Reclamation

Quite literally, I designed a controlled burn to purposefully create new fruit. I walked through the house and gathered everything carrying my married name—wall art, papers, envelopes, mailing labels, anything I could find. I grabbed pictures of me and my former spouse from frames, from photo albums, and off the walls. I scoured drawers and closets for gifts given by my once seemingly perfect husband. I found our written vows and mementos from our multiple weddings and vow renewals. Every meaningful, heartfelt memory gifted or made in love became a massive burn pile. To top it all off, I had lighter fluid, matches, a shovel, soil, and an infant tangerine tree. I had everything I needed to let go of what no longer served me, give back to the planet, and sow fruitful life. Let’s do this…and quickly. Incoming Hurricane Elsa threatened to ruin my plans. As the skies turned gray and thunder clapped, I raced out to my fire pit with the burn box. One by one, I threw my loving marriage mementos into the firepit and doused them with lighter fluid. The winds picked up and sprinkling rain smoldered the fire. My mind started racing. Maybe God is trying to tell me not to burn my memories. What if he really was a gift from God and comes back? I am going to regret this. I ignored my weak and fragile broken-hearted thoughts. “Wind is good, right? Fire needs oxygen,” I said while pouring more lighter fluid and trying to stop the rain from landing on my burn pile of cherished memories. This will work! It has to work! “Come on, Elsa! Let me let it go!” I yelled out, laughing with my son’s nanny who stood by my side in support. Once the fire ignited, I sprinted to the front of my property and started digging a hole. Thunder boomed and lightning struck in the distance. My nanny nervously laughed while we considered the idiocy of me holding a shovel amid the lightning. As soon as the hole seemed deep enough, I ran back to my barely blazing marital keepsakes, preaching to myself to quiet the inner voice again. “Bring it!” I yelled toward the sky. “The rain washes away everything I don’t need anymore. The rain feeds the soil and trees. My roots are strong and deep. My branches will grow. Bring this rain! God, make everything new again!” I choked on the words between sobs of confidence and loss. While shoveling the ashes from the firepit into a bucket, I thought of the beauty of the early years of my marriage. The love for my husband overwhelmed me, and gratitude for every moment poured down my cheeks. I ran back to the fresh hole now filling with rainwater. Dumping the ashes into the hole, I started to pray…or perhaps preach confidence again. “With the ashes from my past, return nutrients to this soil. New life will grow. This is my tree of life,” I said out loud thinking about the juniper tree. “It will be fruitful. It will be blessed. God is with me. He walks ahead of me. He will neither abandon nor forsake me.” Drenched and hardly able to see, I placed the young fruit tree in the hole and began to pack it with soil. Hurricane Elsa’s winds and rain swirled around me while I planted my tree of life. Something new and fruitful would blossom from the ashes of my marriage. When planting was complete, I walked slowly back to the house while the rain plunged sideways from the sky and lashed at my skin. My confidence began to waffle, so this time I lectured myself. Let it go! This is freedom. A new life. Pull it together! Stephanie came to the house soon after. Together with my nanny, we ate cake, drank mixed spirits, and talked about my freedom. I had released myself from my vows. I accepted the death of my marriage. The ashes of its early beauty have been given to the Earth. I planted a tree to spring new life. At the time, it never dawned on me that this symbolic healing adventure occurred on the anniversary of the miscarriage—the day my marriage died three years earlier. My tangerine tree more than doubled in size its first year, though it is still immature and unlikely to produce fruit for another year or two. It broke my heart to leave her when I eventually left that house. I stewed over digging her up and potting her to take with me. It’s time to move on. Let it go. She represented a soul tie that I no longer needed. Now a couple years later, I look back on that day with mature, compassionate eyes. That silly, broken-hearted woman feverishly trying to plant a tree in a hurricane was running around using her own strength and trying to control the environment. She still needed to prove something. She needed to make something good out of all the death. But when she heard the warning call, she ignored it. In all her glory shouting, “I’m free!”, she forgot she was never called to be the farmer. She had not yet learned the art of discernment.