My Story: A Metanarrative. {poetry}
{source}
I am always extremely honored, humbled, and grateful when a woman shares her story with me. I feel much the same way when a woman takes the time to listen to mine.
Giving a piece of yourself to someone and receiving a piece from someone are both radical, life-changing acts. There is no return, no Backspace button, no gummy pink eraser to take back words already spoken. There is nothing to do but to continue forward.
It takes courage and candor to weave the tale, compassion and grace to wear it. To entrust it to someone else is like slicing off a piece of your soul and saying, “Here, have a taste.” And then to let it rest on the tongue without spitting it out or consuming it ravenously signifies a dignified respect for its flavor — whether sweet, bitter or sour.
What bigger blessing, what bigger burden, than to have and satisfy such an appetite.
We are open hearts, open books, we women. Our stories are cathartic and transformative. Our stories can heal. Help us connect. Encourage us to explore. Allow us to express. Our stories are important. Personally and universally, a story can create reverberations that create lasting and lifelong changes.
When we share freely, when we give of ourselves despite, or rather in the face of, reservation, we are giving permission to other women to feel that same glory, relief, satisfaction, or wonder. When we tell a story, we are casting a stone out into the water.
And there are stories only women can tell. Our stories are directly linked to our identities as women — as daughters, sisters, mothers, friends, partners, artists, laborers, professionals, activists, seekers, and divine beings. Stories show a woman’s character, her strengths, weaknesses, vulnerabilities, points of view, and both light and dark places.
I am amazed at the lives women live, the strength they draw upon, the joy they create, the pains they live with, the wisdom they show, the things they decide, the sacrifices they make, the love they ceaselessly give.
Stories sustain us and guide us through the different times in our lives — seminal events that inspire a web of support through story — births, illnesses, deaths, first loves, weddings, divorces. Stories of tragedy and triumph. Stories that teach us something or make us feel that we are not alone in our experience. Stories that simply make us laugh.
Stories are, in every sense, how we are remembered and how we remember others. Women’s stories are a celebration of women. Here is mine:
My Story
My story is told
in moments of fire
and the blue dark depths
of truths and fictions
both self-evident and hidden
My story is told
in shame and pride, stops and starts
in the moments I live and die
in all the details of my life
My story is told in body parts, both mine and others’ —
strong-set bones, spider-like fingers,
roadmaps of stretch marks, wrinkles and veins
constellations of freckles and dimples along the terrain
tattoos, touchable soft spots, and curious scars
peach-rounded bottoms and pink, fleshy flower parts —
My story is told in births and deaths
rebirths and transformations
in the skipped heartbeats of winged hope
the breaking of bones, the scraping of knees
and other unforeseen tragedies
a shero’s journey, my story
My story is told in the dark, late at night
when no one is watching
and again in the morning light
under the gaze of my dreams
when the dawn is hatching
My story is told in promises,
both whispered and spoken
either kept or broken
a tribute to nothing and no one but the
broken-down and battered-something of someone
like me if I dared to know her well
My story is told in choices
the consequences of which give me voices
that both croak and sing my singular, complex song
one keening note both soft and long
My story
My story is told with abandon and equal amounts of
reservation which I reserve for my Self
that parceled-off piece of territory that
no one else has a passport to but
whose borders are as open as a book
My story is a map
it is a gift, a journey along my shallow crevices
into the deepest workings of my flesh
My story is one of permission
the consent to be myself
a lotus-flowering of the heart
opening to both give and receive
making it at once soft and strong
My story
My story is your story, our story, her story
My story is you, it is us, it is she
My story is We.
***
Deneene Bell is a mother, writer, teacher, traveler, seeker, bitch, fighter, and goddess. She lives in the coastal redwoods north of San Francisco with her husband, two sons, and a small flurry of feathery and furry things. When she’s not nurturing little spirits and words, she does a lot of reading, dishes, and Yoga. She has a couple of degrees that she’s put to hopeful and practical use teaching for universities, advising college-bound students, editing books, and writing lots of different stuff for lots of different entities. Her superpower is involuntarily editing everything from text messages to bathroom-stall poetry. Her dreams include raising good humans, living with mindfulness and grace, and finishing one of the books she’s writing. She blogs in search of those dreams, and to connect with others who may share or seek to understand her experiences and ideas, at SattvaMama.
***
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