Burstyn - Lessons in Becoming Myself

I can remember where I was, but not how I came to be there. It was a large undeveloped field on the corner of a busy thoroughfare. I must have been ten or eleven, maybe twelve at the most. It was a field I passed on the way to the A&P. I had no groceries with me, so perhaps I stopped on the way to the store, always one to be on the lookout for stolen moments of unsupervised solitude. What I remember is lying on my side in the tall weeds, cars and trucks going by, but me hidden from view, being quiet, my head on my left upper arm staring at nothing really, and then my eyes wandering down to the earth only inches from my nose. There, to my surprise, was a teeming busy other world. An ant labored under the weight of a dried orange peel ten times its size. A larger black ant climbed a stalk of wild grass. A fly was devouring a tiny mass of putrefied something. The whole area was alive with activity, purpose, industry. These creatures were consumed with the concerns of their lives. None of them seemed to be aware of me, although I was probably mashing to death whole neighboring villages with my body at that very moment. Should I happen to shift my weight, I could leisurely crush them to death. And suddenly I felt like God. This must be how God occasionally regards us, just as fascinated by our determined comings and goings and then just as indifferent as I would soon be to these creatures. The thought that I was about to turn from their earnest living made me love them and, in fact, remember them well enough to write about them sixty-odd years later. They are long since dead, but they are alive in me because I remember them. It is remembering that feeds consciousness. A mental photograph of that moment is part of me now, and it gives me a Godlike point of view. Had that ant prayed to me to help him with his orange peel, its possible that I might have heard, felt, sensed some rustle in my awareness that might have prompted me to pick up a stick and urge him along. Or not. But it certainly would have helped him to think he lived in a world where divine intervention was possible. It would have given him courage, as it gives me courage to pray. I can feel Gods divine indifference to my supplications for love, fame, money, or spiritual enlightenment. I can feel God not care whether I am successful in getting my orange peel to my chosen destination. But from the point of view of a laborer in the fields of God, I thank Him/Her for not rolling over onto me this day and for allowing me the opportunity to look up as I carry the burden of my ignorance and say thank you. Thank you for the remarkable gift of life, remembrance, and prayer.

In my uniform, St. Marys Academy.
I was six or seven.