Up From the Belly

Who you are shouts so loudly I can't hear you. ~ Emerson

A Letter to You

Dear Reader,

We just reached a milestone! 500 subscribers toward building this community of misfits, outsiders, and those on the margins. No exclusions.

A heartfelt thank you for being here and subscribing to TNWWY(ATNW) because it is your presence that inspires me to keep writing. I have long sensed that my writing is incomplete without YOU on the other side of it. Having you here is like being given an outlet by the universe: all I have to do is plug in for the circle to complete! It is so cool, and I am grateful.

Funny how everything lines up at the right time; Jeannine Ouellete at Writing In the Dark is teaching The Letter, Reimagined, right now, and right away, I thought of writing to you. Synchronicity¹!

I want to know more about you, details from your life, the way a post hits or does not, and especially, I love hearing your unique perspective and experience recovering (from anything) because each recovery journey looks different. We may all be climbing the same mountain in one way or another, a mountain that leads to the summit of Being Fully Human. Still, there are so many different routes to get there, so many approaches, and a variety of microclimates on the way, and then there are the places we come from, where we begin. None of it adds up without all of it. 

I have an imaginary list of the books that have found me over the years, a bibliography of my evolution - stay tuned! - For a book to make it onto the list, it has to have changed me. Mister God, This Is Anna is one of those books and features four-year-old Anna, who, though she does not live past eight, is the wisest of teachers. Among her many observations: 

“Fynn, that’s the difference. You see, everybody has got a point of view, but Mister God hasn’t. Mister God has only points to view…” 

Mister God, as Anna explained, could see from all points at once. Imagine we could see from inside each other, imagine truly seeing from the point of an other. Imagine each of us embodies a unique point, the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, and that, when we put all the points together, it makes up what Anna calls Mister God, what each of us calls by a variety of names, and what I call All That Is. Imagine that each one of us embodies a necessary point of unimaginable value.

Make sure to include everything in this vision: animal, plant, fungi, protists, monera, and yes, minerals, even rocks. Or maybe, especially rocks. Maybe our human-centric limitations are fodder for another post, though Sophie Strand and Bayo Akomolafe write about it much better than I can. Can we expand our vision to the peripheral? To what is not central to ourselves? To what IS central to all in the sense of our connectedness, in the sense of how we don’t exist separately, but only together?

What I’m trying to say, in any case, is your value, not just to me as a reader but in all the ways and dimensions in which you exist, is necessary and invaluable. In 12-step programs, the first step begins with the word WE, and there’s a saying, “This is a WE program.” You are my WE.

Thank you for reading, for sharing, and for commenting. Click the button to make a comment or scroll to the end of the newsletter. In this post, I’ll write about how finding our voices manifests in fully expressing who and what we are in all dimensions down to the smallest detail. No more compartmentalizing, which brings us full circle, you see. Because it is only in the WE that I find YOU and my ME. 

Love all ways,

Kelly T. 

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Boots On the Ground: Emergence

I wanted those red leather boots right off her feet.  I coveted. I said so, and because I did, I got them. Badass, kick-ass, red Docs, a gift from my girlfriends. Those maroon boots looked hot with my ripped-up jeans and rotation of t-shirts with words on them like “I’m Not the Story You Made of Me,” “Gaslighters Will Be Set on Fire,” “The Heart is a Muscle,” and “Unfuck Yourself.”

I don’t wear the boots now except for times when I'm forced to wear shoes. It turns out I hate shoes, even hot kickass boots. 

I’m at my best barefoot.

Then there’s my hair. It’s long. It’s going to stay long. No matter how much I adore Annie Lennox. Or Pink.

Elizabeth Gilbert

. Or, in my youth, Mia Farrow. Funny, the word “butchered.” That’s what I think of my hair whenever I’ve chopped it off. Butchered. Chopped. Annie Lennox doesn’t look butchered or chopped. But with short hair, I do. 

I was born and raised in a high-control religion, and we were not allowed to cut our hair, so with that baggage onboard, figuring out that I still wanted mine long was a process. 

So my hair is long with a twist. I left the beauty shop one day with a red streak, a tape-in piece of cherry red, taped above my right ear, so it blended in with the dark/light blond weave. Red is my favorite color. 

I was sixty before I found my voice. I’m not talking about looks or image. I’m talking about what comes from deep in the belly, up the throat, onto the tongue, and out. Truth realized. Down to how I wear my hair, what clothing I choose, everything about me.

Voice IS emergence

Up from the belly

Into the throat

Onto the tongue

Such beauty

Truth of the body

I was forced to dress the way the cult said I must as a child, a girl, a pubescent, an adolescent. I felt ugly. I felt lost. I never felt like myself.

When I left, I still didn’t feel like myself. I ran away, I lived in a hippie commune, and I became a rock and roll DJ. It felt better, but still. Who was I?

I started collecting reading glasses. Hundreds. Like jewelry, which I avoid. I also hate fragrance. 

But none of that matters. With the emergence of voice, truth outs. 

“What you are shouts so loudly, I can’t hear you,” wrote Emerson. I was always there but hidden. Mostly from myself. Funny how that works. 

I learned to survive by compartmentalizing. If I were to write a book on how to become addicted, it would teach the reader how to compartmentalize. 

Danger. I can’t compartmentalize or separate any part of my life, any part of myself, from any other today. That will kill me. 

See that red streak? Notice the way I openly share that I’m a recovering alcoholic/addict? 

Coming out is one way to think of it.

I’m out. On my terms. 

Join me. 

---

On Repeat:

One Thing:

I want to see your voice in the comments. Give me visuals. Show me. 

---

Shout outs: A is for Allisons in Recovery

Allison Deraney is OUT on Dare to Be Dry. Check her out! For September and Recovery Month, Allison showed up on Substack App Notes every day and shone a light on another writer who was showing up and speaking out about the freedom one finds when living a sober life. 🔦🔦 Way to give it away to keep it!

And speaking of up from the belly, read this by Allison Taylor Conway on Dry Humor Me 1,000 Days Sober: Flying Solo in the Dark: “Recovering from alcohol addiction is the single most monumentally, fundamentally transformative thing I have ever undertaken in my life.”

Me too,

Allison Taylor Conway

. Me too.

I can’t begin to say how honored I was to be interviewed by

Sari Botton

on

Oldster Magazine

Exploring what it means to travel through time in a human body, at every phase of life. Read it here:

This is 70: Writer/Social Worker Kelly Thompson Responds to The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire

Recommend Kelly Thompson to your readers.

A community for those interested in how to recover (from anything), find their badass, kick-ass, and align with their true selves.

1. Jung defined synchronicity as “meaningful coincidences that cannot be explaied by cause and effect.” He believed that these events were not just random occurrences, but rather manifestations of a deeper order in the universe.