Storms~

I’ve always done a stellar job at pretending. Pretending all was well, nothing was amiss. I had no sense of safety with which to share the truth. I had to hide it deep within, keep it secret, keep it safe, keep it sacred. As I gaze at a picture of my little girl self, calling with her eyes for me to speak of her storms now, now that I am big and can keep her safe, she calls me to look at when I became so good at pretending. I know that I did so as a child, early. I know that I did so when my friend's father took me into his basement to fetch the butterscotch candy he had promised and worked my panties to the floor. And I already knew, but he told me anyway, no one would believe me if I tried to tell. I broke right then, deep inside. I put her inside a small jar and hid her on the highest shelf way back in the dustiest corner of the “other” room of selves. I know when someone came to investigate our home life and we all sat on the sofa with wide eyes until they left and my mother hit my sister so hard her glasses flew off and broke and she wore those glasses with tape on them for years after. No one knew the truth. Looking straight at it. We all broke these little bits of self off and put them into jars for safe keeping. High upon the shelf. Where only the Angels could reach them. I learned early on how to keep it together when all was breaking apart within. When my husband had held me against the door by my throat while I was pregnant with my daughter, and my damaged coccyx made it difficult for her to move through into this world, like the warning siren at the bridge. When my second husband returned from war, torn and traumatized and began to play out his war within our home. When the neighbor called dcfs on him and they came and interviewed us with him in the home. We all kept quiet, quiet as could be. When I ran, I made a story to escape, all was well… for everyone but me and the children. We were the only truth to be had. And I kept it so well, that 10 years after running away, my Mother accused me of walking away from her. When I explained that I ran for my life, she said, "all this back and forth does no one any good". And I have stopped pretending. For her or for anyone else. My son’s death shattered me beyond that falsity. It took me some years and experiencing and immersing in some of the greatest storms of the Mother Earth. And I broke wide open, and the let the storm rage all around. My 13 year old Son hugged me today when I said that I didn’t feel well and I cried. They’ve all held me in my tears. Let them see. Let them feel. The truth, all of it. The storms, the cry, the aches. The Love. I love the tornadoes that rip through, reminding us of Mother Natures raw power. Tearing it all up and tossing it away. Not this, not that. Rainbows at the end. The birdsong and the light rain that soothes everyone’s heart. The lightning that shows us the flash of truth in the middle of the darkest part of the storm. It is always there. Always present. We learn to feel it build, our teeth on edge, electrified. My father taught me to read the skies and the storms as they built. To listen to the birds for they always knew. I learned how to transfer that to my Mother, perhaps this is how he learned and why he taught me. When to cower and when to be brave. And I became a tracker. A tracker of truth. In all the ways. I found all my pieces and welcomed them in with the rainbows of peace and calm. I now radiate the truth and hide it from no one. Especially My Self. And now in my 48th year here, I am the safety in the storm.

Another 13 minute write from class 🙏

Writing with Laura-Story Revolution

Shattering into Wholeness

Over and over again, as I process the waves of my son’s death, my heart shatters wide open. A gaping hole looms and I fill it with compassion, for myself, for my children, for my son. For the world. And as I look at others in line at the grocery store, or in the library, or the grouchy woman behind the counter, I wonder what has shattered them. When I learned of my Mother's terrifying past, how her husband raped her and played Russian roulette with her, how her father beat his children with cast iron skillets, and I know why she has been so fractured. Why she was the way she was when we were growing up. How she had become who she was. And I see her in a new light. And I see that truly, she is a hero. We are all hero’s. We have all moved through some form of tragedy and come out on the other side a new being. Stronger, wiser, and knowing now how this world truly works. We come whole, we shatter, we break, we survive, we adopt a new persona, a new truth, a new name, we shatter, we break through the illusion of the void. We come into wholeness through this shattering as we find our hearts strength once again, it’s miraculous essence of life and love continues on. We find our greater purpose in these tragedies, we move into this new pathway of love once again. We teach, we empathize, we love more deeply than ever. Life is not a half lived promise, but a whole fiesta board. All lessons in one go it seems for some. There is no time to spread them out amid many. I watch the plums ripen on the tree out the window in front of my desk, and I have learned to love this tree over time, watching the flowers come through, then die, then the fruit comes to nourish others. I think this is the way. I follow nature to find my peace in it all. My surrender to the flow of life and death, and I choose to share kindness even more so now that I have known my own pain. It has been the most precious teacher of love. I love my children even more now that one of them has left me so early. I understand precious to a whole new level. I understand pain in others now. When I worked in the hospital I got in trouble often as the patients always wanted to tell their story as to why they were there. What had led up to it. That was what mattered. And I knew it, and I couldn’t rush them through as I was asked to. I took that knowing with me. The pain was the cure. To it all. For there we find the sweetness of the nectar of life. Of love. And we thrill in it all. I took that with me everywhere and I spread it along like the jam of love. The sticky sweetness that covers the wounds and brings a smile to the heart. Brings the joy to the eyes. Brings the life to the lips. I find that now in my own shattering, I become more whole each time I allow myself to shatter apart. To find the gold in the depths of it all, and I pour the golden nectar of love on all of the cracks, on all of the gouges and the tears. I spread it and smooth it and love it all so dearly. I cherish it. As much as I cherish life. For it is what has truly given me life after all.

Another 14 minute write from writing class 🙏

Writing with Laura, Story Revolution

❤️‍🔥

Painting by Tamara Stoneman Artist