thoughts on a two year journey, two certificate programs, and 6 weekends

by a way-finder

Along the morning walk this Sunday, the streets are quiet. The streets are bare. Not absent of life, but willing the morning sun to take its’ time rising. My feet hit the pavement hard, then relax into motion propelling me forward to the ferry terminal. I’ve already driven 30 minutes.

Walking is life, transferring from one side of my body to the other, drinking in wandering thoughts, picking at seconds and minutes lodged in memory of the previous 3 days.

Today is the last of 6 weekends I chose to train in “Narrative-Focused Trauma Care” in group setting. It’s another Sunday, on the last of the 6 weekends, over two years of work. I am subdued, gentle with myself, and moved to tears between my steps. I wear a black, Patagonia t-shirt, with one pocket. The pocket has flowers. It has short sleeves. Over the t-shirt, I wear a blue, puffy, warm vest. It insulates my chest. My arms exposed. It’s about 36 degrees Fahrenheit.

As I rushed out the door for the ferry, Luis (my husband), caught at my arm, concerned. 

“Won’t you be too cold? Here, take this sweatshirt.”  I kissed his cheek, grabbed the sweat jacket and stowed it in the front seat of the car, not sure if I could bring myself to wear it.

In the dark of morning, radio blaring, I turn on the heat, allowing my arms to be comfortable, body to be rocked. 

I wander. 

Yesterday I shared a story, from childhood, that I read out loud to a group of 7 individuals. I’m practiced controlling emotion. I’m practiced staying still. I’m practiced at giving just enough clues to my pain, to allow some relief without exposing myself.

Yet, over the past 6 weekends and two years, I have become unwilling to simply “practice” the ritual of self-alienation, and self-loathing. It may have served for a time as a means of basic survival, but not really.

My self-contempt drove me into the ground, buried, left for dead. A zombie of 39 years old, committed to what? To parenting? To being a wife? It didn’t help me survive. It didn’t help my family come alive, but it sure saved me from engaging deep pain on the outside; it raged on the inside. I was burning alive at the altar of false idols: preserving peace, faithfulness, and living on mission. My hands tremor, protesting. 

One clear thought emerges: I don’t want that life anymore. I will not go back. 

I notice my arms are cold as I step into the ferry terminal. I am alive. Sundays are spacious enough for my thoughts, uninterrupted by the madness of weekday commuting, the pressures of arriving on time. 

Picking my way through my own story, challenged to facilitate another’s story, I’ve relied on this de-zombie-d body with confidence and fear of its’ betrayal. Will I see? Will I feel?

But, more, will I trust that which I shut down long ago – the goodness of my heart, the wars of ways my adult choices have continued my cycle of abuse?

In the stories of others, I step gently and more confidently, to see the hopeless, alone-ness, and painful plot twists that bind hearts to shame, and abuse. 

 It’s been a man. It’s been a woman. It’s been someone other who has born my anger, disgust, rage, and body undone by kindness. Healing is suffering. I’ve suffered levels of truths that I can bear, and I have had to turn from those spoken, revealed truths days later because they expose the ways I am still finding my way towards life.

And, although the spirituality I grew up with carried many rituals of harm, I cling to faith in a God who loves in suffering, and steps into suffering – one who doesn’t run away from pain, but stands on fire with me in the burning traumas of my body.

 This is a more faithful pursuit. And, the sacred spaces of shattering the soul knows, and the way-finding, is built on the intuition both honed and demonized. I rely less on the ashes speaking, and more on them living, and marking the pathway of grace and life.

The future is unknown, my plans follow a trail map. It goes off the grid. I haven’t traveled this terrain before, so I’ll be trusting my gut, relying on the witness of others, and orienting myself to Jesus. You’ll find me “way-finding.”

 The ferry is sailing out of the harbor, Seattle on my left, bright against a varied sky.

It’s much like my varie-d endings, and varie-d new beginnings.

The water shimmers in the reflection of sun, now emboldened from its slumber.

I am the same.

(Dedicated to the facilitators, trainers, participants and prayer warriors - Thank you. Mil Gracias y Bendiciones.)