It wasn’t all awful, but as with all childhood sadness carried forward, the past puts a veil over adulthood…and while I don’t forget events altogether, the details have become murky, some disappearing altogether. That’s one of the comforts of getting older: the sharp edges wear away, and one is left with a practical view of things.

Adriana Trigiani from Home to Big Stone Gap

Yesterday found me up in the attic (thanks Tony for the warning about all that stuff knocked loose by having a new roof put on) searching for three boxes marked “memories/do not throw away”. Although there are many more up there, the three that made their way down into my home office are the ones that will provide a substantial outline for The New Whippoorwill Chronicles.

As I begin this task I find myself recalling a bible story that recently was brought to my attention.

The story is of Jonah and the whale. How often, during the years of therapy, did I feel like Jonah. God asking me to forgive, me replying forgiveness is not an option. Then, in recent years, once I let go and let God help me forgive, I still could not get past the hurt, the need for “emotional” revenge. That is until I began the journey of obedience with a willing spirit and sought to understand God’s mercy and patience as it applied to me. Then I began to understand judgment is not mine to make. God’s mercy and patience applies to everyone.

Therefore, relying heavily on the lessons taught through the story of Jonah and the whale I begin another journey. The journey of removing the veil and beginning the adventure of viewing the present through the lens of the past and the past through the lens of the present.

I am ready. As I continue forward on this journey I want to look back. Back at my first attempts to “sing my song”:

The Whippoorwill Chronicles/ September 14, 2008

I don’t want to write this because I am fearful. I want to write this because I am tired of being fearful.

The very first thing I tell my new students on the first day of a workshop is that good writing is about telling the truth. We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are… we have so much we want to say and figure out. Anne Lamott from Bird by Bird

I started this journey of telling the truth back in January of 2006 with the original Whippoorwill Chronicles.   However, the emotional truths that I have written on this journey have not yet gone beyond the surface to the depths of where my sorrow and my fears lie. I am beginning to understand that I must move beyond the surface and dive deeper if I want to be free of the fear that paralyzes me.  Even though it makes me anxious. Even though it makes me physically ill. Even though I am afraid.

I am no longer going to make excuses for the individual who could not love her children unconditionally. I am going to speak my truths about the price I had to pay over and over again in an attempt to love the person who could not love me.

Many would interject here and lecture me about forgiveness. However, if I had not forgiven several years ago, I would not be able to write these truths uncolored. They would be colored by anger and hurt and yes, unforgiveness. This is not the case. I have forgiven. But forgiveness is a process. It is not something you do once and walk away. It is something that has to be done over and over again. As I move into forgiving yet again, I am understanding that I must forgive by not making excuses. I am forgiving by saying ‘this is what you did’ and I am acknowledging that it was a bad and damaging thing. That is my truth. That is my present state of forgiveness.

As I travel along the memories that have brought me to this point I find myself praying ~ Dear Lord, please help me to remember the good.

I was stunned by Mary Karr’s memoir, The Liars’ Club. Not just by its ferocity, its beauty, and by her delightful grasp of the vernacular, but by its totality – she is a woman who remembers everything about her early years….Mary Karr presents her childhood in an almost unbroken panorama. Mine is a fogged-out landscape from which occasional memories appear like isolated trees…the kind that look as if they might like to grab and eat you. Stephen King from On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

It is the same for me as it appears to have been for Stephen King. “A fogged-out landscape” where whatever good there was to remember was forgotten by the price that was paid.

As I begin to write through the lens of courage, I am hopeful that I will understand that:

• when I am sick ~ I deserve to be comforted
• when I am presented with a gift ~ I deserve it to be without a price
• when I give my opinion ~ I deserve to have that opinion respected
• when I am authentically me ~ I deserve not to fear that I will suffer a loss because of it

Now, as I return to writing and viewing events and emotions through different lenses, it must be kept in mind that this is my journey written from my perspective. This is my story, not yours. This is my perspective, not yours. I don’t have wrongs to right. I don’t have points to prove. I do however have my story to tell.

The memory boxes that have been stored in the attic for decades are ready to be unpacked.