Live while you’re alive

I have written this so many times, but I have to write it again, here, tonight, because it is the beginning of my story, my true story, and tonight I am seeing it through new eyes.

I was a very frightened little girl, a little girl who, due to scary things happening to her, escaped the world through the written world. I had secret hiding places outside, behind a huge old stand of overgrown forsythia bushes, where there was a hollowed out place in a hillock. There I escaped with my little red spiral notebook and Bic pen and I wrote. I wrote stories and poems and secret diary entries trying to make sense of a world in which I did not feel safe, a world where terrifying things were visited upon me, a world where the only safety I knew was with my notebook, and my books, and my dog. I am 64 now, and not much has changed, except for the fact that, being so cut off from the world I have created a world online, on this blog, on social media, through email, and, involved more and more in these mediums I fell away from writing stories, even, almost without exception, reading books, save non-fiction, books on writing, art, spirituality, no novels, no stories, no literature, that which I had loved above all else. And the loss cut so much deeper than I had known.

I have been blogging since 1998, before blogging was really “a thing.” I have had a dozen or more blogs but this one, Maitri’s Heart, is nearly 11 years old, started in September 2007, and now, with nearly 2 million visits to the site, the most dedicated blogging I have done. And I love it, it is so deeply a part of me I don’t see ever stopping it as long as I’m able, and, in doing this 365 day blog experiment where I have written daily for more than 3/4 of a year I realize that, far beyond the end of this experiment, I want to keep blogging daily. It is a daily spiritual practice for me. I am dedicated to it, but it’s not enough anymore. That little girl with the red spiral notebook is calling out to me.

I know, absolutely, that one of the reasons this has happened is because of my dear friend Katya, my mentor, muse, teacher, and dear friend of nearly 40 years, invited me to write stories with her. I was very shy about it at first, Katya, Ka, is an incredible writer and storyteller, but she has encouraged me and with deep delight we have been writing and sending stories back and forth to one another with a kind of passion, joy, and delight the likes of which I have not known for some time. Some of the stories are pure fiction, some an amalgamation of real life + fiction. Oh, I cannot tell you how my heart has soared. And these 700 word stories — and they must be 700 words precisely! — provides a container in which something very potent is written. Katya has the 700 word story down to a fine art. I have struggled, writing stories that ended up being 1200 words or more and having to edit them down to 700 words on the nose. What a challenge! What a delight! I love them. And in writing them there is an awakening in me. The little girl in me that wrote stories to stay alive is saying, “See, you have been lost in depression and anxiety because you have not been living your true life. You wrote stories once to save your life, and your life needs saving again. It’s time to open up your notebook and write your stories.”

And reading… Oh… reading, reading, reading. Reading real books, and I am being swept away listening to audiobooks. Recently I sat breathless for days listening to Rosamunde Pilcher’s The Shell Seekers, a book that I read in the 80’s and fell so in love with I have never forgotten it, one of my favorite novels ever. It is a 20 hour audiobook and goodness how I loved listening to it. I am currently listening to another audiobook, The Lake House by Kate Morton and I listened for hours last night until bedtime and off and on all day, on my way to and from therapy, around town as I did errands, and this evening after I got home. Another 20 hour audiobook. But I want to read real hard copies of books by these authors, and so many others. I have decided to follow Katya’s lead on another front. I am going to go back to the library.

When I was young my favorite place in the world was the library. I was a lonely, only child, shy, never quite fitting in anywhere, but absolutely at home in the world that books provided for me. All throughout my life, while raising my children, and until well into my 40’s, I would cart bags and boxes full of books home. But after my marriage ended and I left the outside world I stopped going to the library. I bought as many books as I could online, and amazon is a great resource for buying used books very inexpensively, but still, when you can buy a book for less than $1 but have to pay $4 shipping it is still too expensive to buy many books if you are on an extremely limited income. It was okay when I wasn’t reading much BUT NOW I WANT TO READ EVERYTHING!!! The list of books that I want to read that I keep adding to is growing and growing and growing. I did go to the library a year or so ago. I was very nervous and had a very hard time making myself go back to return them, there isn’t one close to my house, but now my hunger for books is greater than my fear of getting myself there! And you can keep them for 3 weeks. Surely I can make it out to the library every three weeks! By this weekend I will have gone and carted home a bag full of books. I am so excited!

And I have to share something with you. Yesterday I wrote about changing Circadian Rhythms, and my new plan of not watching news anymore in the evening. I wrote that I had been waking up around 6 or so unable to go back to sleep. I figured that was the best I could do. Well, last night was the first night I didn’t try to watch any news at all. All evening I listened to my audiobook, The Lake House. I did so while spinning yarn, while drawing and making art, and finally, as it got later and I was getting tired, I just listened, until almost 11. And then I turned out the light and went to sleep. I woke once, at 4:30, to go to the bathroom. It took me 45 minutes to get back to sleep and after a bit, as it got past 5, I was afraid I wouldn’t go back to sleep at all, but before 5:30 I was asleep and I slept until 8:30! That is nothing short of a miracle for me. And I even dozed for a bit after that and got up a little after 9. I absolutely could not believe it. No news, a good book, and a good night’s sleep. I think I’m onto something. Today my therapist agreed.

I was a little girl saved by writing stories. I am now a 64 year old woman who has returned to stories, both writing them and reading them, and it has wrought a miracle in my life. Miracles abound! Katya is about to publish another chapbook of her stories. Maybe one day I will self-publish some of mine. For now I am just writing them for the joy of it, and I am reading stories for the same reason, and I have a hunger for books that cannot be quenched, and the library will become my favorite place once again.

Oh gracious, parts of me that I thought were lost forever are coming back to life. I am absolutely over the moon. I now absolutely believe that anything, everything, is possible. What can you bring back into your life? What dreams can you resurrect? And oh my God isn’t it time? We cannot let another moment pass before we recover those pieces of our lost heart. We may live to 100 or die tomorrow but lets live as fully as we can while we are alive. By God I’m going to, and you should too.