In Pieces
I felt like a broken plate . . .
You are reading the serialization of FLIGHT: A YEAR IN SEARCH OF A PASSIONATE LIFE, about my year of travel around Europe, following in the footsteps of bold women writers and artists who redefined their lives on their own terms.
Thank you for supporting this work! It means the world to me as I rebuild my life and spread my wings as a creative writer (after nearly 30 years as an academic).
In the last installment I wrote:
It begins in October 2021 with a dream—it being the unraveling of my life.
I was the depths of the pandemic. As for so many, those long, quiet days opened up parts of me that had lain dormant for years. Voices began to speak. And, as you will see in this installment, external pressures played a role as well, particularly in my marriage. (I don’t write about how my university had become a toxic environment for me as well. That is a whole other story!)
Now on to the second installment of FLIGHT.
“I feel like a broken plate,” I tell my therapist, Deborah. I’m sitting in the living room of her condo, where we’ve been meeting since pandemic restrictions were lifted. A vase of yellow daffodils sits on the glass coffee table between us, and a box of tissues stands ready on the side table next to me. A faint whiff of disinfectant hangs in the air.
“Hmm, why is that?” she asks. She’s on the couch, and I’m in an upholstered chair, its soft cushions sucking me in, making me feel about ten years old. But then so much about my life falling apart seems to have tumbled me back in time to younger parts of myself that I thought I had outgrown.
“I just feel so broken, like a shattered plate, and I don’t know how to put the pieces together again,” I say, reaching for the tissues.
The image first came to me one night in France, nearly two years before, the night I knew my marriage would end.