Secrets of the Self – becoming a warrior by Alysse Aallyn

Resistance –

It’s a different challenge coming in to oneself in a large family. I’ve never been certain since which part of me is my real self and which part is my sisters. Certainly the push-pull with my 18 month older sister Genevieve had a significant effect on me. You could argue that she forced me to become a warrior, in order to resist her.

Genevieve was a natural leader – she rewarded complicity and punished rebellion. The escapades I adventured on with her – stringing the entire house with yarn like a maze, filling the kitchen with sand – were enormous fun, even though they got us into trouble. But I often wanted to be alone and discovered that if I climbed into the highest branches of the cooper beech I could read peacefully. No one could get at me there.

Reader of Trees

I was the only one who knew your bark

Was better than your bite

I could resist you there

Climbing higher just to

Become myself

Dragging books into branches

Like a jaguar storing prey – fairy tales –
The Iliad –
Egyptian magic –
That was how it started

Even during thunderstorms that

Shook me to my core

I resisted you by

Refusing to come down.