Lucinda Through the Looking Glass By Lucinda Mack
I’ve always felt like Alice gazing into her looking glass and wondering who it actually reflected.
Who am I? Finding the answer to this complex question, had ripped at my gray matter for many years.
I held many jobs, but never thought about embarking on a writing career. Who would care to read the words of just an ordinary person? I was neither a Poe nor a Thoreau, but still something inside made my heart simmer and flow.
Sometimes the rush of internal pulsations almost toppled me, however, I bolted everything I felt deep inside. I was unwilling to unclasp, release or share the fragrance of my flourish with strangers. I thought people who did not know me personally could never understand the way I savored and expressed the flavors of the cosmos that surrounded me.
If I exposed myself through my words, I feared the masses would burn me in effigy for flagrant offenses against all forms of art and humanity.
As a consequence, I put up barriers of ignorance instead of building bridges of communication. I was steeped in uncertainty as to why I felt things so robustly and wondered if I was insane. Often, I contrived ways to hide the sensations I felt from people who shared my landscape. Unfortunately, I could not find a way to extinguish the fires I felt inside.
Just after I retired, I was drenched with freedom from the grind. Words boldly came to call, and I composed poems and shared them with neighbors and friends. No matter their reaction, I pushed onward in amusement of doing something that made my heart trip and my fingers rip across the keyboard of my senses. Each word I wrote added more exhilaration to my new world.
Feelings seared and blistered me; they felt like lava running through my veins. Poems sliced through my heart making it stop and start until I had no choice but to continue on my writing adventure. I labored at my task morning, noon and night. Time lost all meaning. My desire to give birth to emotions through expressive writing overcame my need to hide my inner turmoil.
This bright endeavor severed the ropes of panic that had kept my thoughts from the masses. I shook as I pulled away from my past, and almost fainted from lack of sleep, and the thrill of my new task. I pressed onward in my escapade regardless of personal cost, and poured every ion of myself into every written declaration.
Then, on one dark and foreboding evening, a sea of rain blasted at the windows of my home. Lightning tap danced across my landscape and winds felled trees. Faces from my past almost swallowed me in totality. It was time to take to task something that had feasted on my soul for many decades. I needed to write about two lost friends who had committed suicide.
They were gay women who had tried to thrive in a world that refused to listen or even attempt to understand them. Each had “come out” to me about being lesbians at one time or another.
In both cases, it was difficult to determine why they had made such decisions. Over time, I pushed myself to be more open and tolerant. They were close friends and needed every ounce of compassion I could offer. Both were trapped in a world at odds with their personal choices. I watched them struggle and offered them emotional support.
Regrettably, I could not save them from their agony and they perished. Overcoming the grief of their deaths became nearly impossible. In writing my recent and first published book, Nightsticks and Negligees, I hoped to highlight love and how it comes to us in many different forms. The best way to do that, in my mind, was to breathe my characters alive through poetry and rhyme within the confines of my novel. As a result, I tried to create bold, exciting, three-dimensional people who could mirror the complexities of their lives.
My compulsion to set down my thoughts and turn them into poetic stories had often flickered in the corners of my past. In the twilight of my dawn, I had finally found the courage to surrender to my need to let go of everything I was to become something better. I was on a collision course with my future, and vowed nothing would keep me away from seeking my own truth.
The more false layers I pulled away from my sunken husk, the stronger became my need to discover who I was and what I represented. At times, the process was unsettling and alarming. Whenever I let go of pieces of the sham I had created, thoughts spilled out of my soul forming rivers of literature. After each occurrence, I felt lightened by having released more chains of my burden. My universe became brighter and combusted into glee as I moved closer to discovering my true identity.
It took many years to cut my story free to linger about eternally. It was the scariest thing I had ever done. I had moved from shadows to expel bursts of erotic poetry and sensual text. Pieces of me and my long-lost friends bled into my book’s interior text. While some sections detailed breath-taking encounters, other parts exposed the warts and bowels of humanity. The impetus was to reflect the good and bad of life.
Several pages of my novel explored loss, love, compassion and acceptance. The plot was hammered with twists, turns and thrills. I prodded the waters of existence to discover things that made mankind different, yet unique. My central characters were infused with the same concerns and confusion that torment humanity daily. Thus, they each struggled to overcome their problems just like “real humans.” Their differences rested in the way they coped and the methods they devised to sail over their troubled waters.
Now I can look at my own reflection and say, “I think I did okay.” I am joyful to have taken on my challenge to find myself and embrace the truth of my reality. The answers I have unearthed cling to me like a gown of glory. I am no longer a stranger in my eyes, and have come to terms with my assets and liabilities. In my heart-of-hearts, I am pleased that I risked everything I was to become everything I am. After playing the biggest lottery of my life, I emerged a winner, and discovered the truth that litters my soul.
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Lucinda Mack has worked in various professions including the home care industry and presently lives in Pennsylvania. Her extended family resides throughout various locations around the world. Lucinda has experienced many personal tragedies and has learned to survive amidst the turmoil of loss and confusion. Some of the members of her family who were lost to her were members of the LGBT community. She has written this book in an effort to give such people a voice and express their importance in society and the world.
For information on Lucinda Mack please visit www.lucindamack.com
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Category: On Writing
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