When I am writing, really writing, it is from a place of sensing. Because I am not writing through, or with, the mind, I am writing in partnership with the body. I am synthesizing what I am sensing, trying my best to put it into words. I call it, “heart’s transcript”.
Currently, I am trying my hand (again) at revising, and revising my first “manuscript”. It wasn’t until this sixth version that I felt comfortable enough to call it a “book”. It’s also this sixth version where I am revisiting, deeply and intentionally thinking about my, “why”, and being honest, and transparent.
Writing for me has always been private, me and the page; me with me, to me, from me. It’s only been since 2018 when I said, “I am a writer”, outloud, and believed it, that I seriously contemplated writing for an “audience”. My brows are furrowed and my lip is doing that, “grrr” thing I as write this because, audience???....??? This word still feels foreign. I am not writing “for” anyone. I am writing for me, a me that might also be parts, pieces, and facets of you. I’m not writing for “reach”, I’m writing at my own depths, for exhale, release, relief, and breath.
So I’m sitting here, in the center of my two seater love seat, in my one bedroom studio, DEEP in my feels because I’ve just come across this picture I took of my Mother 5 years ago. Her sitting on the ground (the earth), at the foot of one of the trees on the property of the house I grew up in and, I am reflecting on how she hates pictures but every once in a while, she will oblige and allow me to capture Her. This capture of Her is with kin, Her and the trees. In ways they are the same. Their roots run deep in more ways than we know, can comprehend, or explain. And then, I go searching for other words and comes across these, what I call Judy-ology, wisdom from Judy (Mommy/Iya), this year, 2026, on her birthday, March 8th, she turned 76.
Question: Mom, is there any wisdom you want to share for this 76th year?
Answer: Life is very different and so I’m at that point where I’m leaving one season behind and I’m walking into a different season. Noticing what’s different is very important because sometimes what we’re looking for is what’s the same, as we are, but when you are in an environment of visions, you’re looking for different because you’re looking for different ways of seeing, and being, and doing, so that the energy-field is dynamic. It’s about, “what do others in my life bring or add, how do others in my life challenge me?”.
When I was environments where everyone was different, and differences are honored I never had to figure out who I am because I was mirrored in the people around me. Being in an environment where the expectation is that everyone be the same, I don’t see myself in the environment so I have had to figure out the environment, what was going on in the environment?, and then by doing that I figured out me.
I’m not yet far enough ahead of me to have a long enough hindsight to put it all into words but I’m very clear that life has been different. Life before 2020 and life after 2020.
Life before 2020. And, life after…
Life before 2020. And life after 2020. Nothing has been the same...
