photo by Lara Herscovitch
I was invited recently to spend four days with other writers and artists. Part of the time will be reflecting about current and future identities, goals, and dreams.
My nervous system lit up with excitement. And being a perfectionist, also froze with fear.
I know that excitement and being scared often arrive as twins when something is genuinely aligned with who you’re becoming.
I’m holding that question in this kind of spring time — who do I want to be now? And what AM I going to do about that?
I’ve been reflecting on my journey — as a veteran, a queer person, a cult survivor, a sister, a friend, a lover, a mother, an athlete, a maiden and a crone, an organizer, an artist and a writer.
Each identity has its own separate gravity, its own separate mythology. Which has left parts of me longing to be whole and integrated within my full being.
I realized recently that it is art and writing that seems to be the only place spacious enough to hold them all. Art has become my path to spirituality.
Art stands where religious abuse once stood.
Art is my way of moving through time, space, and the many selves I carry.
Through art, I shift between my many selves.
My core values are wonder and creativity; they show up in my community work, in my healing journey, and in my art and writing.
In my community work, Art led my curating Common Ground: What Matters Is the Dream — a youth‑driven space for expression and sustainability that ultimately became the catalyst for my lifelong thesis work. It explores how urban neighborhoods, especially in New Haven, can be reimagined through social sustainability, participatory design, and community‑generated data.
I imagine collaborative, creative interventions — art, music, theater, spoken word — staged at the literal intersections of neighborhoods. This is tactical urbanism as radical integration: communities confronting and reshaping public space together. How we experience shared spaces and imagine, collectively, a public realm designed for healing and liberation.
And Art is leading me in making sense of the distinct pieces of my history and identity. (hello, my name is Ray and I am a writer.)
I’m writing a lot lately, processing all that’s happening in the world and in my own healing. I am being called by my intuition to write in the form of historical memoir, of my experience in the military and healing through the arts.
The overall journey is toward “Dawning,” learning what each separate piece remembers. Each chapter excavates a different fragment –including the parts I’ve hidden, the mess of my contradictions, the unfinished parts that ache for the shape of what’s still missing: connection, unburdening, healing and harmony — ultimately, to full self.
It’s a story about reclaiming my full personhood through the very pieces that once felt broken. Confronting the parts I’d hidden, others I abandoned, still others I feared would make me unlovable.
But what if the parts I thought were too messy, too painful, too scattered… are exactly what I’m made of and strong because of?
Each discovery brings a Dawning clarity: identity isn’t a single, seamless ray of light — it’s a spectrum of remembered, forgotten, and evolving selves. Together, the pieces of self and rays of light finally break through the negative space of leaves and branches.
I am aware that a process of becoming takes time. It is critical for me to be thoughtful of what and whom I give my attention to, and when. So I’m quieting the perfectionist voice of fear, and listening to the Artist’s voice of excitement.
To being fractured, to being found, and to being whole.
Learn more about Rachel via their website
To reach Rachel directly: rdgilroy@gmail.com