Digging in the Dirt

 Is it really four in the afternoon already?  I have spent the entire day on my computer learning, what for me is a whole new language.  ‘Tweets’ and ‘hashtags’, ‘following’ and being ‘followed’, ‘tweeting’ and ‘retweeting’ etc. Sometimes, when trying to learn something I will read out loud because it helps me to better absorb the information, especially information that is extremely foreign to me. This is what I was reading out loud from the twitter help center when my daughter and her friend walked into my room: “Click the “Retweets” to see what you’ve retweeted, what’s been retweeted and who retweeted your Tweets! …read the retweets under the Tweet tab; 'Retweets by others Tweets.'”

“Ummmm, let me guess…” Elizabeth startles me. I was so engrossed in reading the retweeting information I didn’t notice her or her friend standing there looking puzzled by my odd behavior.  Well, actually only Elizabeth’s friend looked puzzled. Elizabeth is used to finding me engaged unusual activities.  “…you are reading Dr. Seuss tongue twisters?”

“No” I laugh “I am trying to navigate twitter.”  I tell her.

“Why?”  she asks.

“Because…it’s time.”  I answer vaguely. The two girls make their way into the kitchen to do some baking along with much giggling.  I reach for my ear plugs.  I can’t concentrate with all that ‘girl noise’. 

“Elizabeth, shut my door would you?”

“Okay, but now I’m going to call you Sherman the computer Geek.”  She teases me.

Attempting to become social media savvy is rather odd behavior for me.  Usually I cannot sit still for long enough to read tedious directions but I am still sick with some sort of debilitating cold that won’t allow for much more than sitting.  I decided to take advantage of this opportunity of forced sitting to learn a couple of things I have been avoiding learning. After spending the day on twitter and actually posting some ‘tweets’ I am feeling a little out of my element.  Sort of the way I feel (as I described in a previous writing) when I try to navigate a fast paced, upper-class, business professionals dominated, hot-spot lunch restaurant.

To answer Elizabeth’s question, the reason I am attempting to master these media tools is because I am responsible for the marketing aspect of two businesses.  These businesses, the farm and the recovery house for women, are my only two sources of income.  Neither business is exactly humming along.  In fact both are sort of gasping for air as they seem to be slowly sinking in an enormous ocean clinging to their little life rafts while speed boats and ocean liners (other businesses of the same sort) travel along their plotted course with what looks like little effort or complication.  If I want my businesses to succeed I need to utilize the same technology that those speed boats and ocean liners do.  What intimidates me about the exposure of social media does not have to do with the businesses though. It is my writing that suddenly has me feeing vulnerable and exposed.

The reason I have been writing these blogs is because I am following the suggestion of a special friend and the encouragement from many other friends to share my writing.  Somehow, when I write it unlocks doors in my heart and mind and dredges up thoughts, ideas and memories from deep recesses inside of me I didn’t know existed.  It’s illuminating. It’s like when I write there is some microscopic scientist who travels from the keyboard through my skin and into my blood stream.  Once inside they shine a spot light on all the systems in my body, circulatory, digestive, endocrine, immune, lymphatic, muscular, nervous, reproductive, respiratory, skeletal, and urinary.  Also and perhaps more significant is the illumination the little imagined scientist’s spot light has on my spirit. I sense spirit stirring in all seven chakras as I write, forcing me to feel, to experience what I might normally stuff and ignore.   With this visual I am reminded of the educational cartoon my oldest son Seth used to watch “The Magic School Bus”. I feel a deep bittersweet sadness as I remember Seth when he was small.  Where did the time go?  I was just holding him sitting on the sofa watching this cartoon…I can still smell him and hear his sweet little four year old voice. Trying to fully grasp this memory is like trying to hold onto a vapor.  Seth is now 23 and while he lives only three hours away he might as well be in Africa.  I very rarely see or hear from him.  That’s the bitter part.  The sweet part is that the child, I mean young man, is having extraordinary adventures, working in a field he loves and is surrounded by friends..but I digress. 

