23. "Revisiting: 'Have You Ever Wondered?' "

[Note: This post was originally posted on NaNoPubYe.org 's blog site,
then moved to this site on 8/7/2005.]

"What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?"
~ Bertolt Brecht

Remember that post I started, but was so "rudely" interrupted by the galloping grocery bag? (#18 on 7/22) Well, I'm going to try that one again, tonight -- and see how far I get. So far, all the guilty parties are napping. That could change at any moment, so we'll see what happens. ;-)


That ill-fated post started out:

"To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand."
~ José Ortega y Gasset

Have you ever wondered what you would've been like if you'd had different parents? -- or if a particular experience hadn't taken place in your life? -- or if you'd had a sibling who didn't consider it their life's mission to torture you? -- or if you hadn't been born handicapped? -- or if you had? -- or if you and your siblings were born in a different order? -- or as the opposite gender? -- or if your parents hadn't divorced? -- or if you really were adopted? -- or born in a different country? . . . and on and on.

I suspect that many, if not most of us, have wondered at least some of those things -- especially when we were growing up. I did. Most of us eventually outgrew that sort of "wondering," or at least other aspects of our lives began to command our attention -- jobs, college, significant others, cars, bills, babies (?), home, health, more bills, politics, wars, rumors of wars, etc., etc., etc. -- and we forgot about it. For many of us those questions became moot issues as we got older and no longer seemed important.

Writers have a tendency to ask those "wondering" and "what if" questions -- especially for their fictional characters -- even after we attain the dubious status of being "grown up". A few good one-on-one therapy sessions would probably start bringing some of those questions up again, too.

Me? -- funny that you would ask, because I was one of those "rare birds" who never stopped wondering and asking at least some of those questions about myself. One question, in particular, stuck with me through childhood and on into adulthood, through college, marriage, babies, career, divorce -- great loss and great gain and all the mundane in between. I eventually learned that sometimes it is our destiny -- at least part of our reason for being here -- to wonder and seek the answers to those questions.

I was about 18 when I asked my grandmother what I was like when I was first born, before my mother had me long enough to traumatize and abuse me. I felt like damaged goods and wanted to know what I would've been like if things had been different -- if my mother had been different or some such thing. Grandma started to tear up and apologized because she couldn't tell me. She didn't see me 'til I was more than three months old.

"I wish I could tell you what you want to know, but I have no way of knowing what you were like when you were 'brand new'. By the time I first saw you, you were wise beyond your years, with the oldest, most serious looking eyes I'd ever seen on most adults, let alone a baby. You've been like that, ever since I first saw you."

I almost cried, when I heard those words. I'd hoped that at least she would know the answer to my question. It felt so important to know the answer. Little did I know just how important it truly was -- or what strange and exotic path it would eventually lead me on -- and bring me such surprises that I could never have imagined. Of course, there was the just plan weirdness, too, but hey, it was okay because Sr. Ortega y Gasset was right. I did begin to understand myself in a way that I never imagined. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The question here is, "What happens to the hole when the cheese is gone?" In other words, when I found the answer to my question and began to understand who and what I was before -- which was the hole in my cheese -- what happened to the "real" me? I became WHOLE again. Each day I come a little closer to seeing the WHOLE picture and accomplishing what I'm here to do.

What's my favorite cheese? Baby Swiss. No surprise there! ;-)

Take care, Y'all and . . .
Write On!
~ Nanette

© Nanette Y. Francis, 2005. All Rights Reserved.