i notice her now and then, in the Movement of the day, going around Looking at things. Some of which she has looked at since she was born. In different places. Different homes. She remembers their "lives".   This occurs silently.  When there is something "new" to her,  she'll ask about it and when i tell her,  she smiles and kind of nods.  

I've told this story somewhere here before,  but it bears telling again.  Her mother,  my daughter,  got pregnant with her when she was 15 years old.   I am going to skip a lot of the parts of the story this time and just say that i was really really angry.  I couldn't believe she had done that.  She knew better and she knew how to avoid it.  She chose to ignore things.  Yes.  in the way a 15 year old child does,  but nonetheless.    and there is a huge middle part to the story but i will jump to the day my daughter was in her choir class at her alternative high school.   Choir was combined with Math there.  They sang Math.  Which daughter loved.  She loved math and she loved Choir.  She must have been maybe 3 months pregnant.  The phone rang.  It was her.  Calling from school.  The principals office.  There had been difficult communication between us.  She was calling,  to tell me that on her lunch hour,  she had gone to the local gas station/food store and among other things gotten a Fleer Bubblegum.  They had fortunes written under the comic on the wrapper.  She called to tell me that her fortune said,  "You can have anything you want if you really want it".   She went on to say that she had in the recent days become afraid.  Afraid of being pregnant.  What it meant.  But that just now,  she had been in Choir class and was singing and looking at her bubblegum wrapper,  thinking how i wanted her to get an abortion.   Singing Math and looking at a bubblegum fortune and suddenly,  there was a ……….flicker.   At first she didn't register.  Kept on singing.  Then,  another flicker.  And she knew.  The baby was moving.  Kicking.  Reaching out, maybe.  But Moving.   And she called from the principals office to tell me that she wanted this baby.  She wanted it.

So…this is Alyssia.  She who i have known from the beginning,  saw born.   Lived with off and on.  Watched go through a difficult adolescence,  watched joining the Military in her senior year of highschool against everyone's good judgement.  Watched create her own life,  become a mother herself at 21,  giving birth to Julian who i also watched be born in San Diego.  

She drives across the United States of America to see Family.  Here first,  where she Looks.  Touches.  Quietly kind of nodding to the things.  I watch and listen to her tell her son to fluff up  the grasses that had gotten a little squashed…"Fix Old Nana's Grasses"  she says.   I listen to her in amazement as she tells me about one of the classes she has in college now….Enviornmental Science….how she knew about the No Till Farming,  about the release of carbon dioxide or the storage of carbon.   All the things i thought i couldn't talk about with her,  she Knows.   And we talked some,  enough,  because she Really Knows.   And i think back a little while about how we talked a little here about Spirit and Soul.   Am thinking about all this now,  how i recognize her as Soul,  how she recognizes me.   How her son is recognized and recognizes.  Souls.    And she asked about this Cloth

 

IMG_9238f

what i was going to do with it.   I said  "nothing"….nothing, really.  And she said could i finish it.  That she would like it.   So…ok.   It was begun in JUNE of 2011.   Went this far.    Waited.   So, now, I'll finish it.  For her.  Because she asked.   in my mind it was about the sense of the god Thing,  whatever that is.   

Souls.

 

 

 

 

 

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25 responses to “She looks at things, like, really Looks at things.”

  1. jacky Avatar
    jacky

    I haven’t visited for so long ….. Grace I can feel that connection you talk of with your Grand daughter. This will be a very special cloth. A long time in the making.
    Jacky xox

    Like

  2. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    And she asked for the very first story cloth that you made, even before you were thoroughly ensconced with Jude’s classes. She asked then and she asks now because simply, she knows that story and life are intertwined in the cloths that come from your deep knowing, from the depths of you, from the heart that is the center of this familia and that ripples ever outward, across this United States, the soul of family, ever continuing…

    Like

  3. Joan@CopperCreekers Avatar

    what a wonderful gift. the connections, history, sharing of knowledge and the physical presence of your loved ones.
    i hope you see yourself in their eyes. you have imprinted much of yourself on these loved ones.
    as you sometimes post…
    Beauty FULL

    Like

  4. grace Avatar

    we are Same. We imprint on one another. Back. Forth.
    Back. Forth. how it might go. Back and Forth

    Like

  5. Sandi Avatar
    Sandi

    imprinting on one another- Yes- more intuitive- you each just KNOW. A beautiful thing! ❤

    Like

  6. jude Avatar

    it is nice, all these connections.

    Like

  7. Cynthia Avatar
    Cynthia

    i could just sit and look and read your story..and then look at the cloth which looks like a creation myth to me..and it is even better because it is real..

    Like

  8. beth Avatar

    To know to this depth and to be known. This is rich.

    Like

  9. Saskia Van Herwaarden Avatar

    connected
    was talking earlier today about what it is we seek, connections

    Like

  10. Tracy Leppold Avatar
    Tracy Leppold

    Souls, I get it. That’s what you look at when you really see someone. Not the inside, but who they actually are, brave scared insecure confident funny and sad and something with no words, which is the soul.
    Your family is lovely. That little boy is so cute I can’t stop looking at him. The story had a happy ending, don’t you think?

    Like

  11. yvette Avatar

    boing boing boing
    my heart sings
    the healing earth song
    the drums that reaches our circle in the world
    boingboingboing

    Like

  12. Martine Avatar

    Thank heavens for grandchildren and cloth………..

    Like

  13. donna wilkinson Avatar
    donna wilkinson

    something GREEN an aloe Life and Healing bright forest green

    Like

  14. Michele BadAye Avatar

    beauty and pain of love and real life. things play out on a curvy path. driving blind and navigating with hope. thank you for this Grace.

    Like

  15. grace Forrest Avatar

    oh, hey jacky…thank you for coming by. I have always
    loved this cloth, it has remained on the Wall all along,
    and now has purpose.
    Thank you for stopping here…and Love to you…

    Like

  16. grace Forrest Avatar

    she likes that it is more abstract and that there are
    things “coming out of the edges”….that appeals to her
    a lot

    Like

  17. grace Forrest Avatar

    yes…just a kind of Knowing. It simply IS.

    Like

  18. grace Forrest Avatar

    there is a web of connections…it pulses

    Like

  19. grace Forrest Avatar

    it’s said that it is the time now to create New Myths.
    so…this then is one for she and i

    Like

  20. grace Forrest Avatar

    it is an Unexpected Gift

    Like

  21. grace Forrest Avatar

    they come whether or not we seek them sometimes….
    filaments, streaking through time

    Like

  22. grace Forrest Avatar

    the reverberating of drum, yes. feel it.

    Like

  23. grace Forrest Avatar

    i just Thank Heavens

    Like

  24. grace Forrest Avatar

    donna…green. green. i am thinking Green. GREEN.

    Like

  25. grace Forrest Avatar

    driving blind…it’s that thing of Just Going, isn’t it.

    Like

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