For seven days I heard a voice in my head speak a truth I didn’t know I had been seeking
louder
and
louder
until it had cleared away all the thoughts from my brain
until I could hear it echoing deafening off the bedroom walls
until I could only answer in reply
yes
yes!
YES!
until it covered me with joy and my heart turned inside out
and all the parts of me found their way home
Did you know there are people who have feelings?
Did you know there are people who have feelings that just show up like they have a standing invitation to the feelings party?
Did you know there are people who have feelings that they would like to share with other people who have feelings?
Did you know there are people who have feelings that speak and not the things that burrow into your body and gnaw at the walls of your stomach until you wonder if you have cancer
or the things that slide along your bones and bind your flesh so tight you wonder if you are made of stone
Did you know there are people who have feelings that move and dance and cry and sing and not the things that fold in and collapse into a black hole inside you, threatening to swallow the world if you open your mouth too wide
Did you know?
I didn’t know I didn’t know No one ever told me
In the mornings in that moment of waking before the world becomes real I would be filled with a feeling like a delicious secret settled in my bones and I'd think, it must have lost its way from a dream and I'd wait for it to flee as consciousness revealed its mistake
But I would wake and it would wake with me and it was real and I was real
For seven days I heard a voice in my head say, “you don't have to be a woman” louder and louder until it had cleared away all the thoughts from my brain until I hear it echoing deafening off the bedroom walls until I could only answer in reply yes yes! YES! until it covered me with joy and my heart turned inside out and all the parts of me found their way home
These moments that overcome us these crashing waves of fear and rage let them tear away the weights that drag us down So we can rise up! and breathe
These moments that overcome us these churning waters of despair let them toss our weary bodies together So we can find the ones who’ll hold us dear
These moments that overcome us these salty gales of shame let them whip the blinders from our eyes So we can see the truth of all there is
These moments that overcome us these rising tides of doubt let them wash away the stain of other people's words So we can know just who we are
These moments that overcome us this dragging undertow of grief let it teach us to swim this bitter sea So we can lead the way to shore
What am I writing Who am I writing for Who am I I want to write fire that lights up souls and burns down worlds Instead I am writing loaves of bread and flowers Like a woman tending her hearth But I am not a woman I am not a woman
This is a story about your birth. You are 4 and tomorrow I will be 41 years old. It has taken me this long to find it.
Before you were born we were given a baby journal. A little blank book to be filled with words about the first 4 years of your life, starting with the day you were born.
When you were new, I’d open the book with pen in hand, ready to fill it with the tender and sweet words I knew were meant to be written there. But the words I had were only coarse and awkward, and they strangled in my throat and withered at the tip of my pen. So the pages remained blank, a question waiting to be answered.
I am still a little resentful of this book – its presumption that I should so easily find a story of tender and sweet words, as if the work of being born is not coarse and awkward and terrible, and filled with all kinds of stories.
The day of your birth was filled with stories. A maelstrom of words filling the rooms where you came into life, and very few I think, were tender and sweet. In all of this somewhere is your story, but it is so wound up in my story that I can’t tell which parts belong to me, and which belong to you. I try to find the individual threads and tease them apart, but when I pull on one the whole thing unravels, words falling into my lap in a pile without shape or meaning.
I will grow my roots through the suffering earth and join with others in the darkness
We will grow our branches up into the joyful sky
And turn our leaves to face the sun
It will not be enough to lift up the world
But it will be enough
In the past I was made of chaos and darkness Held together by stories that were not my own
Until I found the words That spoke me into being
For years I searched, for what made me
Along the way I collected all the detritus bits and bobs garbage and treasure that makes people And when I finally became I found I was already full of humanity