I just watched the recorded first episode of the BBC mystery series, “Grantchester”, based on fiction by James Runcie.
As so many good detective stories do, it wrapped with an “authors voice” statement delivered by the main character, Sidney Chambers :
“We cannot erase our pasts, however hard we try.
Instead we must carry them with us into the future.
We must carry them with us and look forward with hope.
We must look forward, because to look back is to waste precious time.
Someone recently said to me, ‘We should live as we have never lived.’
And we must all of us take heed and live as we have never lived.
For we are all mortal.
We are all fragile.
And we all live under the shadow of death.”
As it was spoken, I felt pulled to listen carefully, as I have my upcoming course, “Write Yourself Whole” in mind all the time, now. (my Facebook Event link)
How Perfect!
We must, indeed, unless stricken with amnesia, carry our pasts with us, though we do try hard to forget aspects that brought pain with them. Writing for healing is Not so much about “erasing the past”, as about becoming free to carry the memory, imprint, and lessons into “the now”… empowered, really, to use our pasts in creative ways and continue to mine the gold in them.
Or not..
I write this for communicating with you; I wonder what I might have written had I used the writing methods we’ll be applying in the course.
As always.. Tualk amongst yourselves.