I spent about half of 2018 and most of 2019 becoming a licensed massage therapist. It turned out to be a transformative, turbulent, revealing, and healing journey that I’m still unraveling, though I don’t regret my choice to add that particular skill to my medicine bag. There is inestimable value in therapeutic touch, and I …
I have to instill in myself what my parents could not—I have to know that I’m safe, no matter who is in or out of my life.
I reasoned that in an unsafe world, expressing pain would expose a vulnerable weakness that others could exploit. It seemed wiser to keep it all to myself.
I remember the seething, white-hot rage I felt inside. I wanted to burn shit down or blow it up and leave a trail of ashes behind me. I had finally connected the dots between a father who was emotionally absent and impossible to please and the men I had attracted into my life. Guess what? …
Friends, it’s hotter than Brigid’s forge in lower Alabama, so I’ve been going sans bra as much as possible. It’s ridiculous to be layered when atmospheric conditions are at rain forest levels. If it would not result in arrest, I’d probably go around naked through the Dog Days of summer. Since public nudity isn’t an …
Cleaning out my purse is a weekly ritual for me, because I can’t stand digging through unnecessary items to reach the one thing I need (usually, it’s my car keys). Receipts tend to accumulate more than anything else. I buy something and shove the receipt down in my purse, as I’m grabbing the handles of …
Can you recall the exact moment when someone stripped you of your voice? How did that one incident affect your self-expression and creativity? What did you do to heal yourself?
“It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Oh, you learned that verse too well, my sister. That’s what they expect, after all. Be a nurturer, a supporter, a giver. It’s your holy calling. It’s what women do. Give until your creative well is empty, until your back is broken, until you are crawling …
There are two witches living inside of me…one wild, one tame. I won’t deny that I love the wild one most— she who resists order and structure, she who prefers the loamy smell of woodlands and the sand of untrodden shores, she who calls the lightning bolt down to shatter the tower, she who gives …
When four psychologists studied the phenomenon known as “slut shaming”—defaming a woman for the presumed frequency of her sexual activity—they learned the extent to which women shame each other, often for reasons that actually have little to do with promiscuity. The quote above was excerpted from a longer article published in Psychology Today that snagged my attention. I …