In Paris, the most literary setting of all, I cast roles for my characters and explore what freedom means to me, a woman at midlife who is still in the process of becoming.
Evelyn, thank you so much! A high compliment coming from a novelist I admire as much as you. I am so looking forward to learning more from you about the craft of storytelling from your guest teaching at Jeannine Oullette's SCHOOL this fall. Thanks again for reading my essay and saying hello here.
Freedom is as exhalting as scary. But you've got the key! Thank you for sharing this beautiful reflection and Annie with us. I am currently contemplating the dream of walking the camino from march 2025. Maybe we will meet each other on the way :-)
Thanks, Lise, for the kind comment and for being a fellow pilgrim on this journey of life--whether on the Camino or our everyday lives. Thanks for getting the "scariness" of freedom. I am finding that by befriending fear, I disarm it.
I loved hearing about how you birthed Annie into this world and how writing the novel was your creative companion during the pandemic. Just know that Annie is already rescuing others here in this essay - giving all the women who read about her the permission slip to live into their birthright.
That photo of you & Sara is STUNNING. It crackles and shines, my friend. 💞
The way you describe the becoming and unbecoming and how we can feel a bit of whiplash as we settle into our becoming- I so resonate with that feeling. Freedom can be unsettling when feeling stuck was the status quo. Familiar feels safe. Even if it constrains us.
I am finding my freedom with writing. With true expression. I never would have landed in the land of creativity if I was still actively drinking. Sobriety delivered freedom to me. When my mind unhinged itself from needing to drink to cope, from needing to drink to celebrate, mourn, socialize, cook dinner, etc I stepped into new territory where my mind became a new landscape. One I am still exploring and navigating. One that feels mostly exciting but sometimes like foreign land. I have to keep reminding myself that I know my way around here.
Your freedom story reminds me of one of my favorite Anaïs Nin quotes: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
You are blossoming, Amy! And you’re inspiring many others (myself!) to open to the freedom that is their birthright. 🌸
Allison, thank you for these wonderful reflections and points of connection. So glad you enjoyed the essay. It fills my heart with joy when you suggest what I write could help give other women their own permission slips to live into their birthright. Nothing would make me happier. Sara and I thank you for the compliment on the photo; being in Paris with her is always a delight. I can see how your freedom is coming forth in your writing. It's incredible to witness. You DO know your way around that foreign land. I am so glad to be reminded o f the Anais Nin quote. It's quite literally a beauty, a perfect rose. Let freedom ring!
How wonderful to find your story just now! I am 63, and you have almost written my story...I am finally after a lifetime of waiting, and ending a 33 year marriage, heading to Paris on Christmas day to stay through the end of January as I find a place to settle next year. I walked the Camino in 2006, such an amazing experience, and you will love it. You "love letter" was beautiful, thank you so much for sharing it with us. Sorry, I'm gushing here, I just rarely read people I have so much in common with...movies, music, writers, so yes, gushing a bit as I'm so happy to find you!
Oh, Deborah, your gushing touches me deeply because this is indeed how I define destiny--that we with so very much in common should find each other here among the thousands of Substacks! What freedom you are embracing to move to Paris on the heels of the end of one chapter of your life; I will continue to follow your adventure settling in there and hope we can meet in real life next year in this beautiful city (with my younger daughter living here, I am in Paris often). I would love to hear more about your experience of the Camino. Did you walk the full route, the 500 km, or the shorter Portugese route as my older daughter and I are doing? Thank you for being here and sharing our nearly identical stories:-)
Oh, how wonderful it would be to meet and visit in person(!) over a cafe in Paris. I will try to stay on top of my own page as I've taken almost a two year break as life got complicated and the words wouldn't come. They are returning once again, and I am ready to live in the light again...what better place than the city of light.
I walked with an acquaintance who had started it the year before, but had a family emergency and stopped in Leon, Spain, so we started there (on the original Camino route across northern Spain). She has walked the Camino almost a dozen times and has taken every route now, France, Portugal, and I think one other. We walked to Finistère as well from Santiago, which was truly a fabulous add-on for closure to a life changing journey. I can't wait to hear how your journey with your daughter goes!
oh dear, I had written a long comment which felt well expressed and then scrolled up to be sure I had the title of your manuscript correct and when I returned here my long comment was gone. Oy!
