This is a sample chapter of The Nowhere Chronicles. It may change when the book is published.
Life is littered with moments of revelation, and moments of transition.
In writing this story, the process overwhelmed me with feelings of both, and in equal measure. Words, as they left my fingertips, sometimes left me speechless with their suddenness and descriptive ability. They literally appeared out of nowhere, carrying with them far more than their dictionary classification. Words carry decades of experience in their backpack and have the innate wisdom to guide me to use them in the most unexpected of places.
My biggest surprise was that I failed all my English exams at school and college. What had changed within to bring out such an awareness of words and a newly found ability to string sentences together into something meaningful? At least to me. Something within had shifted massively, and that something was the ripples caused by Babylon 5, an American science fiction series whose first season was broadcast in the UK during 1994.
1994, for me, was the year everything changed.
These unexpected revelations caused monumental transitions of the type that reached down and heaved memories, experiences and emotions from my subconscious centre and exposed them to my conscious self.
Fear is the common theme, moments where I could not bring myself to walk calmly into the fire of the Phoenix, as fear’s hold upon me is just far too painful. Suicide for me then, became an option on an ever-decreasing set of options. It never arrived at the top of the list, but came pretty damn close.
If we do not walk into the fire of change willingly, the universe lovingly conspires to create situations, moments if you will, that compel our eventual submission to the Phoenix. We cannot escape the monster called Fear. Turning to face it is our one and only solution. And when you do choose to face the fear, you find it far smaller than you expected. The unknown has an inbuilt microscope that expands everything to huge proportions contradicting reality.
We are painted by our past, sculpted by those around us and the experiences we encounter. Our core is never deleted or affected by trauma or pain; only hidden, where it is safe from imposition. As it sinks ever deeper behind the masks, we need to dig further to discover that unchanging part, our real self. And this is what the universe lovingly creates; moments of transformation sprinkled with numerous opportunities to find out who we truly are.
Our first and most basic of needs is to be heard. This could be our first murmurs of ‘feed me, feed me now’ as a newborn, or our own voice drowned out by the vagaries of those around us bellowing their needs as far more important than our own. If we never hear the sound of our own voice communicating, how can we evolve and understand what makes us tick? We are forever stuck in that indefinable place between tick and tock; an elusive and slippery place called the unknown, a place called Nowhere, a place where infinite possibilities can occur. If we decide to let them.
True communication can only be done effectively when nuanced, as sound bites don’t contain, can never contain the bigger picture. Fewer words are unable to carry the necessary amount of information to paint enough of a detailed landscape for someone else, or indeed for ourselves, to understand and comprehend the complexities and workings of our inner landscape.
Listening is also a vital part of communication. When you spend time constructing your response, you aren’t listening. There is no coincidence that the word ‘listen’ has the same letters as ‘silent’; a universal constant no doubt. That silence is where we find opportunities to listen to our inner chatter, discovering the answers we need to evolve.
And it’s usually our ego that hijacks our responses as it cannot ever be the problem; it’s the others, it’s their fault, they’re the thorn in our side. The ego sits upon our shoulder whispering sweet nothings, to guide it says, but all it does is undermine our sense of self.
When we treat our ego as the ‘enemy’, we’ve completely lost the high ground. Our ego is part of us, the reptilian part that’s been with us the longest. It’s our defence against the dark arts, maintaining our borders against insurgents who would take advantage if they could. If we don’t listen properly to our thoughts, we can end up down the wrong rabbit hole, trying to fight the wrong battle.
All battles are essentially those against our self, the struggle to discover who we really are. Beliefs are created when we’re very young, and these hide in the subconscious, waiting to spring at the simplest of triggers. If we choose to listen to our thoughts and emotions when triggered, instead of reacting, we can discover what is driving our reaction. I’ve found, the more I look within, the less disagreement I have with the universe.
