What a profound and timely piece in my own journey towards healing! As a fiction writer I love thinking up alternate endings and your essay reminds me how we can change the stories we tell ourselves. I recently worked with a somatic healer and we did a “tapping” session. My homework was to stand barefoot near a tree I’m drawn to.. it sounds absolutely crazy but what’s crazy is how I was wired to ignore my body for most of my upbringing and being in touch with the earth and my feelings has led to breakthroughs. The story I wrote for myself got rewritten simply because I was open to trying a modality I had never tried before with a focused intention. Thank you.
Alternate endings! What a great tool. I think it's hardest for me when I can't control the alternate ending. We writers get used to that power, and so much is out of our control.
Thank you for sharing this! Your point about just being open to a new modality really resonated. For some reason, my brain tries to convince me that if I'm going to try a new thing/practice, that I have to commit to it forever and therefore have to adjust my life to accommodate that new thing...so silly, wish I could make my brain chill out haha. Giving into that line of thinking stops me from trying new things that could end up being really helpful, I love the idea of giving myself permission to just be **open** to a new thing, even/especially one that might make me feel awkward or silly, without any big-time commitment.
I think time is key here. There’s a freshly-traumatized vantage point that, as you say, isn’t terribly expansive but is essential for sense-making. And then there’s what Cheryl Strayed calls “the bigger, truer story.” I think that it is definitely freeing to invite ourselves to reconsider old stories from what my friend Ashley (an NPR reporter) and I talked about as “the middle distance.” Still clear and visceral, but with wisdom and structure. As in, not the kind we tend to value in 24/7 journalism but the kind we do tend to get in memoir.
That said, everyone’s version of and timeline for the middle distance, I find, is different. Research on differences in sensory processing depth seems to bear that out. Some of us cognitively need to work longer on a certain draft of our stories before we’re finished, or open to revisions. It’s not a character flaw as much as a trait. And there are upsides to it. As my students might say, one person might see us as “dragging it” while we might just be trying to get our arms around it, still, so we can carry it.
This hit very close to home. Exactly what I needed to read today. So beautiful! Love this line in particular "the rowdy game of flashlight tag in the dark that is being a human alive in this tender, terrible moment."
Sometimes photos complement stories brilliantly, as in these two of John and Courtney, pictures of empathy and serenity respectively. Thanks for these!
I want to recommend the writings of Peter Singer, outstanding ethicist. He gave us the story and metaphor of the drowning child and the moral imperative to save her/him.
That child represents the plight of all children throughout the world who are desperate for help.
Singer’s philosophy of “active altruism” is a major contribution to thinking about how we should approach the problem of poverty. DD
My mother and I are stuck in our own stories and it has caused us to become estranged. My young son doesn't know his grandmother (or really my side of the family). I have watched her do it for so long, I am now sort of doing it with her. She only wants to talk about her painful upbringing (and blame all her actions on it) and I want to tell her how she can't hear me, that her stories are getting in the way of making new stories. It is hard to watch and be a witness of and all I am left with is thinking - am I turning into her?
Oh man, so get this. I think a lot of us feel held hostage by other people's stories, especially our parents. I don't think you're turning into her, but I will offer that one of my daily prayers is this: May I see what I do. May I do it differently. May I make this a way of life. What would it look like to hold your own story more flexibly, including when it comes to her? On the other hand, an adult daughter has to have boundaries, lord knows. Sending love.
I think it is interesting to consider which experiences are long-term shattering to us on the one hand and which, in contrast, we evolve through more successfully in the sense of our not remaining stuck indefinitely in the telling and retellings we construct around the experience. Some things we experience look from the outside as if they MUST be a source of a never-ending storm with that storm surely defining our lives for perpetuity - and yet we don't feel or 'story' them that way. Others that from the outside might look mundane can be long-term shattering.