I shall try to reconstruct:
Oh Amy, thank you for transporting me back to beloved Paris, one of my favorite cities in the world. Grateful to have visited 9 times thanks to paid performances at International School of Paris. I loved seeing Paris through your delightful descriptions and am so glad both of your daughters have called Paris home and you have had the opportunity for visits. Oh to have also enjoyed with your mom! I can imagine how wonderful that trip must have been! <3
Thank you Amy for your wise and personal definitions of Freedom, Becoming and Unbecoming. I join you in those places of discovery. At almost 57, I find myself at a time of deep reflecting on unbecoming the layers of societal expectations of 'women of a certain age' and also of unbecoming the harsh inner critic and depression which has visited more often recently. I find myself losing my light and it harder to reclaim and voice my joy. Current circumstances of course impact my mind/body/spirit. Caregiving for my mom and feeling stuck in PA a place I've never fully been able to blossom due to its conservative and oppressive closed-offness. The gift of this has been the urge to travel, to immerse in other regions, countries where more open exuberance for life is the norm.
Your descriptions of Becoming and Unbecoming have me reflecting further on who I wish to become at this time of my life. For sure I wish to Tour again, hoping May 2025 as leaping off point, maybe sooner, depends on work.
And oh the Freedom to love who we are exactly as we are! May it be so!
Perhaps you and I might meet in insomnia land where I've ended up more nights than not these last bunch of months, and perhaps we might dream Freedom from external expectations together! :)
10000 wishes that your manuscript Rescuing Annie becomes published, it sounds delightful to me!
And may you continue to enjoy Paris and of course your upcoming Camino!
with lots of love in the becoming/unbecoming and adventure,
Dearest Kristin, how I appreciate your thoughtful replies each week, and that you would take the time to rewrite it after losing it--I am touched indeed. (I also dislike that aspect of commenting here, that if you return to the main essay you lose your comment; will put it to the Substack creators as a suggestion for improvement).
So glad to hear we share a love of Paris! And I see that in the becoming and unbecoming, I have a kindred soul in you. "Women of a certain age." I rather like that phrase. It describes the increasing certainty--about our purpose, soul, desires, wants and needs--that we feel at our age. Which is what will always be our ballast when that "harsh inner critic" as you so aptly put it barges in and tries to squash our certainty. I wish for you more freedom of every kind because I know what it's like to feel trapped in caregiving, as much as we want to serve the ones we love. I do wish for you that you indeed get to make your big leap by May 2025 and go on tour. Meanwhile, it is in all our power to be free of internal expectations.
Thanks for the enthusiasm for Rescuing Annie. I believe in her. I believe a publisher will come along and want to rescue her:-) It was a beautiful journey to have written her story. But the icing on the cake will be that others can read it, too.
Hugs and love and rainbows and unicorns and Paris magic to you!
Hello lovely Amy, THIS: 'Freedom is loving who we are, exactly as we are' and your love letter journey of becoming, are two things I ponder often, as I continue to evolve over time. I love your reflections and how you curiously and gently observe them. Your gentle empathy, self-compassion and open curiosity to explore are inspiring. Thank you for your playlist—you know I adore music you may like this Melody Gardot: https://open.spotify.com/track/5yQOP5W4KZtUDjsHjVQvT9?si=9aab23cb60c9472d
I love, "I will have to work hard not to shackle myself into a prison of my own making where insecurity, anxiety, and fear are the wardens." Such good writing and such a deep insight. You continue to amaze me.
Oh Pat, thanks for these kind words and for reading. I am a work in progress--with stumbles and falls and triumphs and pleasures, too (as we all are). I am so glad this insight resonated with you.
Amy, I love and appreciate how you define freedom as a deep inner knowing of ourselves. We were never taught how to explore our inner landscape and this has left us shackled to our conditioning.
