Army of Ink Trouble With Leaving

 

The trouble with leaving….

Footnote:  Often the girls arrive with a whole pile of questions. And from the sorting, comes a degree of clarity, direction and understanding.  Questions are like openings…. Where’s she going?  Is she leaving?… Or going? … Taking off… To where?  Moving on …or getting away?  Are these actions all the same or are there subtle differences?  What’s holding her back?  Keeping her there?

Is it a tug-of- war?  Who’s doing the pulling?  Is the dress being caught symbolic of her being caught in the dress and all it represents – and the need to change?  Or just caught up in something right now?  Maybe her escape is to slip out of the dress (and the tug) and put on something more appropriate for where she wants to go – who she wants to be.  Maybe it’s time to shed something in order to be able to move?

The straps?

….They look like a gentleman’s braces, perhaps hinting at being suppressed by authority or authoritarian figures?  A gentleman’s braces – holding his pants (and his reputation) up?  But alas, they are elastic so her escape from all that’s confining her, holding her back, trapping her could be easier to break free from that it seems. Maybe the box itself is resisting her move away?  Maybe she’s just going to have to take all that belongs to her with her rather than trying to fight it and make it go away?  After all we are the sum of our experiences, good and bad.   And if we accept them, give them a place and find meaning in our own history we can then use what we’ve gained, what we have, to travel forward into our future?