By the time of my younger daughter’s graduation from Alfred University, where she had first been enrolled in the School of Art and Design and then transferred to Liberal Arts, she had a collection of beautiful ceramic pieces. Because she was moving to a new state in search of work, I had gladly offered to keep them. Then a sad realization came when I had to move, knowing I needed an affordable way for their return. I have forgotten the East Coast origin of my flight and the connecting airport to Wisconsin, but not the interminable walk between gates, tiring my shoulders, so that I alternated my hands, pulling by rope, a heavy, carry on bag of her carefully-wrapped art—while I simultaneously felt the joy of every piece arriving whole.
While visiting her sixteen years later, I took a photograph of one of her pieces, a hand-blown glass, adding a small aster from the yard. The photograph was stored until when three years later I came across it and noticed it now held new meaning. I saw the aster as those times in my life when I had felt confident and, yes, beautiful, while its shadow was my hidden, unidentified emotional immaturity.
At my fiftieth high school reunion, I sat next to Bob Petrucci, who I’d known only by name in our youth. But that evening he made an impression on me by his quiet voice, gentle demeanor, and our shared interest in topics that included spirituality. Later he wrote, “Only once in our youth did I see you cry, but I’ve never forgotten it. You didn’t pass your driver’s license test on your first attempt, and were sobbing afterward. It shocked me, because I viewed you as one of the most composed, “perfect” kids in our class.” Before my realization of the aster at seventy-one, Bob had perceptively described my “bloom and shadow” at seventeen.
My realization is, “At any time we may find a reflection of our perfection, as well as our drama in enlightening details of our truth.”