Seven years ago the four of us sat in our new living room talking. My husband and I had just had dinner with our longtime friends and counselors, Tracy and Mark Johnson. I’m not sure how it got brought up, but we were talking about how much I love writing and how much (since becoming a mom) it had taken a backseat to all of the other chores and duties of my new life.
“Why aren’t you one of my writers?” Tracy asked.
This was the first time she had heard that I even liked writing. I shrugged my shoulders, nervous but hopeful.
“You should write for Red Tent,” Tracy continued.
And that’s how it began.
I began by writing a one-off submission, but in August 2021, I became a regular contributor. Having a deadline (which I always missed by at least a day or two, if not a week) helped me to prioritize writing in the midst of the chaos that is my life with (now) four little boys.
Over time, a process developed. I always had to write twice. The first piece was almost always “not quite it.” It was the easy story or the ugly story. The story my heart and mind needed to write to get to the real true story. The first story always took me days if not weeks to write. The second story came in hours or a day at most. The second story was the story I needed someone else to read and hold with me. The story I needed to process.
I have been in counseling for years, and I wouldn’t trade it, but I can’t describe the deep inner work that writing for Red Tent Living has provided. Some things I proudly published with my name attached, reposting them for all to see. Some things I wrote anonymously, praying I hadn’t shared too many details to reveal my identity. Some things I wrote and chose to never publish when the subject matter was too raw or too current. Others I wrote and never sent, a million first drafts and unfinished thoughts and musings strewn across a page. There was such beautiful safety in having options. There wasn’t a need to hide. I could be fully transparent, knowing that only two people would ever read a piece of work I wrote anonymously knowing it was mine. There was so much freedom in not having to pretend or placate or people please.
I started to become reacquainted with myself through writing.
In many ways I think I met the real me for the first time. Writing was also how I didn’t completely lose myself in motherhood and mess. The words that came out gently nudged at pieces of myself I kept hidden, pieces I was scared to expose, pieces that needed tending and care and cultivation. And all of those pieces, all of those words, were met with kindness, gentleness, solidarity, empathy, and attunement.
Every late story I submitted was met with a kind word, a word of knowing, an utterance of “me too” from our editor. We all need that. Someone to see the parts of us that no one else sees and to say, “Yes, I get it. You’re not too much, you’re enough, your story struck a chord, I’m sorry that happened to you, I wish it was different, I wish there was more, I’m glad for you, I’m sad for you, I mourn with you, I rejoice with you.”
I hope everyone has this opportunity whatever the forum and medium may be: writing, singing, dancing, acting, speaking, painting, sculpting, exercising, hiking, traveling, canoeing, repelling. A place or space where you can come as you are without fear of judgment and work out what it means to be fully you in all of your intricacy and eccentricity because we all deserve that.
Red Tent has been that for me: a community of women writers and readers holding space as we worked out what it meant to be writers, to be women, to be ourselves. I am grateful for how it has molded and changed me. I will miss it in this iteration, but just like we all grow and age and change, Red Tent Living is changing too. What this will look and feel like, I do not know, but I am excited to bear witness.
Lyndsey Amen Ribble lives in San Antonio with her husband and four sons (aged 5,4, 2 and 2 mos). She loves reading, writing, traveling, food (cooking it, eating it, taking pictures of it…), wine, hole in the wall anything, and forming community in unexpected places. She has a heart for bringing restoration to broken people and loving the unloved. She writes about all of these things and attempting to find balance at inlamensterms.com.
I am so thankful to have gotten to know you through this space, online and then in person.
“The words that came out gently nudged at pieces of myself I kept hidden, pieces I was scared to expose, pieces that needed tending and care and cultivation.“ This is an incredible piece of work. Thank you!
Thank you. That is just exactly what Red Tent has been. All blessings to you.
We are all better for having had you in our midst. Your signature honesty, that came in that second story again and again has been such a wonderful gift inviting us all to show the same courage. Thank you for saying yes that night in your living room.
Lyndsey, I don’t know how to say it, other than–It has been an honor. An honor to hold your stories, to read your words, to be trusted with them, to learn from you, and to witness your beauty, your wisdom, your life. I love your kind wish for all of us gathered here in the Red Tent to find other safe “places and spaces” where we can come to be seen, heard, and known. Thank you.