It came from where?

Photo by Anastasiya Badun on Unsplash

You like transformation stories? Okey-doke, here we go!

Once upon a time, there was a woman, who, from girlhood on, didn't perceive herself as having the ability to write - anything. Writing was a bit like staring at a snake. “Run, run! Get outta here! Somebody else take care of that snake! I can’t.” This young woman felt so bereft of writing skills that she even talked a friend into helping her compose a graduate school application.

(OMG, do you think there’s a statute of limitations on such graduate school heresy? Will they take away her degree? What if she promises never, ever, to sing Michigan’s fight song, “Hail to the Victors,” out of tune again?)

....So, where were we? Ah, yes, the aforementioned fearful human caught in her longtime prison of “I can’t write”. From other friends, who were more comfortable writers, she’d heard rumblings about having an inner authentic voice guiding them on the writing path. She assumed she didn’t have access to an authentic inner voice, finally making peace with that belief. Yeah, yeah, she had other gifts to share with the world, but still felt haunted by a felt incapacity to write.

Years passed (they do that) and she began hearing whisperings and stirrings within. Those whisperings sounded like, just maybe, they were really, truly and authentically, her own voice, the one she’d been looking for all her life. Oh, wow! But wait, the voice sounded so young at times! So youthful, full of “whoopees” and “wow’s.” An unrestrained joyful kid. Kind of embarrassing to have a voice within, one that feels so authentic, but sounding like a celebratory child. You know?

But, wow, could that young voice write! She wrote, flowingly, from the heart with great humor, wisdom, reflecting deep aliveness. This now-woman felt captured by the life bursting out of this child-like inner voice, replete with wow’s, OMG’s, and yays; language of which she was initially ashamed, since it sounded so childlike.

Yes, ‘tis me….

Yours truly feels incredibly fortunate, as an adult, to have been captured by a spirited child whose voice of wisdom comes from god-knows-where. I’m listening… and writing.