A letter from the Editor
May 24, 2022
Dear Reader,
I’m thrilled to announce Our Voices, our *new*quarterly literary journal at Narrative Healing. We founded Our Voices to celebrate the beauty, diversity and richness of our community. Our Voices is a digital publication published four times a year. Our hope is that this new journal will build upon our live weekly Narrative Healing Labs and live monthly Listening Circles to offer an opportunity to craft pieces for a wider audience and give us an opportunity to bring our wholehearted attention to each other.
This issue’s theme is: IDENTITY
Each writer was tasked to write a short piece about something, someone, or an experience in life that has defined their identity.
Here are a few suggestions as you take in these beautiful submissions. First off, get comfortable, notice your body, your breath. Set an intention for your reading. Secondly, if you would like to offer feedback, here are some guides for how to comment.
1. Comment on anything you LOVE and / or IDENTIFY with. This can be a word, phrase, tone, topic. Stay close to what’s actually on the page.
2. Comment on anything you notice that is really working for you here. This can be anything to do with voice, or craft or anything else on the page.
3. If there’s anything you would love to know more about, let the writer know.
4. Last, not not least, please abide by our community guidelines – hold space for others as you would hope others would hold space for you, be supportive, respectful, kind and generous.
With great love, bows and huge appreciation for our brave first batch of Our Voice contributors: Abby Reinhard, Carla Zanoni, Lori Meyers, Millie Jackson, Rachel Nusbaum and Suzanne Rossel (she/her)
With heart,
Lisa
Impact
By Abby Adair Reinhard
“The car hit your motorcycle at 60 miles an hour. There’s no rational explanation for how you survived.” He seemed shaken, this first responder, leaning forward in the chair next to my hospital bed, his hands clasped tight.
I asked if he’d seen the woman in white – the one who helped me right after the crash. “No one was there,” he said. “…I don’t understand how you survived.”
Who can understand miracles?
Over time my physical injuries healed, but trauma lived on in my nervous system. I’ve spent the last 20-some-odd years so scared, so much of the time. Even though I know I was saved that day.
At least when fear does take over, each time, I get the opportunity to come back to the truth. And nerve by nerve, the remembering settles in, turning what I know into who I am.
Abby is an entrepreneur in the construction industry, a former marketing communications professional, and a mother of three. Her Facebook post in April 2020 about her father’s COVID death led to two cover stories in USA Today, two pieces on Good Morning America, a segment on Anderson 360 on CNN, and was featured in many publications and websites around the world.
I am
By Carla Zanoni
roar of elevated 1 train
garbage truck crushing cans
window sill covered in silt
tufts of London plane, where Bluejays hunt the hawk that circles our pre-war building.
stack of books
towering the mat
sits bones
waiting for quiet to come
excavating the bedrock
of spine
extended root to crown
praying for lift off.
Borges‘s Labyrinth hyperlink, peering into worlds tucked behind, stretching beyond
this one place
this place once theirs
borrowed and rented
like this life.
chicken nuggets and abuelo’s McDonald’s work aprons hung in the kitchen, loud laughter calling out the door like a white crane swooping into the backyard where I forever sit with my brothers making birds nests of twigs
dried grass
pieces of string.
Carla Zanoni is an award-winning journalist, writer, poet and media strategist. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, TueNight, Modern Loss, The Common Literary Magazine and various news publications. She is writing her first book, a memoir on self-worth.
I am
By Lori Meyers
The child who craves everyone’s approval and the woman who knows all she really needs her own approbation.
The child who looks to others for advice and the woman who reaches deep into her soul, finding all the answers.
The adolescent who is disconnected from the world, and the woman who is completely integrated into her physical and emotional dimensions.
The friend who listened relentlessly over the years to them all; never voicing her real opinion about their troubles or misgivings. But rather stayed quiet and small and agreeable, for fear they may not agree.
The woman who makes her opinions known without necessarily judging but rather offering them as a source of inspiration and a frame of reference.
The person who cares on a level beyond most others.
The one who feels her own pain and everyone else’s continually, and that our goodness will win out in the end.
The one who is passionate about my family and dogged about protecting my children.
The young woman who envisioned a fairytale life for herself when she married.
The mature woman who realized that fairy tales are just that, so she manifested her inner power and carved out a life that suits her perfectly, even with all of its inequities, struggles and uncertainty.
The young woman who looked up to her man; sometimes, without thinking seriously about what that meant and how his decisions were not always well thought out or necessarily right for her.
The young woman who followed the law laid down by her own father with primitive ideals that she couldn’t unravel. The young woman who went with what they told her without seeking her own answers through research and questioning.
The young woman uncertain of what she really stands for and developing her core values and strengths for most of her life. The mature woman who gently integrates them into her being, without destroying who she was or demolishing all the relationships that were central for her.
The more she dug deep and listened to her voice, the more she held her strength, the more confident she became. And the old skin she was wearing just shed from her. It sloughed off and dis-integrated. And new skin replaced the old, like walls within a house.
At her core, she believes in the person threaded through everyone who is central in her life. The one who can be nothing to others without
Herself.
Uncle Joe
By Millie Jackson
As I have thought about the theme of identity, my mind has turned to my Uncle Joe over and over again. He was a dear man and an important part of my life. Uncle Joe helped shape me in so many ways by giving me the gift of poetry via his love for Emily Dickinson, music, a love of nature, and teaching me how to hollow out a mound of mashed potatoes for the gravy. As I got older, he took me along when he and my aunt went on buying trips for the store. I had my first taste of working with vendors on those trips, something I spent much of my career doing. He taught by example. He showed me how to be kind and care for other people in a million little ways. I will be forever grateful that he was part of my life.
Millie Jackson is a writer and creative. She recently retired from a career in higher education and is figuring out the next step.
My Daughter Helped Me Unlearn What Wasn’t Serving Me… Or Her
By Rachel Nusbaum
A byproduct of the good girl diet I was fed for much of my life, I have always considered myself a Rule Follower. I show up on time, I am prepared in advance, and doggone it, you can count on me! Then, thirteen years ago, some wild concoction of genetics gave me a Screw The Rules child. She refused to sit in a stroller. She has never let me brush her hair. At age nine, she belly-flopped into a (mostly mud) pond at a winery right next to a sign that said, “Keep Out of Pond”.
Trying to force my approach upon her was a disaster. Eventually I saw that she was holding a mirror up to all the ways I have lived inside of a rigid, steel box. I have learned to question, push back, be brave. It has been the most impactful unlearning of my life.
Rachel (she/her) is a mom, partner, transformational coach at Orchid Story, LLC, and genetic counselor. Rachel’s personal narrative has been published in the Huffington Post, Holstee, and others. She is currently working on her debut novel.
My Name, My Identity
By S.Eve Rossel
After meeting my father, at 16, I demanded to be called Suzanne Rossel. Previously, we were the Russels and I was Suzy. Mom changed our name to hide us from dad; she said. My sister ignored the Suzanne-edict, I am still, always, Suzy, to her. Married three times, I changed (wanted to) my surname twice. Sigh. Boundary accommodations. For this, the third, we stayed unmarried, through our son’s birth. Truth, I was more married to him not married than I had been for the previous two. But despite this unmarital bliss and my hesitance—you know, given my ill-defined sense of self the wedded state engendered–we eventually “I do’d.” Our partnership is good, maybe better because a name change wasn’t in the contract. Our son’s surname is his father’s. That seemed right, too.
Yes, it’s just…only a name, and sure “a rose is a rose…” but claiming mine mattered.
S.Eve Rossel lives in Westchester County, New York with her family. Her husband and children have a different last name.
