The Past Is Just a Story We Tell
As I get older, I’m realizing something quietly profound: the past isn’t a fixed place we can all point to—it’s a story we tell, shaped by the lens of who we’ve become.
I grew up in a large family, the kind that spills across generations and dinner tables. Over time, our stories—about childhood, holidays, triumphs, heartbreaks—have started to sound less like shared memories and more like a collection of overlapping myths. Each of us tells a version that feels true. Yet when we line them up side by side, the edges don’t quite match.
At first, that used to bother me. And, quite honestly, it still does at times.
There’s something inside me that wants the stories to line up—to make sense, to connect the dots cleanly. That longing for alignment is still there, and I think it’s what continues to spark my curiosity. Why do we remember the same moment so differently? What does that say about both who we were and who we’ve each become?
Over time, I’ve come to see that memory doesn’t live in the facts. It lives in the feeling. Each of us carries an imprint of what those moments meant—what we needed to see, what we were ready to hold, what we had the capacity to love or forgive at the time.
As our family grows—children, grandchildren, in-laws, and the ever-widening branches—it becomes clearer that no one version of the past can possibly contain all the truth. There are simply too many hearts, too many perspectives, too many meanings.
So how do we decide who’s right or wrong?
Maybe we don’t. Maybe the truer answer is that we all are—each in our own way.
Memory, like time, is fluid. It bends around emotion, reshapes itself with both ignorance and wisdom, and reveals different truths as we evolve. The story you tell at sixty will never be the one you told at twenty—and that’s okay. The past is alive inside us, constantly retelling itself as we change.
Maybe that’s the gift of aging—not to perfect the story, but to soften it. To listen to each other’s versions with curiosity instead of defense. To allow that what felt like chaos to one might have felt like safety to another. That what one remembers as laughter, another might recall as longing.
In the end, the past isn’t about proving who’s right.
It’s about honoring that we all remember through the lens of love, loss, and the lives we’ve lived since.

When the Story Meets the Present
Recently, I butted up against this truth in my own life. I found myself in a moment that felt so far from how I remembered it that I couldn’t even recognize the story being told back to me. I was incredulous—almost stunned. I backed away, but if I’m honest, I did it with a heart full of quiet arrogance that likely reflected that, certain that my version was the right one.
Then came the waves—doubt, grief, sadness, anger at myself, anger at others. None of which helped. Spinning in my own self judgment only deepened the ache. In sitting in that ache a deeper longing to understand both the situation and what was my responsibility and what wasn't.
So I did what I’ve learned to do when I lose my footing: I returned to my practices, writing, meditation and, of course, "Remember to Breathe". Because, if I've learned anything from 15 years of studying tantra I've learned that. Everything begins and ends with the breath. And, I reached out to people who could both listen and were willing to tell me the truth even when it's hard to hear. Perhaps, especially when it's the hardest.
What struck me most was a very simple question from a dear friend and teacher,
Why was being right—or even needing to respond—so important to me about something that happened so long ago?
That question landed like a mirror I didn’t want to look into. But it was exactly the one I needed. It forced me to pause and sit with the truth that what I was defending wasn’t the memory itself—it was my identity, the part of me that had a deep longing to be seen and understood.
The mirror was hard, and honestly, it sent me on a deeper and very important quest for the truth within myself.
That same dear friend reminded me of another truth I’d long known but needed to remember: the only behavior I can change is my own. It begins with acknowledging the pain that was felt, admitting that you didn't deserve harshness, and an inquiry into how to repair the damage.
So in the quiet of the Catskill mountains, sitting alone under an open sky, I spoke out loud—not only to the people in my family of origin, but also to my friends, to the mountains themselves, to the creatures that call that place home, to God, and ultimately to myself. I called to the land to hear me, to hold what I could no longer carry in silence.
“I’m sorry you felt that way.
You didn’t deserve to be treated that way.
What can I do to repair our relationship?”
And in the stillness of the land, with the sounds of birds carrying across the hills, I heard a whisper rise up from somewhere deep within—gentle, timeless, and true:
Return to love.

