Sand in My Eyes (38 page)

From there, I went to the beach and sat down in the sand, listening to the waves. Then I turned on the flashlight and read the rest of that letter from Cora.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

A mother wonders which of her own experiences she ought to share with her children. She doesn’t want to tell them everything about life because doing so might impair their own journeys of discovery. But there is something I want to share with you that I have never told anyone before. I’ll tell you how it happened so you can try it, too. I don’t know why I’ve kept it hush-hush
.

One night, a long time ago, I was lying in bed, unable to sleep and working myself into a tizzy over everything that had gone wrong in my life. It was back around the time your father died, when everyone was dying or barely enduring and America was crying. We were struggling financially, moving into cramped quarters to survive. All of those big worries, as well as little ones—harsh words people had said to me, or the way they looked at me—kept creeping into my mind night after night. And nighttime has a way of turning even little things into big, dark, tormenting shadows
.

So one night I tried something unique—something I have gone on to do through all the years of my life. As I lay awake in a dither, desperate to escape the worries in my mind—I took several deep breaths in and out, and tried imagining what the door to my soul might look like. Well, I could see no door, but I did fall asleep. And so I tried it again the next night, and guess what
?
I fell asleep again. It was aiding me into sleep, and I continued the activity thereafter until one night a door appeared in my mind. I won’t tell you what it looked like because everyone might have a distinct door of their own. I tried opening mine, but it was locked. And so I knocked. I knocked and knocked on the door to my soul. And then it opened
.

You might be thinking your mother is a strange bird, but I swear this to be true, that when the door opened the Holy Spirit welcomed me in and led me through the corridors of my soul. And down every corridor there were rooms, and in each room was a different purpose. We didn’t go into them, but I could see that the rooms to my soul were infinite. It’s why I told you, darling, that your house may be a dive but your soul is a mansion!

The next night I knocked again and the door was opened. I asked if there might be a way to get rid of all the negative thoughts keeping me awake, and the Holy Spirit took me past a window. Out that window was a fiery forest, and for the first time in my life I saw my thoughts for what they were—mere thoughts and nothing more. The fiery forest was the world outside my soul—the issues of the physical and the mental, and all the things I let bother me. But now, as I looked more closely, I saw how ridiculous it is to let them bother me, for they are not me, nor can they ever be within me. It made me cry, thinking of how long I let my worries roam like out-of-control rodents, biting at my heels and getting in the way of my intimate walk with the Spirit. I also knew then that everything that happens “out there” is only “out there,” and of a different realm. None of it can ever enter my soul because it is guarded and protected by the Holy Spirit
.

When I turned from the window, I saw a great light and fell down, but the Lord picked me up, and, as He held me, I saw the Holy Spirit standing to the side, communicating with the Lord about something but I do not know what—I couldn’t understand their way of communicating. But I knew the Lord loved me because He let me know, and from there a lot more happened
.

I knew that, the more I did this, the more I would see and get to know, so I went on doing this and can only say that since then I have seen and gone into all kinds of rooms to my soul, including one where Jesus was hanging on the cross with blood dripping from his body. It was an emotional experience, and written words could do it no justice, so I’ll simply write that I asked Him whether there was another cross so that I might climb up and be closer to Him, but He told me it wasn’t necessary, because He was doing this for me. When I fell to my knees, crying about everything in my life, the cross was suddenly empty, and Jesus walked into the room and gave me His hand. More things happened, but I’ll stop here because each person’s experience and relationship is unique. I’ll only say that when I woke up the next morning, I still felt myself holding Jesus’ hand. That was when He told me in the “meditation” or “dream”—whatever one wants to call the experiences I’ve been having—that He isn’t only in my soul but in my life, my everyday life, too, and is holding my hand through it all
.

The door doesn’t only show up at night. I can be at the park, or in line at the market—wherever—all I have to do is think of it and it is there. And I hardly have to knock anymore before it opens and I feel them present—the Holy Spirit, the Father, and Jesus. They are real and alive and living within me. I get it now, whereas once I didn’t
.

I could go on and on, Fedelina, about the walks I’ve been taking through my soul with the Holy Spirit and Jesus in my life, but I won’t. I will say this, however. If you find yourself caught up in the branches of the fiery forest, full of despair, knock, darling, and the door with be opened. Ask and you will receive. Seek, and you will find. You will find what you are looking for, and you will see more than what you were looking for, or at least I did. I saw that which I had always heard about as a child, but now know for sure lies within me—the kingdom of God—and after the first time I caught a glimpse of it, I was never the same again. It is there, darling. You are not hearing this from a friend of a friend, nor a friend of a friend of a friend. You are hearing it from your mother, that the kingdom of God is within you! And you are, literally, a walking temple of God!

