Water, Stories, the Body ... All Things That Hide and Show What's Hidden ~Rumi

The Visceral Self: Writing Through The Body, Starts Next Week

Water, stories, the body,

all the things we do, are mediums

that hide and show what’s hidden.

Study them,

and enjoy this being washed

with a secret we sometimes know,

and then not.

~Rumi

Once upon a time, I lost my ability to cry. There I would sit, dry-eyed and numb through funerals, through the raw grief of friends, through personal losses so sharp and fast they’d stop my breath, but not produce tears.

The thing about not being able to cry is that I was also barely able to laugh. I would see other people laughing and laughing and watch their bodies shaking and their eyes squinting shut with hilarity, tears running down their cheeks from the mirth of whatever it was, and I would watch this all as if from a great, uncrossable distance, wondering what could possibly be so funny, and why I never felt it in my own body.

Eventually, of course, I understood this was about trauma, disassociation, and fear—especially the fear of feeling, and beneath that, fear of losing control. As Emily Nagoski, se…