Two weeks ago I had the great privilage of meeting the woman behind all the Unraveling I've done over the past two years. Susannah was even more brilliant and funny and oh-so real in person, and I will treasure having been in the same room as someone who has inspired so much of my journey toward self-love and creative growth. She just wrote her first book, This I Know, and if you haven't read it already, then I highly recommend you do. I've documented much of my Unraveling journey here on my blog, so if you look back at my archives you will get a small, though wildly incomplete, idea of what Susannah's book is about. She writes so beautifully and has a wonderful way of pulling you in and hugging you with her words. Below are two small portions of the excerpts Susannah read to the small crowd of 35 people intimately packed in Kelly Rae's studio in Portland two weeks ago, and it's an understatement to say Susannah stole my heart...
An Ending, A Beginning...
"There wasn't any particular moment when my healing began, but moving back to the coast gave me the head and heart space I needed. I've never regretted leaving London the way I did. It also meant I was closer to my oldest friend. There were many evenings when helping Madeleine make dinner for the kids was the most soothing balm I could have wished for, the constant noise and chatter bringing me back into my body and aware of what day it was. Children are so alive, so in the right now, like little Zen masters in Spiderman pajamas."
The Art of Belonging....
"The day of his birth is a story shared between my sister, her partner, and me, our mother waiting outside the ward, a twenty-six hour transitin from before to after, the final ten-hour stretch fueled by laughing gas for my sister and endless sandwhiches for me. As my sister drifted in and out of consciousness, I have never been more present than I was during those last few hours. I took photographs of the delivery room so she could remember the place where her son was born; I held her hand through the contractions; I stepped away to let the new father hold his son. I saw his little face come out, and watched the slippery smallness of his body carried up and over into my sister's arms. And I didn't know it at the time, but my heart opened right then in preparation for what was to come; if I'd listened closely I'd have heard the bandages rip."
