A Burning Heart

A Burning Heart

By: Susan Schiller

The neon green spiral-bound notebook was nearly full of tiny hand-printed text and cartoon pictures. On the pale green pages spilled out the courageous story of an orphan girl escaping the clutches of a tryannical orphanage director. After many laborious days of penning chapters and illustrations, the final page gratefully appeared and I wrote: THE END. It was electrifying!

I was eleven years old and to this day I remember the exhilaration of fanning the pages of "my very own book". I was an author! And all authors needed readers, so after many days of scribbling away in my secret notebook, I excitedly announced to my family that my book was finished. Eagerly, I anticipated their reaction for what I considered to be a harrowing story of high adventure, heroic courage, and a happy ending.

Their rejection puzzled me. Not because the story was awful, but because not a single family member would read the first page. A few days later, my notebook was lying on the coffee table (just in case someone might want to read it), flipped to the back cover. In ink that could never be erased, someone had written in BIG, bold letters: "Susan – goody-two-shoes Susan!"

It's normal family growing pains, and I know I've made my share of mistakes in every relationship I've had. Why is it important to tell these stories? Because they are turning points in our lives. They are times when we made decisions that wrote our future. In returning to those stories, we can "edit" them in order to break the cycles and to create our world, by taking personal responsibility for our choices today. It keeps the fire burning in our hearts.

It never occurred to me the cost of a burning heart, of letting that inner light glow. Did the world have to be so competitive? I wasn't trying to be better than anyone else; there was just something burning hot in me that would explode like lava boiling up out of a volcano if I didn't write!

Maybe that was why my dad quit drawing? My father was a busy private pilot, but I often accompanied him to the airport and flew with him. A quiet man, my dad read a lot of books. Like most little girls I idolized my dad and with good reason – he was brilliant!

When I was a teenager, my dad died, and my mom shared more of his story with me. I discovered that my dad had multiple creative urges, including being a ballet dancer. She also pulled out a box and showed me his drawings. He had amazing talent! It was my dad who taught me how to play his gleaming cherry wood Hammond Organ. He could make the pedals and keys dance and the whole house vibrated with the swelling beats and rhythms! I tried my best to play just like him.

My dad and I were close, because we shared the same passions. He treated me like a little adult, instead of a child, and I liked that. I was given mature books for a young child to read: "The Grapes of Wrath", "The Brothers Karamazov", etc. and I loved the challenge! We had a library upstairs filled with Shakespeare and other classical literature. I hungrily devoured everything, but my absolute favorite was the the New Yorker Magazine, bound into a large hardcover volume. My dad had a whole series and I had carefully studied every cartoon. Pencil in hand, I meticulously copied the cartoons, dozens of them. Soon I was creating exact replicas of the cartoons and my collection grew, all penciled on cheap children's art paper.

There was a door in our house where all the "good" school papers were displayed. My younger sister and brothers and I each had our work taped to that door. So I began taping my best cartoon drawings to the door.

Every child wants to shine. "Look at me!" is the call of every child's heart. "Look what I can do!"  Identity is formed in those early years. As a child explores her world she discovers her passions and what she wants to spend the rest of her life being and doing. Her self-esteem grows or shrinks in correlation to her parents' response to her efforts.

My family rejected my cartoon drawings, even though I had won a prize when I entered one of my drawings in a newspaper contest. The prize was art lessons. My parents forbade me to accept the prize. So I quit writing and I quit drawing. It was like the shutters closed on the windows of my heart, one subtle rejection at a time, and I began to shrink from challenges and to aim for "acceptable".

Band class was acceptable. I transferred my passion to music, playing flute and piccolo. My band director took me aside one day and told me, "Sue, you're a natural and have enough talent for a career as a flautist in a symphony, if you want to. You'll need to begin taking private lessons right away." By then, my parents had both agreed to ignore any of my achievements, so it was no use to bother them with my band director's suggestion.

My dad had already provided the explanation to me at age 12, saying, "Susie, your younger brothers and sister are having a hard time catching up to you. Your mom and I aren't going to notice your grades or your awards anymore. It's all for the best, honey."

That conversation burned a new hole in my heart, and from that day onward all creativity was poured into that hole and flushed like a toilet. As my passion for life began to shrink, so did my social life. I retreated into a shell. For all intensive purposes, I floated through high school as a ghost. Something was wrong with me, I thought, and it seemed incurable. My light had been gradually extinguished.

In the gray shadows of my ghost-life, I made vows and decisions that were to chart my life's course. I began to be and do only what was acceptable. I was desperate to be included in my family, to be needed! So I cooked, cleaned, and did twice as necessary. I knitted, crocheted, and sewed. When my dad died, at age 17, my mom went to work full-time and I became the second mom. I carried the weight of the household while she transitioned into being a single parent of four teens, paying the bills. But the hole in my heart kept widening, like a hungry monster devouring my soul.

Going to college was acceptable, so I went. The only class I remember well was a Children's Literature class. Madeleine L'Engle was a featured speaker. Our final class project was to create a hand-bound illustrated children's book. Maybe it's the only class that I remember, because it was the only class that ignited my passion!

Who are the people who have most changed the world? It's not the "acceptable" people-pleasing ones, no. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich is credited with saying, "Seldom do well-behaved women make history."

The artist's way runs an opposite course to reason and logic. I's a higher road – a harder, steeper path. It's paved with rejection and abandonment, obstacles that can be turned into steps carrying us higher and faster… or tripping us up.

Albert Einstein is an example of a creative who was bold enough to take a stand, to quit school at age 15. He was fed up with school because it stifled his imagination with all the objective assignments, which mainly included rote memorization. He had the courage to use the steps to climb. I, however, got tripped up.

The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking. ― Albert Einstein

What would the world be like if more young men and women were released from the prison of "acceptable" into their unique destinies? If someone had read my first book or if I had been allowed to take the art or flute lessons, how would my life be different today? What gift would I have had to give to the world, I wonder…

Fast forward to 2013 with Story 101 and Elora Ramirez. I arrived in class with broken wings. I had good intentions of completing my memoir before the end of the 10-weeks, but instead I rediscovered my true identity. I am a writer. I want to write children's books that ignites the fire in their hearts!  Within the healing environment of Story 101, I encountered a company of women just like me… artists who have been broken, damaged, and wounded. And we helped to re-ignite each other's fires. We fanned the flames of creativity. We took flight.

"The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire," writes Ferdinand Foch.

I want to be on fire, do you? It's hard to write stories that we are afraid may hurt someone we love. Because of that we keep our past buried. "Just move on, there's good up ahead!" may sound like good advice, but not unless you have faced your past and reckoned with it, gleaning the golden treasure from your history to invest it into your future!

I love my family very much and I have no regrets… but I want to turn it around and make something good come of it. It simply begins by bringing it to the light, by remembering who I am. Each of us can do this, with enough grace so that we can fly.

I wonder if we will have the courage, as parents and teachers and leaders of all kinds, to give our children wings to soar. Can we set the stage for new geniuses, like Albert Einstein, to take their place in creating unique solutions to global problems?

Family is the backbone of society. What do we do with the children that don't fit in the traditional mold? I believe there are solutions, and that the very children who don't fit the molds will be the ones to discover the new ways, if we release them to soar!

What do you think? I'd love to hear about your experience!

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With all my love,

Sue

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Tagged as: Choosing Love Today, Deborah White Dove, Writing a Life Story