To survive trauma, one must be able to tell a story about it.
Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey was arguably the best book I read last year. Like so many of the books I seem to be gravitating toward recently, it explores loss; specifically, the loss of the author’s mother. Trethewey’s mother was murdered by her stepfather when she was only 19 years old, and Memorial Drive both grounds and mythologizes her mother’s story, likening her to Persephone of Greek mythology, who was kidnapped by Hades and made Queen of the Underworld.
I love the quote I chose from the book today because I have experienced its truth in my own life. There are some things I have experienced I’m unsure I would have survived had I not been able to create narratives around them; the stories of how I came so very close to the edge, could in fact hear the wind whistling in the canyon below, and how Something always pulled me back.
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