Writing Through Difficult Times

A seed of salvation exists inside each of us. I had to find mine early. My father’s undiagnosed, untreated schizophrenia and violent outbursts were often directed towards me. He lived in a black and white world, and saw me as the enemy, so he did everything he could to destroy my self-esteem and keep me from pursuing things that interested me. I

sought refuge in books, drawing, and writing. I wrote my first poem at seven, a little ode to the sun. Life inside our home was usually tense and fractured, but my imagination could set me free. My family life didn’t teach me that there were other possibilities, but my books and writing did.

I wrote – I kept journals and wrote poetry and short stories from elementary school through high school. In my junior and senior year, my family disintegrated, my grandmother died, pets died, friends moved away, and my sister ran away, never to return to the family. I experienced a complete unmooring. Writing helped me stay connected to the inner life I’d cultivated, my only constant. I was too shell-shocked to go right to college after high school, so I worked in a factory while I worked on myself.

When I got to college, it took me 9 years to get through. I’d moved into the city, trying to figure out who I was once I got out from under the family trauma. My poetry reached a new level, bringing my inner life out into the light. Inside of me I discovered beauty, compassion, threads of the infinite.

At the same time, my younger sister had two daughters before the age of 21. Loving them inspired me to continue transmuting the family imprints into something healthy, stable, and loving. I gave them what I’d never had myself: unwavering devotion. Support for their interests, their creative lives, and an entrée into the larger world via the city. Even as I worked on myself, I still attracted relationships that mirrored my family patterns. The universe forced me to take a long break from them and get to the source of the damage in me. I wrote and wrote – through loneliness, anger, and desire.

As I got older, I wanted to own my craft more consciously. I attended workshops and started writing groups, one of them lasted for twelve years. Writing became my foundation: a primary relationship, my community, a magic wand. When I shared the raw, unedited language of my soul in an attentive community I had to stretch to grow into what appeared on the page. It became an alchemical process and a direct link to my higher self.

I got married. Seven years in, ghosts rose up. After three years of trying to work it, I had to let it go, a great sorrow. Still, I wrote. I pursued metaphysical healing, working on my energetic blueprint. Who knew that there are so many ways that our childhood experiences live in us? Not me. My nieces and writing continued to be my bedrock. I added a dream journal and a metaphysical diary to the mix.

In my post-divorce life, relationships elude me. I work on what I have control over: my inner life. I learned that words truly are spells: they’re an invocation, and the emotions we feel as we write or utter them are the fuel that sends them off into the cosmos to land. I discovered a powerful intuitive channel in myself, one that began to steer me in new directions. As I aligned myself with it, it became me. Writing transformed for me again – it became a portal into creative magic.

In 2012 another family tidal wave hit: my stepfather was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. My time was spent supporting my family, delivering a eulogy, then helping my mother in the new terrain of being alone for the very first time. Eight months later my niece Deihlia died unexpectedly. Like a daughter to me, she was my superhero. Born with spina bifida and other critical issues, she was given a week to live when she was born. Through over 40 risky major surgeries and a fierce spirit she survived to live a kick-ass life until she was 29. The loss of her was profound.

I wrote and delivered her eulogy. We cleaned out her apartment and my mother’s house at the same time, months of stuff. The grief and work wore me down to something essential. On a ‘whim’ I’d taken a memoir writing workshop the year my stepdad died. After Deihlia’s death, I needed something for myself, a creative refuge, a submersion into me. I took the workshop again. I wasn’t ready to let Deihlia go, so I wrote about her.

As words came, the rarity of her life rose up like a revelation, one piece at a time. It was her story, but it was my story, too. I work full time, but continued to write at night and on the weekends. I interviewed her friends, gathered stories from family and colleagues, and mined my memory and journals. I wrote through tears, laughter, grief, and overwhelm.

The story became a book. I found a larger meaning to my own challenges in the story of her life, and experienced deep healing and magic in the writing process. Deihlia was always a gift. After her death, the blessings continued. If I hadn’t been writing all my life, would I have seen it so clearly? Writing our story gave me courage and proof. If we nurture the right seeds, miracles bloom.

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Diane Fraser is self-publishing the book in Spring 2015.

Her metaphysical blog: https://atelierducoeurenergy.wordpress.com/

 

 

 

 

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Diane Fraser is self-publishing the book about Deihlia in Spring 2015.

Her metaphysical blog: https://atelierducoeurenergy.wordpress.com/

 

 

 

 

Tags: featured, inspiration, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing