Before I resume writing the next entries, I want to share where I am at as I go through this process of digging up my past.
For sure, none of this has been easy. But, in speaking with a friend over coffee this morning, then reading an article that I quote from below, some things came clear to me about why I am glad to be doing this.
The “singing bowl”
Next to my writing desk, I have a Tibetan “singing bowl.” If you strike the bowl with the wooden mallet or run the mallet around the outside of the rim, you can produce various tones of sound. I particularly like to run the mallet around the rim, circling the outside of the bowl with a steady pressure because I love the sound it generates. It’s first subtle, barely heard, then slowly grows in intensity until I can feel it vibrating in my gut.
Why would I bother?
From an AI summary:
“Singing bowls are used to induce deep relaxation, reduce stress, and promote healing through sound and vibration. These metal instruments, with roots in Himalayan, Tibetan, and Nepalese traditions, create sustained, resonant tones that help calm the mind, improve focus during meditation, and lower blood pressure and heart rate.”
Now, whether you believe in this or not, it doesn’t matter. I can tell you that for me, I find that as those tones bore deep into me, they just seem to flush out the tension and stress I may be feeling. It clears my mind and lets me resume working.
What does the singing bowl have in common with my writing? Simply – that I require them for my continued healing.
About my writing, and why it matters
I have a responsibility to tell this story, first for me, but second, for anyone out there who might find help through reading it. AND, just as importantly, to give witness to those who lived in pain and maybe didn’t make it through to tell their own stories.
So, I can’t be afraid to write my story and put it out there.
To that end, if I lived it, I get to write it. If I write it, I get to sign it. If I speak about sharing one’s truths, I cannot run from mine or hide behind a pseudonym.
Others, including any extended family members, have a right to handle this story however they need to.
No one has a right to tell me not to speak mine.
No one has a right to my life story.
And after 70 + years of carrying it within, I’m tired. I just want to be heard, to be free of it, and be whole.
As I’ve written these entries, I could actually feel myself becoming “whole” – FINALLY. I have not been that way my entire life. There were always things “missing,” things hidden, and in the last few years, things screaming to me to listen to them. They gave me no peace.
As I continue to write, each earlier part of me feels relieved and grateful. I literally feel a sense of relief within me. All those parts have been voices screaming to be heard, seen, and honored.
Finally, as I write each part, it’s like each one in turn stops screaming, sits down, relaxes, and says thank you for coming back for me, for hearing me. And the death-grip that each of those parts has had on me all my life has suddenly relaxed and let go. I am free of it. It is like each has been a soldier fighting for recognition and the right to be heard. And as I write about each one, that one in turn, stands down…FINALLY, as if they know that THEIR DUTY IS DONE.
Until now, the need to have things, talismans, objects from my past, out on display in my house has ALWAYS been intense and unquestionable. Now, there is a sense of calm, and an awareness that I can put them away.
Because that part has been written about, because its story is now captured on paper and put into a “coherent” whole, those parts of me feel heard, and know they will not be forgotten anymore.
WHY we need our stories:
Author K.M. Weiland, in her article, “Story as Cosmology: Understanding Story as a Framework for Meaning,” just NAILS the answer. In it, she explores how to write a story that truly resonates with the reader and rings true to life.
She defines “cosmology” as a “theoretical structure about the nature of existence…a framework of meaning, orientation, and context for our lives.”
I was intrigued because this all sounded very mystical to me. Especially as it related to telling a good story. So I read on.
In part of her article, she quoted from Christina Pratt’s seminar on cosmology when telling a story:
Cosmology:
- Is a framework that explains reality
- Defines what matters
- Explains how change happens
- Reveals where meaning comes from
- Shows how a person orients within chaos
She adds that a healthy cosmology is “coherent, relational, and growth-oriented,” while a broken cosmology “produces fragmentation, dissonance, or collapse.”
Fragmentation and dissonance have been with me my whole life. That’s part of what I am striving to heal.
In reading those five bullet points, I realized they ARE the reasons for anyone to write a memoir. And as to that last sentence about needing a healthy cosmology for a sound story, HOW MUCH MORE TRUE IS THIS FOR THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE?!
Weiland goes on to add:
“Any understanding of life is first and foremost a story…Our personal stories…tell us who we are…shape our understanding not just of the world but our own PERSONAL IDENTITIES.”
All my life, I have been searching for who I am, what I am, what the meaning of all that chaos is, and what to do with it. So IDENTITY was something I related to immediately.
She finished with:
“Story…provides the underlying structure required to help us create meaning…the structure of Story itself is nothing more or less than the archetypal recurring of:
- Crisis
- Choice
- Sacrifice
- Transformation
Story…is, by its very nature, a map of transformation.”
And that final word – TRANSFORMATION – is what I seek. It is not enough to tell the story. It is also necessary for me to find its meaning and then, by extension, its directive to me for where to go in the future.
So, just as my “aside” for this moment in my journey, I just wanted to say that I can feel it happening. I am not through the entire draft yet. But I CAN feel it happening already….
Now, back to the story.
Soul Mosaic 
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