Chaos and catfish.

It was a beautiful day at my mother’s grave. The sky was nearly clear—clouds detailing texture across my view. It was a beautiful day for December. And the wind seemed to envelop me in a peaceful embrace.

Maybe it was my mother—giving me a much needed hug that I always longed for. A prayer on her lips that I once desired. I wished her a merry Christmas. I opened my eyes to silence. I never expected anything from my mother. I was perfectly content with having her. She always tried so hard to give me what I wanted. But I just wanted to be with her.

I finally mustered the strength to move on from that. What I longed for, I could no longer have. I left her behind as I continued my journey to Virginia. I would return to my home.

8 hours in a car prompts a decent amount of food for thought. My jaw was beginning to hurt after a while of chewing. There was something that held me back. It was like I had plenty of words in my head but they refused to escape. Refused to leave. I tried for so long to write again—I beat myself up over it. What was I doing wrong? I got lost in the structure and order. I was insistent it was the lack of writing technique. I tried everything. I tried outlines, I tried writing at different times. I tried prompts, but nothing left. It stayed sealed away in my brain like a tomb.

And I felt everything. It wouldn’t leave. It stayed inside me gnawing at my very soul. Like a dog gnaws a bone. Eating away. I felt stuck. I felt trapped by my feelings. Held hostage.

It began to devastate me that I could no longer write. I wondered what had gone wrong. It was my whole being once upon a time, and now it was like I couldn’t release my soul. I couldn’t express anything I was feeling. Months went by. Years even.

I realized I needed to go home. Back where it all started. To that magical place decorated with cedars. And a seemingly unending forest surrounding it. Where I could just get lost in its immense greatness. Funny enough, where my father lives a town over.

Going home was always special. A part of me misses it dearly, and the other part of me understands why I left. It was where I could wake up to the aroma of homemade cat head biscuits greeting my nostrils a good morning. Where I could still hear that box fan on full blast, cooling down Mawmaw’s kitchen as she prepped for thanksgiving. Where there was still warmth in the bed from where my father slept that I would slip into after he left for work. And my mother would embrace me on a cold winter’s dawn. Where my father would read of Lucy’s tales in the wardrobe and Narnia. Home was where my imagination was born. My chaos.

It was like I buried the secret deep where the cat fish creep. That creek behind the cedar trees. This held the fate of my chaos. I had to talk to that little girl again—I had to figure out how she did it. Before everything happened. I had to know how she told those stories. Stories that she felt so deeply despite never experiencing those things.

I met her at the edge of a wood. If I closed my eyes, the pine made it smell like that place. The cedar in my father’s house reminded me enough of the ones I once knew. I asked her. I pleaded through tears, how did you do it? I was mystified how this little girl told stories so effortlessly. She said she felt everything and wrote it down.

I laughed. It was too simple—but no. It was chaos. Like her beating heart, she felt everything, but it was the life force. It was chaos. And it was beautiful. I spent so much time worrying about structure that I put myself and my feelings in a box and only allowed myself to feel certain times of the week. Like I was scheduling a business meeting. From there, I would write again. I would write the chaos that would come. The ebb and flows of a river called storytelling. Where the chaos and catfish dwell. That little girl fished there regularly.

I would no longer bound myself to the structure and box that I have placed myself in. I would create once more, and I was no longer telling myself that my thoughts are not worthy. I would become a storyteller once more. One of chaos and catfish.

all children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this: One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I supposed she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, ‘oh, why can’t you remain like this forever!’ … Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you’re two. Two is the beginning of the end.

Peter and Wendy, J.M. Barrie