Forgive her, him, them What for? Healing? Pish! Closure? Posh! Peace of mind? Ha!
Let go Let go of all that is not yours to carry Shame, hate, pain, anger, violence Send it back Send it back
Return to sender What's mine is mine What's yours is yours
Don't fret Ponder Rumage Let go Set yourself free
But forgiveness? Forgive yourself always! Forgive them, him, her? Not your job. None of your business! That his, her, their soul work to undertake
None of your business
Set yourself free By claiming you Your youness Your power Your light Your strength Your happiness
Unburden yourself From carrying the weight of the perpetrator It's not yours to carry It's not your path to walk They wanted you to To join them in darkness To join them in pain To join them in shame To follow their insanity Just Do Not Walk this path
Choose Choose freedom Choose your own path And let go You are not obliged to forgive Send this back to Them, her, him
Her She can’t hear you Caught in her own prison Of wounds that won’t heal It’s easier That prison Then healing You suspect
Two people Watch from afar They see your pain They see your struggles
Him and her Tried sending smoke signals Tried sending encrypted messages You ignore And scream “Go away” You shout your anger
At him “Why did you not protect me?” He couldn’t His wounds were fresh Trauma runs deep He barely survived this one
At her “You destroyed everything” She didn’t There was nothing left to destroy When she arrived She pulled at the bandaid though Wounds need air and light To heal
It’s scary Being seen Being heard It’s scary Not being able to hide It’s painful To look at the wounds
Being seen Being heard Comes with healing You aren’t ready to heal Quite yet
I have nothing to say That could sway you I have nothing to say You are able to hear I have nothing to say That would touch you I have nothing to say You could understand
You have nothing to hear But your hatred You have nothing to hear But your spite You have nothing to hear But your darkness You have nothing hear That would give you respite
For years I try to find words For years I try to understand For years I try to empathize But all I can speak of is darkness But all that I can grasp his vile But all I can feel is evil projectile vomiting of hate
Long evenings on the beach created an unfamiliar amount of time for introspection, breathing, watching, and then watching some more. The sky, the water, the sand, the animals. At some point the Gospel song ‘Oh Happy Day’ became stuck in my head. Mainly the phrase ‘he washed my sins away’. Exploring issues around trauma, there are some things we have been working with themes, phrases that seem to be taken on by the survivors: such as shame, guilt, worthlessness. In some workings phrases such as: ‘this is not my shame to carry’, ‘I am worth it’, ‘I belong’ became significant. So I tried to remember the main themes and words from this and wrote them in the sand on the beach, and let the ocean wash them away.
Incidentally while I was exploring these issues, the alienating parent called and insisted that the kid needs to be brought home immediately for a life and death medical appointment (literally: you are putting his life at risk). When trying to suggest that surely such an emergency would mean we should bring kid into closest hospital that was refuted. A flight was booked and the alienator flew all the way up to the Outer Hebrides to pick up kid for what turned out to be a routine follow up appointment after a course of antibiotics. Which a) could have waited until the end of holidays or b) could have easily been done at the medical centre, which was literally 10 minutes from the camp-ground. Sharing-agreements here in the UK mean the doctor would have had access to all records and also could have easily consulted with family doctor. Interestingly the alienator called once they had boarded the plane on the way back from holiday, so they were sure they could run through the whole ‘I am the hero’ scenario, and the plane did not have delays and would hamper the narrative. So after being convenient childminders for a week the poor kid was torn away from his dad to play their part in the story of ‘How I save my son from a made-up drama’.
It was on our last evening together, everyone was really sad and we tried to squeeze in as much of the favourite activities as we could. When walking along the beach, we found this heart made of shells. For me this was a sign: love always wins. And I made the little drama installation to ritually wash away the drama for our second week of holiday, the kid had to miss out on.
The other words and film snippets will follow over the next couple of days.
Poetry by Nathalie 