Never Say Never

N-onsense
E-couraging
V-ery
E-dited
R-eality
The theme of this month's issue of Mosaic Minds is one near and dear to my heart. If someone were to ask me how I'd judge the life that I've lived, I'd say that my life has been fulfilling, enriching, and that there is room for oh, so much more. I'd give credit for such a life to the above creed taught to me at the age of four. The wise man who spoke those words became my life-long mentor, Grey. I owe him for that.

We've all heard the admonishment to "never say never." Maybe we've heard those words too many times. Usually we hear them when we least want to hear them, during a downslide of one sort or another. But well intentioned friends, family members, and loved ones often produce them when there seems to be nothing left to say.

What a hard thing to accomplish, never saying "never." It seems almost part of human nature to use that word: "I'll never understand him," "She'll never love me like I love her," and "They will never get that up those stairs." Everywhere we look and in everything we do, the word never is easily found.

Never eat and then swim immediately after; if you do we all know what will happen: you'll grow the world's worst case of stomach cramps and die. Never let 'em see you sweat; if you do you won't be able to claim you use the world's greatest deodorant. Never count your chickens before they hatch, and on and on and on ...

People say "never" after divorce, claiming they'll never get married again. People swear to God, the Universe and anything that will listen that they will never get that drunk again, if only they will stop vomiting.

I think the word "never" is one of the biggest, truest, fastest ways to lock ourselves in a box of unhappiness that rivals all other entrapments. Each and every time I run across the word "never," I cringe. It seems nearly omnipotent, and it can leave devastation in its wake.

I was only four years old when I first heard the saying "never say never." The memory of Grey standing before me with the splitting maul and the huge rounds of timber that needed to be split still haunts my mind. I had just begun school. I had just finished my first day. I was tired, alone and defeated as Grey greeted me.

"How was school, Ray of Sun?"

Grey called me by the shortened version of his people's name for me: Ray of Sun So Small. Back then I was a carrot-topped, red-headed girl of vibrant curiosity. I didn't know why they had given me that name, but they did. I didn't think to question it until years later.

"I'll never like school." I sadly pouted. I put my bag down on the ground and climbed up on a large hunk of log. "I will never get to play dodge ball."

"Never?" Grey asked.

I shook my head no as I wiped hot, angry tears from my eyes. "Never. I'm too small."

"Well, that's nonsense." Grey huffed as he sat down and reached for his water skin. I sighed the heavy, heartbroken sigh of a four-year-old little girl. He was right, it was nonsense, but what could I do about it?

"What did you do in class?" He tried switching topics.

"I got to read the first ten pages of James and the Giant Peach! To my class, even!" I suddenly announced. "Mrs. Silver said I could do it and she'd help me if I got stuck on a word, but I didn't get stuck once!"

"Well, that sounds encouraging."

I sighed as the memory of the impromptu meeting between Mrs. Silver, my daddy, and the principal came to mind. "She says she can't teach me" I admitted with shame.

"Why not?"

"Because I already know how to read," I sadly admitted. "Kindergarten is for learning ABC's and I already know them all. I'll never be a good kindergartener." Now my tears rolled down my cheeks. "I'll never be a good kindergartener."

"Never?" Grey asked again. This time I shook my head instead of verbally answering him. Finding out I wasn't a good kindergartener was heartbreaking to me, even if I didn't understand why at the time. Grey sighed with me and offered me a drink. I accepted.

It was at that point I remembered to look around. Grey always told me to look around my world, but sometimes I still forgot. "What are you doing?" I asked.

"Well Alicia said I can't watch the sky dance with the earth until I get all these pieces of log chopped into firewood. So I am doing that."

"I wanna watch the sky dance with the earth!" I cried.

Grey looked around and shook his head no. "I don't know, Ray of Sun, this is a big job...."

"I can do it... I can do it..." By now I had slid off the stump I sat on and was jumping up and down. "I can help... please... I wanna watch the sky dance with the earth."

Grey pretended to take on a serious, thoughtful pose as he looked around the many piles of logs. "You'll have to change your clothes..."

