Bent Frame and Broken Glass
Letting the light shine
Everything on “Silent No More” is currently available for all subscribers, paid or free. If you’re able, and would like to support my work, you can become my patron through a paid subscription. I’m offering a 40% forever-discount through the end of January, on both monthly and annual subscriptions.
Please know, I cherish every person here, welcomed guests, dear friends, and generous patrons. I appreciate you all!
Dear Intrepid Spirit,
This week, while going through a box of old cassettes, I found a small pocket-size notebook, and on one of the pages, a scribbled poem I had written on 11/19 2014. A stanza jumped out at me, and demanded to be more than a hastily written down first draft. So I worked on it, and added it to this post. I love serendipity.
The Hill
lantern broken— but not the light, maybe, the cracked glass can refract the light in many directions, dazzling the world with color, revealing the soul of you, heart broken— but not without hope
“Nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket…” Matthew 5:15, New Testament of the Christian Bible.
You can say this verse is about the light, especially as Matthew 5:14 starts with “You are the light of the world.”
But I think it, also, says something about the lamp.
It used to be so important for me to fix this lantern of my life, to make it shiny and new, to at least mend the broken frame, change the wick, replace the cracked glass or sweep up whatever shards lie scattered on the ground. To replace it with something newer, clearer, cleaner.
To me healing would entail just that. I would heal so much I could just quantum leap myself into total transformation. Good as new. No scars. No signs of the past.
I could live as if I had never been abused.
I believed (hoped, wished, you-create-your-own-realitied) that with all my heart.
But life is a great reality check. It, also, has a way of knocking down best laid plans.
Even after long periods of time that seemed to leave “my worst experiences” further and further back in the past, this last November going into December, the mega flash backs and the major shut down really drove the point home.
I’m a survivor, which means there’s something I survived from. And it left scars—in my psyche, in my heart, in the skin and bones and cells of my body, and under those, some pretty nasty wounds that still languish in the dark and underneath.
After 37 years of healing, I wasn’t quantum leaping anywhere.
More Lamp Than Light
I think of the lamp with the bent frame, the cracked and shattered glass. Truth be known, that’s what I’ve identified with, more often than not, most of my life. The lamp, not the light.
I worry about not being good enough, or healthy enough, the trauma of my childhood, the areas of my brain related to stress it affected, the choices I’ve made on this template of abuse, some of which came at great cost.
And always, with me, the fear of speaking out, even though I do, or taking a stand, even though I have. The continuous conflict of that, the “yes” of principle, the “no” of fear.
Don’t tell.
But here I am a writer. And still… not without an underlying sense of dread.
My whole life, riding the brakes, whether I coast downhill or climb up one.
Listen to me. See me.
Don’t look at me.
That’s the conundrum of being a victim and someone who has had enough of being silenced, isn’t it? You want to speak the truth. You want to tell others someone is or was hurting you. You want to help others on their path through the telling of your own journey.
But when you do, and eyes turn toward you, there you are… bent frame, broken glass.
Is there no escape from that? No matter how much you heal?
No. Maybe. I don’t know.
What I do know is that we don’t create the light. We don’t create its intensity or distribution. We just have to be willing to hold it. All of us, bent frames and all.
Perfection has never been the requisite to creative expression, or sharing a thought, or singing a note, or speaking out, or making your presence known, or having a light within you, never mind letting it shine for all to see.
It’s never been about the sound system, or the grammar, or the sheet music.
You can tell an inspiring story, without knowing where to place a comma, and hum a tune that will make any toe tap, without being able to read a note.
It’s in you. Nothing can take that away, not trauma, not abuse. These things can create the distance we perceive between that truth and where we stand in relation to it.
But then it’s about changing your perspective, not transcending yourself.
It’s being yourself.
Maybe when we’re abused, the light that we are does go somewhere deep inside us, so that it looks like it’s gone.
Or maybe, it hides in plain sight, in the way we move, or talk, or laugh, or love, in the way we daydream, or work, or hope.
Can we call upon the light in this lantern of us? Do we dare?
Can you light yours, right here, where your feet have brought you? Can you lift this light up, and trust that it will shine, and fall on whomever walks the rocky path below, or flicker as near as the waves on shore, or as far as the horizon?
This is the miracle.
I am broken and I sing.
I am angry and I have empathy.
I am utterly drained and new beginnings call me.
I walk a path of growth where I stumble and trip over myself.
But sometimes I soar.
Don’t wait to become a perfect oasis before offering your shade to a weary heart, even if that heart is yours. Don’t second guess yourself when it comes to doing good, because you’re not sure if you’re good enough… because your frame is bent… because your glass is broken… and so are you.
Maybe. So what?
On a hill or in whatever dark corner you may find yourself, let your light shine.
Right where you are.
No matter how bright or dim, you have a gift to give.
You are the gift.
From my heart to yours,
Demian Elaine’ Yumei ~ Silent No More
40% forever discount on paid subscriptions for Silent No More through the end of January.
I love this so much! It really speaks to me, ministers to me. Oh how I wish you were never hurt, never broken! ... Then I also thank you for sharing that you were, you are, because it helps me heal, helps me feel seen. You give me courage to share more of my story, not for self indulgence , but to help others. ❤️
This is so beautiful, thank you 🤍