“Tell me true things,” she said as fear raged around her. So I read to her from words on a page, novels and psalms, poems and stories. What amongst them were true? What amongst them was fiction? In truth, I cannot tell. But every word was like a slat tied on to the other across a great chasm, until at last we reached the other side across a swaying bridge of stories.
—

I’ve written/podcast before about the importance of stories and the power that lies in their telling. It’s a theme that keeps occurring and re-occurring around me – a strong theme of the postmodern cultural milieu in which we all dwell. Last week I went to an expat’s writers group here in Copenhagen and the talk turned to the topic of truth and storytelling. The personal essayists were struggling with the reality that whenever they told a story it was but one version of the truth. Another person telling the same tale would have different true things to say about how the whole thing went down. So were we, in fact, writing ‘true life tales,’ or a form of fiction? Furthermore, how should the very knowledge of that question affect our storytelling? Then again, the novelists among us were using real people and situations to form the basis of their characters and scenes – so perhaps they were not creating fiction, either but telling a version of the real, of the true? And which was more honest – calling the real fiction or calling the fiction real? Which is it then…all truth, or all fiction? Ah, there’s the rub. In a postmodern world, the answer is: both.

When we tell our stories, they intersect with the stories of others. There is overlap there, between my experience and yours, and that makes the telling of the tale tricky at times. This is never more so then when we write about the people most embedded in our hearts: mothers and fathers, children, soul mates, lovers. So when we tell stories that involve the hearts of those who are dear to us we tread lightly, trying to be faithful to our truth, without trampling the experience of the other. This doesn’t mean we don’t tell the hard stories – the failures or the confusion or the break ups or the fights. It just means, that on our best days, we try to balance being as honest with ourselves and our memories, with the act of treading with kindness. After all, it is not all that often that people invite us into their hearts. We should be a careful while roaming around in there.

This balance of brave truth telling and tender care is but one of the reasons I love the way Sylvia brings honesty and gentleness to this complex story which is, among other things, about loss. Here she must tell the story of herself, her lover, her child, and her mother –each on embedded deep into soul territory. This is no easy task. Yet as she begins to sing her hidden tale here in spare and simple prose, she brings to us all important thoughts about surviving loss, confronting expectations, and mothering our own hearts. I hope you will receive her story with kindness, and give her encouragement for the telling of this tale. May Sylvia’s story be a good with mate for you on your journey today. Namaste.

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Mothering, Lost and Found
Guest Blogger: Silvia@ Dreamer Girl

A little over two years ago I almost became a mommy, without forgetfulness, planning or expecting—just loving and some magic dust from the Universe. For a long time I wondered why it was sprinkled on me and why it didn’t last.

I can remember the moment when the magic dust evaporated into thin air very vividly. At the time I didn’t know it was (had been?) nesting in my body. Looking back there had been many signs but I didn’t pick up on them until the very moment it was over. In the blink of an eye I knew. I knew what all those weird feelings had been; those moments of crying without a seemingly good reason, why my body had been so tired and why I felt more resistance to food than appetite. As soon as I realized that I was no longer alone, fate conspired to make me ‘one’ again.

Of course I thought, “this isn’t a big deal”–although it scared the person I loved at that time so much that he ran away and never looked back. Even though I was hurting and read about this kind of loss and knew how it can have a very big impact, I still thought it wasn’t a big deal –or at least that’s what I told myself, because that is what I was told by my mother.

After telling me that I probably imagined the whole ordeal, in spite of what the doctor had said, she acknowledged it in the end. But at first, she told me to just get over it. Because really, who wants to become a mommy at twenty two? “I do,” I thought. I had always wanted to become a young mommy and even though there had not been any planning and even though there was no more loving between him and me, there was still lots and lots of longing inside of me. But I soldiered on, without grieving, without acknowledging the sadness in my bones.

Looking back I haven’t taken good care of myself these past two years. I poured all my love in taking care of others, ignoring those feelings of hurt and anger inside of me. I felt that not only had I lost a chance of being a mommy, but that I had lost my own mother as well.

I wondered for a long time how I could take better care of myself and I think I’ve finally found out what the purpose of the magic dust was. I no longer act according to what I was taught, instead I teach.

