For the past 12 years, I’ve been writing a book about secrets – my spy dad’s and mine. Every day that I wrote, I was immersed in feelings. Love. Sadness. Fear. Lots of that. But I just kept doing it – kept sitting with memories, doubts, and questions. I had so many questions. About my dad and the CIA, about coups and dictatorships and a million other things. I researched, traveled, interviewed people (including my dad), and wrote. I wrote and wrote and wrote. The pile of journals in this photo represents just a fraction of the pages I filled. This project feels like a lifetime. It engulfed me in a crazy mix of uncertainty and hope, and it made my father extraordinarily real to me, realer even than growing up, when I would find him eating Doritos and watching SNL. Now the book is done and I am at a loss. You could call it “letting go” or “transitioning” but I don’t know what it is or what to call it. I just know that I’m going through it. Still, I marvel that I did it – wrote into material that took me through my mother’s death again and again, took me into my fears about speaking out and breaking the spy family code of silence, and took me through so much human sadness. My own and the world’s. But what stuns me most is the way writing became its own path and how the path it created led me to healing. It is what I hoped for but was never sure of when I started 12 years ago. I am finally here – wherever here is. It feels like a miracle. The starting and the finishing. And everything in between.
I am so very proud of you, Leslie, and looking forward to reading of your journey.
Thank you Kenda for your support and enthusiasm for my work. It means so much to me.
So moving to witness your beautiful journey! ❤️💙💚💜
Alison, your help and friendship are a huge part of this journey. Thank you, thank you!
You stuck with it for 12 years! That takes courage and commitment. I hope you enjoy whatever the next step of the journey brings. I feel lucky to have read big parts of it.
Thanks so much for your support through out this process. And for your friendship!
This post and image bring back memories of your journals stored in my Medford garage, all those memories waiting patiently until you were ready to sink yourself back into them. I’ve been awed to watch you so bravely find your way along that path all those years. It’s inspiring and an honor to witness all you’ve explored, honored, expressed and realized. You amaze me, my dear friend. XO
Thank you for storing them way back when! Your friendship has sustained me and I’m grateful.
Brava! I can’t wait to read this and follow you on your journey
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Thank you!