Time Traveller

There was a Day last spring where I slipped. I lost my footing and fell off the earth. It was late May and I had gotten out of a cab in the middle of Manhattan. As I stood on the pavement, the city began to spin. I felt like I was suddenly in a free fall. It was lonely and it took my breath away. Who do I tell? Do I call for help? “Excuse me, I think I fell off the planet and I need a hand. Can you please please catch me? This feels a scary place to be.”

I had spent years raising children on my own, opening a cafe, renovating a house, developing Broadway shows, nose to the grindstone, and on this day I was done. It was my first moment of still, anchor free, a moment of what next. As I stood on the pavement without feet on the ground, the wind left my body. I felt as if tumbled around the earth over countries I did not know until it was a free fall that lit my body up like a comet. The fire underneath my skin was excruciating and I wondered what was wrong with me. I reached out to grab anything to stop the plummet with no luck, until recently. I guess falling through space has no sense of time. It’s been a year.

A week or two ago I fell hard through a door I had locked behind me. I think I actually soldered that door shut. I have written before about my fear of annihilation. But here I was looking into its face. It was not what I expected. I was suddenly awash in threats, abuse and year after year of pain, until I could see just how I lost me. I stared in its eyes for a long time until the tears welled up and poured down my cheeks. Memories flood over my body. Memories I wish I did not have. I was paralyzed. But now annihilation had a name. An earthly coordinate. Fear often comes from not knowing. Now I knew.......... and suddenly, without reason, there was a breeze on my skin so sweet. The last time I felt a breeze like that I was 19 years old, laughing and eating fresh baked cookies on the front porch of my college home with friends and a boy that I loved. That too was a very specific day. It was the day I clocked real joy, filled with people I had chosen in a life I was creating. It was bliss.

Now the breeze is blowing stronger and my stare is broken. I am falling again, but the fire is out and I feel myself a time traveler. I travel past the me I created to survive in a world that was not mine and see the girl now I left behind. She is beautiful and funny and young. She is 19, 24 and 53. She is me.

Post Note: It’s my opinion that we have a strong responsibility to one another. You never really know the mark you leave on others when you are struggling to survive. Our actions matter, they have a ripple effect. Auschwitz surviver, Dr. Edith Eva Eger says in her book, The Choice; “ I remind myself that each of us has an Adolf Hitler and a Corrie ten Boom within us. We have the capacity to hate and the capacity to love. Which one we reach for- our inner Hitler or our inner ten Boom -is up to us.”

For years as my anxiety ran mysteriously high I swore I would be graceful, I would be graceful, I would be graceful. I used that mantra like glue. That is until I broke apart, and grace alone could not serve or sustain me anymore. As I stand here broken feeling the air on my skin, I am lit. Lit now with hope. It’s no wonder my favorite scripture reads. “ Suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope, and hope will not disappoint you.”I can’t wait to go back and pick up where I left off all those years ago, on a front porch with a cookie in my mouth and love all around.

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Cookies

Ingredients

1 3/4 all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3/4 packed brown sugar
1/2 cup of butter melted and cooled
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup strawberries diced
1 cup of milk chocolate chips melted

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl mix together the flour, baking soda, and salt

Beat together the butter and sugars, about two minutes.

Beat in the egg and the vanilla.

Slowly add the flour mixture, scrapping down the sides of the bowl as needed, until the mixture is fully combined. The mixture will be crumbly.

Mix in the strawberries.

Roll into one inch balls and bake two two inches apart on a parchment or silicon lined baking sheet.

Bake for 12 minutes.

Let sit outside of the oven on the baking sheet for two minutes before removing to a cooling rack.

Once completely cooled, dip the bottoms of the cookies in the melted chocolate.

Transfer to wax paper and allow to dry, about 25 minutes.