The Teaching Beneath the Story
That whisper reminded me of one of my favorite poems,
“To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be.
The people they’re too exhausted to be any longer.
The people they don’t recognise inside themselves anymore.
The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into.
We so badly want the people we love to get their spark back when it burns out; to become speedily found when they are lost.
But it is not our job to hold anyone accountable to the people they used to be.
It is our job to travel with them between each version and to honour what emerges along the way.
Sometimes it will be an even more luminescent flame.
Sometimes it will be a flicker that disappears and temporarily floods the room with a perfect and necessary darkness.”
― Heidi Priebe

The Thread That Remains
As we we all move toward the later chapters of our life, it is a certainty that the coming years will bring more loss and grief, more joy and pleasure, more tragedy and uncertainty. Our memories and our stories will continue to shift and reshape themselves, because that is what living does—it keeps rewriting us.
What stays constant is that love weaves through all of it.
Through the good times and the bad, the reminiscing and forgetting, the hugs, the screaming at each other, the tears, the laughter, fractured relationships, silence and, through death itself. Love is the current beneath the noise, the force that binds the fragments of our stories into something whole.
And maybe, in generations to come, those mixed memories will only be whispered in the wind—free from the details, just the essence will remain—ruffling the hair of another young woman or man sitting in that same spot in the Catskill Mountains, struggling with their own journey.
And, perhaps if they listen closely, maybe they’ll hear the same quiet response. The truth that wove through me and whispered back to me...

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Through pain, tears, anger, joy, and grief and uncertainty — return to the most powerful energy of all… 
Love
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Dear Bigger Body,
​It takes my breath away how you came in to me the very second I needed you.  Through the most painful and alone part of me you filled me with love that somehow softened the pain.  When the world felt too close you wrapped around me like a warm blanket.  Stroking my broken and wounded body and soul.  Loving me.  Making love to me.  Always there.  Always reminding me that love is always worth the risk.  You loved me silently without expecting or needing love in return.  Even when I expressed hate and shame at your presence you loved me.   And you loved me well.  Always around me.  Always protecting.  Forever weighting.   While I slept and hid you held me.  You outrageously loved me.  And then when I woke to my own beauty you rejoiced.  And now as I’m fully moving into the deep fullness of the pain and profound pleasure I feel you slowly releasing with that same love.  Every day another arm releases with the love that has always been there. Every day I feel my body releasing more.  I love how you continue to outrageously love me in the pleasure and joy.  And I especially love how you are loving me the in the joy and ecstasy of release.  Thank you, dear Fat,  for understanding as I surrender to the wisdom of the Elimination Code within me.  Now as I release that which blocks the flow of my life force, that which no longer serves me living my life with ease and grace.
Roars of Love,
​Jennifer

​Two years ago today I was waking up in Africa. I had 2 more days in Africa and then I would have completed one of the most profound experiences of my life. I met many lovers and teachers in the form of animals and land. And there were losses while I was there as well. My brother died while I was there and I was waking up today knowing I would not go home but I would travel to be with my family to honor his life. Thomas died on Dean's 52nd birthday. Another loss in my life but many years before. There was something oddly perfect that Thomas died on Dean's birthday. I envision that Dean was there to welcome him home. As I'm sure my parents were too. And many other beloveds as well. Death is just another gate into a different phase of our soul. As we say goodbye there are those on the other side of that gate welcoming them home. Africa was amazing and hard and in fact, there were moments that I wondered if I had gone there to die. One particular moment that was physically and emotionally hard comes to mind.
I asked the Shaman that we were working with if I was in fact dying. His response was, "Perhaps you are dying in a way you hadn't considered before". I'll be honest my eyes rolled up and I thought "what the hell is he talking about". And now I understand more what he meant. Parts of me were dying there. The parts that were blocking growth. I realize now that I began the process of letting parts of myself and my story die long before going to Africa. Africa helped me realize that those dying parts that were no longer serving my living a full life.
The year following my trip I felt as though I went into hibernation. It was as though the seeds that were planted in me in the deserts of Zimbabwe and South Africa could grow and flourish. This second year those seeds have grown in me and continue to change me in ways that are painful and so beautiful as well. And I'm discovering in the time since the most profound and important lover and teacher I met in Africa was me.
The quote, "We are the ones we have been waiting for", has been said by many. Barach Obama was one of them. And many have said the Hopi leaders first said the quote. And more recently I read that the actual person that first said it was the poet June Jordan who wrote, ‘We are the ones we have been waiting for.’ in her "Poem for South African Women" which she wrote in 1978. And who knows if she heard it from someone else.
Somehow for me, that feels the most perfect given that I rediscovered a part of myself with the elephants of Zimbabwe and the white lions of South Africa.
Ultimately it doesn't matter who said it first it continues to ring as true every time it is said.
Africa allowed me to feel the fullness and beauty of every life and death. But the most important life and death it allowed me to honor and feel fully was my own.
"We are the ones we have been waiting for" 
 Hopi Elders Prophecy, June 8, 2000


