Heroine's Journey
A Week of Creative Healing
In the grip of the past week's stress, primarily from daily work demands, anxiety has depleted my reserves, robbing me of proper sleep. The physiological manifestations transformed into somatic anxiety, effectively shutting down my creative process. My presence at my third book's (prose) writing desk manifested only in two ways: observing the sunrises, and penning a few sentences in what was originally the Heroic Journey chapter.
There's a story I've never shared publicly, one that will finally find its voice in my new book. My grandfather was a Nazi camp survivor. He was deported during World War II to Northern Westphalia, 90 kilometers from where I now live, from Cologne. This history was carefully shielded from us as children, and the irony of uncovering these unspoken family truths in my middle age years, just before my own move to northern/western Germany, for markedly different reasons, isn't lost on me.
I was blessed that my grandfather lived long enough to know me as an infant. A single photograph preserves our connection: me at 4-5 months, him beaming with pure joy, and me returning his smile. That captured moment speaks of a connection that transcended time and trauma. Now, I find myself haunted by questions I'll never get to ask him. Questions about everything: all the things I yearn to understand now. His survival years at the camp, making connections, post camps years, and how he coped with the trauma. What remains are fragments: my mother's slim memories of his stories, and my own ancestral intuition piecing together what might have happened.
The chapter's evolution from "Heroic Journey" to "Heroine's Journey" feels significant, even if only seven raw sentences made it to the page. Perhaps this transformation mirrors my own journey of understanding and reclaiming family history.
The echoes of my grandfather's involuntary path have transformed into my voluntary exploration, as I navigate my own way through these same German landscapes, creating new meanings and forging fresh pathways. Where he faced confinement, I find liberation and freedom; where he encountered darkness, I discover opportunity for growth and moving forward - a profound testament to how time and circumstance can rewrite the narrative of a place across generations.
I recuperated and restored my sleep through dedicated writing practice and conversations with G about the creative process. I've discovered that creativity itself serves as an antidote to anxiety, and this week I'm actively mitigating anxiety's effects through writing and creating new forms.
Over the past few days, I’ve been working on the Preface for my upcoming book of short stories, with G helping me polish and refine it. Each morning, I do about 10 minutes of qigong.
The act of creation becomes both escape and healing, a way to process not only personal stress but generational trauma.
The sunrise observations that marked my mornings seem symbolic now—each new day offering a chance to illuminate another piece of this complex narrative, to understand how our past shapes our present, and to transform anxiety into art.