Pour me another cup of green tea. The air is too hot to sit comfortably. The ink on my journal page smears as I wipe away the drop of tea that just jumped out of the pot. I moved my body in the open jungle gym this morning, lifting weights with a view of the Bali Sea. The open ocean hasn’t spoken to me in weeks. She’s over there. I visit occasionally but mostly I’ve stayed in the garden listening to the birds. I need dirt and grass right now. My emotions need earthy stability for a while as I husband and wife this book. I’m discovering the story as it pours through me.

Do I sound melodramatic if I tell you that this book is a goodbye to my past? I’m indulging in the past, swimming through it like a gorgeous coral garden admiring my memories. I’m chewing through it like a box of chocolates. (I haven’t eaten chocolate in over a month and I’m on day 47 without coffee. Celebrating and craving. Keeping my body as clean as possible. It’s the pipe through which this creative water is flowing.)

I’m crying on the video call with my husband today. He’s sensitive and logical. As usual, a young part of me wants to feel special. She wants to be the center of everyone’s world. “Miss me more!” She cries. “I do miss you,” he says. “But I don’t let myself dwell on it. I could have spent the weekend crying about the fact you weren’t here. I could have compared everyone to else to you. I would have been miserable. When those type of thoughts came up, I said NO. I didn’t let myself go there. I feel I’m in a new chapter. Moving forward. Enjoying the present. I had a really fun weekend.”

He’s leading me in the right direction. I want to move forward too. My parts glare at me, wondering why we’re digging in the past, fixating on old feelings, pouring our precious life energy into this resurrection project. “Just let it go!” They plead with me wondering when I’ll take them to the art supply store to buy paint or diving out there in the ocean a little bit deeper than before. “Let’s get back to making music and performing. You love performing and teaching! Let’s get back to hosting dinner parties!” I’m listening. I comfort them and promise them we will dance merrily in the present moment, celebrating life in all these lovely ways. We are in the present as I write this book. I have boundaries. We dip into the past to suck out a memory that we weave into this storybook. Then we return to the turquoise pool and smell the plumeria flower that just fell in my lap.

My writing coach encourages me to collaborate with my parts in these moments. Ask the parts of me who are afraid of dwelling in the past how we can write in a way that helps them move forward. How do we use the magic of creativity to help us safely enter the past, harvest it for inspiration, process whatever has been stuck back there, whatevers got us hooked like fabric caught on a twig as we walk through the forest, and then move forward to create something new. We create something new FROM the past. We move forward FROM the past. It’s not something to be pushed away, run away from, or ignored. As a first time novelista, I’m learning to turn and face my past and extend my hand to it kindly, inviting the lessons, wisdom and happy memories to step forward with me. To the pain and unpleasantness back there, I can let them scream one more time on the page, giving those exiled parts a chance for their voices to be heard and honored, so they can be unburdened with truth and choose to join us in the present or fall peacefully in death. Oh, here’s the drama leeking out again. Hard to stop once I start.

I’m laughing with the barista who tells me he loves me. A piece of his heart belongs to me. He’s a flirt. He says that to all the girls he pours coffee for. I wish he was pouring a coffee for me. Just hot water over those tea leaves for now, please and thank you.

My only job right now is to heal; to move, listen and write. I’m clearing the cobwebs from my past so I can move on even more grounded in my body, fully present than before. Imagine trying to move into a new home without emptying your old one. I have some skeletons in my closets and shit stuffed under the rug. Yes, painting and playing in the ocean today is appealing but there are chores to be done in my inner house. I warned you I was indulging in melodrama, diving into the psyche more often than the ocean. Needless to say, I’m also practicing balance. I take days away from the writing to be right here and now, to not think about anywhere else I’d rather be. I am somewhere over a rainbow these days, hunting for gold. One day, I’ll return home with a book in my hands.

Love & Rainbows,
Cha Wilde

Digging Dramatically into the Past to Write a Fantasy Book