How complicit are you?
Remember the eagle feathering the nest superficially so that the nest becomes a crown of thorns and the baby bird must fly away? The mama eagle sits there with empty nest syndrome – suffering from her own doing.
That didn’t really happen. The mama eagle did not suffer. Her job was done, and she let it go. Mary Oliver wrote: To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and when the time comes to let it go, to let it go …
I’ve been guilty of clinging. I cling to indignity, flying monkeys as well as the double bind of manipulators because I was raised up to be a fixer. You have a problem with me, with them, with life – let me fix that for you. Oof – it’s exhausting work.
I broke two teeth when I was 61 years old. The second one concerned me, and I asked the dentist what was going on, fearing a darker root cause. He said, “Your teeth are old.” Clinging gets old too. You wake up one day dragging the same old ball and chain of your insecurities and developed habits and you can’t move.
You hear people tell you they are doing the work. But for a fixer, the real work doesn’t start until the person you are fixing starts doing the work and suddenly you realize, you’re lagging way behind. You’ve come up with so many reasons and skills to deflect being vulnerable that you are a bad actor in your own show.
My son started doing the work, which held a glaring mirror up for me to look at myself and say, Rachel, you’ve got work to do.
No one hands out individual textbooks to you when you’re born, it’s all lived experience, and if you’re lucky, you get a son who comes into the world like a speedball – more alive than you – and he calls down into the vast cavern you have tucked yourself into and says, “You coming or what?”
So this is me being vulnerable.
photo by Marian Glaser – Marian lives in Bay Saint Louis, MS and is an artist and a friend. She has been capturing the eagles and birds that make their home here.