This definition is helpful because it reminds us that we don’t necessarily have to leave our partner and home to find that freedom, provided we are doing the work required to explore our interior and deeply know ourselves.
I love hearing about your link to Paris and the photos you included. Thanks for this great essay!
Donna, I appreciate that the definition I offered hit home with you exactly as I intended. There is no end destination to traversing this inner landscape and it can happen anywhere, anytime, within and outside relationships. I've experienced both and it's all fodder for our growth.
Thank you for this beautiful post. Your memories and lovely photos reminded me of ... well, of me. Paris is my soul's home. I lived there for five months when I was 19. Post college, I returned with my mother and then, with my new husband to honeymoon in Montmartre. For the next 30 years, I dreamed of returning. I'd find a tiny apartment. I'd write my novels there. Every autumn. When the tourists left and the air cooled down. But it never happened. I almost got there several times but life always interrupted. My father fell down the stairs. My mother needed open heart surgery. I did not return until 2019, a gift that I gave to myself, out of my small inheritance. You have reminded my heart of my dream, of Paris. I needed that.
Amy, thank you for sharing your love of Paris and magical Montmartre. Those five months when you were 19, what a dream! In fact, you were living the youth of my fictional heroine Annie:-) And that longing to return to places that left an indelible mark on us at a point in our lives where our soul was ready to embrace the offering--I understand that, too. I came to Europe many times starting at 19 (London), later at 24, and finally to move here at 29, and to stay for 18 years. After spending 22 years living in Europe, and now with two daughters making a life here, I will always have one foot (and half my heart and a good part of my soul) on this continent.
Hi Sallie, thank you for reading and commenting. I will have to listen to that part of the clip again. I have always been inspired by this piece of Hemingway's advice: "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
Beautiful, thoughtful piece, Amy! 💛
Evelyn, thank you so much! A high compliment coming from a novelist I admire as much as you. I am so looking forward to learning more from you about the craft of storytelling from your guest teaching at Jeannine Oullette's SCHOOL this fall. Thanks again for reading my essay and saying hello here.
oh, fantastic! See you at WITD School, Amy!
so lovely to learn more about you, Amy.
Thank you for joining me here, Elena, to read and witness. I appreciate you!
Freedom is as exhalting as scary. But you've got the key! Thank you for sharing this beautiful reflection and Annie with us. I am currently contemplating the dream of walking the camino from march 2025. Maybe we will meet each other on the way :-)
Thanks, Lise, for the kind comment and for being a fellow pilgrim on this journey of life--whether on the Camino or our everyday lives. Thanks for getting the "scariness" of freedom. I am finding that by befriending fear, I disarm it.
Yeah, with meditation, I realized how loving and soft it can be to welcome our fears
Meditation is so powerful and necessary, isn’t it?
I loved hearing about how you birthed Annie into this world and how writing the novel was your creative companion during the pandemic. Just know that Annie is already rescuing others here in this essay - giving all the women who read about her the permission slip to live into their birthright.
That photo of you & Sara is STUNNING. It crackles and shines, my friend. 💞
The way you describe the becoming and unbecoming and how we can feel a bit of whiplash as we settle into our becoming- I so resonate with that feeling. Freedom can be unsettling when feeling stuck was the status quo. Familiar feels safe. Even if it constrains us.
I am finding my freedom with writing. With true expression. I never would have landed in the land of creativity if I was still actively drinking. Sobriety delivered freedom to me. When my mind unhinged itself from needing to drink to cope, from needing to drink to celebrate, mourn, socialize, cook dinner, etc I stepped into new territory where my mind became a new landscape. One I am still exploring and navigating. One that feels mostly exciting but sometimes like foreign land. I have to keep reminding myself that I know my way around here.
Your freedom story reminds me of one of my favorite Anaïs Nin quotes: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
You are blossoming, Amy! And you’re inspiring many others (myself!) to open to the freedom that is their birthright. 🌸
Allison, thank you for these wonderful reflections and points of connection. So glad you enjoyed the essay. It fills my heart with joy when you suggest what I write could help give other women their own permission slips to live into their birthright. Nothing would make me happier. Sara and I thank you for the compliment on the photo; being in Paris with her is always a delight. I can see how your freedom is coming forth in your writing. It's incredible to witness. You DO know your way around that foreign land. I am so glad to be reminded o f the Anais Nin quote. It's quite literally a beauty, a perfect rose. Let freedom ring!
