Set it on Fire

Set it on Fire

Being caught in your anger, I smolder too.

That emotions are contagious is true.

It’s our responsibility to share the best of ourselves

but sometimes we fail.

And I get caught up in it, then am reminded

that a relationship can also be

a workout in patience and the willingness to accept

That I don’t always understand.

 And that many things

change so slowly we cannot perceive the growth.

Last night, I set it on fire.

My anger braided in the knots of our mutual frustrations.

I raked leaves in the dark, giving rise to flames

that waited in the coals for life.

Raking in the dark is wonderful.  You don’t worry

about how much yard is left to clean.  Being blind to the whole task,

you only see the small areas within reach.

Back at the fire pit, the white gray ash

on the cherry trunk appears like aboriginal faces in the dark.

So I left you for a while to go to this place beyond the walls of our home,

the limits of our fenced yard.  This is the only way I leave,

In the mind.

On return, the anger became purified in the flames,

now just residual ash safe enough

to touch, safe enough to carry

on my return home to you.

Setbacks and Diversions, Everything Counts

Je suis malade. This season’s first cold virus has become my teacher.  It’s a setback from which I must observe my life without engaging with my usual gusto and determination.  Retreating to the couch with a thick pile of fleece blankets, the dog hair and dust catches sunbeams while I sip tea and watch yet another French film where everyone smokes and commits suicide.  Ahh, the sound of this language!  The stark naked realism!  I love foreign film.  Perhaps when I’m feeling better I’ll be in the mood for lighter stories, but when I’m down, I like depressed company.

Now this is something I wouldn’t admit during a gathering of home educators, but if I had to name our style of learning I would call it “whimsical.”  We investigate everything that draws our attention, until we’re bored and interested in something else.  I’m comforted by Braver Writer Julie Bogart’s claim that “everything counts.”  This week, we’re into languages.  I requested a pile of audio cd’s from the library so we can sample spoken Spanish, French and German.  Elliot is interested in French, so he’s been listening to a few that are geared for kids.  One of these attempts to teach French through silly songs.  Elliot HATES them.  After listening to one song where Professor Toto repeats “je suis malade” he begged me to never replay it. It is the kind of thing that sticks in your head and replays all day, over and over, annoying you with it’s simple, easily repeatable tune.  I’m sure he’ll never forget it.  But that’s not the way we really want to learn.

Je suis malade.

I tried to write a bit between blowing my nose and sucking on lozenges.  I started a story about a character who is burdened with the keeping of secrets.  I decided that since so much is revealed in confessional type stories, I was just going to describe a life where the secrets would not be revealed, and how the bearing of the unbearable in silence affected life.  We all have an impulse to release something internal that lives in shadow.  I live like this.  I am bound to keep hidden what must remain hidden.

Everything counts.  Even the things we will not reveal.  But the value here is that those secrets carry weight in the mystery.  There’s no reason to be completely naked in writing, just like we are not completely intimate with everyone we encounter on the street.

For now, my dilemma rests here in the keeping of the mysteries.  With no expectation to accomplish anything, while I was sick I was able to move past my biggest writing block that has plagued me for months.  When there is no way not to hurt someone in writing the truth, leave it out and write about the burden of keeping secrets.

~au revoir

Writing Naturally Workshops

It has come into my awareness that over-analyzing a relationship kills the love.  And since that is true for me, I also suspect that over-analyzing the craft of writing kills the stories.  I set out to begin this blog with the craft of writing as the focus, a place to share my work and discuss the back stories of my process.  I’m very curious about how writers write what they do, and what methods or ideas inspire their stories.  However, since my body of work is quite thin, I recognize that I really need to get out of my head in order to write.

And get into my senses.

And come back to life.

This is why Writing Naturally Workshops was the most beneficial experience I’ve had in manifesting my desire to write stories with clarity and feeling.  During the month of October, I joined an online workshop hosted by the beautiful writer Corinne Cunningham, who shared her wisdom and practical tools to dispel the dreaded blocks we all face.  Here is a sample of my work near the end of the course:

