Rites of Passage

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This weekend, I assisted in a powerful rites-of-passage wilderness workshop for young women in the mountains of Santa Cruz. To see these 10-13 year old girls learning primitive skills, tracking, fire-building as well as inner strengthening exercises like facing fear, darkness, challenges was more than inspiring.

One night, we took the girls into the dense forest and in pitch black, blindfolded them and let them try to find their way to a distant drum beat. Their knowledge of listening, feeling the earth beneath their feet, grounding and calming themselves, and facing their fears helped them make their way through this darkness relatively unscathed. Adults were of course surrounding it all and there in case someone was going towards danger, but for the most part their skills got them where they needed to go. At the end we all circled by the fire, faces glowing, and shared how the experience affected us, and my heart was moved by the depth that these young ones shared amongst us all. We sang songs of embracing light, embracing darkness, we spoke of finding the “true drumbeat” to listen for and follow in the dense forests we must walk through ahead in life.

I wonder what my life might have been were I exposed to something like this before my journey with the eating disorder and depression began…would my psyche have taken me there anyways? Would it grab some of these young women too, initiating them in the ways I was? Or would it have prevented the need for such intense initiation? I’m so curious how these girls will turn out as a result of being involved in such powerful rites-of-passage work.

Today, sitting at my desk I faced my fear, my own rite-of-passage. I was inspired by these girls, walking so bravely into the unknown night, trusting the drum, trusting the journey it would take them on. Today, I wrote a letter to the professors of the study I mentioned last week, asking if they might be interested in connecting and talking about ideas, possibly in reviewing my memoir. I wrote the letter pretty easily, but it was in pushing the send button where I faced my own darkness–putting myself, my ideas, my relatively “unknown” status as a writer out there in the wider field. Putting these things out there to possibly get rejected, ridiculed, shamed, all the fears that a writer or any creative has in putting out their heart to the world.

My finger trembled above the enter button as I steadied myself, like those young girls did in that forest. I breathed in, sent my roots down, and listened for the drum–the sound of my heart’s desire to share my story–and braced myself for the unknown that may come of this contact. I have had much practice in self-soothing, in courage, in trusting and daring, but for some reason I really felt the energy of those brave girls affecting me, urging me, to hit that button. So I did, and with a whoosh it has flown into the interwebs to do its magic. We’ll see what happens next.

Letting Go: Of Going at it Alone

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I’m distracted. In attempting to formulate the proposal letters to publishers, I’ve been doing research on comparative literature and finding fascinating parallel visions in others’ writings. Most of this is being found in academic research papers, not necessarily memoirs, but they are inspiring nonetheless.

What’s inspiring me are these parallels–of the realizations I have come to in my own struggles with what’s known as an eating disorder and depression–being directly stated in these academic studies. Where I have felt like an outcast, as one who may be rationalizing my behaviors with mythological metaphors, or perhaps even crazy…I am finding through these words and studies a reflection of my own understandings birthed through my experience.

One of these studies is Listening in the Dark: why we need stories from those living with severe and enduring anorexia nervosa: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5116854/. As I read this study, it’s words jumped off the page at me. It seemed to literally be beckoning me to share my narrative with a wider audience, suggesting this as a cultural and sociological issue. As I go further and further into this memoir journey, I seem to be meeting support and mysterious synchronicities along the way, and this is one of them.

I’ve been spending my time drafting letters to the authors, not really knowing what it will lead to but somehow knowing I need to reach out to others receiving and contemplating these same visions I’m having, as if we’re both sourcing the same great and deep well. I’ve been spending my time being fascinated by the like minds I’m finding, and in generally not feeling alone with these crazy thoughts I’ve been having about my journey for all these years.

So I’ve been distracted. Yet perhaps it’s not a distraction, where the process of making connections, realizing shared views and practicing the vocalization of my perspective is all part of the journey. I’m curious of where this might lead me, especially if it might eventually lead me back to actually writing proposals to publishers like I “should” be, lol.

