March 20, 2007 @ 9:56 pm | Filed under: Soul Food

Isn’t it amazing how intricately - and delicately - our bodies and minds are created?

In particular, I’m blown away at how the mind, body, and soul all seem to work in such harmony. At how each of our senses serve such a greater purpose even than what we give them credit for. They overlap, scoot through our memory banks, and produce in us emotions that our minds then work to place in proper perspective.

Have you ever stepped outside of a store on a hot summer’s day, caught a whiff of tar in the air, and be instantly reminded of long lazy days spent at Six Flags as a kid?

Or maybe you’re at the mall and hear the strains of a song that had a special meaning at one point in your life. Even while your mind is on your shopping list, emotions are being stirred and memories - long dormant - are swirling around inside you.

I’m currently enrolled in an Intro to Psychology course so I’m quite sure that I could find out what the technical terminology for all of this is called if I were to actually read the chapters. (KIDDING - I do read the chapters. Um…MOST of them.)

This happened to me yesterday and even now - a day later - I’m still basking in amazement at how my mind, body, and soul are so bound to one another. Blown away that one body is capable of so much intense emotion. Intrigued that one mind is able to channel in mere seconds the flow of that emotion.

I was out running errands and had just pulled into the bank parking lot when my phone rang. I reached for it, flipped it open, and answered as usual. Since I was half-way expecting a call, I think maybe I anticipated a different greeting on the other end.

"What’re you doing?"

Three short words that you hear every single day. A common exchange among me and my friends. Nothing out of the ordinary. Right?

Except this time, it wasn’t ordinary. It was…extradordinary.

I truly wish I had the words to accurately portray what transpired inside of me in that split second of hearing those three. simple. words. But while my mind, body, and soul work really well together, sometimes the English language (writer though I am) still fails me.

In mere nano-seconds I was transported back in time about fifteen or more years. The combination of the words, the timbre of voice, and probably my mood at the time all melded together seamlessly and - though I still sat behind the wheel of my car and did my best to carry on a normal conversation, my thoughts and emotions and memories were on a dizzying, yet exhilarating, carpet ride that took me back, back, back…

Back to a time in my life when - had you told me then would be brought suddenly up on the big screen of my mind over a decade later - I might not have believed you. I was a young mother then with small children and big dreams. While life often seemed overwhelming, I was brimming with optimism and a certainty that God - somehow, someway, someday - had an amazing plan for my life.

I discovered a rock back then and I held tightly to that rock. The years that have passed since then have matured me, but it was during that particular time that I was led by the hand from girlhood to true womanhood. I learned that times can be tough, but I am even stronger. I learned that hurt might last for a season, but love endures forever. I learned that sometimes words are…just not needed.

In fact, to this day, that time in my life defies words. But that’s okay.

Words would only complicate it.

Yet yesterday, at the sound of those words, my mind, body, and soul reacted in one swift movement. My heart flipped, my pulse quickened, my thoughts flew back in time, and then I felt myself relax and smile.

I don’t understand how the human body is so complex that it can take in normal, everyday outside influences - sights, sounds, smells - and then produce in us a phenomenon so luxurious as precious memories and milestones in our lives.

But today - over 24 hours later and still a little dazed - I’m very thankful.

"What’re you doing?"

Well, I’m smiling at the memories of the woman that I was.

And I’m embracing the woman that I’ve become.