The Clearing
In one of my recent writing workshops, I invited attendees to recall a time when hearing or reading about someone else’s experiences changed them or shifted their own perspectives in some way. It could have been from a personal exchange, a book, a poem, a line from a song, a quote—anything. If they revisited the power of storytelling on a deeper, more personal level, I hoped it might motivate them to push past any hesitation in sharing their own stories.
In preparing for the workshop, I thought about what my own answer would be, and a memory from when I was 28 years old in a City Lights Bookstore played in my mind like a movie playing on a screen.
I had reluctantly agreed to travel to the Bay Area with a friend who was trying to cheer me up and take my mind off a month-old breakup. I really thought the guy was the “one.” We met in college in a filmmaking class, our chemistry ignited by our creative differences while working on a group project. He was burly and handsome and oh-so arrogant—the “type” that absolutely undid me back then. It was a heady time working on exciting film projects together and pouring my heart into a creative process that felt inextricably linked with this passionate and stormy man. Losing him felt like losing my own imagination and creative spirit. I was still stunned by the split.
Our daytrip wasn’t going well. I sulked, wept openly at times, and even revenge-flirted with several men; my friend was exhausted. She suggested we spend some “separate time” in a bookstore for a bit. I followed her to City Lights in silence, said something snotty to her at the entrance, and then huffed off in the direction of the magazines. I felt so angry and bereft and torn apart—how could he have been so cruel? Why couldn’t he just be normal? What was he doing right now? Who was he with? Ugh! I hated that I was thinking of him every single minute of every single hour! How dare he do this to me!
Even the bawdy celebrity gossip mags couldn’t keep my attention, so I wandered off again, noticing a rack of greeting cards as I rounded a corner. My attention was drawn to a card with a dolled up red-headed ’50s-era woman holding a two-olive martini, her thick long locks and shimmery sky-blue dress with a tight bodice and bouncy skirt frozen in mid-twirl. One sentence accompanied the illustration: “And just like that, she knew she was over him.”
My whole body felt suspended in air for a moment. My breath caught, and all I could do was blink until my brain finally kicked back in. It was a feeling of having a thick, heavy weight lifted off my body, but this shift happened inside. I thought, “I don’t have to be sad. I can just be done with it.” I don’t know what spoke so deftly to my psyche—the woman’s iconic beauty, that care-free, nonchalant vibe dancing off the card, or the words that sunk so deeply into my being. It was as if someone had injected a potion specifically formulated to remove that invisible but deadly ache of craving what you can’t have. I felt the fog in my head clear, and I just knew. It was so devastatingly obvious: I didn’t have to moon or pine any more.
It's been 26 years since that moment, but that image, those words, and most importantly that visceral experience resonate even now. The feeling of that moment—theclearing, I call it—inhabits my senses and washes over me in wave of presence and power.
Rather than being awash in a spume of sentiment and obsession, that awe-inspiring moment offered an opening for reflection rather than rumination, an option to step in to myself rather than obsess over someone else. I’ve encountered several romantic tangles since (until finally meeting my husband of 19 years now), but that inspired flash of insight sparked a new pathway for learning to find an anchor and meeting my emotions with discernment and curiosity.
Words are powerful and magnificent and carry deeply held meanings. Telling our stories is empowering and personally healing. But another vital reason for sharing our experiences: you never know when someone needs to read what you’ve written. You never know when the right words will be there at just the right time and hit in a bolt of knowing and feeling known. Stories are elixirs, powerful portals of connection, speaking to and healing places in us we don’t yet have our own words for.
I will never know who thought up this line of greeting cards or from what personal experience that deft, powerful line emanated from, but I am so grateful they chose to push forward and put it out there.
What story of yours is being summoned forth to be a magical balm in another’s world?