For now, I’m letting myself ride the twisting tributaries and seeing where they go. For now, I’m letting myself be fascinated by the reflections and mirrors of others’ words. For now, it’s just enough to know that maybe, after all these years, I am not alone.

Publishing, Marketing, Dating and All That Jazz

I’m overwhelmed. There is a certain similarity to the process of research and sales necessary to pitch my book to publishers that reminds me of the process of dating, which I am also overwhelmed by. Here I need to primp up my words, sourced from the depths of my soul cauldron, to make it look presentable enough, attractive enough, to be looked at and considered by companies with thousands of letters and requests to ruffle through each day. Hrumph. I don’t like doing this for dating purposes, and I’m certainly not enjoying it for publishing purposes either.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I am enjoying the research process–looking at comparative literature, seeing how they market their wares. In fact, the other day I found a group of researchers that wrote an article basically calling out for stories like mine, the need for a new paradigm of seeing illness and “recovery” from Anorexia https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5116854/. I even surprisingly found my thoughts and experiences mirrored in a book I chose for this process, one I read many years ago and was unimpressed by then: Wasted by Marya Hornbacher. Although I still think the mass of the book is triggering and not related to my journey, the afterword completely mirrored my experience, of Marya’s challenges with the ideas of recovery, at least the linear expectations of it, especially in hindsight after years away from the intense periods of her struggle.

These boons are making the process worthwhile, and exciting in a way, that there may be less of a need for me to completely strip my deep soul message to get “picked up” by a publishing house. That there are others out there that are “credible” I can refer to as having similar messages. That perhaps I can find a balance in representing my work professionally but in a way that doesn’t lose its message…and that a house will actually value that message, not look past it or ask me to make it more mass market friendly.

Yet it still reeks of the social game of dating, of looking pretty for attention, and it feels so ironic that I would be drawn into this process in my search to get my memoir out. My memoir focuses on the difficulties of extreme alteration to accomplish culturally popular goals, acceptance, love. How do I make this effort not that, which it basically is? I’m trying to see this process as a refinement, a conscious and balanced use of self-esteem and soul image to engender a pathway to expression in the wider world. I’m trying to see it like jazz–keeping my scatting, but presenting it in a way that makes its way into fine dining establishments and infuses the listeners with its real, raw and yet undefinable message.

Like dating, jazz is a hard genre to describe, full of complexities. Like both of these, so is the process of trying to market my book. Its uncomfortable, thinking of words I’ll use to impress publishers and readers to consider my book. Yet I’m up for it, mainly because I wonder if this process is exactly what my soul wanted me to engage in as I took on the process of writing and releasing this book. I’ve got hopes that I might learn some things, be surprised by some things, maybe even encouraged and lifted up by the experience.

I still refuse to shave my legs for it though.

It Lives!

So in the midst of all the car drama I forgot to mention that I received the proof copy of my first book, Food Memories! What an experience to hold it, in material form, in my hands. It has been three years since I received the idea to now having it in print form –albeit with a myriad of formatting errors due to my amateur formatting attempts.

At the same time, I also received the final edit of this manuscript from my editor, and that’s a whole overwhelming experience, with red marks and changed words and the like. I’m in that common stage of not knowing what the hell to do with the suggestions–which to keep, and which to ignore by trusting my own style. I’m sure I’ll figure it out, but I can see that a steaming mug of strong coffee and some dark chocolate may be involved in said figuring :}

At the bottom of my editor’s invoice, she made a small but important comment that she strongly suggests I pursue the traditional publication route. Well there’s an unexpected suggestion! I’ve been headed with her this whole time down the self-publishing route, but I guess there’s been a turn since her last reading.

So now I am aiming my sails at the process of query letters and comparative literature reviews, and seeing where it takes me. I know this route can take a while to yeild anything, if at all, soI have my self-publishing button all ready to go should it become too weary. But I figure I might as well give it a try.

