The deep secret in our heart of hearts is that we are writing because we love the world, and why not finally carry that secret out with our bodies into the living rooms and porches, backyards and grocery stores? Let the whole thing flower: the poem and the person writing the poem. And let us always be kind in this world.
-Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones
My friend Sarah lovingly nudged me to read something I’d written in front of the group at LIAV Camp last week. I didn’t plan on it. I was actually originally adamantly against it. I was there to just absorb and observe and meet the world halfway. But she picked up the post-it note that I needed to add my name to the list, and then she delivered it for me. I decided to pick something from the Cancer Chronicles, to make it a tangible ending. I’d never read any of it aloud before…it would be the first time I’d verbalized it. And if it wasn’t for her encouragement I never would have gotten up there to read. I said yes. Thank you Sarah.
photo by Lynn Walsh
Writing is not therapy, though it many have a therapeutic effect. You don’t discover that you write because of lack of love and then quit, as you might in therapy discover that you eat chocolate as a love substitute and, seeing the reason, stop (if you’re lucky) eating Hershey’s chocolate bars and hot fudge. Writing is deeper than therapy. You write through your pain, and even your suffering must be written out and let go of.
In writing class painful things come up – the death of a husband, throwing the ashes of a dead baby into a river, a woman going blind. The students read the pieces they just wrote and I tell them they can cry if they need to but to remember to continue to read. We pause when they are finished and then go on to the next person, not because we ignore their suffering – we acknowledge it – because writing is the aim. It is an opportunity to take the emotions we have felt many times and give them light, color, and a story. We can transform anger into steaming red tulips and sorrow into an old alley full of squirrels in the half light of November.
-Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones
The first thing I was handed when I got to camp was a sticker that said “this is a safe place”…and it was. I barely got through the first paragraph before being unable to talk. And the crowd was clapping and shouting encouragement. And I finished. And it gave my illness light, color and a story. And then I tore up my paper and let the pieces float gently one by one into the trashcan.
Patti Digh opened camp by saying, “I realize what I do is to create open space for people to show up.” I love that. I want to create spaces where people can show up too.
That will be my new and forever mission in life.
This is what I read:
