Back Story: Returning by Linda Leschak
The story “Returning” was born from a few different concepts that had been bouncing around in my head. I’d been reading The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying and found myself fairly amazed at how the Tibetan tradition looks at death. Death is neither the end, nor the beginning—it’s just another part of the long journey of a person’s life(lives). The idea that this life is a training ground and dying means going somewhere we’ve already been. That the lessons learned this time around are cumulative and every life we live builds on wisdom we’ve already acquired.
To me, that melds right in with the famous quote from Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin when he said, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” I’ve been known to take that concept in a few different directions—like pondering the notion that this body of mine was created only to be inhabited by a spirit seeking purchase. Regardless of which tradition I examine that through I find myself conjuring up images from a science fiction movie where aliens invade and take over our bodies.
Ah, but when I find myself going too far in that direction, I try to navigate back toward the less deviate. Like how our bodies are, in fact, created and born of water: the egg tucked away in its mucous membrane, the seed and its inexplicable swim through the watery murk, the fetus, floating, living and breathing the amniotic fluids. All culminating in a rush of broken birthing waters. And from that emerges a human being comprised, as it were, mostly of water!
So, into these ponderings wanders Beatrice who not only knows all of this at a cognitive level but feels it viscerally. After Dan’s death she feels the lure of the water drawing her. She moves to the beach, positioning herself closer to what she knows is her own source. She hears it calling her from deep within her dreams, she paints its images into her canvases. For Beatrice Dan’s death becomes a turning point, a time to start again, to find a new beginning. She begins to feel that this life—the life of Beatrice—had been about relationship and that she and Dan had both learned that lesson well. She realizes that what she had with him can never be matched, and she sees that now it’s simply her time to return home.
Linda Leschak lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband, son and two Boston Terriers. She earned her undergraduate degree from the Union Institute and University at Vermont College. She’s had her work included in several publications including the Lone Star College’s Inkling Magazine, the International Poetry Festival at Round Top Texas, and the E-zines, Rose & Thorn Journal and The Criterion. She’s an active member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and is currently juggling two works in progress: a middle grade fantasy and a contemporary young adult novel. Find Linda LALeschak.com or lindaleschak.blogspot.com. Read "Returning" in the fall 2011 issue of Rose & Thorn Journal.
Reading your words brought the lovely story back to me. Thank you.
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The quote by Teilhard de Chardin...very thought provoking. Thank you for sharing your backstory, Linda.
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