Over the last few years, decades perhaps, I’ve been trying to make sense of the events around the world that seem to oppose everything compassionate and loving. Hostility and apathy seem to be oozing out of every pore of those who are ignorant of other people’s differences, who are choosing to use religion, politics, and carefully selected sound bites to explain, excuse and justify their outdated and abhorrent beliefs, who choose to vilify those minorities already challenged by their own struggles fitting in. The LGBT community are a case in point. I am in that community. The T to be exact. I am a trans woman who has reached three score years and ten.
I still struggle with my body, and this is made exponentially worse by those who choose to think I am less than them. Their actions, both explicit and implicit, ask me to limit my exposure, so they are more comfortable, and less challenged, in their life. But, as always, it is I, and my community brothers and sisters, who must hide our true nature, so their contentment and tranquillity are exchanged for our distress and suffering. I’m not sure they really care. From most there is apathy instead of empathy. What a poor world we live in.
The religious would prefer we didn’t exist, then they would not have to deal with their own anger and confusion about us. They would prefer that the universe spin on their axis, rather than the one the universe chooses to spin on. But then, if one is not challenged to push against our boundaries, how would we evolve? We would simply stagnate in our own juices; stuck, waiting for the next shoe to drop. Which of course never does because so many people must deliberate fully before taking a step. In essence then, they spend life on one leg. I prefer to have two legs as then I can go places.
If all we do is live in an echo chamber, all we hear is our own voice and those voices who agree with us. And so, when we hear differing views or beliefs, we react with confusion, anger, and sometimes rage, because we see these other beliefs as challenging our world view.
Things must be shown to us for us to deal with them. That which is no longer good and nurturing for ourselves, or for society, is being exposed and liberated so we can transform the hearts and minds of those who are in continued pain, a pain fostered by the very beliefs they hold so dear.
When society is fracturing, the only solution is to do the opposite, as this is the way to stop those who benefit from the fracture. We need, must, come together to find the compassion, which is just below the surface, wanting, needing expression, suffocating without the oxygen of visibility.
My life has been littered with yin and yang, dark and light, good and bad, feminine and masculine. But we can only determine which shade or colour we see as it is altered by the prism of our perceptive filters, the beliefs we hold about others, and our subconscious beliefs set before we are even aware we are being programmed by parents, peers, and society, to behave and present in a particular way to gain their approval and love.
Love for others, and for ourselves, is rarely unconditional. And if we don’t sway with the hive, we are simply excluded. It’s difficult enough trying to live on the fringe of society, but when society actively sends derision, ridicule and hatred in your direction, life can become intolerably painful as we turn the hate shown by others to us, towards ourselves.
It’s very easy to learn transphobia and homophobia from society, and in turn, turn those same beliefs in our direction and begin to struggle with who we really are. Pain we receive from ourselves is far more damaging as we are in our presence all the time. There are many more opportunities to inflict damage upon ourselves than anyone else can achieve as it falls far deeper into the core of us.
We learn we are valueless, worthless individuals who shouldn’t be there littering the lives of our perceived betters. We shouldn’t inflict our idiosyncrasies on others, but are expected, told even, to accept their idiosyncrasies. Not really a fair exchange. When you are belittled every day, parts of you are chipped away leaving little of the real you in existence. You become a ghostly image of what you once were, walking around life like a zombie trapped in limbo, wondering when the spinning world will stop long enough for you to get off.
You begin by creating an acceptable facsimile, a constructed persona that fits the world you live in, one that is defensive rather than outgoing and authentic. You become an actor playing parts shaped to limit ridicule and mockery, rather than nurture the self to become the best version of you you can be. You spend more time serving the needs of others than your own, resulting in becoming the worst version of you you can be.
Not a great picture I paint, but the colour palette given to me had very few shades and the pigments available were dull and repetitive. And all before I was five years old. You see, it starts when you are very young, and you don’t know it’s happening until you reach an age where reason sits on your shoulders and whispers. By then, the pain has set in for the long haul and is very difficult to dislodge.
And this story, is in part, a way of loosening the ties that bind me to the past and finding forgiveness for those who are just actors in a play called My Life.
