I’ve been thinking about views– how so many people can look out upon what objectively might seem like the same landscape or feature but see it so differently from others.
I especially get this feeling about office buildings and apartment buildings. All those identical windows and balconies– portals to the people and families inside, but not one life the same.
And when we look out at the world from our own little landing pads, the sky stretched out above us, the world going on below us, what is actually there is only a fraction of what we perceive because where we’ve come from and what we wish for and how we’re growing are in everything we see.
And this reminds me of how all of us have stories, which is why I think I’m so captivated by rows of windows and balconies and lives and memoir. No two people will ever tell something the same. That is why your perspective always matters.
Memoir is captivating to me for this reason. It’s the story of our experience, what we understood about it then, have come to understand about it now, and all the parts we’re still trying to make sense of. I feel so lucky to have been able to bring my own memoir into the world this year. A few weeks ago I learned When She Comes Back is a finalist in both the 2021 Best Book Awards in the Autobiography/Memoir category and the 2021 Book of the Year Awards in the Memoir category. If you’d like to listen to a sample chapter or purchase a copy, please visit my site.
Over the last two plus years I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing more than a hundred authors, survivors, and people in recovery for And Then Everything Changed. I’ve learned when to push my guests a little further for an answer and when to quiet down and hold space. That has become one of the most important experiences for me, something I didn’t understand as powerfully before. I will keep that lesson with me now wherever I go, whatever I do. There’s magic when we make room.
I’m winding up these last two years of And Then Everything Changed with the following episodes:
Episode 102: Inside Passage: A Missing Father, a Fractured Childhood, and the Redemptive Power of Music featuring sisters Keema and Tekla Waterfield
Episode 103: Holding the Evangelical Church Accountable featuring Shelly Snow Pordea
Episode 104: Turning Dark into Light – 21 Olive Trees: A Mother’s Walk Through the Grief of Suicide featuring Laura Formentini
Available 12/21
Thank you for subscribing to this newsletter, tuning into my podcast, and sharing these stories with the people you care about. I am so grateful to have you as a reader and a listener. I have a few new projects in the works I’m very excited to share with you in the coming months including a new book and a new show. More on those in 2022.
I wish you all the best as this year winds down: the time you need to see those you love, to rest, and to create what you envision for yourself.
Love,
Ronit