An Exodus

Being part of a family, any family, is an emotionally challenging experience. Being the only girl in my family was rife with much emotional turmoil alongside great love and devotion.

In writing this memoir I was able to call into my awareness all of those feelings: grief, sadness, joy, and the deep tenderness for both of the extraordinary parents I had and the home that housed that very rich and impactful upbringing.

My parents' deaths and the anguish of selling my family home all came down in rapid succession. It was a merciless experience. Like Persephone, those events sent me so far down into the underworld and forced me to face my shadow from every direction that I am only now beginning to climb back out into the sunlight and face this second half of my life.

Stories are spirit medicine; taking these sometimes painful yet evocative events and crafting them into art has both soothed the heartache and given me the gift of honoring my childhood and embracing my womanhood.

It is in the remembering where the softness lies. And so I remember it all; but most especially that swim, the very first one with my daddy dear that will always live in my heart...