A beacon of hope. Deb Kline's heart-wrenching and soul-giving true story, offers a love letter to kindred incest and rape survivors, a guidebook to those who love and care for them, and a powerful vicarious experience to help us all empathize with the plight of one in four girls and one in six boys.  Out of deep wounding, the author emerges a healer by courageously trekking inward, dodging monsters in her psyche, and stumbling downward into the shadows of forgotten trauma. There, she unearths dark family secrets. Her adult life shatters into chaos when these childhood memories resurface.  During this chaos, Deb rediscovers what she had learned in order to survive-that artistry is soul medicine. Music, poetry, dance and art, her heart's compositions become her healing balm.  Captivating, devastating, perceptive, and life affirming, Forgetting to Remember exposes the intimate damage of trauma and embodies the triumphant human spirit. As Nancy Jones, PhD, Director Emeritus, Writing Resource Center, University of Iowa College of Law, puts it, "If you ever wanted evidence that artistry can heal, look no further than Deb Kline's Forgetting to Remember. The story tells Kline's path from incest and rape-with all the brokenness and shattered sense of herself that this abuse wrought-towards the wholeness that years of increasing self-awareness and work with professionals in western and eastern medicine make possible. The narrative itself is riveting, but more arresting is the sheer beauty of the story's form, and of the sentences that, through sophisticated metaphors and stylistic shapes, catch readers up in lyricism.... Kline has turned her story into art, enfolding herself in art's healing powers, and taking readers along for the illuminating and transcendent ride."  

Contents

I remember black

Prologue 7

Do you know what a little girl said to me?

Introduction 11

Section I

The Remembered and Forgotten Childhood

Raggedy Ann

1. A Not So Uncommon Occurrence 21

She waits under stone

2. Denial is Stronger than Memory 47

And the faster the world spins...

3. Joyride 59

A cold, dark room

4. The Shadow Monster 87

Section II

My Normal Family with Abnormal Me

Mirror, mirror on the wall

5. What is Wrong with Me? 95

Stuck on a music box

6. The Heart of a Musician             103

I Lurk as the Loch Ness Monster

7. Coming of Age 121   

Here she comes now

8. Cinnamon & Dawn 133

But there were birthday cakes

9. On a Given Sunday 141

Hazel's Lamp

10. My Twin Soul 151

As time went on we stumbled

11. A Rudderless Young Adulthood 167

Section III

Exposed to the Light

There's something new

12. Happily Ever After 207

Once she forgot to remember

13. Forgetting to Remember  235

My porcupine tongue

14. Anger: My Superpower 249

I will sow seeds of self-nurturing

15. Grounding and Ungrounding 265

I am sitting

16. The Wounded Healer 295

I have faith in an embracing universe 

17. A Time to Thrive 311

Every little piece of me is in every little piece of you

Afterward: 

Healing Potential Abounds 329

Memorial Shells

Acknowledgments:   

With Thanks, Praise, and Gratitude 339