The Power of Reflection

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from unquiet dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.” From “Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka

And I think I have tough days! Makes me think, Geez, where can a day go from here? And somewhere in the recesses of my cluttered mind there’s Alice exclaiming, “Curiouser and curiouser!”

Gregor Samsa’s experience might be a wee bit far-fetched for most people, but haven’t we all, at some time or another, awakened one morning feeling as if something in our lives is amiss? That something has gone awry? That we’re not in Kansas anymore, but we’re just not quite sure where we are? That we’ve been transformed in some way, shape or form but we just can’t put our finger on the what or the why or the how?  And, don’t you wish I would stop asking all these annoying questions?

So, I think we all can agree that we have, upon occasion, awakened and felt as if something has changed – we’ve been transformed in some way.  Or, as I like to look at it, an epiphany has occurred, and I slept right through it – again!

I learned about epiphanies many moons ago when, as a college student, I began reading the stories and novels of James Joyce.  His works are full of those aha! moments – moments when his character/s come to a realization – whether for good or for bad – that will forever change the course or meaning of his or her life.

So I decided that, for me, life is a series of epiphanies and transformations. It seems to go something like this: I have an experience, either in my conscious or sub-conscious mind but, eh? big deal, because no matter where I am in the experience – beginning, middle, end – I haven’t a clue as to what’s going on, why it’s going on, how it’s going to affect me or what I’m supposed to learn from it. So after a myriad of transforming experiences over my life thus far, I can only come to the conclusion that no matter where we are in the process of an experience, I can never really understand it and connect with its deeper meaning until down the road comes along and, upon reflection, I have that aha! moment and I get it – I really get it.

For instance, one day I was making gravy (I’m originally from North Jersey so we say gravy while the peasants say sauce. Growing up there was gravy and brown gravy. Period. And so it is to this day). So I was making gravy, and I was just adding some minced garlic when all of a sudden I couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t like I was just having trouble breathing, I literally could not breathe; no air was getting through whatsoever.

When faced with imminent death – and I knew this was an imminent death experience because I was not able to utter a sound – not a wheeze, not a whisper, not a gag – nothing was able to come through my airway – so when faced with imminent death, I was oddly calm. I was alone in my condo, my daughter being God knows where, and I remember very calmly thinking, “I’m dying. I’m dying all alone, but I don’t want to die alone.” All the while, my body was heaving violently trying to take in air – a valiant effort if there ever was one – but to no avail.

I knew that the neighbor who lived in back of me was usually home with her infant son, so I walked out my door – again calm and cool as a cucumber emotionally – and went to get her because all I could think about was that I just did not want to die alone. Her inside door was open, and I peered through the glass of her storm door, knocked, and when she didn’t answer – must have been out walking her son – I walked back to my condo resigned to the fact that I was indeed going to die alone. Luckily for me as I reached my door, I started to make sounds, and I knew I probably wasn’t going to die. I was still heaving – it is so amazing how much the body wants to live and how much it will fight to live – so much so that, although I might have wanted to give it up and go to my heavenly reward, my body wasn’t going down without a fight.

Anyway, by the time I reached my kitchen, I was making retching sounds, ran to the bathroom, and started vomiting. Afterwards I was shaking laid down in my bed. I took inventory: shaking, scared silly, confused, sick to my stomach, sore throat, alive. Alive! I didn’t know why this happened to me, but I was grateful that I was still alive to ponder it.

The next day I went to my doctor’s office and recounted what happened the day before. He told me that I was in pretty good shape and that this must has been a random bronchial spasm – something that can happen when a smell or a bit of food causes an immediate allergic reaction. In other words, something weird happened to me and he didn’t know the what or why, but I was alive.

Then, about three months later I was talking to a friend, and a thought popped into my head. I wasn’t consciously thinking about this experience, but suddenly I switched gears and said, “Remember when I thought I was dying that day? That day I couldn’t breathe? I think . . .” and I went on to tell her that I thought it was connected to what happened to me during my childhood.  And she said she thought I was right.  And it blew me away! Not just the childhood connection per se, but the fact that I was just then making the connection between something that happened to me three months before with something that happened to me during my childhood. And at that moment I was able to witness the incredible power of my mind, and I understood that we have experiences and when we are ready to or able to or whatever, we process those experiences and finally understand them.

And no I’m not going to fill in the ellipses for you. You can fill them in with an experience of your own.  After all, the connection is so much more important than what is left unwritten in the ellipses.

Today when I teach writing to college students, I tell them they should write about the things that have happened to them in their lives. I tell them to write about what is important to them – about those things that never seem to go away; that there is so much fodder to plow through, and that there is a richness of learning experiences awaiting them in the libraries of their brains if only they will undertake the task of either thinking about what has occurred in their lives or just writing to see what comes up.

But no matter what, it is all the aha! moments – all those connections we make when we are ready to look an experience straight in the eye and say, “Oh! Right! Now I get it.” And to me, nothing is more important to the person I am or the person I am in the process of becoming, than finally getting the importance of something that has happened to me and that moment when I am finally able to “get” it.

Aha!