Frankly, I’m fully aware that this exploration of my
different realities wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t blurted it all out
before within this blog. Once again,
writing has saved my life, figuratively and literally at the same time! I know I’d already said that I was going to
refocus this blog and edit many of those fully-open entries because I felt like
my energy was leaking from them, yet I haven’t been able to find the time to do
it, and you know what? I learned something new!
Yay! I learned that as soon as I
addressed the situation, “My energy is leaking, let me see what I can do about
it without hurting the essence of my writing”, the leak was fixed! I think it had to do with my being honest about
it, in the same way that I’ve been about the experiences that needed
healing. The thing is, as long as we let
the Universe know what the issue is and what we want to do to fix it, the
Universe will answer with support and tools; you still have to do the work, but
you’ll have a higher chance of success because you’ve already established it in
your mind and sent the right energies into the world.
Anyway, these reflections come from a state of acceptation of
myself and my story which I’ve been in during the past few weeks, and which
could not have been achieved without all my previous purging. That’s what gave me full access into my
characters: a few weeks ago I said that I was ready to take control of their
lives and develop the series with a balanced mind and heart, so I went deeper
into the things I had to fix and this is the result, so you can imagine how
happy and grateful I am. Still, clearing
those issues also meant letting go of things, places and even people that I’d
always deemed important to the story, because they’d marked me for better or
worse, so Cassandra had to deal with them as well, didn’t she? Given that she’s mirroring my life in fiction,
doesn’t she have to go through all of the psychological and emotional ordeals
that I went through in order to get her power?
That is how good writers work, giving their characters all of their
rises and falls, right? Wrong! I would have liked to post this entry on
Friday 6th, because it was the first anniversary of Gabriel García
Márquez to be celebrated after his death last April, so talking about A Hundred
Years of Solitude would have been perfect!
Everyone who knows him knows that Gabo, as he is also known by friends
and fans, based plenty of his fiction on his own life and family saga, A
Hundred Years of Solitude included, yet he always made it so that things were
sequentially or characteristically different enough so that he could call it
fiction instead of bio, delivering at the same time an amazing taste of Magic
Realism in which his characters (real or not) displayed all the depth and strength
of presence necessary so that the readers didn’t have to even care whether they
were based on reality or not… I admit
that such is my biggest wish! I mean,
those who know me will know which real names in (close enough) real events I’m
using in my novels and short stories, just as which names in fake events and
what real events with fake names there are…
Yet what’s the point of pointing them out? If an author catharsizes
something within their writing, it’s likely that they’re not assuming that
everyone will realise that it is true
and point it out, and whether they choose to disclose it themselves or not (for
healing, literary or commercial reasons, that’s another story!), that’s
something else entirely. Regarding
disclosure, one thing I have to say in regarding how great Stephen has been
during this whole process, is that he admitted from the very beginning that he
felt he knew me very deeply because of how much of myself I’d been pouring into
this blog; so, for him, half the things that I worked on during these past few
weeks and that I needed his support to pull through, were already known to him,
and the other half weren’t even a surprise!
Oh, but I wouldn’t advise this approach with any starting couples,
okay? I mean, if things come up that
weren’t expected, then be empathic and honest and deal with it from a
supportive position, but it’s not a very good idea to sit down together over
the first few dates and say: “Yo, this is all I need to heal, will you still
like me?”. It’s probably even a good
idea to stop saying Yo altogether, at least after you’ve gone into your
twenties; but that’s just a personal suggestion. Unless you can really pull it off. I tried and it really, really doesn’t work for
me. Apparently I’m too white and nerdy to
use it even as a joke, who knew? Anyway,
don’t go telling people you fancy all the things that you need to heal, unless
you’ve proven to each other that there is empathy and trust! If you’ve got neither of those things (and
they have to go together), you might get burnt even worse and considered weak
or needy, even if you’re neither or even if there is nothing wrong in being
either! See, in our case (Stephen and
me) this works because he already knew so much about me from what he read here,
and showed me empathy about it all even before we met in person, and so we’ve
been honest all the time about everything from the very beginning… And, hey, I went through six and a half years
before I found trust and empathy in a man I fancied, so I’m pretty sure I know
what I’m talking about. So, in the case
of new couples, if things that need healing pop up and give surprises, the best
suggestion, seems to me, will always be to keep it honest and to advance through
it with empathy.
It’s almost midnight now, so I’ll try and close up, but
before I go I’d like to share another couple of great things that marked my
Friday 6th: Stephen and I paid a little tribute to Leonard Nimoy by
playing The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins at Folk Club (my first time singing in
front of a live audience, btw – did not go well… but you know what they say: if
you don’t get it the first time, try and try again! And we will!!
I’ll have to keep you posted on that one, wink wink!). And I was also kissed for the first time ever
under the mistletoe…
…Erm, yes, I know it’s March. March the 9th, in fact. Who’s to say that using a little mistletoe
brooch doesn’t count for these matters?
After all, Stephen didn’t know that such an event was a first for me, but
it’s really really hard not to kiss him when he goes all history and legends
and literature on me, what was I suppose to do?
Wait for real mistletoe? Okay, I
sense that this is the part where I should stop my rambling and explain the
context: remember how I’ve been on and on about how I felt like I didn’t belong
anywhere until I met him? That whole
“Not even in London, what am I suppose to do now?” thing? Yes, of course you do, I probably overtalked
about that subject, so I won’t blame you if you’re sitting there rolling your
eyes at the screen right now, but I have to mention it because it so happened
that we were talking about Stephen’s Cornish ancestry and I said yet again how
nice it would be to have that sense of belonging, to be able to jump up and
down in joy and point to your roots or blood or whatever, just like I say to
everyone (my family included!) who mentions their roots with the passion and
fervour that Stephen was talking with about Cornwall. Long story short, he said I was
mistletoe! He said that there is nothing
wrong with flying about until one is able to find a nice tree where to grow and
develop oneself, and that roots do not necessarily have to grow on the ground
(which finally explains why it has always been so hard for me to ground
myself), but that becoming part of the chosen environment has as much merit as
everything else in life… Now, before you
go all “But it’s a hemiparasite!” on me, remember that it has been recognized
as a keystone species because of its role on ecological cycles… It doesn’t just “live off its host”, but its role
in the roosting, nesting and feeding of many birds make it important for the
continuity of biodiversity. Moreover, if
it’s seen within the areas of spirituality and healing, it’s one of the oldest
holy plants known in Druidism and myths and legends in other ancient
religions. Nowadays, Druids and many
other Pagans give it its place during the winter rituals: they position a white
cloth under the oaks when collecting mistletoe, so that it never touches the ground
and thus keeps its holy properties. As
for the oaks, it’s an honour to be chosen by the mistletoe, because that’s what
makes them holy… So, either way I look at it, I love to understand myself as
mistletoe now, and to have chosen Stephen as my tree as well…
Anyway, before this starts becoming all “Dear Diary” again,
I’ll leave you all with my best wishes for the week, and I’ll return on Friday with
the next entry… Now to sleep!
Love and blessings!
Sandra Tena ≈ Writer, dreamer, seeker, lover
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