Poetic License

Writers, musicians, poets, and madmen are like the candy you’ll find in a Valentine’s heart box. On the outside, we are shiny and appear to be solid. Inside we are soft and easily broken, full of goodness that can be destroyed in an instant. People call those who create narcissistic, showy, selfish, or worse. In truth, we can’t help but create. It isn’t for the praise that most of us produce art. It is for our sanity.

Sinéad O’Connor died this week in London. Think what you like of her, but she was one of my inspirations. She said whatever the hell she pleased, speaking truth to power, bucking the music industry and their expectations of a female singer, and giving the big finger to the patriarchy in general — especially to the Catholic Church. If you want to understand her better, watch the documentary “Nothing Compares” (2022). It is eye-opening for the uninitiated and contains gems for those who love her. She was fragile and suffered the long-term effects of abuse both from her mother and from the Church. I encourage you to watch the documentary and meditate on the messages.

When I was with that woman in the mountains of North Carolina in the year or two after my daughter died, I was berated for wanting to write. Like the typical abuser, she gaslighted me and cast doubts on everything I was, everything I knew myself to be, and eventually the emotional and mental abuse became physical. It always does. I should have recognized the patterns from what I observed growing up. They separate you from everything you are, and then when they’ve destroyed everything they once loved in you, they abandon you. Yes, I did the leaving, but she did the parting long before that.

Soft underbelly. I never understood that phrase applied to humans when I was young. I thought it had something to do with the spare tire around my middle. No, it is the softness in us that can be so easily hurt by the world. It is the part that makes us who we are but also makes us vulnerable to damage. It can sink us when wounded. How many times have I been wounded? How many scars have formed that keep me from sinking to the deepest of the abyss? How many things have I survived.

I’ve been told I need to develop a thicker skin. Were I to do that, I would not be me. It is the thickening of the skin that has happened over a long career in the corporate world that has alienated me from my creativity and my writing. Now I’m trying to slough off the layers of armor to find the softness in me once more. I do not want to have a thick skin. I want to have my vulnerability and humanity. I want to be the light in someone’s world. I want to be the light in my own.

Will I speak the truth? I must. Will I shatter the idea someone has of me? I have to. It is only through writing the truth that I can become the voice I have inside me, that I can feel my own power and – yes! – softness. Layers of hurt upon hurt upon hurt must fall away. I must go into that part of myself that is brave enough to try. When I am courageous enough to throw off the shackles of expectations and fly out of the nest of security, only then can I be who I was made to be.

It is time. It is time.

Namaste, Jude