I was 9 years old when she left the house before her death. We embraced for the last time, and I nestled my head underneath her chin.

The Healing Power of Writing

wake in the dark of the night spun into the intricate web of a nightingale’s song. He’s rehearsing for the approaching spring that lures crocus, daffodils and dandelions out of the ground. It is late April in the wild Montagne Noire mountain range in southern France. The song is still a bit awkward and hesitant, but every night the bird adds more strength and some trills and twiddles to his song. The deep silence between sequences of melodies allows time to catch the echo inside my heart.

The old room is lit by the faint and powdery glint of the waxing moon. My desk leans with its shaky legs against the windowsill; it holds my laptop, the green light on and indicating that it is charging for the day to come. But I will not need it any more because I am leaving this retreat, flying back to the United States tomorrow. On the windowsill stands a row of family pictures that I know by memory but cannot make out in the dark. A dense stillness fills this old house. The year 1643 is chiseled into the stone above the wide red door that opens to a sloping garden in the back that rolls and rumbles through blackberry bushes and grapevines all the way down to the river in a deep valley. The two windows in my room are tall and slim, and I imagine past times when hooded nuns stood there dreaming about life outside the nunnery; for several centuries they lived and died in this building. This rambling stone mansion turned later into an inn and shelter for the travelers who crossed these wild forests. They were eager to reach the fruitful plains of the Languedoc in southern France where grapevines and olives grow. Now the house is called La Muse Inn and serves as a retreat for artists. I am one of them, residing here to bring my memoir to closure. The retreat is nearing the end and so is the work on the manuscript.

The melody of the nightingale swells and recedes like a deep, long heartbeat of the night. I swing around, put my feet on the cold tile floor and walk toward the window. The valley is narrow and black and does not allow for the moonlight to penetrate. I pick up the photograph of my mother and trace her face with my fingers. Lit by faint light, her forehead is high and open as if it exudes brightness from the inside. She was 35 when she died mysteriously and looks so young in this picture that she could be my daughter. I never found out the cause of her death and the secret burdened me.

With the completion of my writing about her life and death, she is fading out of my focus. She was “MOTHER” with capital letters in my life. Through the process of writing over seven years I have untangled myself from my idealizing attachment and freed her to be just a woman. I was 9 years old when she left the house before her death. We embraced and I nestled my head underneath her chin, not knowing it was for the last time. That encounter is carved into my memory and stayed unchanged. My adoration for her was frozen inside a glacier of grief.

Children don’t know how to mourn, so this work waited to be faced as I grew to mature age. Writing about my life with and without her opened the window toward a new relationship between us. I peeled myself out of the tight embrace. My letting go indicated a “betrayal of love” that freed me from the role of daughter. I am no longer in the shelter of our relationship but in fierce conversation with my own life. I feel a sense of exhaustion and exuberance similar to the moment when I gave birth to my first child: the intensity of labor was followed by ecstasy and deep satisfaction. Birth and death are close relatives.

I slip into pants and sweater and tie my boots. Then I place the photograph of my mother in the pocket of my jacket and leave the room on tiptoe. I lift the heavy iron handle of the wooden gate and walk slowly through the sleeping village toward the trail that leads downhill into the valley. I pass the sign with the complicated name of this place: Labastide Esparbairenque. The slanting road crosses the river where the rocks are covered with a heavy carpet of moss.

Tall trees reach with long arms across my path. The nightingale stitches his tunes into the dark of the night and between the whispering of their leaves. A startled cat hurries into the dark bushes. The earth exhales a rusty smell of rotten leaves from last year. I get a first inkling of an indescribable lightness and freedom. An inner hum of delight is purring and inviting me all over again into my love affair with life.

I sit where the moss provides a pillow. I take the photograph of my mother, Isolde, out of the frame and hold it in my open hands. She smiles as I let her listen to the sounds that weave through the dark: the song of the bird, the whispers of the water and the faint rustle of young leaves. And there is another sound inside me: the sound of a bell of grief that slows down its weighty movement and finally comes to rest where the momentum is balanced and quiet.

I lean forward toward the river and let the picture of the woman Isolde float away. The water grabs her and twirls her around, and then it carries her smile across the smooth rocks and toward the meadows and wide plains of Languedoc, where grapevines and olives grow.





