“You were created to travel lightly on this planet, with the same sense of joy that little children have.” – Marianne Williamson
My first job was working as a costumed historical interpreter. In normal terms, I was a pioneer. I can’t believe it now, but they hired me when I was 13. I baked on wood stoves, cleaned pieces of the collection and interacted with the public all while wearing dress, petticoat and bonnet. (Yes, I was very cute!)
One day I was making oatmeal cookies with raisins in them and talking to visitors about Ontario in the 1870s. A teen-aged boy pointed at the batter I was stirring and said that a fly had just flown into the bowl. Rather than stick around to see my reaction, he followed his parents back out of the door and likely promptly forgot all about me.
I, on the other hand have never forgotten him. No matter how many times I stirred and checked that dough, I never found the fly. While I am certain now that he was just messing with me, my 13 year-old self was thoroughly grossed out at the prospect of eating fly. I eventually baked the cookies (not wanting to waste the ingredients or to explain to my boss why I hadn’t made them) and cut them into halves to share with the visiting public.
The story for most people would have ended there, apart from a laugh with their friends about serving fly cookies to people. Not me. Instead, 23 years later, I have yet to enjoy a thing with raisins in it ever again. Raisins bear a shockingly close resemblance and texture to what I imagine a fly might taste and feel like. One passing comment from a stranger coupled with the stress it caused changed something deep inside of me that I have never gotten back.
But where else are there flies in my operating system? Where else have small, seemingly innocent exchanges altered me so profoundly? If you are canoeing across a lake, the slightest nudge in either direction will change where you land on the other side. Which nudges got me here? How can I filter out new ones coming in? And how can I release the ones that don’t make any sense to hold onto at all? I really wish I knew.
xo
Some days I wish I knew, too. Wouldn’t it be great to brush away the cobwebs of the past and be an unfettered self?
The awareness of such flies has caused me untold stress in raising my children. I am at a constant battle with myself saying that it is my job to guide, to assist, and to love… not protect. The protecting is impossible, but it seems equally impossible to quit trying.
Then there’s the wondering about how many of my own flies are being passed to my children in these “protective acts.”
oy!
Haunting memories, everyone has some. Although, as for the flies, I forget these things, but I do like playing with my sisters about chewing a fly and stuff like that. Girls really hate the thing, more like ewww!