What a profound and timely piece in my own journey towards healing! As a fiction writer I love thinking up alternate endings and your essay reminds me how we can change the stories we tell ourselves. I recently worked with a somatic healer and we did a “tapping” session. My homework was to stand barefoot near a tree I’m drawn to.. it sounds absolutely crazy but what’s crazy is how I was wired to ignore my body for most of my upbringing and being in touch with the earth and my feelings has led to breakthroughs. The story I wrote for myself got rewritten simply because I was open to trying a modality I had never tried before with a focused intention. Thank you.
Alternate endings! What a great tool. I think it's hardest for me when I can't control the alternate ending. We writers get used to that power, and so much is out of our control.
Thank you for sharing this! Your point about just being open to a new modality really resonated. For some reason, my brain tries to convince me that if I'm going to try a new thing/practice, that I have to commit to it forever and therefore have to adjust my life to accommodate that new thing...so silly, wish I could make my brain chill out haha. Giving into that line of thinking stops me from trying new things that could end up being really helpful, I love the idea of giving myself permission to just be **open** to a new thing, even/especially one that might make me feel awkward or silly, without any big-time commitment.
I think time is key here. There’s a freshly-traumatized vantage point that, as you say, isn’t terribly expansive but is essential for sense-making. And then there’s what Cheryl Strayed calls “the bigger, truer story.” I think that it is definitely freeing to invite ourselves to reconsider old stories from what my friend Ashley (an NPR reporter) and I talked about as “the middle distance.” Still clear and visceral, but with wisdom and structure. As in, not the kind we tend to value in 24/7 journalism but the kind we do tend to get in memoir.
https://ryanroseweaver.substack.com/p/exit-interviews-reporter-ashley-locke
That said, everyone’s version of and timeline for the middle distance, I find, is different. Research on differences in sensory processing depth seems to bear that out. Some of us cognitively need to work longer on a certain draft of our stories before we’re finished, or open to revisions. It’s not a character flaw as much as a trait. And there are upsides to it. As my students might say, one person might see us as “dragging it” while we might just be trying to get our arms around it, still, so we can carry it.
Wow, so interesting. Thanks for all of this. I'm going to be marinating on what the "middle distance" is for me.
I am still marinating as well!
This hit very close to home. Exactly what I needed to read today. So beautiful! Love this line in particular "the rowdy game of flashlight tag in the dark that is being a human alive in this tender, terrible moment."
Sometimes photos complement stories brilliantly, as in these two of John and Courtney, pictures of empathy and serenity respectively. Thanks for these!
I want to recommend the writings of Peter Singer, outstanding ethicist. He gave us the story and metaphor of the drowning child and the moral imperative to save her/him.
That child represents the plight of all children throughout the world who are desperate for help.
Singer’s philosophy of “active altruism” is a major contribution to thinking about how we should approach the problem of poverty. DD
I find David Whyte’s body of work a helpful companion for stuck stories… a poem I return to time and again is … “start close in.”
Love his work. Will have to check that one out.
My mother and I are stuck in our own stories and it has caused us to become estranged. My young son doesn't know his grandmother (or really my side of the family). I have watched her do it for so long, I am now sort of doing it with her. She only wants to talk about her painful upbringing (and blame all her actions on it) and I want to tell her how she can't hear me, that her stories are getting in the way of making new stories. It is hard to watch and be a witness of and all I am left with is thinking - am I turning into her?
Thank you for this.
Oh man, so get this. I think a lot of us feel held hostage by other people's stories, especially our parents. I don't think you're turning into her, but I will offer that one of my daily prayers is this: May I see what I do. May I do it differently. May I make this a way of life. What would it look like to hold your own story more flexibly, including when it comes to her? On the other hand, an adult daughter has to have boundaries, lord knows. Sending love.
Needed this today, Court! Thank you!
I think it is interesting to consider which experiences are long-term shattering to us on the one hand and which, in contrast, we evolve through more successfully in the sense of our not remaining stuck indefinitely in the telling and retellings we construct around the experience. Some things we experience look from the outside as if they MUST be a source of a never-ending storm with that storm surely defining our lives for perpetuity - and yet we don't feel or 'story' them that way. Others that from the outside might look mundane can be long-term shattering.
Yes, the external vs. internal is crucial here. We also inherit generational stories and have to figure out how we relate to them.