in that hour…

Many years ago I wrote a fifteen minute play about what happens during the hour we gain, and the hour we lose. In one scenario I had a couple who met for that extra hour every year in a parking lot by a ferry terminal- imagining what life would have been like if they had chosen each other over their life partners. (I chuckle remembering where my head was nine years ago…) In the lost hour portion of the play, there was simply a young boy with a shoe box. In the box he placed all the things he wished had not happened to him in the past year, and left it perched on his window sill the night before the clock “sprung forward”.  The things he wished to release were written on bird feathers he had collected during the year, with a very fine point permanent marker. The next morning the boy was allowed to reinvent himself, free from his sorrows ( that we understand are quite numerous for a lad of such a young age) and feel fanciful and full of flight again himself. At least until the next door neighbor shows up and…. That idea resonates even more profoundly with me today, than when I wrote the play almost a decade ago. Permission to let go is a marvelous thing on occasion huh?

I thought it would be fun to share the idea, and ask you one thing you might like to let go from the last year, given the chance. I’ll start the list, and would love to have you leave one  here if you’re able.  Perhaps this post can be that box, perched on a window sill, to be given flight once and for all.

1. How I informed Sam’s first mom we weren’t coming (to visit her) last August. I wish I had just called her. Maybe things would be on track today, if we had arrived at the decision together somehow?

2. All the sadness, hard, and second guessing I feel daily about her no longer choosing to be in our lives, today. I just would like to accept it as her choice, and know that I’ve done all that I can to keep open the door.

4 comments

  1. The decision to move back to Va, though it fell through, and the guilt springing from it. I might still have contact with Monkey and his [adoptive] family had I not put that ‘threat’ in their lives.

  2. Ohhh that feels like a huge hard story. Thank you for reading here, and leaving your wish for the sill. I went to your blog–I love your language, and your honesty and heart. For us both I hope we can let go of some ache around all of this, and trust in a return to relationship when all parties are willing and able…

  3. Wow, I never thought of it this way. And since we don’t change time here in AZ, I’m not sure I get to play:)? I don’t have too much time to ponder, but one moment comes to mind…a moment in which I went into panic mode and therefore sent my babies into a panic. I still see their scared, crying faces and it was many, many months ago. I wish I could go back and re-do that event.

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