Metamorphosis

I'm reading a book that I stumbled upon at a cool little bookstore in Woodstock called Foxtale Book Shoppe. It's a great little shop. The book I came across is Couldn't Keep It to Myself: Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution (Testimonies from our Imprisoned Sisters) (Gary's brother? :) ). It's a pretty amazing book of stories from women in prison who have been involved in a writing workshop that Wally Lamb leads on a weekly basis. Wally Lamb wrote two books that I have not read before, mostly because they were on Oprah's Book Club list, (the reason I don't like to read books on Oprah's book club list is material for a different blog post). I might read them now though. They are now on my wish list (that's a shameless plug right there, btw). Anyway. These ladies fine themselves through writing. I just love that!!!

I took this amazing writing course a couple of years ago in college, and it changed a part of my life. It opened up a place in my heart that I rarely ventured to. I actually walked away from class on the last day and had to fight back tears. I learned so much about myself through the course, through writing - writing about my life. And it was as if I had been in some type of prison - mentally and emotionally, and through writing I was set free. We were constantly encouraged to "write from the heart" and that I would write stuff that is "flammable" - meaning that it would be stuff that people might think should be banned from libraries and there would be book burnings over the stuff I wrote.

The ladies writing in Wally Lamb's book are definitely writing from the heart and their writing is flammable. The stories I've read so far have very little to do with the crimes they committed that have led them down a path that leads to prison, but about "crimes" committed against them as children or things that have happened to them that definitely had something to do with the road they ended up on. But through their writing, they are experiencing healing and freedom even though their words are written from inside a prison. Their hearts are metamorphosed through writing.

Here's one of the first things I wrote in my writing class. The assignment was to come up with a visual Life Logo and then write about it. The logo was a picture of a caterpillar, a cocoon, and a butterfly, kinda combined all in one.

I love to see a butterfly floating, lifting, soaring through the sky. To think that once a butterfly was some type of caterpillar crawling along and at some appointed time, only heaven knows how it knows when, the caterpillar finds a branch or even the coziness of the inside of the wing of a garden angel statue and covers itself in a bed of silk and enters the chrysalis stage, and through an amazing metamorphosis completely changes into a beautiful winged creature that fights its way out of the bed it’s made for itself and rises to new heights and spreads its beauty as it glides along its way bringing joy wherever it goes.

My life has been a metamorphosis.

My father’s death when I was five years old left me feeling so alone and afraid. I grew up crawling around with ever-so-low self esteem brought on from the years of longing for my father’s love and touch. Oh how I would long for just one more hug, one more chance. I was a caterpillar just wandering from place to place, eventually making a bed for myself that consisted of heart break and falsehoods, and I never really knew who I, Linda Lenore Love, was. I was smothered in the silks I allowed my friends and family to cover me in, smothered, suffocating from trying to be the person I thought they all wanted me to be.

I had made my bed, and I was about to die in it, but somewhere deep inside me, there was a mustard seed of hope, and by the grace of God at age 24, I fought my way out of that chrysalis and found a beauty and worth in myself that had been in me all along fighting to be freed.

I still long for my Daddy’s love and touch, but that longing is no longer a factor in defining who I am and the heights I can soar to with my beautiful wings.

My hope now is that I can spread some joy; help others find the worth in themselves that is already there waiting in the chrysalis stage, longing to be released so they can spread their beautiful wings and soar to new heights.