At some point on your road you have to turn and start walking back towards yourself. Or the past will pursue you, and bite the nape of your neck, leave you bleeding in the ditch. Better to turn and face it with such weapons as you possess.
from Beyond Black, Hilary Mantel
It's such a waste of energy trying to outrun your demons. They always find you. Always. No matter how far you run, how many ties you cut, disguises you wear, turn around and you'll run right into them.
No matter where you go, you take yourself and your past with you. I am a strong believer that you are not your past, and you can step out of your past into a new story any time you choose, but, I also believe in order to do this, you have to face the past, raise your dead, then lay them down.
I finished Mantel's book last night, and it was near the final pages that this quote leaped off the page. I also just finished a new voodoo collage and smack in the middle is a pair of red sequined Dorothy shoes.
I get the message: it's time to turn and walk back towards the self I've yet to acknowledge, yet to raise or lay down. It's time to return home, do battle the only way I know how: by writing.
I've written very little about being raised Mormon or why I just stopped believing and never went back, never looked back. I think it's time to face the part of myself I've been trying so desperately to outrun.
I'll admit it makes me a little nervous, vulnerable, even paranoid to write about that formative part of my life. All I can think of is the goddesses Kali and Medusa. One creates and destroys. The other turns you to stone.
I'll just face them down, one 100-500 word personal essay at a time.
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