When I was a girl growing up we lived in the country in midwest USA, farming country. And we had a very very very big garden. This garden looked rather like a farmer's lot. It was huge. And all of Mom's energy in the summer went into that garden. That garden was our food in the winter.
We had more of everything than we could ever eat. And every meal was representative of the food that grew outside our back door. There were also fruit trees out there and so we had sliced tomatos, pickles, jellies, pies, along with the hot meats and vegetables.
Sometimes I would wander downstairs into the cellar. The cellar was underground and always cool and lined with wooden shelves. The wooden shelves had all the glass jars with the canned vegetables neatly stored for winter. Everything had its proper shelf, its storage space, its place. Everything was organized and just so. The colors would show through the clear glass, green pickles, purple plums, red cherries, yellow/orange peaches and black blackberries. They are mason jars and some are large and some are small. Some are little jelly jars and some are gallon jugs with pickles. They are all lined up on those solid wooden shelves that are part of the foundation of our home.
When I quit smoking, the earth shook in my life. The foundation of my life crumbled and the shelves in the cellar fell. They collapsed and broke in half. The heavy wood wasn't strong enough. The foundation blocks gave way to a greater force. The force was change. And it was great indeed!
All my little glass jars fell a long long distance and hit the cement floor with such tremendous impact that they shattered and flew into a million pieces. Every single jar mingled with the other until the colors blended together in a mess on the floor.
I have been working on cleaning that mess up for 2 years. And it has been the most rewarding task of my 40 some years of life. I have learned so much while sorting through this broken glass and while mopping up the spills. Well, sometimes change is monumental. And the change that happened the day I quit smoking was truly liberating, to say the least.
6/7/03