For now I celebrate. Hooray for a manifested, physical object embodying my creation! Hooray for the appearance of a possible new path of publication! Hooray, for it lives!

What To Glean From A Stagecoach Robbery

Well, now I know what carjacking means.

carjack[ˈkärˌjak]:

a VERB meaning to steal (an occupied car) in a violent manner.

That’s where I’ve been for the past two weeks, dealing with the aftereffects of going through this experience. I missed a post in there, and surprisingly in the midst of all of the drama, I thought of keeping to my regular Monday posting schedule. I’m beginning to like this platform so much that I thought about whether I could fit a post in whilst juggling Oakland Police Department report filings, tending to bruised arms and cranium, and in finding creative ways to transport myself to vehicle impound lots hours and hours from my home!

The experience taught me many things, and this was one of them–that my commitment to writing is strong and that the urge pierces through the most intense of situations. I learned a number of other things too. I learned of my unexpected fighter’s response–although it could have gotten me killed, something in me knew I had to at least put up a fight to these buggers (and I physically paid for that, but am thankfully alive).

I also learned that there is support all around me (as long as I yell into the night like a banshee for it, lol), as a whole gaggle of women came to my aid as the bandits made off with my car. Two of these women invited me, a complete stranger, into their home, brewed some tea, made up a bed for me. They stayed up late into the night talking out the situation with me, and in the morning made me breakfast and drove me nearer to my home so public transport would be easier. The love and care these women provided me was beyond the trauma I had just experienced–although I was banged up and carless, I was just overtaken with their care, graciousness and concern. They also happened to be in the fields of rite-of-passage and intimacy counseling, two career paths I’ve considered for a while now, and it felt like on some symbolic level that I was being pulled from my old mode of getting around in the world (kind of wandering, somewhat purposeless) and welcomed into theirs. I am now exploring these fields with new interest and focus.

I also learned that once again, I can never really know what will happen, and that I have mainly two choices to make with that information. I can either live in fear or embrace the learning and rite-of-passage like energy of the experience. I choose to embrace the latter, and to keep writing.

Situation willing, of course :}

What Do I Have To Offer?

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This question, again? I’ve asked myself this question so many times, regardless of all of the trainings I’ve been through, the compliments I’ve received when sharing one of a number of skills I have with others. I know I am helpful, I know I have something to share, I just can’t formulate what it is.

I’ve often had visions of me sitting by the sea, looking out and scanning the waters for something to emerge, hoping for it to swim directly towards me and choose me. I fantasize that this image would grasp my shoulders, look me directly in the eyes, and say that I belong to it, and it to I. That it would tell me of the work we have to do together, and how to begin building it. There would be no room for guessing, wondering or doubting what this work would be. We would just know what it is and begin.

This undeniably clear message has been a yearning for so long now, and it has taken me on many journeys to “find” this “thing.” I have met many, learned much in the process. And I’ve mostly come to the point that the more I have learned, the more I feel I know nothing. I’ve also sat with the possibility that this thing I am looking for isn’t so much an end purpose, but an urging to propel me on this journey, this process…that the thing IS the process. I’ve sat with that being true, and surrendered to this possibility, for years.

So it is a strange thing to have this consistent yearning rear its head with such strength once again, as if something in me had learned from the surrender but is now ready to do Something More. I don’t know what that is, like a dream I get fleeting bits of information, of possibilities, and then these evanescent sensations submerge themselves back into the deep blue sea. I know I have seen them, and I know they are under this water. I can’t really even describe what they look like, just that I have felt them rise from the depths to get my attention somehow. But now they are unseen, although I can feel their tug from below. It is as if they beckon me but so unclearly I can do nothing.

Nothing but sit on this rock, scanning, scanning. Nothing but looking out across the deep waters for them to rise up and swim towards me.

