Becoming Restoried Reflections
#16 | Roots Restoried
December 28th, 2023: My curtains were closed, my bedroom door was locked, and my ears were plugged with music to temporarily evade a view of rippling rain, bare earth, insipid trees, and ashen sky punctuating Canadian winter — no sun, no snow, no ice. Bits of dust hung in the air carting the scent of clothes that hadn’t been worn in decades. My knuckles were noticeably smooth — typically cracked with cold this time of year no matter how much Vaseline you smear them with. Scavenging for a sense of control I tidied a few of my things, one of which was a plastic tub of basketball memorabilia (which reminded me that I’d left my coffee upstairs).
The tub is black with a vivid red lid — the colours of nearly every team I’ve ever played for. Over the past four years since I retired, it’s taunted me. Though I came close a few times, I couldn’t quite bring myself to open it. Until now.
Among the pins, art, embroidered towels, and tournament programs I’d traded for and collected throughout my travels across Canada, the US, Mexico, Italy, France, Chile, and the Czech Republic, I found a photo that I didn’t know I’d kept. It was this one, snapped in September of 2012 when I was fourteen years old:
I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that the events I chose to excavate during my intensive in Nashville took place at this age — the birth and root of some of my deepest shame. But I now know that a root is not a seed. Our seeds, particularly when we’re young, are not always planted and tended to by our own hands.
Before my intensive, I didn’t recognize this girl as myself. And I didn’t want to. Thinking of the period between ages 14–20, I couldn’t understand why anyone wanted to spend time with me. Truly. I held deep contempt for this chapter of my life and wished to strike it from the history book — pages lost to a mysterious fire and shrugged shoulders. Though I’ve chosen to write and speak about some of my experiences publicly, I’ve written a bit more like a pond skater sprinting across the surface of the water. There are seeds beneath the lake that I’ve chosen not to share simply because I blamed myself for the fact that they sprouted.
During my intensive with Michael, we used a stuffed Elmo in place of my teenage self for a few of our sessions. As helpful as this was, a thin film of doubt remained — very different from looking directly into this girl’s eyes. Gripping the edges of the photograph, locking gazes, it felt as if she said, “I see you, too. As me.” And I dropped to my crunchy, basketball-weakened knees and wept; this was all I ever wanted her to be able to see and say. Because I said the same thing back and meant it.
Perhaps we truly grow up when we begin to feel like ourselves — emphasis on the plural — as adults. Joining Becoming Restoried in my twenties offered me the framework to grow up in the sense that branching out requires a healthy, strong, and grounded relationship with my roots, even if there are roots that I’ll never be able to replace and seeds I’ll never be able to un-plant.
I’ve spent inordinate time basting in anger, criticism, and blame baring sharp teeth. In my mind, joy could never exist in any space rife with hurt, humiliation, shame, abandonment, devastation, abuse, violation, or manipulation. I worked myself into a foaming, fuming lather, without rinsing away the viruses and bacteria trapped in the scaly suds. I lost the ability to absorb joy’s salve without compromising my values. I buried the ability to bear grace where behaviour was in service of survival. Even with the backdrop of pain, I forgot that I was only a child. Only a teenager. Still very young. The Becoming Restoried community, coaching, stories, and scaffolding have guided me toward the falling water; helped me step beneath both the cold and heat; and patiently braced me on the slippery tile until the layers circled the drain.
I see, now, that gratitude doesn’t make excuses. I understand, now, the difference between longing to leave a place to explore rather than longing to leave a place to escape. One is grounded, the other isn’t.
And where my roots have spread, there is rich soil. There is also a village, both vast and compact, where you might find a miller and his wife nursing an apple tree back to health behind their cabin. Nearby, there may be a shapeshifting forest with lurking, pale spirits wearing wide-brimmed black hats. Beyond the woods, you might see the scarlet and cream peaks of a castle, decorated with shimmering, shed lindworm skins, within which a family has exiled the practice of exiling. Deep in the town’s hearth, family elders, parents, and guardians lovingly guide children to a fickle fire and curl their cute fingers around warm cups of spiced tea. Here they will breathe in the flame of stories where thrashing in shallow rivers leads you to the other half of your body, mind, and soul. A fearless young fox may sprint across the village, spreading a starlit canvas each night — not sleek and smooth because of her speed, but because of her sense of direction. And then, deep in the forest, there is a quaint collection of carolling cottages with life-saturated veins. Through stone chimneys you might see the Family of the Wood stretch strong, sparkling smoke arms as far as anyone who might need them, offering a palm to those willing to work: grow their own hands back when they’ve been severed. And through the evergreens and pines, the smoke lends a warm whisper…
“Now that you know a root is not a seed,
you’ve given yourself eternal
permission to become restoried.
But don’t ever forget that the path
along which you’re most terrified to go
might well be the one that leads you home.”
With so much gratitude and appreciation,
Mikaela
You can take Becoming Restoried’s What Story Are You Living assessment, or join one of their ongoing free virtual workshops.