A Shy Inner Light

Today's post is precariously multifaceted. Let me see if I can make sense of both these faces.

I just finished reading Kim Edwards' The Lake of Dreams. Several Many times while reading, I wondered why I had selected to download this book. Then, a third or a half of the way in, the content grabbed me.

When I look back at the Audible.com description of the book, I think I was drawn in by "secrets" and "glass artist". But what hooked me was the little girl who had been abandoned by her mother. I walked in her shoes—but also in the shoes of the mother—as I continued reading.

Lots of feelings surfaced—of abandonment; of wondering what was happening for my birthmother in 1949 Gloucester; of examining how I could have handled my untenable marriage differently in 1980; of the sometimes-perceived emotional imbalance that trails a life of feeling like I don't belong, I don't fit in.

Then this morning I read the latest blog post by my artist friend Lynne Farrow. [Lynne and I are fellow alumnae of the "Design Outside the Lines" seminars hosted by designers Marcy Tilton and Diane Ericson.] Lynne's post today includes a quote from author John O'Donohue:

There is a quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no attention to itself, though it is always secretly there. It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility and our hearts to love life. Without this subtle quickening our days would be empty and wearisome and no horizon would ever awaken our longing. Our passion for life is quietly sustained from somewhere in us that is wedded to the energy and excitement of life. This shy inner light is what enables us to recognize and receive our very presence as a blessing. We enter the world as strangers who all at once become heirs to a harvest of memory, spirit and dream that has long preceded us and will now enfold, nourish and sustain us.

The phrase "shy inner light" grabbed me. I posted a photo the other day on Facebook of 3- or 4-year-old Jan sitting with her mother. Sober Jan. A friend of mine commented, upon viewing the photo, that I was so serious. Well, I remember my childhood as being serious.

I went to school, where the only place I felt accepted was on the piano bench, accompanying choruses and singers. I went home and practiced piano, then read or worked jigsaw puzzles while listening to music. There were no other kids in our neighborhood—I didn't play with the neighbor kids. There was no television. My brothers took each other water skiing or through the chain of lakes to downtown Winter Park in the boat. My brothers were five and seven years older than I and had no time for me. My mother was always in the kitchen—there was no interaction with her. I grew up alone, feeling totally out of place. I lived inside my head.

(I loved the picture of me as a baby because I was smiling. Little four- or five-month-old me was still in the honeymoon phase with this family who had taken me on. They still found me cute, sweet, lovable, desireable. Soon the honeymoon/honeymood would end, and I would start fearing that the slightest misstep would cause them to seek to annul the adoption.)

When I stop and wonder how I got to today, to age 60, it must have been that "shy inner light" which O'Donohue recognizes, that enabled me to hope for a better future, for a tiny space somewhere in this world where I might fit in.

I am thankful for those tiny spaces that have occurred.

Thank you, Lynne, for a beautiful post.