Unlearned

My favorite new discovery is an On Being podcast called Poetry Unbound. The first episode highlights a poem by Brad Aaron Modlin that is both simplistic and haunting, reminding me of places in my story where I felt like an orphan trying to navigate life on my own without a compass.

Whether it is how to be at rest with unfinished things, give myself over to a fantasy novel, celebrate without sugar or appreciate eye liner, there is much goodness I’ve taught myself as an adult that would have been so nourishing to have learned at an earlier age.

“What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade”

A poem for what you learn alone by Brad Aaron Modlin

Mrs. Nelson explained how to stand still and listen
to the wind, how to find meaning in pumping gas,
how peeling potatoes can be a form of prayer.

She took questions on how not to feel lost in the dark.
After lunch she distributed worksheets
that covered ways to remember your grandfather’s
voice. Then the class discussed falling asleep
without feeling you had forgotten to do something else—
something important—and how to believe
the house you wake in is your home.

This prompted Mrs. Nelson to draw a chalkboard diagram detailing
how to chant the Psalms during cigarette breaks,
and how not to squirm for sound when your own thoughts
are all you hear; also, that you have enough.

The English lesson was that I am
is a complete sentence.

And just before the afternoon bell, she made the math equation
look easy. The one that proves that hundreds of questions,
and feeling cold, and all those nights spent looking
for whatever it was you lost, and one person
add up to something.

What do you remember learning, discovering or figuring out on your own growing up? What did you want to be able to do but had no one to teach you? In what ways did you feel you were left to stumbled through the dark and what heartache did that bring? What story of navigating life alone do you need to tell in order to be kinder to how long it’s taken you to learn what others have always seemed to know?

Untold Participation

In my early 30’s, I crossed over a life-altering threshold as I began to tell close friends not only that I had suffered childhood abuse, but more importantly what had happened in those scenes. It was a “red or blue pill” decision and I am forever grateful to former pastor Brian Wallace for knowing it would open up the new vistas of healing for which I was so desperately hungry.

This is why I love Maya Angelou’s words:

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

Her memoir, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, was my first exposure to another survivor’s account. I don’t remember if I, at age 16, connected Angelou’s story to my own, but I consider her a forerunner for my own future courage. I am forever grateful for my English teacher, Vicky Yoder, who knew it was an important book for young people long before organizations like RAINN educated us that 1 in 5 girls are victims of childhood sexual abuse. Curating communities of caring witnesses where unspeakable stories can be told has become the cornerstone of my practice.

In a recent On Being podcast (time stamp 8:05- 10:53), Serene Jones, President of New York’s Union Theological Seminary, brilliantly connects the idea of untold stories and shame.

During her time at Yale, while listening to a lecture on lynching, she came across a picture labeled: Laura Nelson, 1911; Okemah, Oklahoma.

She goes on to explain:

“There were maybe 300 people in the town in 1911, and two-thirds of them were my family. So there was no way that my family did not know [of] or, most likely, participate in [the lynching]. But it’s not a story that [has] been passed down.”

Heartbroken, she draws this painful conclusion:

If they had not participated, they would’ve told the story.

For so many of us, the stories that go untold, sometimes for generations, are the ones in which we believe we participated in the harm done to us. The stories of how we have survived the brokenness of our world are excruciating to tell, but they are also the only way I know through the rabbit hole.

What stories did everyone in your family seem to know but no one talked about? What topics, growing up, did you intuitively know were off limits? What story about a “forbidden” part of life do you need to tell in order to find greater freedom from shame?

Shame as Grounding

I’ve described shame in many ways over the past few years--dark, insidious, infiltrating, corrupt, deceptive, binding, etc. But in the past few months, my work has cornered me into adding another adjective to the list--grounding.

Juxtaposing these two words I’ve held as antithetical for so long has created quite the dilemma.

The seed was first planted during one of my own therapy appointments two years ago. As I processed a scene from when I was seven years old, I was astounded to discover that in the aftermath of hurt my internally, berating dialogue had actually anchored me. Holed up in a bathroom where I felt safe to cry, the “talking to” I gave myself before exiting seemed to strengthen me in the difficult task of returning to my family.

For days after the session, I was perplexed:

“That was strange. It felt like I honored shame. Surely that’s not right--I must be misunderstanding what happened.”

