Endings, Beginnings, Transformations and ... Grace
Before we all officially wave goodbye to 2014, I keep being reminded to take time to reflect back on the year. It's as if something inside of me wants me to GET what 2014 was all about; to absorb its riches and lessons and, hopefully, absorb some of the lessons. We spend so much time being "busy" and producing that sometimes those lessons take a while to sink in.
All this comes to mind as I read Alan Cumming's remarkable memoir, "Not My Father's Son." It's a memorable and often brilliant read—so, have at it—but the imprint is is leaving is noteworthy. Cumming's life—emotional, personal and otherwise—is completely turned upside down upon discovering something from his past thatGrace Revealed: A Memoir alters his present time line. I won't give too much away, but he takes the reader on a vibrant inner journey. And it's this, I think, that, perhaps, many of us have been asked to go on in 2014 and even through 2015. As we continue to maneuver through this incredibly cluttered high-tech, social-media'd world, where we're led to believe we are so much more connected to each other than ever before yet, ironically, we still feel the pang for real connection, I drew parallels between Cumming's personal odyssey and my own.
Having completed Grace Revealed: A Memoir in 2014 was one of the biggest milestones an author an ask for. And significant one at that. Like Cumming, I had been handed information about my family, which I had to decipher and integrate. In my case, it was the fact that my Polish family had been among the nearly 2 million Polish people deported by Stalin in 1940, and sent to slave labor in Siberia. Their survival story is one of the more emotional arcs in Grace Revealed, but for me, their history completely turned my world upside down, forcing me to ask: Who am I—really? And how much of the past lives on through me?
Those may deep questions, but I sense a great many of us are experiencing similar feelings. In any case, as 2014 fades to black and I keep asking people on my social media channels the one word they would use to sum up 2014, I'm reminded of my own Polish family and their comrades, and the strength, the will, the grace that got them through many years when things looked so dire, so bleak, that the light of another day seemed impossible. What words would they have used to sum up their adventures? What words would we use to sum up our own in 2014?
All this comes to mind as I read Alan Cumming's remarkable memoir, "Not My Father's Son." It's a memorable and often brilliant read—so, have at it—but the imprint is is leaving is noteworthy. Cumming's life—emotional, personal and otherwise—is completely turned upside down upon discovering something from his past thatGrace Revealed: A Memoir alters his present time line. I won't give too much away, but he takes the reader on a vibrant inner journey. And it's this, I think, that, perhaps, many of us have been asked to go on in 2014 and even through 2015. As we continue to maneuver through this incredibly cluttered high-tech, social-media'd world, where we're led to believe we are so much more connected to each other than ever before yet, ironically, we still feel the pang for real connection, I drew parallels between Cumming's personal odyssey and my own.
Having completed Grace Revealed: A Memoir in 2014 was one of the biggest milestones an author an ask for. And significant one at that. Like Cumming, I had been handed information about my family, which I had to decipher and integrate. In my case, it was the fact that my Polish family had been among the nearly 2 million Polish people deported by Stalin in 1940, and sent to slave labor in Siberia. Their survival story is one of the more emotional arcs in Grace Revealed, but for me, their history completely turned my world upside down, forcing me to ask: Who am I—really? And how much of the past lives on through me?
Those may deep questions, but I sense a great many of us are experiencing similar feelings. In any case, as 2014 fades to black and I keep asking people on my social media channels the one word they would use to sum up 2014, I'm reminded of my own Polish family and their comrades, and the strength, the will, the grace that got them through many years when things looked so dire, so bleak, that the light of another day seemed impossible. What words would they have used to sum up their adventures? What words would we use to sum up our own in 2014?
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