Home to Myself

On Friday I took a half day from work, and I packed a few things into a paper bag, being too pressed for time to go to the basement for my small suitcase. I hadn’t done laundry in weeks, and I also was hard pressed to find anything to pack. But I had to be off. After making sure Megan had groceries, I was on my way to Owatonna by 2:00 pm. Kathleen and I were scheduled to present again (for the fourth time) at the Women & Spirituality Conference in Mankato Saturday afternoon, the keynote was Saturday morning. We needed Friday evening to prepare. 

This was a convergence of selfs of sorts for me, driving back to Owatonna, where I’d raised my three daughters, pretty much by myself, back to Owatonna, where my sister still lives, even though we rarely even talk any more, (we once were best friends), I still feel sad and confused when I think about it, and always wonder, should I call her? I don’t, though, because when I do, it brings me even further back into who we were and it feels so stuck, that sometimes it takes me days to come back to myself. So, when I get to Owatonna, to Kathleen’s, to the house that used to be mine, it takes a lot out of me to stay present. 

Kathleen doesn’t get this. She is either too young, or too well adjusted (I’d like to think), to understand the hollows of my head, the trails that lead into a forest of frustration and sometimes fear that was once my life. She will never know the lost feelings I had, wandering through the systems of school that nearly swallowed Megan up, driving down dark country roads that bore no resemblance of the home I had known in the city. Of wondering how I’d gotten there, where my marriage and love went wrong, how I could have ended up with so much responsibility and so few resources. 

She just knows that I’m not the most present, not like she’d like me to be. But I do my best. We get our presentation together, and I will admit that yes, Kathleen does most of the work, but she’s like that, it’s the instructor in her, however, I did put together most of the art supplies for the vision boards we’d have our attendees create. It is always a relief once we arrive, one more year, and we have arrived at this place in time, to create together. And when we are inside the auditorium on the campus, it is just the space that Kathleen and I have been to, together, for years now. It too, is the place where Kathleen attended University, and where she taught for years. Places hold us this way, they hold our past, sometimes our future, sometimes our pain, sometimes our dreams. 

The presenter was Andrea Smith, who spoke of reclaiming our power, of creating radical relationship, of how government, with it’s power over power, seduces us with promises to help, and in this way takes away our own personal power. We gather to do good work, and then end up begging for grants, in such a way that the good work ends up being lost in the hopes for the cash to finance it. The words resonated with me, as I walk my walk in the world. A good reminder of which power to walk in, the power of hope and of healing, the power of connection. Our workshop went well, creating a new presence of hope in the small room where we gathered. Our workshop was called holding out hope, change and resilience in women’s lives. Together we held out hope. I love my daughter, and in those moments love myself, love my life.