Healing and Reverie
JENNIFER J. CAMP
4 min read ⭑
The earth moves beneath my feet, my toes in the dust. Sap binds to my bare skin as I step onto the path near the front gate, cured with drips of cedar nectar that coat the soles of my feet and sticks, thicker than honey, between my toes.
It is morning, June’s sun eager to kiss my face.
Hello.
I return to the house, trying not to scrape sap on the floor with every step. I reach for olive oil in the cupboard and bend to scrub the sticky goo from my feet. I remove most of it and straighten to soap up my sticky hands at the kitchen sink. Outside the window, to the right of the garden path, is a patch of gladiolas, their thick stalks stacked with petaled pink.
JELLY LUISE; DeathtoStock
I head outside again, unlock the garage door, and climb onto the stationary bike. The view here is both stark and eclectic — muted wood and concrete, felt college banners stretched in a bold row on the left, and Justin’s hunting trophies high on the back wall. I encircle my fingers around the handlebars, and my back muscles brace as I lean forward. With my eyes closed, my legs push my feet down and around so I see nothing and everything: Amble sings to me about the breeze, the wind and the sky.
I am the breeze. I am the wind. I am the sky.
As I pedal, I think about loving myself and letting God love me, and I yearn for that to be so much more effortless than it is.
But it was worth it. It was all worth it.
The effort of healing is worth the pain that comes with it. Healing and wholeness are worth every cost.
And the healing isn’t over yet.
After showering, I make breakfast for my thirteen-year-old niece and drive her to swim camp. The car winds through California Live Oak-spotted hills, the grass thick and gold. We sit side by side and talk about books, writing and boys, for there is no end to mothering. Humans bear the ageless desire to love, let go and hold.
From the camp parking lot, I call my dad; his voice carries with it everything I’ve known, loved and feared — the memory of him when I was my niece’s age, on the floor in my room, his hands stretched behind his head, helping me brainstorm essays I believed I could never write.
You can be strong as well as vulnerable. How else can you be fearless? How else can you rely completely on me?
Outside the car are ferns, verdant and lovely, blowing fresh and wild in the breeze. They let themselves be moved, and I adore them for that. I imagine their joy of movement without any measurement, the abandonment of control, their not wanting to be any different than they are.
Let me move through you.
“I love her. I have always loved her. I love you.”
In two weeks, I will travel to Colorado for a week of intensive, story-based group therapy. A mentor who knows my insatiable hunger to know God better invited me to participate. I am both excited and curious — and, of course, nervous.
I am running. I am running to you.
I don’t know how to prepare my heart for articulating my story. I am back in my bedroom, thirteen years old, doubting, second-guessing, and struggling with self-contempt. That thirteen-year-old did her best; it has taken me decades to love her for it.
I love her. I have always loved her. I love you.
As the workshop date approaches, the thirteen-year-old me is pulling back, longing to retreat. I can feel her doubting herself, believing she doesn’t have a voice. I tell her she is enough — she has always been enough.
Do not be scared.
Oh, Lord. Be with me. Help me.
I am here.
At pickup time, I drive back to camp to retrieve my niece. I stretch my legs out of the car and walk toward her, her muscled body tan and strong. Her hair hangs in wet waves down her back from the pool, and when our eyes meet, her blue eyes smile. How lovely to be here. The thirteen-year-old in me, forty years later, sees her and can trust the story he always sees — the beauty of us, the breeze, wind and sky.
“There is a twilight zone in our hearts that we ourselves cannot see. Even when we know quite a lot about ourselves — our gifts and weaknesses, our ambitions and aspirations, our motives and our drives — large parts of ourselves remain in the shadow of consciousness. This is a very good thing. We will always remain partially hidden to ourselves. Other people, especially those who love us, can often see our twilight zones better than we ourselves can.” —Henri J.M. Nouwen
Are there people in your help who help you see your twilight zones? Who help you discover the true you — the you God made you to be?
If there aren’t, will you call or text a trusted someone today and ask them, “What do you know about me that I don’t but I should?”
Jennifer Camp is a poet and listener who delights in investigating the deeper places of the heart. She founded Gather Ministries with her husband, Justin, is Editor-at-Large of Rapt Interviews and manages Loop Collective, a community for women who reject complacency and pursue connection with God.
