Where the Lotus Flower Blooms – Paperback

Description

From the author……

WTLFB is a labour of love and pain. It is a collection of 80 poems that were written over the last 3 decades. It is not chronological, but it does tell a story. I have written hundreds of poems, and I had to eventually narrow it down, as I put together this collection. I have divided the book into separate chapters (themes)… most of them predictable… because my story is not unique. I have not rewritten history. My story, unfortunately, is a story often lived, but not often told. I have decided to tell.

I have divided WTLFB into 8 chapters. I will attempt to explain them briefly

1. REFLECTIONS
A scientist will say that reflection is “the bouncing back of light into itself after striking a surface.” A poet will say, reflection is, “I finally see the light.” Reflections is a chapter where I look back critically at the picture hoping that the path behind me, helps me to better navigate the path in front of me.

2. LETTERS TO MY YOUNGER SELF

In one succinct line, this chapter is what I wish I could have told me. This chapter is a sequel to Reflections. It is Reflections, Season 2. It is a seasoned, scarred, weathered woman looking back at her 21 year old self, hoping that she had kept her safe. In an age without the kind of role models or life literature we have today, armed with very little knowledge, and even less worldliness, these are love letters to my younger self. It is a confessional, and an even bigger apology, because no one owes me a bigger apology, than me.

3. HOLE IN THE GROUND
These are my very first writings. It is the blood and soul of a 21 year old girl. The most common question that I have received so far, is to explain this title “hole in the ground” I was 21 years old when I was diagnosed and hospitalized for depression and anxiety the first time.

This was the year 1991, when I found myself battling depression and abuse….sometimes one, sometimes the other, but mostly both. I had never heard the word depression before, so I decided to look it up in my Dad’s ancient dictionary. There was no medical definition of depression. It described depression simply as ‘a pit, a cavity’ and likened it to a ‘hole in the ground’

In the last 3 decades I have become a connoisseur of words, and I have yet to find a more fitting description for how I felt during that period of my life than “hole in the ground”………………..

Dark, alone, suffocating, numb, dirty, cold, buried…….dead. I subsequently wrote 27 poems entitled “hole in the ground” I have included a few in this collection.

4. BROKEN
If you have ever been abused in any shape or form, then you will feel this chapter. The Oxford dictionary describes Broken as ‘damaged or injured, no longer whole or working correctly.’ This was rock bottom.

5. LOST
This was now beyond broken.
This was beyond rock bottom
This was bottomless…….

6. LOVE AND OTHER PAIN

Very simply, sometimes we choose unwisely….and when we do, beauty becomes ugly, hope become hopeless and love becomes pain.

7. TOXIC
Because sometimes we choose a narcissist…or 2.
Haha….cos we didn’t learn the lesson the first time.

8. HEALING
Healing is painful, but oh so beautiful. Healing is a journey, but healing is also a destination. It is knowing that you have arrived, even though you still have so much further to go.

I can’t seem to find a better way to sum up WTLFB so I’ve decided to steal my words from FOTM.

“Never be ashamed of who you were and what you were when your wits and your reason temporarily abandoned you. I have told my tale, and I have told it unapologetically. I am no longer ashamed of what I was or what I am. I have often been depressed, morose and misanthropic, but what counts here and now is not the departure, but the arrival.”