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For the Week of January 26, 2014: One Word: Heart

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on January 26, 2014 | 8 Comments »

For the better part of this month, I’ve been trying to come up with the single word that will guide my writing and daily my life, in 2014.  It’s a practice introduced to me by two of my writing buddies over a year ago, one they have shared for several years, and one I embraced wholeheartedly, as did the other two members in our monthly writing group.  There was something elegant and, in a real way, more honest, about choosing a single, meaningful word than making a list of resolutions (as I used to do), ones that often disappeared in a cloud of good intentions, by late February.

Here’s how it works:  at our first meeting of the New Year, we each bring our word and, one by one, share it and the reason for its choice.  It’s not something one does easily.  This year, as last, I agonized for days, consulting my dictionary, thesaurus, and favorite poems, hoping a word would suddenly be illuminated, virtually leaping off the page and saying, “Choose me.  Choose me.”  None did.

It was only as I was playing with our dog, a lovable but very neurotic toy poodle, that inspiration struck.  That’s the way the muse works, actually, sneaking up on us when we least expect it, but only after we’ve done the work to be ready for her arrival.  As Kramer cavorted at my feet, I burst into song (yes, I admit it, I dreamed of being a hit singer in my pre-pubescent years, and even now, a candlestick sometimes doubles as a microphone).  “You’ve gotta’ have heart,” I sang, startling the dog.  He backed away, staring at me as I belted out the lyrics, still remembered, from many years ago.

All you really need is heart

When the odds are sayin’

You’ll never win

That’s when a grin

Should start…

(From the 1955 musical comedy, by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop, music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross)

I had my word, “heart.”  It has particular significance for me, not the least being the implanted device in my chest, a reminder of the day my heart actually failed five years ago.  It’s also a word I often use in my writing workshops. “Write from the heart,” I frequently say when someone asks, “but what do I write about?”

I routinely begin with an  image of a heart on the first day of my annual summer class, “Writing as a Healing Ministry,” at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley.  Now, it seemed,  it was my turn.  I consulted my thesaurus once again.  This time, I swear the word “heart” was practically glowing.  I scanned the list of meanings physical organ, emotions, compassion, enthusiasm, center, essence—and familiar usages like “by heart,” “do one’s heart good,” “ have a heart,”  “eat your heart out,” “take heart,” even “heartache.”  It is an extraordinarily rich word, and one that applies to my writing–the writing that matters to me the most–and to my life.

You’ve gotta have heart

Miles ‘n miles n’ miles of heart

Oh, it’s fine to be a genius of course

But keep that old horse

Before the cart

First you’ve gotta have heart…

This past Friday, our first meeting of the New Year, each of my writing friends shared their word and why they’d chosen it.  In every case, the words were as much about the way in which we wanted to live our lives this year as it was about our writing.  Our words led us into deeper waters as we talked, the territory beneath the water line that is so important to explore as a writer, the things that matter most to us and why.  All from one single word.

After we adjourned, I returned to my office and opened up the small two-inch by three-inch frame that’s held the image of my 2013 choice, “rewrite,” and replaced it with the picture of a small red heart on a blue background.  It sits to the left of my keyboard where, as I work, I glance at it multiple times a day, reminding me of author Judith Campbell’s oft-repeated quote, “When your heart speaks, take good notes.”  That’s my intent, staying on course, writing about and focusing on what truly matters in life, giving my heart at least equal time with my head!

This week, why not choose one word that holds meaning for you?  Then begin with that one word and write for 20 minutes.  Explore the meanings, memories, even the images that spring to mind.  You might even share your word choice and what it means for you in the comment section of this blog.  Or, do as my friends and I do.  Frame or post your word where you can see it on a daily basis.  Let it remind you of your intentions for this New Year.

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For the Week of January 19, 2014: The Chapters of Your Life

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 19, 2014 | 1 Comment »

I called my friend, C. a few days ago to tease him about his upcoming birthday.  Was he going to celebrate in a memorable way? I asked. After all, this year marks the beginning of a new decade, and one that deserves some recognition.  “Besides,” I joked, “I’m so much younger than you are, and I called to see how my old friend,” emphasizing the word, “old,” is doing.  We had a good laugh.  The truth is I can only call myself younger than him for six months, but it’s our standing joke.  We’ve been friends since high school and shared each other’s different life chapters for several decades now, including the joys and sorrows, graying of hair and stiffening of joints—the inevitable signs of aging both of us would like to forget.

We’ve also shared something else:  cancer.  A different kind of chapter, an unwelcome and unexpected one, where one’s sense of mortality, of the certainty of the life we thought we knew, changed and for a time, we were propelled into unwelcome fears of the outcome—and a greater appreciation for the life we each enjoy.

It’s true for all of us.  Any unexpected hardship, life-threatening illness or loss thrusts us into new and unfamiliar territory, into a different chapter of life than the one we thought we were living.  “The knowledge you’re ill…” Anatole Broyard wrote “is one of the momentous experiences of life” (in Intoxicated by My Illness and Other Writings on Life & Death, 1993).  So momentous, in fact, it sometimes overshadows everything that came before it

I witness, year in and year out, the shock, pain and yet, resilience, of men and women who are living with cancer.  It’s a momentous and overwhelming chapter of life, and for some, the final chapter,  And yet, I think of so many who, facing their final months of life, do not, in the end, let cancer define them.  Novelist Alice Hoffman, writing about her cancer experience, remembered the wisdom offered to her by her oncologist:

An insightful, experienced oncologist told me that cancer need not be a person’s whole book, only a chapter. Still, novelists know that some chapters inform all others. These are the chapters of your life that wallop you and teach you and bring you to tears, that invite you to step to the other side of the curtain, the one that divides those of us who must face our destiny sooner rather than later. (New York Times, August 14, 2000).

