I am re-reading Terry Tempest Williams wonderful book, When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice.
When Williams mother died, she left her journals to her daughter. All of them were blank, though in "Mormon culture, women are expected to do two things: keep a journal and bear children." Her mother bore four children and left beautiful journals, all of them blank.
What does that mean, that they were blank? What is the message? Is there one? I believe there is, and I love the koan of it, that I can turn it one way and receive a message, and turn it another, and the message is different. For me, all is contained in the blank pages, the open communication so undefined.
I resonate to these words of Williams:
What is voice?
I will say it is so: The first voice I heard belonged to my mother. It was her voice I listened to from the womb; from the moment my head emerged into this world; from the moment I was pushed out then placed on her belly before the umbilicus was cut; from the moment when she cradled me in her arms. My mother spoke to me: "Hello, little one. You are here, I am here."
I will say it is so: My mother's voice is a lullaby in my cells. When I am still, my body feels her breathing."
I know that when we reach a certain age, we are meant to be our own mother, to have internalized "mother" for ourselves, and yet, I must say, I resonate to these words: "My mother's voice is a lullaby in my cells. When I am still, my body feels her breathing."
Of mother, we are never free, even though her gift to us, her generous intention may be that she offers us journals that are blank so we can come forth with our own words. I know that is what my mother wanted for me. It is what I want for my sons.