Fast forward to this past December as I read in a story group another scene from first grade. Everyone helped me hear my harshness towards myself as a coping mechanism. My writing ended with these words:

Earlier. That’s what I should have done. I should have thought of my idea earlier.  I should have guessed he’d come home. Instead of mindlessly wasting the day away, why didn’t I make a plan for tonight? Even if I was wrong, I could have been at my grandmother’s. I should have thought of that. I shouldn’t have waited so long. I should have realized the afternoon was almost over and it’d be too late. Earlier. I need to think about things earlier.

Until a few weeks ago, I continued to think this was something only I did. Another story group member, sharing a very different story, also ended with a similar internal dialogue. Outside of my own mind and voice, I could finally hear the litany of “should”s as a way of grappling with unpredictable and unpreventable pain.

As I’ve held the words shame and grounding together, I’ve begun to think of it like this…

In the presence of harm, the experience of powerlessness feels untethered. Like in every space movie that I’ve seen (Ad Astra, Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian) an unforeseen explosion catapults us away from the only vessel with engine thrusters powerful enough to break the orbit of an uninhabitable planet. We watch in horror as the chord of our life suit detaches from our spacecraft and we drift into oblivion.

It is in this type of nightmare that shame grounds us. It’s not a kind ground on which to stand—it’s more like wet cement that entraps you as it congeals—but it does provide temporary relief from the disorientation of spinning away from those to whom we are meant to belong.

I believe any measure of relief in an experience of trauma is a form of mercy, and whether it’s in my story or in someone else’s, if shame provides a sliver of relief then I need to honor the way it anchors survival before asking it to step aside.

What internal speech do you most often give yourself? When was that recording first dubbed? What story of historic inner harshness do you need to tell in order to reframe it as how you grounded yourself to survive powerlessness? 

Flaws as Mediums

Artistry by Celia Pym (left), Tom van Deijnen (middle) and my husband (right).

Visible Mending. This past week, as I bathed in Jan Richardson’s Epiphany writings, this captivating phrase rubbed me raw then seeped into my bones.

Visible mending doesn’t seek to dismiss the presence of damage or disguise its restoration. Instead, it allows a repair to show itself, taking a defiant delight in salvaging what some might consider ruined.

Richardson’s inspiration comes from the works of English artists such as Celia Pym & Tom van Deijnen (shown above). As I perused their portfolios, a question from my own deep brokenness rose up:

“Why would you do that?!?!”

Damaged objects get under my skin. I am among those who consider them ruined. If finances allow, I replace broken household items with neck-breaking speed. My husband’s refusal to acknowledge a freezer on its last leg until steaks spoil rather than when it stops making ice, balances me out. We don’t do visible mendings—we do poorly disguised chips in my favorite Anthropologie latte bowls. Also shown above.

Which begs the question…

“Why do I do that?!?!”

Growing up, my mom’s telling of my birth story went something like this:

“My due date was in early December so I had this cute ‘Baby’s First Christmas’ outfit for you. But you took so long to come that you didn’t get to wear it that year. Of course you were too big for it by the next Christmas, so I never got to put it on you.”

A wise man (a therapist, of course) reframed it this way:

“So you ruined Christmas while still in the womb?”

That does sound crazy.

I refrained from sharing that actually I ruined New Years as well. Pregnancy complications meant bed rest for my mom the week between the two holidays. I was delivered by emergency c-section on Wednesday, January 2nd—an official child of woe.

It’s relieving to know I come by my crazy honest.

I’m grateful Jan Richardson answers my very important why:

Why purposely mend a garment in a way that draws attention to its flaws?

The point of such repair is not to erase every sign of damage; the point, in part, is to show that the damage does not have the final word. What finally emerges from the mending will be both scarred and beautiful. Most of all, it will be whole.

Turns out when something precious is irreplaceable (for whatever reasons), the pain of parting with it changes your perspective on damage. Flaws become the medium for repair when wholeness becomes enough.

How did your family respond to damaged and broken things? Whether it was a meal, a mood, a vacation or a report card, what do you remember “ruining” growing up? Were “scarred” things considered beautiful in your family? What story of damage do you need to tell in order to make room for the wholeness visible mendings create?

Between Touches Zoom Call: Monday, January 27th 6-7:30pm MST

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Denver Story Group: Monday, February 10th 6-9pm @SC

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