I just reread the first two fantasy pieces. It has been a long time since I wrote them. I think it was in the second half of 2011. I was just getting back into some good space in my life after some tough times.
I wrote these two pieces as a part of a journalism course I was studying. The name of the course was Short Stories Writers and Readers and I completed this unit over the summer at the end of which I moved from Brisbane to Melbourne.
My mind had been wandering in this sort of forest type place for some time – even before I started this unit of my writing course. I was fascinated by different ‘mythical’ forms of myself and reclaiming these parts of myself that in some ways I had grown detached from or fearful of.
In the mermaid piece it’s about letting go of fear in relation to men and dating – fears due to past experiences. I’m not entirely sure about the leaving the wood piece but I think it relates to my inner child and becoming reacquainted with it. This piece is less polished than the mermaid piece so I may need to spend more time with it to see what it’s about. Inner child theory is something I’m fascinated about so in any event you will be reading more about it in my writing.
I guess at the time when I wrote these pieces I felt a little fragmented and I found healing through entering into this fantasy realm, inviting God in and asking for these different parts of myself to be healed. It was like the forest represented a place where all these different parts of myself dwelled and I could explore this forest, meet various characters and gain a different understanding about myself from them.
Recently I have been struggling with the reality of facing my own mortality. I am edging closer to another 0 birthday and the pace at which life seems to now pass with two small children seems to have increased exponentially. I also am struggling with making peace with my body. Not only is it now visibly aging with my hair having a significant amount of white, I struggle with my body image as a woman who has had two babies in a short amount of time. I’m journeying towards recovering my figure and struggle to see it as beautiful throughout the healing and recovery process.
I have been thinking that imagining and writing about what I look like inside and outside at ages that are still come for me – 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and even 100 may assist in helping me come to terms with these things. Maybe these ladies live in the forest? Or maybe they are in the town just outside of it after I left the forest of the dawn of Dreams? Maybe I need to find the post partum version of me in the forest as well.
We will have to wait and see…