How wonderful to find your story just now! I am 63, and you have almost written my story...I am finally after a lifetime of waiting, and ending a 33 year marriage, heading to Paris on Christmas day to stay through the end of January as I find a place to settle next year. I walked the Camino in 2006, such an amazing experience, and you will love it. You "love letter" was beautiful, thank you so much for sharing it with us. Sorry, I'm gushing here, I just rarely read people I have so much in common with...movies, music, writers, so yes, gushing a bit as I'm so happy to find you!
Oh, Deborah, your gushing touches me deeply because this is indeed how I define destiny--that we with so very much in common should find each other here among the thousands of Substacks! What freedom you are embracing to move to Paris on the heels of the end of one chapter of your life; I will continue to follow your adventure settling in there and hope we can meet in real life next year in this beautiful city (with my younger daughter living here, I am in Paris often). I would love to hear more about your experience of the Camino. Did you walk the full route, the 500 km, or the shorter Portugese route as my older daughter and I are doing? Thank you for being here and sharing our nearly identical stories:-)
Oh, how wonderful it would be to meet and visit in person(!) over a cafe in Paris. I will try to stay on top of my own page as I've taken almost a two year break as life got complicated and the words wouldn't come. They are returning once again, and I am ready to live in the light again...what better place than the city of light.
I walked with an acquaintance who had started it the year before, but had a family emergency and stopped in Leon, Spain, so we started there (on the original Camino route across northern Spain). She has walked the Camino almost a dozen times and has taken every route now, France, Portugal, and I think one other. We walked to Finistère as well from Santiago, which was truly a fabulous add-on for closure to a life changing journey. I can't wait to hear how your journey with your daughter goes!
oh dear, I had written a long comment which felt well expressed and then scrolled up to be sure I had the title of your manuscript correct and when I returned here my long comment was gone. Oy!
I shall try to reconstruct:
Oh Amy, thank you for transporting me back to beloved Paris, one of my favorite cities in the world. Grateful to have visited 9 times thanks to paid performances at International School of Paris. I loved seeing Paris through your delightful descriptions and am so glad both of your daughters have called Paris home and you have had the opportunity for visits. Oh to have also enjoyed with your mom! I can imagine how wonderful that trip must have been! <3
Thank you Amy for your wise and personal definitions of Freedom, Becoming and Unbecoming. I join you in those places of discovery. At almost 57, I find myself at a time of deep reflecting on unbecoming the layers of societal expectations of 'women of a certain age' and also of unbecoming the harsh inner critic and depression which has visited more often recently. I find myself losing my light and it harder to reclaim and voice my joy. Current circumstances of course impact my mind/body/spirit. Caregiving for my mom and feeling stuck in PA a place I've never fully been able to blossom due to its conservative and oppressive closed-offness. The gift of this has been the urge to travel, to immerse in other regions, countries where more open exuberance for life is the norm.
Your descriptions of Becoming and Unbecoming have me reflecting further on who I wish to become at this time of my life. For sure I wish to Tour again, hoping May 2025 as leaping off point, maybe sooner, depends on work.
And oh the Freedom to love who we are exactly as we are! May it be so!
Perhaps you and I might meet in insomnia land where I've ended up more nights than not these last bunch of months, and perhaps we might dream Freedom from external expectations together! :)
10000 wishes that your manuscript Rescuing Annie becomes published, it sounds delightful to me!
And may you continue to enjoy Paris and of course your upcoming Camino!
with lots of love in the becoming/unbecoming and adventure,
Kristin
Dearest Kristin, how I appreciate your thoughtful replies each week, and that you would take the time to rewrite it after losing it--I am touched indeed. (I also dislike that aspect of commenting here, that if you return to the main essay you lose your comment; will put it to the Substack creators as a suggestion for improvement).
