Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.
It’s the close of the day and I’m already wrestling with those all too familiar messages that allow me to dismiss the call and the urge to write. It’s now a deeply embedded, well-practiced manoeuvre. One that I know doesn’t give me any satisfaction.
And yet – after all that I’ve experienced today – a day that came to me as gift – the temptation to let the old stuff have its way could, and might easily defeat me.
Except that Dev threw out a challenge to write something and send it to her tonight, and I took her up on this – knowing even as I heard myself say “I will” that I would struggle to follow through.
In that moment there was a bit of wind, perhaps euphoria, filling my sails after a day at the Gunners Writing Masterclass. But there was something more. And this was the depth of feeling I sensed in the recognition Dev and other people in the class gave to Helen’s gift. This acknowledgement startled me.
I loved that the gift Helen gave was, so thoughtfully, a gift just for me. A gently humoured encouragement from a wonderfully gifted and most impressive young woman to her mother-in-law. I know how much she savours words and how elegantly she uses language, gifts inherited from her own mother, and gifts she is passing on to her children.
But it was your insight into the deeper meaning behind this gift, and what it says about the giver and her relationship with me that shook me out of what I can see now was form of complacency. Hearing strangers react in the way that you did startled me into accepting that I am loved; loved for who I am; loved without any strings, demands or expectations. Loved even though I’m a “Gunna”.
Well – I’ve decided that, as of tonight I’m a “recovering Gunna”! I’ve decided it’s time to begin chipping away at the layers and layers of defences that I’ve allowed to accumulate over many, many years. And to make the most of this exciting gift and grab this opportunity to, at last, begin to tell my story!