Day Five: Hearing
This morning, our family day. No work for Richard and no sales or orders for me. We
shower and go down to the kitchen to make bacon, eggs, toast and coffee. A plan forms: “let’s
take the kayak out on Lake Brandt!” Richard does the dishes and I gather our gear. In twenty
minutes we are gliding on a breezy fall morning, paddling against the windswept waves toward
a small island. We make up a paddling song to the tune of “Take Me Out To the Ball Game.”
Elliot and Richard try out lines to fit the tune. By the time we reach the island, all I can
hear is the sound of our voices singing together and it feels like a vacation from my childhood,
singing in the back of the car on our way up north to go camping.
“Take me out to the water, take me out to the lake! Rent me a paddle and fanny-pack,
I don’t care if I ever get back,
‘cause it’s stroke, stroke, stroke
in a sunbeam,
if we don’t swim it’s a shame!
For it’s one, two three ducks afloat
in the old, green boat!”
I smile at the memory of Elliot’s voice singing away as we float under those sunbeams.
We hear other sounds, the grumpy “CRAWK!” of a Great Blue Heron who is disrupted from his
fishing spot when we get close. Ducks in flight, beating wings. The spashing sploosh of a fish
jumping. Water smashing and exploding on the front of our craft as we break the waves.
We hear questions from Elliot (because this is a school day, after all!) Questions like, what leaf
is this tree from? And this one, and this one? The trees on the shoreline drop papery
sailors on the calm surface, spinning adrift in a floating parade.
Back at home, the silence of the empty house calls for a nap. We have a large sectional in the
living room, but my favorite place to nap is on a fifty dollar plush loveseat, broken in. At five two,
I can stretch out on it with just my feet dangling. I lay down and Richard comes over, shoving
me to the back side. Soon, he’s snoring away and I’m cramped and my feet are falling asleep
under the weight of his arms, my arms falling asleep under the weight of his legs. Funny how a head can’t sleep at the same time the limbs do.
I must have dozed off because I awoke, numb in the extremities to the sight of Elliot
perched above me on the back of the loveseat, laying like a cat on a tree branch.

****

I enjoyed the Writing Naturally workshop for many reasons.  First, it helped me to be comfortable with my impulses to write.  I am a hopeless self-editor.  For every sentence that falls out, I immediately want to scratch it away with my pencil.  As if the thoughts on the inside are not good enough for the open air.  Corinne helped me to be okay with those first impulses, and to work with the good that came through.  To learn more about Writing Naturally, and to experience Corinne’s gorgeous writing, you can visit her at http://www.corinnenoelcunningham.com/

What to write when you’re sick

I have a cold.  I’m using it as an excuse not to write.  The logic behind this is that whatever I write will read like the virus that pins me to the couch.  I’m worried that when I don’t feel good, my sentences sound weak.  Low-down.  Sniffly.

I’ve been working with a line written by Mark Nepo in The Book of Awakenings.  When I say working, what I mean is that I’m thinking about it, trying to let it help me get some real writing and real living done.  The line is “If I experienced it differently, I would have different things to say.”  Nepo addresses a common problem that I share with many of my writerly friends.  He says that in writing his version of the truth, he feels like a bad person for telling things the way they happened.  I am also afraid to hurt someone’s feelings or damage a relationship because of my writing.  Therefore, my pencil balks at the hearty stories I could be growing through and healing from during the process of articulation.  And that is a problem for me, because I want to write about my life.  I want the written version to be more of a complete picture than just the good memories where no one was struggling.

It’s important to write the tough feelings because through those, we get stronger.  For me, not writing is just another way of hiding.  Another way to deny the pain.

Writing for the End

 

This week I had a thrilling writing experience.  I wrote something with the end point in mind, racing with the story until I experienced the satisfaction of the conclusion.  It was an empowering experience and one I hope to repeat.  I’ve often thought about that famous line by Doctorow, the one that says “writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

I used to get some writing done like that.  But the pace was slow and full of doubt.  After my latest writing binge I decided I prefer to drive in the daylight, with a gps and that little checkered flag on the screen.  This piece I wrote was so daring and bold and raw that I’m completely terrified to share it.  And the purpose was to submit it to a literary journal that publishes writing closely aligned with my themes.

I haven’t looked at it for days.  I’m waiting for the emotion to dry so that it’s safe enough for me to touch it with my critical, thinking, judgmental side of the brain.  I wrote this one from right of center, from the heart, with a heavy emphasis on feeling.  It’s seven pages long, too much for a simple article.  I’m going to have to make cuts.

Writing for the end felt like making a touchdown.  After closing my laptop and crawling into bed that night, I felt expansive.  It’s waiting for me to keep working, and I’m excited.

I wonder now if writing a fictional ending will help me create a piece of fiction with that kind of pace.  Have you ever tried this technique?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.