Freewrite Prompt: What records in particular do you keep? What are you responsible for and wanting to pass on?
~I keep records of transformations.
All the tiny wisps, nudges, noticings – the trail of crumbs which, over weeks or months or years – transforms me into someone new. Each moment anew. In high school, I couldn’t get enough of MTV’s “Made,” a TV show where one teen has a month to “be made” into… a competitive skateboarder, a dance team member, some skill they have never done before. It fascinated me. By choosing the story “I am becoming this,” bringing in a coach, and spending the time practicing, in simply a month (as viewed in an hour), each featured teen was a different person than who they were a month prior.
In my own life, the lens wasn’t as fast or clear as the one-month container, yet transformation was still visible. From seedling of a new idea, a thought, a curiosity, later a tiny action, like buying loose leaf tea and a strainer for the first time ever when I was 25, from a tea shop lined with glass jars of different colored dried plants, feeling like the biggest impostor with a neon sign. When I returned to the shop months later, it felt a little familiar. Then suddenly, one day I am a person who prepares loose leaf tea daily with the ease of breath.
I was a person who felt vegetarians were rare aliens, meeting my first only in college, then eight years later I was eating vegan. I was a person who thought people who burned incense were exotic spiritual beings (where does one even get incense? I had no idea), now I joyfully burn it whenever I’m gleaming (and I buy it at the grocery store). When I was 26, I gathered up all the pieces from one transformational journey to write the story of being raised Catholic and becoming an atheist/humanist.
The following year, I tried to track these journeys in real-time. On my personal blog, I created a page with categories for all my recent “long-learning journeys”: gardening, lindy hop, French, calligraphy, zero-waste, etc. You could click on each topic, and that would take you to a new page with a list of dates and happenings, illuminating some of the history of this evolving skill/identity: when I heard a new idea from a conversation or book, doing or making something for the first time, the day I’d ordered in French at a restaurant in Morocco by repeating the phrase a friend at the table had taught me, which planted the seed of the French-learning journey that would ensue in the years to come. At age 28, I gathered from the collection once again and wrote an ebook about my 10-year IBS journey to digestive health—how my whole health paradigm was turned on its head. (Or so I thought at the time. It has turned even further in the years since.)
But it was impossible to keep up. The changes were far too much to document, so many journeys happening at once. Who I had once been – my “was” list – kept growing and growing as the years passed: I was a person who had put all my belief in Science. I was a person who thought creativity meant drawing on paper and making “art.” I was a person who trusted the U.S. government. I was a person who hadn’t slept outside. I was a person who thought history was the study of dates and past events from books. I was a person who thought “mental illness” had to do with the mind. I was a person who didn’t know how to change a tire. I was a person who had never driven a tractor, a plow a skid steer, a cannycom, or pulled a trailer. I was a person who thought “grief” meant deep sadness. I was a person who thought dreams were just dreams—a pretty cool thing about being human. I was a person who thought thru-hiking sounded intense and athletic, I was a person who got vaccines and had accepted the idea that “viruses”/germs are contagious and bad without second thought, I was a person who thought wearing masks was good and considerate. I was a person who thought it was annoying and problematic when men tried to help me lift things. I was a person who used Google and Wikipedia. I was a person who thought aliens and UFOs were a far-fetched idea. I was a person who thought urine was waste, wouldn’t have even thought it could be medicine. I was a person who thought “Flat Earth” was as ridiculous as religious folks thinking the Earth is 6,000 years old. I was a person whose body recoiled at the mention of “Jesus,” evoking memories from Catholic childhood. I was.
I don’t record much now. Part of me is still noticing, but with an open hand, allowing the grains of sand to rub across the skin and blow into the wind–not putting them in a display case. The gaps keep getting farther and farther. It’s too big a task to take someone from there to here. And here keeps changing.
I focus on who is here now, with past versions tucked safely in a back pocket, so I remember – I love her too. I’m always being co-created into someone I was not before, doing things I’ve never done before, hence the edges, feeling new. And while it’s new to this body, I’m more of who I’ve always been. I’m simply able to drop façades as my vision sharpens, as my roots deepen, as my soul has more space to express, as I become more open to Truth – even inconvenient Truths. I still record clues, wondering, years later, if I tell this story, what would be the pinpoints, what would be the towns on the map along my journey’s dotted line?
~I keep records of help from the Divine.
How on the coldest day of the year, while my car was warming up, I stood outside and began to kick at the clump of ice gathering behind my front tire. We’ve been in snow for two months, and this is the first I’ve ever done this. I used my scraper and poked and poked, that front clump taking longer than I’d thought to knock down. I need to go to work, yet my body continues towards the back tires to remove those snow clumps also. Doing this led me to discover my exhaust pipe was totally loose, plot twist. I got towed to a mechanic.
Or that day in Flagstaff, leaving for a walk when I hadn’t been taking them, feeling proud of myself and glad to be outside, when not even a minute into my walk, something unseen stings or bites my ear (I heard & saw nothing) and it is painful and I turn back home, to discover my burner is still on from pancakes in the morning and tears instantly fall as I was brought back here divinely to turn it off. These are for myself, to remember I’m never alone, I’m supported and guided in each moment.
~I keep records of moments of kindness and lenses of Love, and how all beings benefit.
Among the infinite threads of connection in this web, I strive to make a few visible. How that smile lifted my whole day, how that letter received in the mail propelled me through years of grief, how the song we sang together in circle returned life force into my being. And at times, when I remember, I hold a mirror to these threads and remind myself that my tiny daily acts of intention, of soul-alignment, are rippling out beyond what I’ll ever see.
~I keep records of my lived experience that expressing from an authentic place ripples out and spreads love in all directions.
Soul expression, speaking my truth to the wind, wearing the teals and blues I delight in, trusting my body’s innate ability to create health. The things I know deep in my bones, because they come from my body, from the Earth, from my intuition. I collect stories that illustrate them. I’m responsible for passing this along. For showing that acting in alignment with love, with what feels delightful in your body, is the way to go. Period. That you are me and I am you and we are One. And, our bodies are different. We’re going to think and act differently. I don’t know what your body/soul needs. You do, though.
~I collect stories that illustrate the depth and complexity behind each name, behind each face – to remind us of our humanity, bringing in more compassion, more patience, and ultimately this new world rooted in Love, where we are standing tall in our power, rooted in deep Truth, aware of our co-creative abilities, divine light flowing through our sacred waters, the support of community, and all the help from all the realms.