Okay, drying my tears now.  Actually this digression is a perfect example of what happens to me when I write.  Had I not sat down at this magical keyboard I would have not tapped into the feeling of loss I have surrounding my oldest son that is stirring somewhere deep inside. Had I not discovered this feeling it would probably have manifested itself in some sort of activity like an extra half mile in the lap pool or cleaning the entire house ‘til it sparkles, working or working-out until I exhaust myself then collapse into bed at night where these feelings present themselves in my dreams.  That’s probably the reason I spend so many restless nights tossing and turning rather than sleeping. If I don’t get it out, the feeling turns into a gremlin.  I think I’ll call Seth later.

Charaks, Gremlins, my body’s systems splattered all over this page as I write, while cathartic for me to get out and onto (virtual) paper, it also leaves me feeling naked and exposed.  I was okay feeling naked and exposed here in the safety of my bedroom and in front of MY computer.  I put my stories, myself onto the computer, click a button and  my story gets sucked into the vacuous world of the internet, big deal. But when I began exploring this world of social media, I realized just how very exposed I am making myself and my little world, just by clicking a button.  The internet is not vacuous! It’s bright, full, intelligent and immediate! Yikes! Knowing this I feel inhibited which is a feeling completely opposite of the very natural child-like quality I usually feel when I sit down to write. 

When I write, oblivious to the internet world, it’s like playing in the sand or digging in the dirt when I was small. 

“Kerri you’re oblivious to everything!” my dad used to yell. He yelled this at me as long as I can remember, even before I knew what the word oblivious meant. Being oblivious felt better to me than being aware.  As a kid I would grab any opportunity to slip away into sweet oblivion. In the fourth grade, recess was like an oasis in a scorching desert.  I hated school.  I hated being inside! Being inside all day was not only unnatural it was smothering!  And being indoors at school was especially smothering as there were not even any windows or real light. The air was stuffy, heavy and smelled stale. When we were able to go outdoors I was free!  I would avoid the organized games of kick ball or the trios of girls jumping rope to a little rhyme. I was not coordinated enough to successfully participate in those games anyway and I always got yelled at for messing things up if I tried. I would walk out past the playground and onto the baseball field.  I would find a strong sharp stick and I would dig.  Unearthing rocks was my solitary game.  I would pretend I was a treasure hunter who had just sailed, alone, to a deserted island to find rare and precious stones.  As my expert eye scanned the terrain I would spot a glimmering stone and get to work.  The harder the stone was to remove from the earth the harder I worked at it because that meant, like an iceberg hidden by the ocean, the jewel was large, and bigger meant better.  I would pile my collection on the beach near my ship.  I would gather my tools and confidently take inventory of my find, ready to sail back home where I would be greeted with applause and praise for a job well done…but the whistle would blow and the warm sunny beach would disappear and fade back in to the baseball field. The sound of the crashing waves on the shore would reveal itself to actually be laughter and conversation from the other school kids.  Back to reality, back inside, back to being me I wanted to be anyone else but me.

Seth either by nature or nurture, most probably by a combination of both, inherited my love for the outdoors and for exploring.  Seth would spend hours in what he articulately, at six years old called his “archeological dig”.  Seth was and is a bright kid.  He could read very early and soaked up new information like a sponge.  We went to the library and gathered books on paleontology, archeology and anthropology.  I gathered tools for Seth’s dig and we roped off the area and he drew a graph just like we saw in the books.  Seth would dig for hours I would bring his lunch and he would show me his collection.  We lived at a farm house built in 1804.  The civil war happened near and all around our house.  Crapmtons Gap is just right up the hill and Burkitsville is just right down the street. 

“Mom” Seth asked.  “Do you think maybe our house was used as an army hospital in the civil war?”