So glad to hear we share a love of Paris! And I see that in the becoming and unbecoming, I have a kindred soul in you. "Women of a certain age." I rather like that phrase. It describes the increasing certainty--about our purpose, soul, desires, wants and needs--that we feel at our age. Which is what will always be our ballast when that "harsh inner critic" as you so aptly put it barges in and tries to squash our certainty. I wish for you more freedom of every kind because I know what it's like to feel trapped in caregiving, as much as we want to serve the ones we love. I do wish for you that you indeed get to make your big leap by May 2025 and go on tour. Meanwhile, it is in all our power to be free of internal expectations.
Thanks for the enthusiasm for Rescuing Annie. I believe in her. I believe a publisher will come along and want to rescue her:-) It was a beautiful journey to have written her story. But the icing on the cake will be that others can read it, too.
Hugs and love and rainbows and unicorns and Paris magic to you!
More hugs and love and rainbows an unicorn to you too! And may Rescuing Annie be read by and touch the multitudes♡♡♡♡♡
Hello lovely Amy, THIS: 'Freedom is loving who we are, exactly as we are' and your love letter journey of becoming, are two things I ponder often, as I continue to evolve over time. I love your reflections and how you curiously and gently observe them. Your gentle empathy, self-compassion and open curiosity to explore are inspiring. Thank you for your playlist—you know I adore music you may like this Melody Gardot: https://open.spotify.com/track/5yQOP5W4KZtUDjsHjVQvT9?si=9aab23cb60c9472d
Or anguun https://open.spotify.com/track/4r9u9QK7KOEXgOmt3hs57g?si=d87d857deaeb4392
Thank you for your empathy and caring, my friend. I am glad we are on this journey together. And always grateful for new songs!
I love, "I will have to work hard not to shackle myself into a prison of my own making where insecurity, anxiety, and fear are the wardens." Such good writing and such a deep insight. You continue to amaze me.
Oh Pat, thanks for these kind words and for reading. I am a work in progress--with stumbles and falls and triumphs and pleasures, too (as we all are). I am so glad this insight resonated with you.
Amy, I love and appreciate how you define freedom as a deep inner knowing of ourselves. We were never taught how to explore our inner landscape and this has left us shackled to our conditioning.
This definition is helpful because it reminds us that we don’t necessarily have to leave our partner and home to find that freedom, provided we are doing the work required to explore our interior and deeply know ourselves.
I love hearing about your link to Paris and the photos you included. Thanks for this great essay!
Donna, I appreciate that the definition I offered hit home with you exactly as I intended. There is no end destination to traversing this inner landscape and it can happen anywhere, anytime, within and outside relationships. I've experienced both and it's all fodder for our growth.
Thank you for this beautiful post. Your memories and lovely photos reminded me of ... well, of me. Paris is my soul's home. I lived there for five months when I was 19. Post college, I returned with my mother and then, with my new husband to honeymoon in Montmartre. For the next 30 years, I dreamed of returning. I'd find a tiny apartment. I'd write my novels there. Every autumn. When the tourists left and the air cooled down. But it never happened. I almost got there several times but life always interrupted. My father fell down the stairs. My mother needed open heart surgery. I did not return until 2019, a gift that I gave to myself, out of my small inheritance. You have reminded my heart of my dream, of Paris. I needed that.
Amy, thank you for sharing your love of Paris and magical Montmartre. Those five months when you were 19, what a dream! In fact, you were living the youth of my fictional heroine Annie:-) And that longing to return to places that left an indelible mark on us at a point in our lives where our soul was ready to embrace the offering--I understand that, too. I came to Europe many times starting at 19 (London), later at 24, and finally to move here at 29, and to stay for 18 years. After spending 22 years living in Europe, and now with two daughters making a life here, I will always have one foot (and half my heart and a good part of my soul) on this continent.
Lovely work. What did you think of Hemingway’s critique of good writing? (From the YouTube clip you shared).
Hi Sallie, thank you for reading and commenting. I will have to listen to that part of the clip again. I have always been inspired by this piece of Hemingway's advice: "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”