"In the Heart of Trauma" by Arlene Mandell
— This became my strategy—and my problem.
“Be afraid but do it anyway.”
Arlene Mandell lives in Linville, North Carolina, and is proud to celebrate her tenth year as an artist at the distinguished Carlton Gallery in Banner Elk. A native New Yorker and Head Start teacher, relocating with Captain Dan to the Blue Ridge Mountains, ignited a love of writing. Her “6-minute Stories” podcasts include: “Eye of the Dolphin,” “Artist Borne,” “Gobsmacked in the Gulfstream,” “Renegade Daughter,” “It Started with a Typo,” “Shopping for the Homeless,” “Thirteen Candles in the Dark,” “The Promise of Romance,” and “At 5 and 95, Mother Was a Star.”
Author’s Talk
Arlene Mandell
A favorite poet of mine, Robert Frost, wrote: “The best way out is always through.” I respectfully beg to differ with poet Frost. It may not be the best way for everyone; it was the right way for me. I lovingly dedicate this story to those along the waypoints of my life whose skills in their chosen field—interlaced with courage and compassion—helped guide my footsteps through.
The following words from Brene Brown’s “Manifesto of the Brave and Brokenhearted” pulled me like a magnet into the writing of this story: “…we are the authors of our lives…we choose owning our stories of struggle…we write our own daring endings…showing up is our power…story is our way home…truth is our song.”
A loud and clear shout-out to my high-spirited, redheaded Okie cousin, Carol Stahl, who volunteered 27 years of her life nurturing people like me, caught in the web of trauma.
On a jubilant note, at 82 I now celebrate my tenth year as a portrait artist at the elegant and colorful Carlton Gallery in Banner Elk, NC—the culmination of a dream that sprouted in the 1960s and which begins this podcast, “…when I was 25 and a budding artist…”—Arlene Mandell
