YOUR STORY MATTERS
Living Your Life in the Most Awesome Way Possible
By
Jo Davis
“Find out who you are and live it on purpose.”
-- Dolly Parton
1
Your Story Matters
YOUR STORY MATTERS
Living Your Life in the Most Awesome Way Possible
By
Jo Davis
“Find out who you are and live it on purpose.”
-- Dolly Parton
1
Your Story Matters
Once upon a time in a little town of Mt. Vernon, Illinois a baby was born to a 16-year-old girl. A doctor and his nurse came to their house to attend to the girl. During delivery, the girl said she wished he would get that chloroform out from beneath her nose so she could get a good breath. The father said he followed the stream to see the sex of the baby, and the girl’s mother excitedly announced that it was a girl.
The baby girl grew up to be me.
“I loved the little girl that I was. I chose my parents. Sorry mom, that you were so young, and sorry dad, if you felt shanghaied, but you did have a choice in the matter.
It's May 1, 2023. I'm in my office looking out the window at a Pink Dogwood tree in full flower. When we moved here 6 years ago, that tree was cut down to its bare bones, a trunk, and five branches. I wondered why the previous owners had cut that tree so severely, and I had no inkling what sort of tree it was. For the last couple of years, it has branched, leafed, and revealed itself to be pink dogwood, one of my favorite trees.
It's an old tree; the truck is large, and its blossoms are smaller than the young trees I see about town. But it is gorgeous, alive, and flourishing. I love it.
That tree tells me something about age and how living creatures can bounce back and thrive again. It doesn't worry. It just keeps growing and going through its cycles.
I curtained off an area for an office in the outbuilding beside the dogwood tree. The building was once a dance studio and still has mirrors on one wall and around a corner. We used it for storage until my daughter placed a desk there for herself and used it for a time. Now, in my curtained area, I have a comfortable little office. The heater under my desk keeps my feet warm, and my little dog, Sweetpea, sleeps in front of it. My computer is in front of a window, and my view is of the pink dogwood and the main house's backyard.
I have decided to write while the blossoms are on the tree. I'm aiming for 50,000 words. It will be a race between the flowers and me.
When I told a friend that Natalie Goldberg (in Old Friend from Far Away) said that a memoir doesn't have to be an old person's story; it can be for those moments that take our breath away. My friend asked what such a moment that would be for me.
"My first kiss," I said.
I was a tall girl and felt self-conscious about it in high school when all the cute little girls were making out with their boyfriends in the hallways, but I had a boyfriend who took me out of all that and wrote sonnets about me being five feet nine with eyes that shine. He gave me my first kiss.
His sister, about ten years older than him, bet he would kiss a girl before he was sixteen. He held out as long as he could, kissed me, and said, "There goes five bucks."
We know individuals who have accomplished great things and become famous or notorious. They lived illustrious lives. Yet, as they have walked through fire, so have you. As surely as they have lived notable lives, so have you. Therefore, I am encouraging you to write about your life. Your life is important. You are important. But first read this, for you will be a different person at the end. Not that my words will have changed you, but your introspection will.
After accumulating a life of observations, teachings, and study, those learnings shouldn't be locked up in a trunk and buried 150 feet down. (I’m thinking of the supposed treasure buried at Oak Island.)
Maybe you didn’t bury the Arc of the Covenant, but you accumulated a lifetime of insights, observations, and teachings, but you have a story to tell and information to bestow. We need to hear it, and you need to tell it.
I speak of ordinary things imbibed with great magic. Now, don’t get me wrong about magic—I use the word metaphysically. I know physics is at work. I also understand that something divine is swirling around us.
Lynne McTaggart, in her book, The Field, says that "Science is put together piece by piece. We build on what we learned before." It was the same in writing this book—piece by piece. It’s the same about life, and it’s the same with spiritual study. Sometimes, one of our theories needs a facelift. Sometimes, they just need fine-tuning or additional information. Sometimes they are spot on.
Psychologist Abraham Maslow called what I am calling magical, "Peak Experiences."
I believe magic dropped on my little dog and me the day we came to this newly purchased empty house to deliver some delicate glassware.
After I filled the cupboard, I walked into the back bedroom, and from the window, I was astounded to see a peacock sitting on the fence. I yelled for Sweetpea. "Sweetpea!" "Come look, a Peacock! I can't believe it. There's a peacock on our fence!"
Sweetpea ran around trying to figure out what was so astounding to me, and probably doubted my sanity. That peacock was my third peacock associated with an empty house.
If that isn’t magic, I don’t know what is.
What does it mean?
I am not near a luxurious estate where peacocks grace the grounds, or on a tropical island where a peacock might fly in from a hotel. It was a frosty December day, in the quiet little neighborhood of Junction City, Oregon, and there was a peacock sitting on my fence. I don’t care where it came from, who owned it, or if it was a neighbor’s. It was on my fence shortly before Christmas, a time, I learned later, that he normally has no tail and stays hidden.
(More on peacocks later on.)
I intended to ask this question before I got carried away with peacocks:
"Why are so many folks disenchanted and depressed while my parents' generation lived through the horrific Second World War and came out relatively sane and happy?"
We were victorious, that helped, of course, however, there was something else. There was hope.
Without hope, if we believe that the future will not be better than the present and might even be worse, we spiritually die.
We have it backward. The opposite of happiness is not sadness. It's hopelessness.
Hopelessness is the root of anxiety, mental illness, and depression. So, why not shoot up a school, sleep with your boss's wife, take illicit drugs, or load up on pharmaceuticals by the bucketfuls?
If the civilians at home during the Second World War could watch their brothers, husbands, and sons go off to a foreign land, not knowing if they would ever see them again, if they were willing to offer their pots and pans to supply metal for war materials, if they could have necessary items, like shoes and foodstuffs rationed, purchase war bonds to help fund the war and still maintain HOPE for a liberated future, we can persevere through the challenges we see today.
Dr. Jean Huston, scholar, philosopher, and researcher in human capacities, says, “Human beings are waking up to new possibilities. We were made for these times, and we are up to it.”
Let's prove her right.
On a day long ago, when murmurings at the kitchen table were not understandable to little ears, I knew something was brewing. A war was raving in Europe and my father knew he would soon be drafted. He enlisted so he could choose his branch of service. He wanted the Navy. However, they discovered he was colors blind—a surprise to him and the family, thus he ended up in the Army. Maybe that was why he usually sketched in pencil or charcoal, a.k.a. black and white. I learned that during the war, he drew portraits for the soldiers, and I remember he said, "You can't put too many lines on a face."
Once, he wrote, "You thought I would only be gone for a short time, didn't you?" I don't remember ever knowing he was going to be gone. If there were any goodbyes, I don't remember them. If there were any tears, I didn't see any. He was just gone. He must have slipped out while I was sleeping.
He survived the war, but not his marriage or his fatherhood with me.