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Today I decided to upload my manuscript, and self-created cover, to KDP, as it is. My editor is still working on my line edit, but I really feel a desire to see what my upcoming memoir, Food Memories, will actually look like in printed form. How it will feel. The fact that I can print a proof copy before committing to the publish button, that I can get a copy (albeit imperfect) in my hands in a matter of days…this pushed me to hit the button.

My inner perfectionist is squirming, but I am excited. Today I hit print.

Letting Go: Of Staying Silent

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I chose this topic as a result of the WordPress Daily Prompt exercise https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/recite/ , which led me to the word Recite. And now I am here, questioning. I want to choose a new word, one with more seeming drama. Solitary? Visceral? Unfurl? Recite whirls in my head, emptiness at the thought of it. What do I have to say about this word?

Here comes a memory of me, on stage, at about the age of 11. I was dressed as the Town Crier (how ironic that is, lol) and “reading” off of a scroll to the townspeople. “Hear ye! Hear ye!” I proclaimed, and then suddenly…everything was blank. For whatever reason, be it nerves from being in front of the whole school on stage, or something else, I just totally and completely went blank. I had rehearsed this, and even performed this role many times with no issue. But that day, I went silent.

The only thing I remember after that moment was my co-actors scrambling to make it all seem like it was part of the play. I also happen to remember something about a “popular girl” that seemed to have it out for me at school being in the crowd, her eyes peering at me. Nothing else remains in my memory, only the sense that I somehow left my body during that moment and didn’t return for a while.

Up until that point, I had great joy in acting–reciting lines with friends, participating in monologue or acting contests–it was all such play for me. I loved dressing up, I loved it all. Yet from what I can remember, after that performance I stopped acting completely.

At the same time at home, I was in the constant aforementioned confusing chaos of my mother’s unpredictable expression of her rage and grief. I was becoming a teen, and I was fighting to become an individual, pushing away her intrusive pummeling vibrations. Around that time, as I mention in my soon to be published memoir Food Memories, I had another powerful experience with my voice. One night as mom was going on a rampage in the living room, and I felt myself get so frustrated, so angry that I burst out of my room and walked right up to her, mid-rant. I grabbed her and yelled at her to shut the hell up, shaking her violently in my strengthening teenage grasp. I remember the look in her eyes, of terror, and of the guilt I felt for seemingly having caused this reaction in her. I remember she was frozen, and silent, and then me crying saying I was sorry, sorry, sorry. I remember her walking away in a daze and me running to my room to hide from what I had just done. I had never done this before, I was the “good child” and had no idea what had taken over me to behave this way. Again, after this situation, it was very silent in the house. We both stopped expressing completely.

How that all ties into the eventual descent into depression, Anorexia, and the psych hospitals seems pretty obvious–without a place to express myself, and being immersed in my mother’s cauldron of repressed emotional intensity, something had to break. That something was me. My innate talent and joy for reciting, playing, singing, expressing my voice and thoughts and emotions broke down like our old rusty Pinto often did, sputtering and collapsing in the middle of the intersection of my life.

Its taken me a long time to re-find my voice, to speak it, and with that the practice of being with the feelings of terror it caused was necessary. Shaking, trembling, heart racing and a cold sweat quivering at my brow, each time I challenged myself to recite, I had to weather these reactions I was feeling inside. Each time, my body was transported back to staring into my mother’s petrified glance, her cold skin in my hands. Each time, I was back on that stage, pierced by the eyes of hundreds of judging eyes and laughter.

I laugh at myself sometimes, reflecting on how something that seems so insignificant in light of others’ horrifying traumas could have shaken me so much. But I can’t deny my body’s consistent reaction to speaking my voice, regardless of how silly I sometimes think it all is. The feelings are still really there and seemingly in my way. Yet by now, I have enough awareness to know that these are old feelings, not ones relevant to the current experience of recital. I know that I have to ride them, holding myself through it all, even through my own self-judgmental laughter.

Recite. I guess the prompt did have something to say through me after all :}