Another gem from converting old journals. This must have been written after the retreat with Deena Metzger. A lot of the writing was done in the retreat, but some of it was done elsewhere. It’s a different way of looking at my life, and I like its oddball quality.
To tell the story, you have to tell the WHOLE story. Doesn’t mean you let yourself off the hook — just look at all the factors that influence you. Tell the story, not to understand it, but to illumine all the details.
I go to “National Depression Screening Day.” I fill out their questionnaire and am told that I’m in a “severe depression.” I laugh: if this is “severe depression,” I’ve been severely depressed most of my life, ha ha. (This turns out to be true. I couldn’t know it until my brain chemistry was normal.)
“Write a story you haven’t told yet, or haven’t told all of it… Imagine that what you’re beginning to write is an offering — as best you can — something you do out of love. Try not to limit who you are.”
What did I notice today? The tiny oak trees in the lawn, cut again and again but refusing to give up, now dense with leaves, bonsai oak trees. Cut down again and again, but still flourishing.
What my mother taught me about mortality is that you must never acknowledge it. You must never show weakness, or neediness, or difficulty. You must carry on, with head held high. If you never let anyone see your pain, then it doesn’t exist. To help her keep to this code of honor, she drank until her body was saturated with the smell of bourbon.
It was too long to make it into a post, so I did it as a page. About Jenny – alternative version.