The Dance, a video that my friend who is a dancer sent me is still churning my unconscious and causing me to reflect upon my own life story.
Like most writers I suffer from depression. And not unlike many writers, my childhood was not the idyllic one American culture says we are to have.
Yet amid all that was burnt and tarnished in youth and in adolescence, a period few of us truly adored, I maintained a sense of what was true and important, human connection.
More than that I held to a vow that I made to myself. I would create the family I dreamed of and fill it with unconditional love and acceptance, two things my family of origin sorely needed.
Life has been good. Though far from perfect, I am speaking of me, the universe blessed me with three loving children who have displayed the fruits of unconditional love by not only choosing to enter the world through me, and in so doing, loving me without pre-condition.
As babies, children hold the light of acceptance. They take what we give and attach to it the value of the world. As parents we are their universe.
The more we love and cherish them, the more they revel in life and relationship with us. If we are careful and loving as parents, they also teach us to also love ourselves.
Only after having been disappointed innumerable times do we humans turn from others and choose the path of distrust and intense scrutiny.
I have learned the value of love and acceptance, freely given and received, through the open and accepting arms of my children.
Yet none of this would have been possible without the love and affection of my husband.
My husband and I came to each other much like the two dancers approached the other in the video. It is what caught and gripped me from the outset, the point at which I identified with them in my experience of having been broken and torn by the winds of life.
And it is that awareness of being molded and kneaded beyond what you fear is repair, simultaneous to the recognition of the other who like you has also been injured the bestows the healing.
The wounds each bears form a bridge of acceptance, of each other and of one’s own self. It is a dance, this getting to know each other. You, like him or her reveal your heart and step beyond the mask.
This is why I write, to reveal the mask, confront and expose my defenses and fears, and to show others, my characters, doing the same.
What masks do you wear?
Where do they appear or evidence of them show in your writing?