Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Four Bars and Excellent Reception

Jeb’s trying to reach that little dreadlocked, bed-head snarl on the back of his head with a brush.  Blue-green digital numbers at the stove top (the only clock in the house) read 7:54am.

It’s time to begin the loading of the car, do the school drop off and get to my work appointment.  I’ll be away from home all day.

Laptop, power cord, file folder box.  Mail, sunglasses, phone…

“Mom, have you seen that little black folder that had my spy notes in it?”

“Mmm, last time I saw it was when you were writing in it on the couch.”

Case for my sunglasses, water…I pause at the phone’s power cord.

“Oh, I found it!” Jeb calls from his desk.

In the flurry of gathering hands, the phone cord suggests quietly that I may need it today.  I never bring my charger cable with me.  But I pause a half-step long enough to realize that I’ve promised myself in these days of inner searching to follow intuitive promptings as they arise.

No time to even check the battery level on my phone, I grab the power cord and toss it in the basket with the mail.

“Jeb, did you get your socks?”

Ten minutes later and it’s three kisses and “See ya!” with a little Jeb hand wave at the red school house.

I make the short drive to my business meeting and complete a brief phone call (hands-free, of course) as I pull into the driveway of my destination.  Glancing down at my phone, I see that there is less than 20% of battery life left.

The dialogue box asks if I would like to Dismiss this message.

This – this entire life experience thing – is all just an experiment, with me collecting clues where I can and chronicling what I find.  I’m in awe at its simplicity.  Humbled by the mystery.  Still perpetually eager to try to uncover something I didn’t know before.

In the flurry of the morning’s prep, a quiet thought suggested I grab a power cord and I made a conscious decision to do it, even though it didn’t seem logically necessary.  I had nothing to lose by listening.

Within range of a quiet nudge and clear signal, I’m thinking I was in that four-bar, excellent reception zone.  Connection, solid.  Low battery, yes, but the available tools for recharge.

My metaphoric mind and I, we can’t help it.  We think we found a clue.  Not going to dismiss this message.

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 2 Comments

Spiral

“as soon as it was named
it ceased to exist”
– Miriam Sagan, “Spiral Jetty”

I don’t want to write about it.

I could deflect and try to describe the pregnant pause before letters meet the screen.  Hands near my jaw, suspended above the empty keys that sit patiently waiting.  An in drawn breath anticipating exhale…But that description would be a clever ploy to avoid what hesitates to be written.

This whole expression thing started out simply enough.  Following a thread.  Chronicle the daily (often banal) moments and try to find a gem of deeper meaning.  I’ve written about goats in heat, The Boxcar Children, and paltry WordPress statistics.  I’ve taken photos of plastic soldiers hugging and dead, maimed snakes in the road.

Pushing myself to find the power in vulnerability, I’ve even pulled the Superman move, peeling back cloth to reveal my tender heart (that’s ‘S’ for ‘Strength’).  Ok, ok, I did that.  I survived the naked telling.  But do I now need to write about my womb?

I don’t want to write about it and that’s what makes me suspect that maybe I’m supposed to.

Maybe the story comes in pieces. I’ve got twenty years of reproductive history and all the ways my womb has shaped my life.  Maybe these fragments are not in chronological time.

Perhaps it starts with today’s second opinion:
Statistics are good:  Chances are 98% benign, 2% malignant. But you don’t know which group you’re in.
The only way to know for sure (and get rid of it) is surgery.
There’s nothing to be done to stop recurrence (unless you want to remove your last remaining ovary).  This is in your genes.

From the mouth of an intelligent, medical doctor, is the suggestion “use your intuition.”

Intuition says that in the next three months I will not be undergoing surgery.  Intuition also suggests that Life is offering me an opportunity to learn something.

There is no book published, that opens to page 29 and reads “Jessica, this is what you are to do.”  Intuition says the book that tells what I did do, is yet to be written.

If I want to dissolve this growth and do not want to have surgery than I recognize that I am moving into the realm of miracles.  I’ll leave some room for those.

Miriam Sagan posts her poem inspired by Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty and one line flames like a fire.

courtesy of Wikipedia

 

“as soon as it was named
it ceased to exist”

I’m seeking a name.  Maybe writing brings the miracle.

(read “Spiral Jetty” in its entirety at Miriam’s Well)

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer · 2 Comments

The Way

I’ve always been a walker.

In school days before cars and drivers licenses, I’d walk for miles.  Sometimes alone, sometimes with friends.  There were only a couple of girlfriends who were really up for the distance.

I recall a walk through suburban streets with a close friend around the age of 14.  Our footsteps stirred philosophy and metaphors as we began to liken life to the road.  Sometimes there were crossroads, sometimes detours.  As we walked the road of life there would be days of easy streets and rough patches with plenty of potholes.

The walk that day was vivid.  The black asphalt beneath my white Keds.  The olive trees and tidy pansies bordering short-trimmed lawns.  The goose-bump feeling of discovering a key to unlock one of life’s great secrets.  Life was a journey!

I was 29 years old when I began to read about The Camino.  The ancient pilgrimage path that runs through Northern Spain fascinated me.  I decided that I would walk the distance.  El Camino de Santiago would be my next adventure.  Or so I thought…

That same year I conceived a child and embarked on an adventure with no airfare required.  Books on the Camino were traded for “Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Years.” I had come to one of those forks in Life’s road and the greatest journey of my life began.

courtesy of Wikipedia and UNESCO World Heritage Site

The pilgrimage still beckons.  Over the years it’s been small whispers that remind me of a calling.  But since last week’s ultrasound report, that path through a foreign land has come front and center.  Maybe it’s a case of the cliched ‘bucket list’ surfacing on cue when a health issue arises.  That big endeavor shelved for later takes center stage with a leap, exclaiming “Carpe diem!”

Or maybe these fantasies of cobblestone streets, rolling hills and Spanish train stations are merely fantastical reprieves from the reality of second opinions and potential medical bills.

Regardless of why I’m dreaming, there’s a sense I’ve been on that Spanish path before – that one day I’ll go again.  Was I a pilgrim in another life beneath the Milky Way?  I don’t understand what pulls me toward the Basque country. But then some of the most interesting things in life don’t lend themselves to logic.

Driving in the car the other day, Jeb says, “I want to go somewhere they speak a different language.  Somewhere we’ve never gone before.”

And I’m thinking, “Oh, I’ve got a place in mind.”

That night, I take a pause from the Google search phrase “holistic treatment of dermoid cyst” and have fun with “children on Camino de Santiago”.

This may be a grand vision, but great forests all begin with seeds.

And as I dream, I’ve come across a documentary in progress.  Below is the trailer for a film that follows a few brave pilgrims as they make their journey on this sacred trail.