Journals Unraveled: November 10th, 2020
By: Becca Tillinghast
Tags: Personal Growth, Identity, Parenthood, Journal, Yoga Teacher

Photo by Mārtiņš Zemlickis on Unsplash

A previous me on a previous day wrote in a journal: “I feel like a unicorn and not in the good way. The one that no one actually ever finds because she was never really real. Never a real girl or a real woman. Never a real mom or a real writer or a teacher or a student. Definitely not a real daughter, sister or wife. I feel like without something to attach myself to, I’ll simply disintegrate.”

The power of identity has always had a hold on me.

I stood in the snow with my toddler yesterday in upstate New York. We drove 14 hours to get here. Through the night to allow for the kids to sleep and to have a no contact road trip during these dicey times, peeing in bushes by the highway at rest stops avoiding germy bathrooms and the threat of Covid-19.

My small child attempted to stomp through the foot of snow New York received earlier this week, wearing the puffy jacket that took ten full minutes to squeeze his mitten clad hands into. We came upon a tree, bark peeling in intricate patterns littering the pristine snowy surface.

I’ve been known to hug trees, a “hippie” at heart and I encourage my children to do the same. Thank these beautiful giants for their multitude of provisions. Watching the way the bark had peeled off and scattered along the ground was unsettling. Had it been hurt by an animal? A disease? Was it a natural shedding process? I’m not a tree expert or a human expert for that matter but the display churned my deep curiosity. My unsuspecting toddler had moved on, fallen face first in the snow and was shouting his displeasure to the rooftops. I moved on too, a dutiful parent. Children are here, after all, to remind us not to ponder anything for too long.

A blog from 2017 on a tree care service website told me: “Just as leaves fall from certain trees, bark can fall as well. Some trees go through a natural shedding process as it grows. Layers of bark thicken and force old, dead bark away from the trunk. This may happen subtly or in more noticeable pieces, especially during the winter.”

Of late, I have added a new layer of identity bark to my ever expanding trunk. I’ve gone on to Instagram and Facebook and Medium and whatever other sites offer places to reduce yourself to a 3 sentence bio, and have deemed myself a writer. I wrote an article last month that by some magic was published on a big online parenting platform. And, yes, it felt good. It wasn’t until this moment however, that I’d even considered using the word “writer” as part of my identity. Even though I have been writing almost every day for the better part of 20 years. It’s amazing how we sometimes need strangers to tell us who we are.

I love identities. They’re easy. They allow people to see you as something obvious, riding the glories of your accomplishments through the eyes of people who might never know the otherwise uglier undertones. Identities can elevate us, providing us with the confidence we seek from the infinite audiences of our lives.

At age 10 I was a gymnast; flexible, strong, competitive, and disciplined.

At age 30, I became a mother; patient, nurturing, and a steady provider.

At 33, a yoga instructor; balanced, peaceful, meditative, and in tune.

Of course these are hardly the whole picture, and sometimes not the picture at all. But the portrayal of these traits along with an obvious title, make for easy conversation and social acceptance. Protection from the messy display of everything underneath.

The peeling tree doesn’t move, it is still, sitting in the snowy forest on the edge of my in-law’s property. It can’t run away or hide. It can’t wear a disguise and mascaraed as a pond or a creek or a rock. Strategically it sheds important parts of itself. The new growth underneath discarding what it no longer needs to thrive. No one sees the pieces fall, yet they are lying on the ground in the dozens, the tree temporarily exposed.

I imagine myself in mountain pose teaching a yoga class. Taking that moment to settle in with my students, asking them to connect body to breath and feel the intention of their presence in this very spot. It’s been nearly ten months since I’ve last taught a class, but the yoga teacher identity holds strong. It’s one of the more natural ones I’ve adopted over the years, feeling like a piece of home in my heart. I picture 12 people standing on a rainbow of mats, eyes closed gently swaying in a dimly lit room. 12 trees in the snowy forest. Together, but alone in meditation. Breathing in we invite new particles of life into our cells. Breathing out we shed a defining fragment, something truer underneath banishing our labels, scrutinies, and self preservations. Maybe we can exist like this for a while, a little less encumbered, alone in the quiet forest where no one sees the first layer fall.