Postcard Challenge #5: Experience Map

When I was preparing to write the poem about the forest, I stumbled upon this pantoum (a very fun form I had learned as a teacher, basically a woven poem). The poem is about the power of touch and ends like this:

"Each velvet hair on the low curve of back;
a comfort of touch, though fingertips
find, perhaps, the zipper of a scar,
a particular understanding, peculiar knowledge." -From Details by Judith Baumel

I was struck by the lines "a particular understanding, a peculiar knowledge." What a thousand unique stories line the lines of our hands, the whorls of our fingerprints! 

And that is exactly what the next postcard challenge from Kathleen was all about, mapping the stories through the medium of concrete nouns, nouns tied to memories of things we've touched.  

As a poet, I am enchanted by the power of words to suggest. Earlier this year I was able to go to a reading at the library by Sofia Starnes, Virginia's poet laureate. She read a poem called "One.Child." The poem was about how while language is limited in it's power to describe, it is almost unlimited in it's power to suggest, evoke a flood of memories in the mind of each reader through images like "one" and "child." 

Or, as Kathleen described the act of choosing words to express memories: 

What a wonderful challenge. Here was my result: 

Some big stories packed themselves into several syllables: pineapple for my time in Costa Rica, constantly surprised by places, and people, and God's whimsical way of using people to grow his kingdom (hot water for the time there where we were ripped off and given a "tour" of the natural hot springs that turned out to be a hot river where the locals swam :)) . 

Ring for almost four years of learning to love another person and be loved, in all our messy glory. 

Whiteboard for two years standing with brown eyes looking back at me, sometimes feeling invigorated, sometimes completely inadequate. 

Baby curls and cheeks for the crazy fleshiness of this person that grew inside me. 

Some words brought back memories from childhood I had almost forgotten: gate for the rough white that opened to our garden, eggs still warm and speckled from a hen named Panda, pine needles that carpeted the floor of our tree house as we pretended to be Dr. Quinn or Laura Ingalls. 

Some words evoked more than one story, some of them painful. Hairspray of pageants and prom dresses and also one of my most fearful, angry days; Needle for things mended and for the C-section that made the start of my motherhood journey painful and exhausting. 

She had encouraged me to honor even the words that opened doors I'd rather leave shut. "Have fun walking down memory lane. Allow the hard things to exist there, too." 

When I had first read this, I had thought, Oh, this exercise is kind of like recording one thousand gifts, except for this has bad things too.  

Then I remembered, is anything lost in the breath of God? Anything not a gift in the end? 

Ann Voskamp had put it this way:  

"Can it be that, that which seems to oppose the will of God actually is used of Him to accomplish the will of God?"

and 

"...I see what I am. I'm amputated. I have hacked up my life into grace moments and curse moments. The chopping that has cut myself off from the embracing love of God who 'does not enjoy hurting people or causing them sorrow (Lamentations 3:33), but labors to birth grief into greater grace...all is grace only because all can transfigure" (From One Thousand Gifts)

My hands have touch and have been touched by a million stories, a million memories that have made me who I am today. Even the words that made me wince can and will be transfigured for good. 

She had ended her postcard with these words: "Be blessed as you see His hand in Yours." 

I was. 

May you as well as you study the places your palms remember, your fingers have forgotten. See Him there and remember the grace (beautiful and agonizing) your hands have traced.