Page 3 - Hawaii Island MidWeek - Oct 5, 2022

Retrieving Childhood Wisdom
CHASING THE LIGHT
with Kaethe Kauffman
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OCTOBER 5, 2022
HAWAI‘I ISLAND MIDWEEK 3
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By yielding, you may obtain a victory. — Ovid
tered wood felt like heaven. After a rest, I slid into the water for the return journey, confident, knowing I could and would rest before exhaus- tion took over. Feeling as if there were an endless amount of time, I blissfully did the “live girl’s float” four times before reaching the beach near home. Deep satisfaction welled up from surviving the challenge — and from having had the sense to take good care of myself by taking rests. The experience made a deep impression on me, but one that I had come to ignore, just as I had “forgotten” an aphorism from the Roman poet Ovid: “By yielding, you may obtain a victory.” From
When a collapse landed me in the hospital, I finally began to review my adult life: I had sometimes forced my- self through distress, ignored illness and surged emotion- ally beyond panic. Lying in a hospital bed took me back to the wisdom I had savored while lying on a splintered wooden dock.
about half a mile. Excited by my adventure, I ignored the chilly water. Midway across the calm expanse, I noticed the other side was barely visible. A core weariness en- gulfed me. Pangs of electric fear zapped around in my stomach. I couldn’t go on, and there was no one to help.
a hospital bed, I re-lived that childhood experience, lis- tened to the Roman sage, and retrieved wisdom from my 9-year-old self: to daily honor my body and allow it the rest it needs.
Writer and exhibiting art- ist Kaethe Kauffman (pen name, Cate Burns) has won numerous awards for her book of humorous essays, Libido Tsunami, and her po- ems have been featured in six award-winning poetry anthol- ogies. She has just finished a book of personal essays, Hu- mor When You Need It.
Chasing The Light is pro- duced by Lynne Johnson and Robin Stephens Rohr.
Swimming alone at the age of 9, I had decided to breast- stroke across the nearby lake,
Eventually, a gentle strength began to flow. Only then did I resume course to the far shore. When I flopped onto the dock, the uneven, splin-
Instinctively, I gave up the breaststroke and rotated onto my back, with arms out- stretched in complete surren- der — the dead man’s float. Gazing at a low gray sky was comforting and relaxing.
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