To Understand My Story

To understand my story you must know other stories, the characters I lived and the ones who live in me always. I lived every famous fairy tale. I lived versions no one knows about. I recreated moments from a children's animated film that recognized the being I am and the message I bring.

I knew archetypes better than family and my family less than myself.

To understand my story you must know Nancy Drew. You must know who she is and Bess and George and Hannah too, because they all live in me and were present as I lived my story from age seven to nine.

To understand my story you must become well acquainted with Stephen Gordon, Angela Crossby and all the female characters in this 1928 banned English novel—for now you are treading on my most sacred ground. Only I know who Stephen is, what makes her immortal, why women must accept her truths—the good, bad, holy, indifferent, sacred and eternal because when you speak her name, you speak mine. When you speak mine you speak Hall's, Vita’s, Violet’s, Renee’s, Natalie’s, Daphne’s and yes, even Millicent’s.

To understand my story you must get down and dirty with Rebecca. You must be willing to gird yourself to the real Mrs. Danvers and to listen to the Mrs. Danvers in my life, for I lived under her evil spells and I broke them. My mother was her biggest fan. My mother was also Rebecca and so many archetypes it would set your head spinning. Her only rival in terms of archetypal abundance was my father. No one but no one could match him, archetype per archetype; but that is my Part Two.

To know my story is to know that women are always Part One. Women are the subject, the predicate. They are the first, middle and last word. To know me is to accept that men factor in—they are not what my story is really about.