide our own children a «home» which would help them become a «self.» (p.41) I was also thinking I really wanted my forever struggle to give them with that sense of self, a future to trust that self could flourish.

Well, well…I am not reading this over. I let go. Hoping it’s not heavy to read. Personal stuff do us good but can be not so interesting for others to read.

(1) Colette Richard cited by Shierry Weber Nicholsen.
Nicholsen, S.W. (2003). Chapters 1, 5 & 6. In For the Love of Nature and the End of the World: the unspoken dimensions of environmental concern (pp.7-33, 129-159, 161-194). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.