The Way Back

I’ve been trying to figure out how to get back here for a while.

I thought I would in July.

I thought I would in September.

I thought I would January 1.

Too much thinking is one of my problems.

I could give you a synopsis, a play by play of sorts about what happened when my body refused to let my brain get into writing mode, when the survival mechanisms I’d been using and honing since birth stopped working, when I hit the proverbial wall right around the time I turned 50, but I don’t think there’s a real need for that. Suffice to say a lot happened. Those of you who have had something similar go down will understand. Those of you that haven’t, well, you will one way or another, one of these days. I have heard it called a mid-life reckoning. I thought I knew all about it, but I wasn’t prepared. I don’t think there’s a way to be. That’s part of how it works, maybe.

When it started to happen, and when it continued to happen, and as it is happening right this very minute, I was stunned. I couldn’t be productive in the ways I’d always been. I wasn’t able to lose myself in what I’d always lost myself. The ghost of my present had materialized in front of me, demanding I deal with her. She wouldn’t let me by.

So I began. When I did, I didn’t know I still had so much work to do on myself and my isms. I was disappointed to learn I wasn’t only not farther along than I thought, I was going backwards in some ways. The only thing I really knew was that I was in pain and didn’t know what to do or where to go. Grace and mercy began to teach me that when you’re in pain and you don’t know what to do or where to go, your journey has finally begun. I’d lived a life of running from one thing to the next, of looking outside of myself for answers to questions that could only be answered by looking inside.

Unacknowledged grief, undealt-with trauma, really freaking bad habits, and a lack of honest and loving self-discipline all rose their hands just to get the whole thing started. So I started sitting with them.

I began to sincerely look at what I’ve been through in my life — and every bit of it, not just childhood, though yes, it was a doozy, but one can experience trauma in other ways and I certainly have. I started to look at the ways in which that unacknowledged and therefore unprocessed grief and trauma has driven into my core and influences every single breath I take. What’s the saying? Hurt people hurt people? Yes, I’ve done my share. I’ve not only taken some beatings, I’ve doled some out.

I started to look at the ways in which I abandon myself over and over. It wasn’t about work ethic — hell, I discovered I’m nothing if not a workaholic — but about what I work at and how I do it.

I began to find the core of my inner critical voice and learn not only where it really comes from, but what has been added to it during my extreme experiences and how I use it to great detriment on myself before I turn it on others, but of course I do that too. I was taught to use my tongue as a sword and I have been a champion verbal fencer too often.

I can run myself into the ground with my doing, but can do so without accomplishing anything that feels authentic to who I really am. Some of the artistic work I’ve done served the false self I created a long time ago. I didn’t know my authentic one could survive. And it probably couldn’t have in many of the scenarios in which I found myself. It’s interesting to see the trajectory in it all and how I started to seek truth for myself without even knowing I was doing it. I am blessed to be an artist — for it guides the way — but I don’t always recognize the patterns until I feel like I want to hit myself in the forehead with the back of my hand. Doh. I took me so long to get that.

And the real question was, where was my joy? I could certainly feel, but I was a rollercoaster. The constant erraticism of my emotions was making me sick. They get that way when they’re belittled or downright ignored.

So I took a huge step back from communicating publicly. I just couldn’t get myself into gear to do it. Social media almost disappeared from my life. I hit pause on nearly everything so I could concentrate on something I’d never considered important enough to have my attention:

H E A L I N G.

2022 was long. But I can honestly say, for the first time, that I ended a year better than I began it. 2022 will forever be the year I started the work I need to do in this life in earnest. Yes, I know I wrote two books full of grief processing, of turning all of the rocks over, but both of them feel now, in parts, like I was arms-lengthing all of the real emotion I had inside me. I’ve spent most of my life intellectualizing my feelings instead of feeling them. That might look nice and neat on the page, but human beings aren’t to be organized, nor is experience. The only thing a habit like intellectualizing feelings can bring is distance from the own heart. Where there is distance from the heart in expression, there is always some inauthenticity.

I’m growing in ways I didn’t expect. I’ve had some major spiritual and emotional revelations for which I’m desperately grateful, and I have met humility as well. As in real powerlessness. Not to a substance, but to the way I’ve been thinking since I could really think, to the messages that I was delivered that I cannot undeliver to myself, to the experiences I experienced that will never be unexperienced no matter how I try to get myself to skip over what they felt like, to circumstances, to my own utter humanity, and finally, to the wonder that is living a life.

I’ve thrown quite a few things at this: a lot of talk therapy, some intensive trauma work, experiments with psilocybin and reiki, twelve-step work, and a six-day a week yoga practice that encourages me to stay in my body instead of always trying to sort everything out in my head. It’s interesting to find things out about yourself that you never thought would be true. I’ve never thought of myself as over-emotional. It’s only through accepting that I am, and that I had not one chance in hell not to be, that I have an opportunity to become calmer than I’ve ever been in my life.

It feels like I’ve begun a journey home to a self I had to abandon a long time ago. And I’m finding some valuable things on the way. Maybe others who are on their own journeys of healing would like to read about them. So I think I will write about it here. I hope you’ll follow along.

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I’ve been making a lot of visual art lately. Making things calls to me, as you probably already know, and it soothes my soul. Most of it looks revelatory to me and full of messages and symbolism, which I like to study and fall deeply into when I have the time. Maybe my drawings will speak to you too. I’ll share some as I go.

Kenny Greenberg and I have been making music under the moniker Saint Seven. I’ll let you know when we have some ambient soul music to share, which is, lately, our specialty. I find tremendous joy in making music these days. Here is the watercolor I’ve just finished to use as our logo.

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Some things I’m reading you might like:

Anna Quindlen: Write For Your Life

Rick Rubin: The Creative Act: A Way of Being (I just got this yesterday and haven’t started it but can’t wait)

Tess Gunty: The Rabbit Hutch

I’m listening to a lot of jazz. Miles Davis is a favorite as is Duke Ellington. Miles said, “Living is an adventure and a challenge. It wasn’t about standing still and becoming safe. But I’ve always been the way I am. Been like this all my life. If anybody wants to keep creating, they have to be about change.”

Y’all take good care. I’ll be back soon.

Peace & Love,

Allison

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A beautiful shot of John Henry’s arm at the beach last Friday. The sunset was spectacular. As was he. 🤍

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