Comes Full Circle

Have you ever noticed how the earth has a strange way of coming full circle?

Three years ago I started writing.

It wasn’t anything large or significant. It was just something in the back of a journal I had been given for christmas.

The words just came to me and I started to unleash them on the page. It was a children’s book, with characters that were strange. The book was a way of showing children to accept people no matter how big, no matter how small, no matter how funny looking or different than you.

Well I wrote it. And then I put it away, because I didn’t know where to go with it.

But I didn’t stop thinking about it.

Flashback to:

I was 7 years old. It was the middle of the night and I heard a huge boom outside. It had been thundering and lightening outside all night. I was always scared to sleep in a thunderstorm so I had been awakened several times throughout the night.

But this boom. This boom was so loud! It woke me from a deep, deep sleep. I sat straight up in the bed. I went to my Mom and Dad’s room. They told me to go back to sleep. And I did, I slept in their bed because I was incredibly scared.

You might not know this about me but I slept in my parent’s bed a lot. Why? Because I would have nightmares as a kid. The most horrible nightmares. They would wake me up and I would sit there in a cold sweat, afraid to move a muscle.

I had a thing where I had to have my Mom put holy water on my head in order to get me to calm down and go back to bed.

I learned years later that it was not really holy water. It was just water my Mom took from the tap. But either way it comforted me.

The next day, after that boom, we found out that the tree in our back yard, the huge tree that my swing set was built on, had been struck by lightening. The tree had been split entirely in half. Split through the middle.

Sometimes I saw myself as that tree. Split between fear and contentment. Like a tree unable to grow.

Flashback to:

Prom, 2001. Kate Wingate and I are standing in our prom gowns, our once perfectly spiraled up-does are not untwisting themselves. I’m covered in sweat from dancing the night away.

We are at the Cab Calloway after party. It was really nothing amazing. But it was a special night. A night when you are on the brink of moving on. The brink of a new chapter in your life.

We are singing karaoke.

Kate and I decide to sing “Cowboy Take Me Away” by the Dixie Chicks.

Our voices are hoarse. Her voice is always great. I sound like a cat that has been run over by a semi. Either way it is a beautiful song. And we enjoy singing it.

At the time the lyrics did not mean much to me. I thought of them literally- that I needed that cowboy, that knight in shining armor to take me away.

But I was so wrong. And I was so young. How was I to know?

And Here We Are Today

So you are probably wondering…ok Suki, what does this have to do with coming full circle?

Well I have to tell you the past before I can tell you the present.

You remember that book? The children’s book I was writing years ago? Well I picked it back up. And I am actually going somewhere!
The words are coming together. The plot has changed but the message is the same.

I am writing the book as part of my senior thesis for my graduate degree.

Years ago when I began it, Rob said to me “You are going to go somewhere with that.” And I never believed him. Because I never believed in myself.

And yet here it is. I am completing it. I am writing! And I like it!

And what about the tree?

Three weeks ago I decided I was going to paint. When I started painting I didn’t know what I was going to paint.

As the thick paint hit the canvas I realized I was painting a tree. A thick, black, strong tree.

And I realized something. I am that tree. I am strong. I am not split, I am whole and growing.

Last night I watched a show on Buddhism. I did not know the tale of how the Buddha gained enlightenment.

The tale of Buddha gaining enlightenment involved him sitting beneath a Bohdi tree. He sat there under the tree in complete meditation from sundown to sunrise. And when he saw the first morning star, it was all clear to him. Life was clear to him. He has seen enlightenment and he had seen why it was we suffer.

And why do we suffer? Because we make ourselves suffer. Because we refuse to heal ourselves.

And here I was thinking like a broken tree. Thinking like a split tree, not thinking like a full, grown tree that is connected to the Earth. That feels the Earth under her feet.

And Then That Song began to Play

I had been thinking all these thoughts since yesterday. About how life comes full circle. And how you are suppose to learn things from the past..but you never see it coming. You never know when these things are happening to you.

So today I went to go wash the dishes and I love to put some music on my ipod as I clean.

I put the songs on shuffle. And the second song that plays.

Is “Cowboy take me away” by the Dixie Chicks.

And here I am putting away the dishes. Minding my own business…when the words…the words hit me like a ton of bricks.

It’s nothing to do with the knight in shining armor…although that part is just an added bonus.

What is has to do with…is yourself. Your spirituality. Your connection to God, or enlightenment, or nirvana or whatever it is you want to call it.

And right there. In the middle of my kitchen. I started to cry. I started to sob, deep deep sobs. Because I got it.

I finally got it.

And how it comes full circle because we are a circle. United.

As brothers and sisters on this beautiful Earth.

Cowboy Take Me Away lyrics
I said I wanna touch the earth
I wanna break it in my hands
I wanna grow something wild and unruly

I wanna sleep on the hard ground
In the comfort of your arms
On a pillow of bluebonnets
In a blanket made of stars

Oh it sounds good to me I said

Cowboy take me away
Fly this girl as high as you can
Into the wild blue
Set me free oh I pray
Closer to heaven above and
Closer to you closer to you

I wanna walk and not run
I wanna skip and not fall
I wanna look at the horizon
And not see a building standing tall

I wanna be the only one
For miles and miles
Except for maybe you
And your simple smile

Oh it sounds good to me
Yes it sounds so good to me

Cowboy take me away
Fly this girl as high as you can
Into the wild blue
Set me free oh I pray
Closer to heaven above and
Closer to you closer to you

I said I wanna touch the earth
I wanna break it in my hands
I wanna grow something wild and unruly
Oh it sounds so good to me

Cowboy take me away
Fly this girl as high as you can
Into the wild blue
Set me free oh I pray
Closer to heaven above and
Closer to you closer to you
Closer to you
Cowboy take me away.
Closer to you.