The astrologer pointed to my chart. I don’t recall the planet/star, or which house it was in (possibly the eighth). Even after living in Berkeley for years and studying numerous alternative healing modalities, astrology eludes me. But I remember what she said about writing:
“This is a part of you that is deep, spiritual, and subterranean. You are ready to bring it out into the light, but you will need to step out of your comfort zone and come out of hiding.”
The love of writing is as embedded in my DNA as the fear of it is. My father moved to Paris to be a writer in the early 1960s, and the journals I read decades after his death were riddled with existential questions about whether he could succeed in his chosen path. He didn’t.
My mother was also a wizard with words, but terrified of the blank page. Her father, an editor and bibliophile, projected onto her his unfulfilled dream of becoming a writer. She fled half-way around the world to escape his expectations. My parents met doing voice-overs for movies—two Americans in Paris. Eventually, they began to work as a team, translating films from French into English.
I was born and raised in Paris, and my childhood was filled with museums, art, movies and books in both languages. One of my earliest memories is of my mother reading The Hobbit to us at night. She did all of the voices, and her impression of Gollum has stayed with me to this day. I had my first (one-word) dubbing role in a movie when I was five.
Every other summer we’d go visit my maternal grandfather in Upstate New York. Upon our arrival, he’d give my sister and I each a beautiful, bound notebook to fill with our ideas. I dictated my first poem (about the wind) when I was five, and wrote/illustrated my first book at age six. Every other word was misspelled.
Writing has always been an integral part of how I understand and process the world. And yet, until recently, I’ve never identified as a writer. Writing was the sidekick in my life, but the star was always some iteration of helping and/or healing others.
In the process of writing, editing, and preparing to launch my novel into the world, I’ve bumped up against many limiting beliefs—both my own and inherited—intended to protect me from the danger of being too visible. These are particularly strong on my father’s side, Latvian Jews who endured centuries of invasion and eventually fled to England during the Russian pogroms, and then to the United States at the outbreak of World War I.
The top three beliefs are: “you can follow your dreams or be responsible, but not both;” “I must remain anonymous and invisible to be safe;” “I’m not enough.” Overwhelm, doubt, and resignation are the emotional vehicles that arise to shut down any impulse to get too big.
As I begin the intricate process of unraveling and healing each strand, I feel a little more space in my chest. My breath is no longer catching on my fears. The prospect of meeting literary agents at a writers’ conference brings up cautious optimism and gratitude—rather than registering in my nervous system as the dread of walking into a show trial where the verdict is predetermined.
Because, in the end, I know it’s not really about me. That nothing is riding on this. I’m just being given another opportunity to be a vessel for what wants to flow through me. All that’s required of me is to show up and keep healing the wounds that constrict my growth. And to welcome co-adventurers along the way.