Someone leaned in close to my ear and mumbled a few words of ".... should be writing in her journal..." so here i am back again. It's seems so hard to find the time to actually do a post lately, and when i do, then i feel i should be apologizing. i guess that is what i am doing now. Perhaps as the future gets sorted into a more orderly, and happier time, i will become more consistent. 'Course, i know i can count on the gentle prodding from Master to keep things up.
It is nearly two weeks since Madame Butterfly died. i am slowly acknowledging that she really is gone, but i am still in an emotional confusion as to how i feel about her. More and more i am wrestling with bitterness, and yet sadness as well. "They" say one of the stages of grief is anger. i can feel the animosity building within me, and i am struggling not to allow it to take over some of the better parts of my past with her. i'm finding it really difficult though.
i feel like a part of the time i am sharing with Master is a time of healing. He seems to have a way of letting me vent the demons, without allowing me to zoom off too deeply into them. He's like an anchor; i am safe knowing that i can trust Him not to let me float away.
my uncle played the bagpipes. He taught his 3 eldest sons to play as well, and his 3 daughters to the dance. Madame Butterfly always liked this, and especially loved when He would play "Amazing Grace". i am particularly fond of the bagpipes as well and especially this song, although we were virtually overdosed with it as children. Madame Butterfly had my aunt sew a kilt for me, made with the family tartan, which is black watch plaid. i remember being about 8 or 9 years old and feeling so proud when i wore it to school.
She had my cousin, my uncles' second son, perform for each of her children's' weddings. It was always "Amazing Grace". (This was the same cousin who was asked to play during the performance of Brigadoon, which i had been so impressed by.) i remember being angry with my mother however, because i had expressly asked her not to do this when i married my first husband. i was caught in the ideals of that time, or rather my fiancées' imposed ones, being that when one marries into a French family, bagpipes don't belong. Silly of me now that i think of it, and in truth, it ended up being a very nice touch that everyone enjoyed.
Many years went by before i heard my cousin play again. The last time was at my father's funeral, seven years ago. i found it odd that no-one had organized for the pipes to be played at my mother's funeral, given that she was the one most taken with the idea in the first place. Now i wonder if i should have tried, perhaps if only to carry on a "family" tradition. Lord knows, that was definitely something lacking in our upbringing. Perhaps Madame Butterfly's insistence upon the bagpipes being present during "events" was her feeble attempt at establishing them.
Master played a cd the other night, as we were having quiet time after a particularly intense scene. Something i greatly needed. His timing is impeccable, and His ability to read my moods a bit uncanny; He always seems to know exactly when the demons need to be exorcised, and how to do it. Lucky me :) Anyway, there was a version of "Amazing Grace" performed on this cd and it reeled me back to my past. i started to cry a bit, turning my face away from Him, as the memories returned. Yet it didn't last long, as i realized that there is something about the music, and that song, which calms me, and i have decided that this is the point i need to concentrate on.
Sometimes it seems the smallest things can have the largest impacts on one's life.
One my small things:
i am moving. i suppose i will get into more of this topic at a later date. So much has changed since i have changed. And i am smiling right now realizing that i think i just found the key to why my life is so altered. So simple, and yet pretty darn profound to me! "i have changed". Heh! i feel like i should be at one of those groups right now, sitting in a circle and saying; "my name is janine .. and i have changed." Okay, a bunch of silliness, i know.
Anyway. my one small thing is this. The first item i had thought of packing, after i finally made this moving decision, is my piggy bank. It is in the shape of a pig of course, and was was given to me when i was very, very young. i remember being terribly impressed by it. i also never put more than a few coins in it, because unless it is broken, there isn't any way of getting the money back out. And it was much to important to me to break it. So, it became, and still is, a "large impact" on me.
i was willing to sacrifice the true function of this pig, in order to keep it intact. To my young eye, it was a thing of beauty, fragile and precious, and worthy of my protection. And even to this day, i am compelled to continue protecting it. But it isn't the pig i am protecting anymore. It is the lesson i learned, of protecting that which is important to oneself, and the feelings it invoked in me. And because i am now realizing this, i am still learning as well.
So that is how a"small" piggybank has had a "large impact" on me.
Weirdness on a thanksgiving monday.