Reimagine…
“We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old ‘women’, young men, wives, widows…” But always meeting ourselves. -James Joyce
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I have had fun reimagining the story behind my next children’s book. Hirudinea and The Princess Warrior is not coming out until the Fall of 2026 but it is all I can think about right now. I have a gifted project manager AND artist who are also in the thick of it with me. We are matching words with illustrations, editing, rearranging, and brainstorming and I am getting excited to introduce you to both Hirudinea AND the Princess Warrior.
This is a children’s book about change and new beginnings, so I thought April would be a perfect time to share what is going through my brain about it. It is spring in Central Pennsylvania and visible changes are happening everywhere - flowers blooming, temperature warming, birds singing. Life is bursting forth…
My therapist once asked me to find and befriend my “punky” young self, the girl who got shut down as a kid, the one that got shamed and shushed and also got me into trouble when I did speak! I couldn’t find her anymore, let alone get to know her and enjoy her. I waited and waited and the Holy Spirit started sending me stories from childhood where there had been glimmers of that spunky, punky, feisty girl.
As a kid, the summers of play and being held by nature as well as my imagination helped to make my soul large, spacious, and courageous. In the memory I revisit in the book, we were at the creek and the voices “shouting their bad advice” around me were shut out for a while and courage could grow. I began to see bits and pieces of Cynthia and the thrill of my encounter with a leech (Hirudinea) kept sticking with me.
I really did find a leech stuck fast to my ankle and when I asked for help, the boys who were there (including my brother) backed away. I wanted to reimagine a Cynthia finding her strength, her voice, and her power. I wanted to help her discover she mattered and had substance, so in the story, she battles this enemy in a fantastical way. I also added a very real character, Torry, whom was shy and withdrawn when I knew her. We had adventures together but I never asked her what her life was like that made her so quiet and taciturn. I wish I had been like the Cynthia I reimagined as a Princess Warrior. I would have gathered Torry up in a sisterhood as I did in this new book. I wish I'd asked her more questions and that we'd been able to find our words and strength together.
What I see often is people’s unwillingness and resistance to look at their own narrative. As a result, past stories and self are left behind and forgotten, buried. Difficult parts of their stories can be hard to revisit, reimagine, and grieve. When I get to witness friends turning around to be curious about themselves as children, to “meet themselves,” to face the Hirudineas and the ghosts, I am in awe at the changes that can begin to take place in their current life. There is a softening, a curiosity, a kindness, and an opening of their hearts not only to their adult self but to others around them. It is like watching the unfurling of the willow tree leaves in the spring: Green, alive, and breathtaking...pressing their way through the brown branches into the sunlight and swaying in the winds.
As I sat with, wrote, edited, and wrote some more, I began to like this punk of a girl. She grew inside of me and I grieved the loss of her voice as I reimagined what she could have been. She is becoming a good friend and someone I would want by my side…always… I am grateful for that warrior heart “she tucked away for battles yet to come.”
We are all trying to find our voices and to believe what Jesus says: You are BELOVED, you are LOVED. If we knew we were adored and held, imagine what courage we would have to fight battles, tell our stories, and engage in life!
(By the way, Hirudinea is the proper name for class of leech that lives in the area in which we played. I thought a good “enemy” deserved a proper name.)