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Who I Used to Be

April 28, 2009 By Laura Davis 6 Comments · · · · · · Read & Respond

Alive, energetic, happy, hopeful. And then the world caved in and I hunkered down in my corner as best I could, laced up my boxing gloves and prepared to take on the world. But I was still a child and no amount of armor or helmets or big gloves could protect me. I sat alone on the bench girding myself for the next fight. Alone, alone, out in the rain, cold and alone. I walked through life doing my best to pretend I was human like everyone else, but always chilled to the bone with loneliness. I was a lone operator even though I pretended with the best of them.

 I was not afraid. I jumped off every new cliff, taking risks, spreading my wings and moving again and again into the unknown. And then many years in a cage. Cage of shoulds. Cage of have-tos. Cage of trying to prove myself or to myself that I was really okay. Expectations rained down on me, mine most of all. I could see out of my cage, but no one could ever come in.

 And then I found that work, work soothed the savage beast. Work all the time. The little man on my shoulder always whipping me to do more, to write more, to publish more, to prove more, go, go, go he said. Go and do more. Do not stop. Do not rest. Do not sleep. Do not live. Do not take your nose off that grindstone and I listened and listened and listened and listened. Go away, I told him. Leave me alone! I would insist. But he wouldn’t leave me alone and no matter how many times I slammed the door in his face, insisting that I wanted to live another way, each time he found a way to weasel his way back into my heart. Each time he crawled back in and took up his perch atop my tender battered skin. The outside world is all that matters, he said. Don’t stop. Don’t stop at all costs.

What was I afraid of? What would be the price of silence? What would be the cost of ending the momentum, of getting off the train?

When I got cancer and spent a year sick, I lay on a pile of bones and I slept. I entered the underworld and made myself at home there. When my friend Bob Stahl sent out an email about a one-day retreat he was leading at the Santa Cruz mortuary, a Buddhist meditation on death, I emailed back right away, knowing that was the place for me to be.

We spent the day doing walking meditation around the mortuary, walking through the graveyard, walking slowly and mindfully alongside the crypts and urns and statuary. Bob showed up photos of the stages of decomposition of a body. Death is real, the pictures said. This is where we are all heading. This is where we are all going to go. I was weak and tired from chemo, gaunt and bald, as I lifted and placed my foot, step after step, my mind and heart open to the awareness of death.

People said I was nuts to go. They were horrified. Why would you want to spend the day looking at dead bodies? they said. Why do you want to spend the day walking among the dead? You have cancer, they were thinking. If you think about death, you must want to die. If you think about death, you will draw death to you. You have to think about life. You must not want to live if you are choosing to spend a day among the dead. And yet I knew I had to go.

The naysayers were wrong. I needed a place to contemplate my death. I was the one with cancer. I was the one facing death. I needed a place where it was okay to sit with that possibility, too, not just that I would get better and live, but that I would get sicker and die.

It was a lovely day. I can’t imagine one better spent. Remembering that day reminds of the underworld where I spent a year of my life, off the wheel of life, freed from the responsibilities of mother, grandmother, breadwinner, friend, community activist, teacher. Freed of the past and the future. Forced into the moment, where for so many years I had been trying to go.

I loved sleeping on those hollow, ancient skulls. For all the pain and suffering, it was a place I wanted to go. A place I still miss sometimes. Eyes closed, surrounded by bones. Now I am forced to walk in this bright, sovereign world with its demands, its schedules, its expectations and its speed. I miss the comfort of craniums and jaw bones, the open empty eye sockets giving me a place to rest my head.

And then there was the triumph of survival. The triumph and pride of emerging from the underworld. And now, the limbo time which expands and continues. The scrambled brain, the empty places inside, the hole where ambition and creativity and words used to be. The empty chambers before me.

It is a time of solitude and shadows even as I go through the motions of my busy life. Even as I teach and drive kids to school and make dinner and plans and see movies with my mother and devise curriculum and teach retreats and classes, there is the vast empty world inside. There is blank place, an empty place. This empty space does not comfort. It does not scare me. It merely is. I do not know who I am anymore and mostly, I do not care.

Sometimes I want to reach back to what used to be, but what used to be is gone. And so I look up at the clouds, I reach up to the sky, not knowing what is to be. I go through my days with the empty place inside, the little man with the whip seemingly banished forever.