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I was 9 years old when she left the house before her death. We embraced for the last time, and I nestled my head underneath her chin. The Healing Power of Writing wake in the dark of the night spun into the intricate web of a nightingale’s song. He’s rehearsing for the approaching spring that lures crocus, daffodils and dandelions out of the ground. It is late April in the wild Montagne Noire mountain range in southern France. The song is still a bit awkward and hesitant, but every night the bird adds more strength and some trills and twiddles to his song. The deep silence between sequences of melodies allows time to catch the echo inside my heart. The old room is lit by the faint and powdery glint of the waxing moon. My desk leans with its shaky legs against the windowsill; it holds my laptop, the green light on and indicating that it is charging for the day to come. But I will not need it any more because I am leaving this retreat, flying back to the United States tomorrow. On the windowsill stands a row of family pictures that I know by memory but cannot make out in the dark. A dense stillness fills this old house. The year 1643 is chiseled into the stone above the wide red door that opens to a sloping garden in the back that rolls and rumbles through blackberry bushes and grapevines all the way down to the river in a deep valley. The two windows in my room are tall and slim, and I imagine past times when hooded nuns stood there dreaming about life outside the nunnery; for several centuries they lived and died in this building. This rambling stone mansion turned later into an inn and shelter for the travelers who crossed these wild forests. They were eager to reach the fruitful plains of the Languedoc in southern France where grapevines and olives grow. Now the house is called La Muse Inn and serves as a retreat for artists. I am one of them, residing here to bring my memoir to closure. The retreat is nearing the end and so is the work on the manuscript. The melody of the nightingale swells and recedes like a deep, long heartbeat of the night. I swing around, put my feet on the cold tile floor and walk toward the window. The valley is narrow and black and does not allow for the moonlight to penetrate. I pick up the photograph of my mother and trace her face with my fingers. Lit by faint light, her forehead is high and open as if it exudes brightness from the inside. She was 35 when she died mysteriously and looks so young in this picture that she could be my daughter. I never found out the cause of her death and the secret burdened me. With the completion of my writing about her life and death, she is fading out of my focus. She was “MOTHER” with capital letters in my life. Through the process of writing over seven years I have untangled myself from my idealizing attachment and freed her to be just a woman. I was 9 years old when she left the house before her death. We embraced and I nestled my head underneath her chin, not knowing it was for the last time. That encounter is carved into my memory and stayed unchanged. My adoration for her was frozen inside a glacier of grief. Children don’t know how to mourn, so this work waited to be faced as I grew to mature age. Writing about my life with and without her opened the window toward a new relationship between us. I peeled myself out of the tight embrace. My letting go indicated a “betrayal of love” that freed me from the role of daughter. I am no longer in the shelter of our relationship but in fierce conversation with my own life. I feel a sense of exhaustion and exuberance similar to the moment when I gave birth to my first child: the intensity of labor was followed by ecstasy and deep satisfaction. Birth and death are close relatives. I slip into pants and sweater and tie my boots. Then I place the photograph of my mother in the pocket of my jacket and leave the room on tiptoe. I lift the heavy iron handle of the wooden gate and walk slowly through the sleeping village toward the trail that leads downhill into the valley. I pass the sign with the complicated name of this place: Labastide Esparbairenque. The slanting road crosses the river where the rocks are covered with a heavy carpet of moss. Tall trees reach with long arms across my path. The nightingale stitches his tunes into the dark of the night and between the whispering of their leaves. A startled cat hurries into the dark bushes. The earth exhales a rusty smell of rotten leaves from last year. I get a first inkling of an indescribable lightness and freedom. An inner hum of delight is purring and inviting me all over again into my love affair with life. I sit where the moss provides a pillow. I take the photograph of my mother, Isolde, out of the frame and hold it in my open hands. She smiles as I let her listen to the sounds that weave through the dark: the song of the bird, the whispers of the water and the faint rustle of young leaves. And there is another sound inside me: the sound of a bell of grief that slows down its weighty movement and finally comes to rest where the momentum is balanced and quiet. I lean forward toward the river and let the picture of the woman Isolde float away. The water grabs her and twirls her around, and then it carries her smile across the smooth rocks and toward the meadows and wide plains of Languedoc, where grapevines and olives grow.

	Shanti with her mother, 1945.