In this Sunday Series, you’ll meet writers new and seasoned as they share what inspires them to put #PenToPaper. This week, welcome Carly Israel, who speaks to the stories that are often always inside of us, waiting for the moment when we finally begin to listen.
The stories have always been within me. I have carried them for longer than I could explain. The forest. The fire. The ghettos. The backseat of the car as I screamed and hit the driver’s seat, begging to pull over. It wasn’t until the end that I started getting the words out.
I found an unused Composition notebook and poured my truth onto its pages. “I wish someone could find these words so they could know I need help.” I asked the page questions I could not ask anyone else. “Is it fair to stay here, smiling for everyone, while I am in dying within?”
And then, as I looked around at the burnt embers of the life I had created, I saw no other way out. And after swallowing, handful after handful of pills, I laid on the floor and waited to die. But the universe had other plans.
After the mile and half walk home in the snow, signing myself out of Obleness Hospital, against medical advice, I began a new story. And on the pages of that Composition notebook, God and I began to talk. And I mean, really talk.
From there, journal after journal, I bled my heart and fears and dreams onto page after page. I could not fill them fast enough. But those words were only meant for the two of us. And I could not breathe without my pen and my lined little journals. I could not experience this world without a place to download my thoughts or untangle my questions.
And days turned into years turned into a foundation, and I unfolded into this world. And as I unfurled my once broken wings, I found that my voice was stronger than I ever could have imagined.
There was a solo trip to Israel when I was about 22. I had just sat on the edge of the Hospice bed and watched a woman named Alice die. She was a friend of mine’s mother. And because I had taken a course in Death and Dying over the summer, from a Buddhist professor, I knew what to whisper in her ear. And on that trip, that never went as planned, I found that my notebooks were not enough. That the conversation with God was not going to cut it if the conversation with myself didn’t start to change its tone.
And we, God, me and myself, sat on the carpeted floor of an expensive hotel in Nice, France (don’t ask) and had a much needed, hours-long conversation with the mirror. There was laughter and tears and amends and promises. As I picked myself up from that floor, with the carpet indentations on my knees, a new story began.
Fast forward a few decades, three children, one divorce, years of sobriety and lessons and pain and growth and I found myself, once again, needing the page. Only this time, my thoughts were too fast for the pen. They needed the keyboard, and post after post, gratitude and lessons and gifts turned into a following of strangers who begged for more of my words. And a fairy-godmother, let’s call her El, came back into my life, in the form of a Facebook message, asking me if I ever considered writing a book. Turned out that El owned a wicked smart Indie publishing company and she wanted to see if I could turn my posts into an actual book. A dream that lived, secretly, inside of me, all of my life.
Like any solid fairy-godmother, she pushed and stretched and threw back what I brought her and told me to dig deeper. And what I unearthed were stories that spanned decades and lifetimes into my ancestral caves and I heard whispers from great grandparents I would never have the privilege of meeting. Police records, and pictures and articles, and secrets. All of which were my responsibility and privilege to share.
Carly Israel, founder of the podcast Northstar Big Book, has written
about parenting, divorce, and recovery for the Huffington Post and other venues. She mentors in recovery and is committed to looking for the gift or lesson in every experience.
The Host of the podcast In Your Corner Divorce, she is also a relationship/divorce coach. She focuses on helping clients get rid of the emotional baggage so they don’t harm their children and on empowering them to write the next chapter of their lives. Read her latest COVID piece and listen to her most recent podcast.
Join me at Hidden Timber Books this Thursday, September 24th, at 6pm Central for a reading and discussion of Carly Israel’s memoir, Seconds and Inches. This event is free but registration is required. I hope to see you online!