What Happened in the Taxi and a Tree Called Life
One day you will sit in a taxi, one person removed from the only person you know who barely knows you in spite of knowing it all. You will sit there quiet, holding your tears, minding your thoughts, wondering why you dismantled everything, determining that you will pay now, that you will be punished once and for all for needing everything to change, for wanting everything to be different.
It’s a familiar and hateful complaint, the one you make against yourself, only this time, as you rehearse your lines and say your part again and again, there will be a song and a man saying one word over and over again on the radio. You will decide this once (for reasons you still cannot comprehend) to suspend judgment on yourself and everyone else and accept the totality of it all, that you made a choice, that you suffered for deciding and then suffered more by questioning the decision. You will listen to that song and those words and follow the truth down to the root where you will find yourself, your original unknowable self, and you will decide once and for all to accept every bit of it. The truth, the consequences, the choice, the wishing and all the dreams dashed and then come true.
This you will do as an act of mercy on yourself, but not yourself only. You will do it as a way to make a path forward. You will do it as an act of contrition, of humility. As a way of knowing you are a rare thing of beauty on the earth and at the same time–flawed, failing, damaged, human.
The song will end, but not before you hold these particular tears one last time. Not before you feel them and then swallow them down and plant them like seeds by still waters, establishing the very foundation of a tree that will offer you shade and shelter and comfort for many years to come.
Take it easy, she told you, a hundred times, a hundred days before, and now, for the first time you will know what she meant. You will turn your mind in one moment from the tears or the tree to simple things, to the baby sitting in front of you, to the boy leaning into you, sitting on the hem of your dress. You will do all this in your own small way and feel the burden lift, just as she did, so many times before, when the rain fell on her back in the homeless fields of Uganda. Just as she did for so many years after, when the machete failed to cut her down. When she decided it was better to laugh, better to breathe, better to live.
Better to love herself, than to let the tears fall in contempt or damnation.
Untitled from jen lemen on Vimeo.
July 14th, 2009 at 8:25 am
Whew! Powerful stuff Jen…heady, heavy, and deeply feeling.
Aiiiiiiiiiiii….no more words…. just a sound.
July 14th, 2009 at 9:49 am
wow….I think I will exhale now. xoxo, ~ M.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
you have to keep telling this story jen. i need to know where it goes and how it grows. you have me weeping into my lunch. keep going, damn i am so proud of you.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
i was holding my breathe the whole time too.
woah!
July 14th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
oh jen. thank you.
July 14th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I can’t speak. I can barely type. What a gift, Jen. YOU are a gift. The song is incredible and beautiful and says so much. I would love to have that song in my iPod. Is it available anywhere?
July 14th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
This is powerful beyond measure.
I SEE YOU.
I FEEL YOU.
I HONOR YOU.
Wish I could be there in person to give you a hug, dear Jen.
Thank you for sharing this. Your words are more timely than you will ever know.
July 14th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
BTW~
The song is “Freedom” by Akon.
http://www.break.com/usercontent/2009/7/akon-freedom-song-and-lyrics-hi-quality-813012.html
July 14th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
Beautiful, profound and true — just like you, jen lemen.
July 14th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
just standing out here. looking in. in awe.
July 14th, 2009 at 8:25 pm
sobbing…. from the well that feeds the tree.
i am wishing you so many blessings on your path. thank you for showing us your way.
July 15th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
Jen, You are a rare thing of beauty on the earth. Keep reaching… it’s so hard, I have crashed after great dreams, but I along with you am convinced that the only thing to do is keep reaching. Thanks for this beautiful post.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Jen, I was at a training last weekend and we kept talking about these reoccurring self-deprecating, or complaining, or irritating thoughts as the 4:05 train. As in, the 4:05 train comes in on schedule, without fail, every day, and it’s just as good to think there is something wrong with those thoughts (or make them into something more than what they are) than it is to think there is something wrong with the train (or make it mean more than what it is). Your wonders about why you’ve done all this is just the 4:05 train. Comin’ through. It’ll be here again tomorrow. May as well just let it pass.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
i love you for this and so much more, you rare and delightful human of beauty and light…
July 16th, 2009 at 12:37 am
simply shivery lovely oh so true
July 16th, 2009 at 4:53 am
Oh Jen.
This is it. That moment when we find our way down into the deep peace and love that has always been there within us, when we sink into it for a moment - finding that there is space to hold everything else within it. An act of mercy towards ourselves, an act of love that will continue to change us and change everything around us. An act of simplicity.
Surely it must be time for us to sit together again in a tearoom?
xx
July 17th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Brave woman. The look on your face says it all. Made me go all welly.
xo
July 18th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Thank you for persevering and sharing. Tears streaming down my face, thank you for sharing what you are going through and reminding us of how much of our own basic freedoms we take for granted here on our continent.
xoxo
Veronique
May 9th, 2010 at 11:33 pm
youre powerful. Thanks for feeling it for us.