I teach myself to love myself like I would tell my child of my love for him/her. I tell myself to sit with my feelings, that they are genuine and sacred, like I would tell my child that his/her feeling are genuine and sacred and should never be pushed back. I take care of myself like I would take care of my child.

I have no idea what it is like to mother a child, but I do know that mothering oneself is harder than I ever could have imagined, but more rewarding too. In the end this is a lesson that I think I’m learning so when I do become a mommy I can mother by example. I never felt I truly had one, but now I do.

As I mentioned in this post, I believe we each carry sacred stories. Stories that shape us. Stories that heal us. Stories that guide us. And just as these stories shape the teller, they also have the power to shape the listener; bringing those who have ears to hear companionship, drawing them closer to shalom.

Katrina sent me this story in response to the post “God Sticks and Shame Caves, which has moved many of you to tell your tales. She is someone I trust, whose wisdom is not theoretical but lived–hard won from experience and reflection. I’m grateful to Katrina for guest posting today, and feel confident that her story will give many of you hope and inspiration for the journey.

Sensuality Recovered
Guest Post: Katrina

I was staffing at a women’s retreat a few months ago, and a woman who had been an exotic dancer in a younger life and who was trained in various “tantric healing” techniques led us in some fascinating processes. She told us her own story of being lured into prostitution as a young girl, and of her escape, as well as her journey of fully embracing herself as a sexual, sensual woman who has truly freed herself from shame. She led us in a long exercise of breathingand meditation designed to cleanse us of our own shame, whether assigned to us by ourselves or others. We held hands and talked each other through a variety of memories: from the disquieting sensation “not feeling pretty enough” to the violence of rape and molestation.

After some tear-shedding and embracing, the energy in the room was lighter, freer. From that perspective, we moved into movement and dance, and eventually into sensual dance. Many of the women were overweight and/or middle-aged, and there was, at first, palpable resistance. The facilitator told us stories of how sensuality has been taught in other, older—surely wiser–cultures. It was the women, the elder-women, who had taught the younger women how to move, how to dance, how to be sexy, how to feel sensual. It was not the pressure of the media or the men, or the market forces felt by women to compete for scarce resources of desirable mates. We marveled at the thought… what if sensuality could be like treasured knowledge, passed down at the appropriate time from woman to woman, like sacred family recipes or heirlooms?

We were all instructed to get a chair. Yes, we were going to do “chair dancing.” (i.e., using chairs as a prop for dancing, see Cabaret or Flashdance for suggestions…) We began to use our new props with some hesitation and awkwardness. Thenthe facilitator did something brilliant. She instructed us to blindfold ourselves. With our self-consciousness visibly muted and with a little help from some encouraging music, we were transformed into smokin-hot middle-aged goddesses. Then the blindfolds came off, and we gathered in a circle and danced for each other. We danced individually, in pairs, in groups, with and without chairs, sarongs, and other props. We encouraged each other on to be as sexy as possible, sexier than we thought was possible, egging each other on with whoops and catcalls. Women who would barely dance an hour earlier were “shaking what their mommas gave ‘em” with joy and abandonment. The women who left that night were not the same women who came in. They had regained, or perhaps even discovered for the very first time, a treasure buried deep within themselves: their own sensuality. Not the crude sexuality of an X-rated film or the performance of a stripper seeking tips from bachelor party participants, but the sensuality that represents our true sacred, feminine, creative selves. Through our dancing, we had celebrated ourselves as women created in the image of the Divine, and declared this creation “good.”

Katrina has gracious agreed to write a follow up post with her thoughts on connecting the dots between this experience, what she was taught as a young person, and what she is teaching her teenage daughter. Check back next week, or follow me on Twitter and I’ll let you know when it has arrived. Thank you for your presence here. -Rachelle

Follow this Series:

This I Believe: Why I’m not Teaching My Kids Abstinence

Thoughts from the Comment Gallery: Abstinence, Kids, and Faith

God Sticks and Shame Caves

Beyond Fear, Encouraging Each Other Towards Escape

The Care and Keeping of Sacred Stories