Marigold Road | Mindy Harris: The Healing Balm of a Good Cry

It isn't often I am inspired to write from my most inner heart (then brave enough to post), but today, in reaction to a series of touching, profoundly subtle moments and memories I simply cannot ignore, I am here at this desk, "pen at hand."


Exploring my heart and feelings and learning lessons from them is usually spurred by something the kids have so sweetly and purely enacted. Those sweet baby-souls are wholeheartedly, inexplicably, and in everything I do, my motivation and inspiration.

I have been somewhat emotional, processing deep things that haven't been talked about here. You know what it's like to want some semblance of privacy in a wanton sea of technology, curiosity, and surfacey-ness, yes? Please say yes.

Anyway, I was back home this weekend, briefly for a baby shower, and the most beautiful of ladies (second cousin), eyes sapphire, was visiting. Her hobby in her retirement has been to study genealogy. Fascinating. Something I've always wanted to delve into.

?I'm a treasure hunter of sorts--our whole family has an obsession with vintage, for history.
There are treasures to be had and oh, what a high when you find one!
The same can be said for the mysteries of the past--secrets on the cusp of being brilliantly discovered. It's that scruffy dog in the farmyard of a black/white photo of children dirty from the day. Not only do you wonder about the children-and you smile at how they are so much like children today-but you also wonder about the doggy...what life was like for him, too. And you take that magnifying class down close, peering for clues, for the rouge on a flapper girl's lips, for something embroidered on a baby romper.
?

For some reason, perhaps womanly hormones, some of those pictures had me weeping. Especially the ones of my dad as an infant. My instinctual thought was, "no wonder Wilder and Story are so dern cute!" Then, I was overcome with gratitude at the long, meaningful life my dad has led and how I've been blessed/privileged to be a part of that life. Of him.
Of a history about which I want to learn more. As I age, I'm learning that being heart-on-my-sleeves-sensitive isn't always the best policy, that not everyone needs to know the guts and grime of my pains...not everyone can/should/wants to be trusted with those pearls. I have cried when I felt like it. Given myself permission to not be afraid of deep emotions. To own those emotions for the past, for the present. To let God soothe them.

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