I was gone before he could say another word. Into Grey and Alicia's home I raced, over to my box of work clothes. In a flash, and without thought of my disastrous day, I changed and was back at the wood pile. I also had thought of something new to share, something smart.

"The sky can't dance with the earth." I told Grey as I put hands on my hips. One of the two pigtails I wore bobbed in and out of my line of vision as I cocked my head to the left. "It'll never happen. The sky's up there and the earth is down here."

Grey only laughed as he said, "Never say never, Ray of Sun So Small; never say never."

Within minutes Grey gave me my assignment as it pertained to the splitting of wood. I was to get each big, heavy, round hunk of log over to where Grey stood with the splitting maul. Once he hacked the large rounds into smaller, more manageable chunks of wood, I'd carry each piece to the drying pile. It sounded simple, at first.

I tried lifting the hunks of log, but they were too big for my tiny body. Some of them stood higher then my waist, and most weighed more than I did. I tried shoving, grunting and groaning and muttering as the large piece stayed right where it was. After ten minutes of trying on the first piece I had, I gave up.

Throwing myself over the top of the log I hung there limply. My pigtails hung down into the dirt and my arms followed their lead. "I'll never do this." I moaned. "I can't do anything..." I sounded as if the world had come to an end.

I was such a dramatic little pipsqueak back then.

Grey sat down. "Tell me something Ray of Sun, which is farther away, forever or never?"

I pulled my arms up and propped my elbows on the log, resting my chin in my hands as I thought. Grey always asked me important questions. That is why I liked him so much. I thought about his question and finally nodded my head as my chin bobbled in my hands. "Forever...it's way far away....all the way into....forever!"

Grey didn't argue with me. He did raise his left eyebrow and look at me skeptically as he said, "You think?" I could only nod with the assuredness of a confident four-year-old. I did think, therefore it must be so, right?

"All right, let's get back to work." He announced. Happy that my answer suited him, I obliged. But again I found myself crying out, "I'll never do this, this is too hard...."

That's when Grey taught me the value of leverage. A small force like me, when combined with another force, like a large sturdy stick, could in fact create enough energy to move a big force, like an unyielding log. One by one, slowly, I began moving those rounds of timber. I grunted, I groaned, I whined and I even kicked a few, but my mournful declarations had changed.

"This will take forever!" I now wailed. Grey would only laugh in his special way and somehow convince me to keep going. Eventually I did get all of the logs moved. It took us until after midnight. We stopped for supper, and had breaks, but by the time the late summer sun was going down, we had those logs chopped into fire wood.

When the last log chunk had been thrown on the drying pile, I flopped down on the ground and splayed my limbs out wide. I closed my eyes and allowed my energy to sink into the earth, like Grey had taught me to do. I didn't even hear it when Grey lay down beside me.

I might have been feeling victorious, but truthfully, I think that was the first time my body hurt from manual labor. As I lay there soaking up the warmth of the earth, and releasing my sorrows, I heard Grey's voice whispering to me. "Do you still say forever is farther away then never, Ray of Sun So Small?"

I nodded my head. I was positive it was, but too tired to tell him that.

"Open your eyes..." He encouraged me.

As my tired eyes fluttered open, I found myself face to face with the stunning, miraculous show of the Aurora Borealis as it danced brilliantly across the night sky. Not only did it dance the mysterious, ribbon-like dance in color, but from where I was lying, it felt and looked as though it was dancing with the earth I now upon.

"WOW..." Those three little letters uttered from my tiny lips held all of the awe, wonder, and mystery of the universe in them.

"Never means Nonsense, Encouraging Very Edited Reality, little one." Grey's voice was a mere whisper as I watched and felt the dance of sky and earth. "If I had let you carry on with your nonsense that you could not do this, if I had encouraged you to think that, you would have edited or cut out this reality... the sky does dance with the earth, Ray of Sun So Small. Never say never."

Grey is gone on now, departed from this earth years ago, but I don't forget the lessons he taught, especially this one. "Never" limits us in ways we can't fathom. It will always trap us into a very edited version of our reality, and it will do its best to keep us there for even longer than forever. Because of Grey, and of that lesson on that day, I won't let never trap me.

Thanks Grey, and you're right, never is much farther away then forever!