When I finally woke up, she wasn’t there. She was in the pool, submerged: she could not swim.
Author: Ashana
I have two blogs:
Holland at http://welcometoholland.home.blog for English and Le Miroir d'une Étrangère at http://lemiroirduneetranger for French. I mainly write about family trauma and psychology, but sometimes my life as an ex-pat.
I feel better and also worse after my last post. I don’t know what to make of the issues I was pondering, including issues of place and belonging, that I did not directly touch on to write my last post. It did not make my life better to work out the issues I raised with […]
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When is telling the truth selfish?
When Night is Falling (1995) was not a particularly great film, but I often return to some of its ideas. When Camille, who has mistakenly taken the laundry of a (female) circus performer, decides to wear a revealing shirt to meet a reverend at the divinity school where she teaches, she tells her fiancé, “Martin, […]
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Dislocations
I had bad dreams last night. Something had happened–a natural disaster perhaps. We were looking for a place to sleep. Imagine it: a city full of people suddenly homeless and wandering in herds like sheep, looking for an empty house still standing, a bed. The strange thing is that we found them. Someone was with […]
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Repatriation
Life goes on. It’s easy and also difficult to live, because the change is complete, total. The feeling of mourning is heavy. Azar Nafisi said in her book Reading Lolita in Tehran: “You get a strange feeling when you’re about to leave a place… like you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll […]
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The nature of memory
Memory is slippery. To begin with, there are things in my past I don’t remember clearly, either because I was very young or because I was too horrified. I do “remember” some things that are so shocking I sometimes think I made them up to be dramatic and at other times they feel so real […]
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Not too little, not too much
I am thinking about attachment today. I believe there is an intersection between attachment and the two brain systems. Secure attachment can be seen as a way of thinking in which the two systems are integrated and the two work smoothly together.
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All is well
When I was young, my mother yelled at me for writing. I loved to write difficult and painful subjects. It’s still true of me. I don’t write positive articles or encouragement. Life is full of difficulties. If we understand it, life is easier. There is no difficulty that cannot be overcome. I’m always seeking to understand. It is my philosophy of life.
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Distancing
The combination of emotions and an ability to organize thoughts allow us to imagine solutions. This is used by people who are categorized as “secure.” They have emotions, they respond, they solve the problem.
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Fears
I know why I’m scared. It’s not just the fear of a blank sheet that everyone has. It is because of my mother and our attachment in my childhood. The residue is very deep and very durable.
Holland 