1. Truth: I’m still working on “The Book.” One complication is that as I write, I am aware there are at least four books, waiting and wanting to be written, (working titles: Sublimity, The Lost Years, Walking Meditation, and Stay). This makes the process a bit confusing, as I sit down to write what I think is for one book but the deeper I go it becomes clear it belongs to another, or worse yet has a place in multiple stories but must be approached with a different viewpoint each time. It can leave me feeling that I have NO IDEA what I’m doing, (um, because I don’t). I just keep showing up, making the effort, hoping it will work out. As I’m writing, I’m also finally reading the books on the craft of memoir that I’ve collected over the years, hoping that study can help support what I’m doing.

2. Truth: I miss writing to you more directly, kind and gentle reader. Even though everything I’m writing is intended to eventually be FOR YOU, not sharing it directly and immediately is so hard. I want to tell you everything, make sense of it in real time and in community, tell you as I go in case it might help you where you are, right now. And yet, there’s something about creating an offering that is larger, more expansive and in depth, something you can hold in your hands and will last beyond me.

3. Truth: This takes so much time and effort, is so complex. I’m not just writing a book(s) about my experience(s), I’m living it, and some of my story is happening in real time, in the real and very chaotic world. My WHOLE life, I’ve tried to prove my worth, to EARN the right to be here, only to discover in my 50s that much of what I was taught to value and do to get that love, safety, and belonging is fundamentally unworkable and untrue. It’s a lot to process, so much to unpack and unlearn. In moments of despair it makes it seem like I’ve wasted my life and I don’t have enough time left to turn things around. In other more gentle, kind moments I can see that I had to live this in order to make sense of it and share it in a way that might help make someone else’s time a little bit easier. 

One wish: May we allow ourselves the time that it takes, rest when we need to rest, ask for help when we need it, trust ourselves and continue to show up, even when it’s hard.