“Could very possibly have been Seth.”  I answered. “In fact I’ll bet even if it wasn’t a hospital there were soldiers here.  Think about what might have happened in this very living room…soldiers, officers, sitting around the fire place planning their strategies and maneuvers, writing letters home, eating a stew prepared by the gracious lady of the house.”

I could see the wheels turning in his little head.  Seth would hurry through his lunch and get back to digging.  He found artifacts of broken pieces of china, some bone, clay piping, and unusual rocks that I could not identify.  We decided those were dinosaur bones.  Seth would go to bed with his stack of library books and his pile of treasures, all carefully cleaned and labeled in a shoe box by his bed.  I wanted to encourage his enthusiasm for exploring and decided to plant some gifts for him.  I went to an Antietam gift shop and purchased some authentic civil war bullets and buttons from soldiers coats.  While Seth was involved in something other than his dig I planted the treasures.  It felt sort of like when I would put presents under the tree for him pretending to be Santa.  The next day Seth unearthed and identified the artifact without any help from me.  I found this very impressive as the bullets covered with dirt just looked like an odd shaped rock.

“MOM!”  Seth came running in the house. “Look what I found! Do you think it was from a soliders gun and a soldier’s coat?” 

“Sure looks like it Seth.”  I said.

We took, what he thought was an impromptu trip to the gift shop in Antietam where I had purchased the artifacts.  Clued in to my little act for Seth, the shop owner played along as we brought our find to the counter and asked him his “expert opinion” in helping us identify the items.

“Yup,” he said in a sort of antique mason-dixon line drawl that matched the shop and the towns 1861 feel.  “These here items are genuine civil war artifacts.  You have quite an eye son.  Keep up the good work.  We need more fellas like you to help us keep on discoverin’ important pieces history.” 

I thanked the store keeper shot him a wink as to say “nice job.  I really appreciate your efforts.”  Seth and I walked out of the shop, Seth beaming with delight.  At home he not only cleaned and labeled his new finds but found a special clear plastic case in which to enshrine them. 

Seth went off to college to study anthropology.  One Christmas Eve around the candle lit dinner table Seth talked to the large gathering of family and friends about how he had discovered the bullet and the button in his dig when he was a kid and how that very significant moment in his life had helped him to form his decision for his studies and life’s work. 

“You know,” Amy, Seth’s drunken Aunt slurred from the other end of the table. “Your mom was soooo sweet to plant those things in your dig for you.”  She hiccuped then went back to sloppily swirling the red wine in her crystal glass before gulping the rest of it down then asking for us to pass a fresh bottle.

Seth’s jaw dropped as he shot me a look. “Mom? Is that true?”

“Yeah, Seth.  I planted those.  Remember the store keeper?  He was in on it too.”

Seth was mad!  I had never intended for him to hear that story.  The children have to learn that there is no Santa or Easter bunny but he could have held onto this magical memory. 

“Thanks so much Amy.”  I said sarcastically.

“ ‘s-not a promblm…” she slurred slumping over the table her elbow slipping off the edge oblivious to the fact that she had just ruined my son’s magical memory.

I watched Seth struggle and recover from this disillusionment and  from many other of life’s more difficult hurdles.  He has graduated and is working for an archeologist, digging in the dirt just like when he was a kid.  I’ll receive an excited phone call from him from time to time; “Mom!  You’ll never guess what I’ve found!”

While he tells me his story over the phone the image of him being six and running up to me, covered in dirt and mud with his arm load of treasures is fresh in my mind.  Seth has managed to hold onto that spark of child-like enthusiasm and that fearless inquisitive spirit in spite of the blows life can dish out and encouraged by the joys life also abundantly offers. Inspired by my son, I think maybe I can forgo the extra laps in the pool and live in a less that perfectly clean house while I dig deep finding my own treasures. Soon I will be sending this off in tweet, maybe never to be retweeted, on facebook, maybe never to be commented on but at least I will sleep well tonight.