MY BLUEBIRD OF HAPPINESS...

"Every now and then,

when the world sits just right,
a gentle breath of heaven
fills my soul with delight..."

-Hazelmarie ‘Mattie’ Elliott, A Breath of Heaven-

"Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open."
-John Barrymore-

It seems as if for the last two years I have been holding my breath. I took in one very deep one upon my grandmothers death. I have been waiting to exhale ever since. And then, the Christmas miracle happened. Every memory I possessed was bottled up in that one breath, held in check, ready and waiting to be released. Everyone knows you can't hold your breath for infinity, eventually you will turn blue, self~preservation will kick in, and you will inevitably gasp for air.

That's exactly how the grieving process was for me. I thought if I could hold in all the past and concentrate on the here and now, eventually lifting my eyes to the future, then and only then, could I survive the gaping hole her absence left in my heart and life. For awhile, as I held my breath, I did turn blue, that deep dark denim kind of blue that is so weighty it clads ones heart within its constricted boundaries like a too tight ill fitting pair of jeans.

Since breathing is something we can control or regulate, it is a useful tool for achieving a relaxed and clear state of mind. Perhaps that is what I thought I could achieve by blotting out the memories like one would blot up a spot of spilled liquid, the spill being my pain, absorbing it in one swipe, and casting it away. Grieving is like that, we can get so absorbed by it.

I realize now that I have been holding my breath waiting for that one thing to reveal itself to me that would allow me to expel the pent up pain. A scene from a movie, set in simpler times, moved me from being fixated on what I had lost to remembering what I had - wonderful, beautiful, precious memories. A tingle of happiness trilled in my heart, like a bluebirds song, as the scenes of the movie before me faded away being replaced by the ones of my childhood.The farm on the screen was not located in the pancake landscaped dusty Delta region where cotton crops are harvested but was a little house set up against hill in a hollow where the land rises and falls heaving rich vegetable crops from its fertile soil. Sights and sounds and stories, voices of the past whispering to my present to remember.

I felt myself breathe with a sigh of relief as the flood gates opened. For the first time in a long time I wanted to open the scrapbook of my mind and page through all the pictures contained therein. I wanted to point, and to smile, and to laugh, to recall and reminisce over each faded snapshot scene, retouching each one, bringing them back to life.

I am not exactly sure that the old adage that time heals all wounds is true, at least not completely, when the wound heals there is always a scar. I think we have some choice in the matter. Do we continue to hold our breath to gape and bleed as we suffocate in pain or do we slowly breathe in and breathe out, allowing this deep cleansing process to do its work. Breathing exercises are all about focus and technique, what we choose to focus on and what technique we use to cope.

Everyone is different, for me the passport to my healing is in the remembering and the writing of those memories. As I step into the image of each snapshot in my life's scrapbook it is like Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz stepping from the black and white world of Kansas into the technicolor land of Oz. The sights and sounds are vivid and surreal, and yet, they are very real and tactile.This thing called writing has become my means of coping, my bluebird of happiness if you will. The bluebird has long been a symbol of hope and renewal, hearth and home, as well as happiness. The bright blue flash of memory that flickered into my life on those dark and gray days has given me the wings to fly above the pain, process the loss, and helped me to realize that happiness comes from the journey not by avoidance. I am giving wings to my words, those of the memories, letting my little bluebird, writing, aid me on my journey.
I wanted to thank you, dear blog readers, for being a part of the journey, for reading and responding to the posts that pay tribute to my past, my true life farm stories of a lost lonely little girl who spent her summers and holidays at The Old House nestled in the foothills of the Ozarks tended by her grandmother in the only place where true happiness for her resided. Your response to these stories has overwhelmed me and blessed me beyond belief. Thank you for the twitter of happiness you have put in my heart by letting me share these little snapshots of life.May the Lord bless each and everyone one of you with your own little bluebird of happiness in whatever area of need that you may have today. May you nestle under its wings and allow it to shelter you. May you find comfort in it, enough to step out of the shadow of avoidance and to begin your own journey on the path to healing. May it keep you in its care, may its song guide you, and its flight path be clear. May you feel that flutter of happiness in your heart and life today.

Many Blessings,
Miss Sandy

Photos: A bluebird on the cattle gate at the farm taken on our last trip there. The very gate where a local farm boy tried to give me my first kiss, but that is a memory and story for another day...