15. A vision falls into place
How to meet despair with a vision for a better future
Hello friends,
In times of great despair, a vision for a better future has always pulled me forward. This week’s installment shares how I came to understand the spiritual power of vision.
15. Achievement collection
The aftermath of Scotty’s drug bust was my first encounter with true despair. Upon returning to New Hampshire for the winter, I was ashamed to see my friends and extended family members. Even though I didn’t do anything wrong, it felt like a secret I wasn’t allowed to talk about, so I didn’t.
As a natural optimist, I bottled up the despair into a kernel of ambition that I kept close to my chest as I went about daily life: homeschool, weekly ballet lessons, and being tutored in Latin with my friend Shanni, my former neighbor from the Colonial Inn (Hi Shanni!). Shanni was also enrolled in Oak Meadow’s independent study correspondence school.
A vision for my future
Oak Meadow’s advanced curriculum included reading Black Elk Speaks by John G. Neihardt for history class. I was jealous of Black Elk’s premonitory visions and wanted some of my own. So I made them up. Perhaps spirit was talking to me in its own way — there were parts of my vision that I could see, and parts that I could only sense.
In my vision, I would go to college. I would live in a city—maybe even San Francisco. I would be around people who cared about books and history. I would have athletic achievements. It would take me three more years of high school to get out, but I would, and I did. Each medal, certificate, and A on my report card was validation that I was on the right track. I began to collect awards the way I had collected stickers.
Winter that year was a little easier: Scotty cut a hole in the living room floor and installed a spiral staircase so that now we could take a shower without going outside. But he and my mother fought over my need for an education. He still wanted to travel and look for gold, while my mother insisted we stay in New Hampshire so I could finish high school. With all the extra-curricular activities, my life was becoming bigger to manage than it had been when I was a little kid. For me, living in a campground again was out of the question.
Did your parents’ ideas for your life differ from your own? How did you handle it?
A vision for today
Despair is easy to come by these days. My reaction to current events is to double down on the essentials: love, beauty, wisdom. To be more true to myself than I have ever been. To take better care of myself. To devote myself to the creative muse as much as I can, to show up well at work, to be an encouraging friend.
I’ve never been much of a political activist, but I’d like to say I’m a self-love activist. My vision is for a world where we know our hearts as well as our heads.
I’m no longer collecting stickers or awards. Today it’s the smiles and sunsets, the moments of stillness and silliness that serve as evidence of my vision falling into place.
This week, may you see evidence of a wholesome vision falling into place in your world.
Love, Lee Ann
Self-love activist is the best!