Stories And Wishes

“Once upon a time…”

Those words, flowing from the mouth of my mother or a school teacher, or rising off the page to meet me — those words were enough to fill me with the most immediate of joys. A story was beginning. Troubles were coming for the young hero. A battle of some sort was about to be joined. Disaster would come so close. And then good would win the day, and with the end of the story would come relief…and the desire to hear it again.

I suspect that many people today think of their lives as a movie, starring themselves, complete with soundtrack and innovative camera angles. But do they think of their lives as a story? I do think of my life as a story, not a movie, but perhaps I am out of touch with others in this way of thinking.

This summer, I watched the vegetables grow in the kitchen garden, and the flowers in their plots and pots. When these things came to fruition — the sun-warmed globes of tomatoes, the great nodding sunflowers with plate-sized faces, the petunias with their Harmon-Ising smiley faces, the bee-witching blossoms of the peach trees and blackberry vines — they were almost otherworldly in their beauty. And none of them resembled the soil in which they grew. The substance that held them, supported them, nourished them, protected them, fed them…the good nutritious dirt did its part but it left no map of kinship on the plants that sprang from its bosom. No vegetable nor flower nor even weed resembled the soil in the slightest way.

And I wonder if the life to come will be something so different from this life that has held me, supported me, nourished me, etc.

Is this earthly life, this incarnation, for want of another term, the soil in which my spirit is growing? Or is the simile too clumsy?

I have it within me to be deeply dishonest. But I can be honest about this: I wish my life were free of suffering, of doubts, of dread.

And I wish I did not wish this sort of thing.

~ S.K. Orr