THE DAY I FOUND OUT I HAD ANOTHER SIBLING

February's Subscriber Only Writing and Recommendations

Photo by Josue Michel on Unsplash

“You can never entirely retreat, redeem the experience. You can't make it not hurt anymore. But you can make it beautiful enough so that there's something to balance it on the other scale. And if you understand that word beautiful as not necessarily pretty, then you're getting close to recognizing the integrative power of restoring the balance, which is restoring the truth.” — Richard Hoffman

Hello, Dear Ones!

No matter what part of the world you live in, I hope your February has been warm and cozy! Sometimes it feels like certain months have a heartbeat of their own. This month has been rich and full and moved just a smidge faster than I would have preferred. But here we are with March knocking at the door.

For my friends in warmer climates, spring has already arrived, with flowers and trees blooming in soft pastel flowers. Here in Northern Colorado, the temps have also leaned toward Spring, but the blossoms are still hiding inside their stems, not quite ready to peek out. Most everywhere is still a honey brown. We could have a major snowfall at any time. That’s just what Colorado weather is like. Changeable. In the meantime, I am enjoying the warmer temps ( for Colorado!) and bright sunshine!

WRITING UPDATE:

As I shared in January’s subscriber-only email, I crossed a threshold in the writing of my stories. Holla! All of the memories I sought to write and heal have been captured in words on paper. All the stories have at least a rough first draft. Now I face the next looming threshold, structure. I’d love to tell you that I’d made great progress this month in that regard, but sadly, that is not the way things always work. It’s never a straight line, is it?

I can tell you what I have done and what made sense to me. I made a reverse outline for the story. Instead of crafting an outline for the structure of the book, I made a reverse outline, a log of every story I have written. From there, I sifted through them and found some obvious themes. The good news? I have more than enough themes and stories to create a couple of memoirs! The bad news? HOW to sift and select where to place my focus. I find that it is not as simple as making a decision. It has to simmer. So, I am simmering. Simma simma simma…

In the meantime, I continue to sort through stories and themes, make lists, and find connections. I have also been spending more time on Substack reading other writers and learning more about how they do what they do. This whole process is a learn-as-I-go endeavor.

A PORTION OF A STORY DRAFT TO SHARE:

—THE DAY I FOUND OUT I HAD A MISSING SIBLING—

The day my father told me that I had another sister somewhere out in there in the world, I was walking through a shopping mall chasing my 4-year-old daughter.  I was 29 years old.

I didn’t learn this tender information sitting across the table from my father on a quiet morning over a cup of coffee; nor at the end of the day when the rest of the house was asleep, when the intimacy of night wrapped around our shoulders like my grandmother's crocheted shawl. 

It was midday in a shopping mall in Rhode Island. Chasing after my daughter.