Today, I am heading into five days of silence. I will drive up to the Land of Medicine Buddha for a five day retreat. Once again, I will sit in the stillness beneath the swirl of life. I will sit like a Buddha and explore the places I do not understand and cannot yet see.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: cancer, Laura's stories, Laura's wisdom, memoir, spirituality, writing practice

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Next Post: Life After Cancer Feels Like This »

Comments

  1. patty freedman says

    May 20, 2009 at 3:15 pm

    blank
    I enjoy reading your blog Laura, I will return someday. 🙂

    Reply
  2. jenni fox says

    May 20, 2009 at 11:21 pm

    thanks for sharing the underworld
    I will forward this to a good friend of mine who is a writer and who has stage 4 cancer. I think she will enjoy your words, as words are often her refuge. Thanks for your honesty. All the best that life can bring you, Laura. Jenni

    Reply
  3. Jeffrey Gerhardstein says

    May 21, 2009 at 8:07 am

    Beautiful and bold journeying
    Thank you for taking us along with you, especially to places few wish to go, those lands of the great questions.

    jg

    Reply
  4. Deborah Phoenix says

    May 21, 2009 at 10:07 am

    Who I used to be
    Dear Laura,

    I resonate strongly with your thoughtful words of introspection on death, on the you that you used to be, and how, getting off the wheel of life for an entire year has emptied that chalice of busy-ness. Now your cup can be filled with deep inner stillness and the grace that comes from the contemplation of your own mortality as a human being who once lived life as a human-doing. Yours is a profound path and you have been blessed with a great gift of simply allowing yourself to “BE.”

    Reply
  5. Katherine Finnigan says

    May 22, 2009 at 6:06 pm

    Thank you
    Your words resonate.
    k

    Reply
  6. Sarah says

    May 30, 2009 at 1:07 pm

    retreat
    My wish for you is that at the end of the retreat your spirit will soar to where you want it to be. Love.

    Reply

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Like this Virtual Vacation?

You can also read about Laura’s travels to:

Peru 2017

In which Laura and Karyn and 18 writers explore Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley of Peru.

Serbia 2017

In which Laura leads a workshop at the Incest Trauma Center.

Greece 2016

In which Laura explores the wonders of Crete and Santorini with a wide-eyed group of Write, Travel, Transform adventurers.

Vietnam 2015/16

In which Laura, who grew up during the Vietnam War, goes to Southeast Asia and finds out what Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia are really like today.

Commonweal 2015

A journey toward healing loss and grief in a magnificent Northern California setting.

Scotland 2015

In which Laura returns to Scotland with a new group for another jaunt through the wonders of the Scottish Highlands.

Scotland 2013

In which Laura attends the Edinburgh theatre festival and leads 14 writers to a magical retreat in the highlands of Northern Scotland.

Bali 2013

In which Laura visits Australia, and spends three weeks diving, exploring, and teaching in three regions of Bali.

Florida 2014

A journey into old age in America in which Laura brings her 86-year-old mother to Florida so she can see her last surviving sister one final time.

Mexico 2014

In which Laura attends the San Miguel Writer’s Conference and explores the artistic towns around Patzcuaro.

About Laura Davis

In the course of my career as a communicator, I have also worked as a columnist, talk show host, radio reporter, radio producer, blogger, editor, and speaker. Words have always been at the core of my work and my self-expression. Read More . . .

Photo taken by Jason Ritchey

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Retreating with Laura: Julie Sheehan

Julie Sheehan

For many years I put off my dream of writing and traveling. I told myself the kids were too little, my husband could never survive without me, that I couldn't possibly be so selfish. I couldn't imagine realistically stepping out of all of my responsibilities and roles. Then I started attending Laura’s summer retreat at Commonweal in northern California and that became an annual gift to myself for the next three years.

When the opportunity to travel with Laura internationally came up, my Land of Later mentality said I could never pull it off. But when my friend got cancer at age 39, I decided to stop taking life and it's endless opportunities to grow, live, nurture and explore myself for granted.

My children were 6 and 9 when I began allowing myself the luxurious pleasure of taking 10 days to two weeks each year to travel abroad with Laura, to spend time with like minded, soul searching people who share a passion for living and writing, to have all my meals prepared for me, to have the space and freedom to stretch out of my cage and check in with who I am, what I want, and how best to get there.

Laura is a skilled and nurturing teacher who encourages her students to take risks, to grow as human beings, and to be vulnerable. She has provided me with a forum where I can gain all my CEUs and learn techniques on how to become a more engaging writer, all while completing yearly emotional rehab.

I return home from each of Laura’s trip a little wiser, a little more open, and a lot more compassionate. I greet my family, friends and daily life with sparkly, clean energy and a renewed patience, brought about by way of re-writing old stories that I needed to let go of. I come home ready to move forward in my life.

A retreat with Laura Davis is one of the best gifts I ever received and gave myself. It took many years to realize that I was worth the time and financial investment, but now there is no looking back.

Julie Sheehan, Livermore California

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