These are just a few of the lovers and teachers I met on that journey
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Today is 34 year to the day since you died.  It was Labor Day that year as well.  September 3, 1984.  34 years without a mother.  Without you. 34 years since I looked into your eyes and felt you stroke my hair.  Actually, the last time you stroked my hair was the day before you died.  I only remembered that a few years ago.  Funny how we seem to forget things that seem so important.  On Saturday you came home from the hospital.  I remember thinking how crazy that was given how ill you were.  I remember sitting in the family room with your doctor that day.  He said there wasn’t anything else he could do and that you wanted to go home.  What was left unsaid was that you wanted to go home to die.  I was so angry at him and you.  I felt like you were giving up, giving in, ending the fight.  But the truth was the fight ended long before that day.
But I was a 20-year-old, angry girl that just wanted to be a normal girl that didn’t have to deal with this crap, didn’t have to face living the rest of my life without you.  I didn’t want to face that my mother, my beautiful brown haired, ponytail wearing, basketball playing mother was dying and was just giving up.  I wanted to run away.  So I did.  I ran to my girlfriend’s house for the day.  But, I had to be back Sunday morning to be with you while dad went to work.  I walked into your room and felt so angry.  I’d like to say that when I saw you that my anger disappeared but it didn’t.  It was still early in the morning so I laid down next to you on the bed.  I wanted to be able to hear you in case I fell asleep.  Which of course, I did.  I woke up to you stroking my head, my hair.  It felt like it was washing away all the anger, all the pain, the guilt. the grief.  And I kept my eyes closed for a long time pretending to sleep.  Pretending I was a little girl again when you would stroke my hair and everything would suddenly be alright.  Pretending I had never been angry at you, that I had never run away, that you weren’t dying.  At that moment we were just mother and daughter again.  A mother, mothering her daughter.  And then I opened my eyes and your big brown eyes were staring into mine as you stroked my hair.  We smiled into each other’s eyes.  It was as though we were the only people left on our own private island, and for a brief moment, everything was ok.   And then the next day you slipped away.  And I remember thinking that I wished that I had kept my eyes closed longer the day before.  If I’d only known that was the last time you would stroke my hair I would have kept them closed so much longer.
I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately.  I feel you so close in the last few weeks.  And as a more mature woman, I realize that lying there with you stroking my hair and looking into your big brown eyes was our goodbye as mother and daughter.  I recognize it now for the gift that it was and still is.
When I was in Africa with the Lions I felt you.  I sat in a group of women with a white lioness and her daughter.  As the lions purred and growled I closed my eyes and took a deep breath and remembered.  As the sounds of their growls filled my body and soul I remembered who I came here to be.  I remembered my inner lioness.  I remembered my lineage. I remembered that we are all ONE.  And I remembered you telling me I was special.  Thank you for being brave enough to tell me I came from the Star People even though I know it scared you. Thank you for helping me find my way home.
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