I pray, Fedelina, that you knock. Knock and the door will open
.

CHAPTER FIFTY

BELVEDERE

DID YOU EVER TRY
it?” Fedelina asked me, and I stopped reading.

“You mean did I ever knock on the door to my soul?” I asked, and then admitted, “Yes. The first few times I fell asleep before seeing a door, but then one night one appeared and the experience that followed was very powerful.”

“I’m glad,” she said. “I’ve done it, too. The activity has put things into perspective for me. I stopped letting things bother me as I once had, you know, things people say or do.”

“So how do you like my story?” I blurted out. I was desperately craving feedback at this point, and when she made a face I feared she didn’t like the parts about her—and the little spat we had.

“How do
you
like your story?” she asked me.

“I don’t know,” I told her, unsure how to articulate that writing a novel, editing it slowly over time, revising it day after day, is like chiseling away at tiny rocks. After a while all you see are the tiny rocks, not the fact that all those tiny rocks are part of the Grand Canyon.

“Bring me the fudge, will you? It should be over there on the counter somewhere. And please, Anna, have some with me.”

It wasn’t the answer I was looking for, but I walked over to the counter and studied the two kinds I had bought. “You like black walnut?” I asked her.

“Hate black walnuts, can’t stand them. Why do you ask?”

“Well, I don’t want to eat the one with black walnuts if that’s the one you like.” I still didn’t understand where she was going with this. I only knew she had something in mind. I sliced myself a piece of the black walnut fudge, and gave her a slice of the other, then sat back down in the chair that faced her.

“Anna,” she said as she pressed the fudge between her fingers, softening it like putty before putting it to her mouth. “It’s okay that you like black walnuts and I hate them. It’s okay for us to differ. We’re still friends.”

“You’re right,” I said, licking my lips and making a mental note to add to my story that it’s okay to disagree and still be friends, that there was no need for reacting as extremely as I did, for avoiding her. I walked over to the sink to wash my hands, and I knew her response was her way of letting me know what should be added to that part of the story. “There’s something I need to ask you,” I said then. “Would you mind if I moved forward in getting this published?”

She made a face, and I knew she either had fudge stuck in a tooth, or she was struggling with her answer. “I don’t think it’s ready,” was all she said, shaking her head.

“You don’t?” I asked, and I could feel my creativity shriveling up and falling to the floor. “You mean you don’t like it?”

“I didn’t say that,” she said. “I think it’s a wonderful story. But Anna, there’s something missing, something big.”

“I’m not done reading,” I said, wondering whether she saw fear on my face, fear that winter was coming and everything in my tree was about to fall to the ground. “Whatever it is that’s missing, maybe it’s coming.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “Call for the nurses, would you please?”

“Are you okay?”

“Fine,” she said. “I’d like to have my blood pressure checked. My face feels hot. I need rest.”

I felt an instant state of situational depression descend upon me because the manuscript I had put what felt like infinite hours into writing wasn’t getting more of a “wow” response, that she hadn’t once told me what I needed to hear, that she loved it, or liked it—especially all the parts
about her!

“You’ll be back in the morning?” she asked me.

“Yes,” I said, but could hardly talk.

“Good. Let me think about it,” she said. “I do want to hear more in the morning.”

In the skies outside Belvedere Nursing Home there were sparrows circling and cranes whooping, but there was nothing good soaring through my mind, no ideas flapping or bursts of inspiration swooping down upon me. And because nature always inspired me in the past—was always the stimulus that put my mind where it needed to be, into a state that was ripe for receiving ideas—I set off walking down the long country road.

Indiana’s fall-blooming crops were pretty but left me feeling disappointed with myself for reaching the fall of my life without having produced a worthy piece of fruit. And Fedelina’s lackluster response to my novel made me question whether inspiration exists, or if there is only imagination. The thought of inspiration not existing produced within me a deep loneliness—the kind one might feel when alone in a house at night with nothing but the thoughts in their mind, because they don’t believe in the soul.

I was looking at the cotton and the corn in the fields as I walked, wondering whether it really was blind faith that had kept me plowing ahead hour after hour, chapter after chapter, year after year, or if it was only stubborn determination.