"I couldn't do anything except curl up like a ball on the floor of the barn and lie there, crying. The kind of tears that burn your eyes, and the sort of sobs that make your chest ache so that you're sure it's going to bust open. And when the sobs finally ran out, the tears kept coming, so I lay there with my mouth wide open, but I hardly made a sound. Just air going into me, and a heavy wind full of sorrow coming out.
"But as I cried, my heart was being transformed. It was getting smaller and smaller in my chest and hardening up like a rock. The smaller and harder my heart got, the less I cried, until I stopped completely.
"By the time I was finished, my heart was a sharp, black stone that was small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. It was so hard nobody could break it and so sharp it would hurt anybody who touched it.
"I stayed there, staring ahead at nothing, with just about nothing left inside of me, for quite a bit.
"And then my new heart came up with a resolution. Because when your heart changes, you change, and you have to make new plans . . . I could feel the hardness of my heart spreading into my arms and my legs and my head, and it felt fine. I would win . . . And that was the end of me listening to anybody or anything, other than myself and my new heart, for a long time.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"And she was wearing me down in ways she probably didn't even intend to.
"Ms. Washington would read to us each day after lunch, and her voice was like different musical instruments. She could make her voice go low and deep and strong like a tuba, or hop, hop, hop quick and light like a flute.
"When she read, her voice wrapped around my head and my heart, and it softened and lightened everything up. It put a pain in my heart that felt good.
The book tells the story of a grade school aged girl who lives on a large farm, an apple orchard. She is home schooled by her mother, and spends hours among her trees. They speak to her and she hears their poetry in the wind. Her mother gets cancer and her father has to sell part of the farm to a housing development and they cut down trees--her trees. Her mother gets cancer and she has to be enrolled in public school. Ida's heart is hardened by the terror and pain that she feels . . . it is softened by the understanding and patience of her teacher, Ms. Washington, and magic--the magic of words read aloud.
I love the book, because it not only speaks to me, but speaks the words that have defined me during times in my life. The story is not mine . . . but it is mine. As Ida cries, I also cry and my soul feels the barbs of her hardened heart. As she listens to her teacher read aloud to the class, my mind fills with words from the stories that I have listened to, read out loud to my children . . . and have also read to myself in quiet times and quiet places when I needed to hear the magic of their sound.
 |
| Words we say to each other land in the heart and grow. CEWH |
Words have power, more than we can
know
Words we say to others, land in the
heart and grow.
By words, the earth created, By
words, the stars are paired
In words we hear eternity,
by words our hearts are shared.
Words have power, more than we can
know
Words we say to others, land in the
heart and grow.
Will they bloom, sustaining life? or
will they root and rot?
Will I be traitor-coward or
be the hero sought.
from Words Have Power, talk given June 2012, CEWH
Ms.Hannigan's book, Ida B, is a work of art rendered in words. I have been blessed by her talent and am grateful for the chance I've had to read and re-read her creation.
No comments:
Post a Comment