"Beginning"

This feather was my first blog post.  I gave it away recently, and somehow felt like it flew to the right home at the right time.  I don't give things like this away very often because it represents two firsts.  First blog post and first art after a long break from creative things.  I like to keep firsts like this because it reminds me of my mental and emotional state at a different time in my life.

I really don't need things to remind me of the past, but sometimes a thing, or smell, or taste can bring that past up quicker and closer than just mentally trying to regrasp it.  I can imagine the sound of Grandma in the kitchen stirring cookie batter with a stainless steel spoon in a heavy glass bowl, and the metallic tink can remind me of the warm sunlight streaming through the white bordered windows in the turquoise room and the smell of vanilla...

When I was laid off, I had a lot of time to relive those kinds of moments.  I liked to write about them, and it seemed like people liked to read them to remind them of their own memories.  Since I've been working all the time lately, now I enjoy hearing about other people's happy childhood memories because it's a short-cut to my happy feelings.

Different pictures flit through my mind of crayfish hiding under algae-covered rocks, Mom's Chanel #5, Dad carving in the garage, my sisters laughing in the yard, red Kool-aid... the pictures come and go in my mind without any real pattern or story, just the bits of color in the pattern of my life.

Today, I told friends about being pushed into a 3rd grade math class when I was still in 1st grade.  I cried when I told the principal "I'm not emotionally mature enough for 3rd grade!" and surprised myself today when my eyes filled with tears again.  Maybe I'll never be emotionally mature enough for 3rd grade?

In the grand scheme of things, this was a little moment -- but it was a first moment too.  The beginnings of feelings of being out of step with the world around me.  I think everybody has them in one way or another, and we don't always get to go back to first grade and learn to adjust as I had the chance to do, with friendly, happy kids accepting me back into their flock.

I don't know how to understand "beginning".  The world is infinite, and infinity is beyond me.  I don't know where the beginning of space or time or God is.  The acorn is the beginning of a tree, but it's a bit of the tree that dropped it, so maybe the beginning of the tree isn't the acorn or the whole line of acorns and trees before it, but something that is so far beyond my sense of reality that it all blurs into... okay, this is probably why I get told to quit thinking so much?

The word for the week is "beginning".  The feather was my beginning into blogging.  'Nuff said?