“Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”
~ Franz Kafka
Last year, on one of my retreats, something very interesting happened. Just a passing thing. But it would not let me go.
I remember it so clearly. It was if God, or whoever it is up there in that unseen place, turned my head and held it gently in their hands as they directed my gaze and made all my senses hyper-acute. Look, they said. Remember.
It was a bizarre moment. Which then kept replaying in my head.
I had no idea why.
Not long after, in the middle of the night I woke up with my chest pounding. I’d just dreamed an entire scene related to that one moment now committed to the celluloid palace of my memories.
A few nights later there was another dream. A dream seemingly unrelated but so vivid that I hurried to capture every last detail on paper the moment I woke up.
I had no idea that all of these events would end up connecting.
I had no idea that this would be the genesis of a story within me.
Meanwhile I ran another retreat. I worked on being better, and stronger, and less Lyme-y. I planned my year for 2015. A year that did not include this story.
This was to be my year for editing the three manuscripts in my bottom draw. The year for me to get my website up and flying. The year for cookbooks and spiritual handbooks and blogging.
But no.
One night, in my dream, one of my characters came and sat on my bed. Nicole, she said, you need to tell this story.
I saw how all of these dreams were interconnected. How the thread of the story braided itself together in front of me.
And just like that, it has taken over my life.
I’m still doing all of the other things in my plan. But I find myself sneaking off in any spare moment to hammer out a few more words, or to spend a little time dreaming and planning and opening myself to whatever might come next.
I feel that this story owns me, and through me it is writing itself.
That. That is what it is to be hijacked by your story.
Beautiful. Magical. Terrifying. Wild. Healing. Hopeful. Brilliant.
Even the air tastes cleaner and more whole in my lungs since I began.
I can’t do anything but submit and give myself over to the telling of it.
I’m at that place where fate and hard work collide.
