A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine posted a piece on his blog suggesting that we take time in our lives to see what is around us. Little things may be on a sidewalk, in a yard, across the room in one’s own home and he said that it is easy to ignore those objects, whether they are pieces of nature, bits of trash, or parts of something man-made. His blog, which I love and read each day, was the beginning ore with which I built a mental shovel and dug into my own mine; this mind of mine, memories.

It did not take much digging to come upon a thing that has been around, within, me for approximately fourteen years. If you do not know me, about fourteen years ago I had a tremendous adventure, was lost on some intangible road, trail, journey; I fell off of an arch in Utah’s incredibly beautiful Arches National Park, and suffered a traumatic brain injury. I claim it as an adventure due to  every thing that I have gotten to see, during the time of loss and recovery. Surgery and rehabilitation are happenings I covered in a play that I wrote, as part of rehab, and in a memoir that I constructed, as a qualification for a Master’s degree in creative writing. To create, and to see what was created, there’s the thing that I dug up after reading my friend’s post.

The object, the thing, the found substance that I realized I still searched for, though it is found at points, is me. Self identity. I spoke with two of my dear writing friends one evening, as we wrote cool pieces, and brought up the fact that I missed something about how I was after the injury and surgery. The blog, with it’s eye-opening suggestion, to look about and see what was around us, triggered my missing of a large thing that had happened as I re-woke myself. I missed being the same as everything around me. The concept of being one with this planet, and all that is in it, may be a common thing when certain parts of an individuals brain are injured, and removed. I do not know that, but I remember reading a book by Jill Bolte Taylor, My Stroke of Insight,  and she had that feeling, as well, after her catastrophic brain injury. I had felt it strongly during rehab, as I was walked outside and shown trees, grass, water, fence posts, rocks  and even dirt on the ground. Everything was named, singled out, individualized; everything but me. I thought that I was simply with those objects, whether trees or rocks, anything around was the same as what I was. It took me a long time to grasp my identity. When in the hospital, as I said in my memoir, I looked in the mirror and did not know what that was, that moving thing near me. Reflection, actual or not, was a question that I carried, for a long time.

I have heard, from those who love me, that it took me a long time to find myself, and you know, I don’t mind that, at all. I miss the simple complexity of being one with all around. I miss the naivete which threads through that feeling. I hold tight to the accompanying concept of if one is the same as all around then kindness and respect are the footings to ramble along on. I, I say the word I, as I have become an individual, a person who knows who she is; aha! There’s a clue, she, a person who thinks about her self; and who still questions who on earth is she to be. What a complicated adventure, this has been, and is. Good to see what I may pass on every trail I take.