tonight was the first night of professional development training for my writing fellowship. i feel like i (imaginally) remember i did when it occurred to me that i was crawling and walking was possible.

it’s terrifying.

i have spent many years becoming aware of my military brat’s honed work to land, adapt, please, and leave. it will always be a part of me – how does this system work? as a new person how will i survive this place? how can i engage deeply when my external world will most likely need to change completely again? can i please this place, be loved here?

i have been facilitating, being a doula, holding space, witnessing and supporting my best understanding of transformation for as long as i can remember.

my artist self has never been very interested in pleasing others. creating has been a healing, largely private pleasure and practice and release. unaccountable, but transformative nonetheless.

along the sidelines of my life i have created piles of content. songs and melodies never finished or recorded, tapes of me singing snippet songs, stories never shared, sketches of clothing never made, half-written blogs, thumbnails of story ideas, volumes of dreams and ideas.

for a decade, via email, then friendster, then here, the thing i have consistently produced is this blog. i learned as i was listening to others’ works that the kind of writing i do here is memoir and personal essay.

oh.

i feel brand new.

and folks seem to understand the ideas for science fiction and social justice, too.

and everyone has smiles on their faces but i feel like i just landed on death ground: “Confront them with the advantage, but do not explain the danger.” Sun Tzu, The Art of War (The Nine Kinds of Ground) (premise of death ground theory) – i suspect the danger is losing a sacred part of my life in an attempt to make it the whole of my life.

but it could be the whole of my life!!

something very young and core in me is trembling and totally awake.

it’s marvelous.

soundtrack:

“point yourself in the direction of your dreams…and make your transition,” underground resistance

anything could happen, ellie goulding

“i’m not scared anymore of being something great“, monica blaire (starts at minute 2, but intro stuff is magic too. to improve your life watch to the very end. liberation.)

unspeakable joy, kim english