Cancer need not be a person’s whole book, only a chapter.   I’ve quoted Hoffman innumerable times because she reminds us that although our lives are often turned inside out by cancer—or any other life threatening illness–it is not who we are.  Cancer is not our identity.  I think of A., one of the writers in my Scripps groups, who often said, “I may have cancer, but it doesn’t have me.”  Her spirit and determination to live as fully as possible for whatever time she had remaining inspired us all.

But cancer changes us.  As sociologist and cancer survivor Arthur Frank said, “Being ill is just another way of living…but by the time we have lived through it, we are living differently” (in At the Will of the Body; Reflections on Illness, 2002).  Who we are, truly, is revealed as we confront a life threatening illness like cancer.   Our uniqueness, our humanity, is more apparent when illness strips any pretense away.

In the weekly meetings of my cancer writing groups, I witness the struggle, sorrow, vulnerability and courage among the individuals who attend.  For a time, cancer dominates what gets written, but gradually—and this is a sign of healing, of becoming whole—other chapters of life begin to be expressed.

I remember P., a member of the Stanford group, who struggled valiantly with an aggressive cancer that ultimately took her life.  Yet as the months wore on and her cancer spread, she wrote less about cancer and more about all she had lived and endured.  It was an act of bearing witness to her life—and being witnessed by those of us in the group.  Raised in Sri Lanka, she had endured unimaginable hardship during the civil war, but after coming to the U.S., found freedom, academic success and love.  Her stories revealed the depth of her courage and a legacy of life that would live well beyond her death.  Everyone felt a deeper appreciation for who she was—not a cancer patient, but a remarkable young woman whose life was a testament to her courage and resilience.

 Cancer wallops us, brings us to tears, but it teaches us, just as the other chapters of life have taught us something about ourselves.  If I look back over my life, my chapters are less defined by decades and more by those events—difficult, challenging, and momentous—that taught me something deep and lasting about myself.

In a short poem, “Autobiography in Five Short Chapters, “Portia Nelson creates a humorous, yet insightful, brief portrait of her life.

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

Chapter 1

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost … I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter 2

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter 3

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Chapter 4

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter 5

I walk down another street.

           (From:  There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk: The Romance of Self Discovery, Atria Books, 1994)

Consider the chapters of your life.  Suppose you were asked to write a book proposal for an autobiography of your life.  One of the elements to include is an outline of chapters you envision for the entire book.  Make your outline.  Give each chapter a title.  Then try writing a short autobiography in the style of Portia Nelson’s or, if you prefer, choose just one chapter and describe the event that defines it.  What did you learn from it?  Your stories are your legacy, evidence of the life you’ve lived, who you were then and, as you reflect, how you became the person you are now.  Besides, if you don’t tell your story, who will?

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For the Week of January 12, 2014: The Art of Losing

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Ah, when to the heart of man

Was it ever less than a treason

To go with the drift of things,

To yield with a grace to reason,

And bow and accept the end

Of a love or a season?

(From:  “Reluctance,” by Robert Frost, 1913)

It began with my misplacing a book.  I’d been re-reading The Poetry Home Repair Manual, a down-to-earth and practical approach to writing poetry by Ted Kooser.   I’ve had the book for several years, and periodically, I return to it when I feel the need to overcome the nagging voice of my internal critic, most vociferous whenever I attempt to write poetry.  Of all the genres I read and enjoy, poetry is what I love most.  But as you might expect, I am my own worst critic.

But that’s not the point of this post.  The thing is, I thought I’d lost Kooser’s book in a flurry of house cleaning before guests arrived.  I hate to admit it, but when I’m rushing about, I sometimes toss the odd thing in the trash without realizing it.  For a few days, the mystery of the book’s disappearance was little more than a niggling question that only surfaced fleetingly.  Now and then I’d scan my bookshelves.  Kooser’s was not to be found.

But I’d been losing things for days.  Overloaded with deadlines, appointments and necessary errands, I managed to misplace my car keys, tickets to a film, even one—not two—wool sock that I slip on when I awaken.  I was preoccupied with all I had to do, but the mounting number of daily “losses” made me feel bonkers.  Then yesterday, enjoying some respite from my demanding schedule, I found it:  the missing book, buried among the “P” section of my bookshelf instead of “K,” for Kooser.

“Get used to it,” my husband said as I pranced around the room, overjoyed at solving the mystery of my missing book.  “You’ll lose a lot more as you get older.”  He’s right, of course, but I prefer not to think about it unless forced to.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

 

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

(From:  “One Art,” by Elizabeth Bishop The Complete Poems 1926-1979)

The art of losing…  It’s not just age or the little everyday losses we all experience, but throughout our lifetime, bigger ones, harder to let go of:  love, friends, family members, jobs, our health, even faith or hope.

I thought back to a writing group of several years ago. A dozen people, all living with cancer, were seated around the table, notebooks open as I offered the first writing exercise, a short “warm-up”, something I always do at the beginning of a workshop.

“What’s on your mind this morning?  What thoughts or concerns accompanied you to our group?”  Within seconds, only their pens, could be heard, moving rapidly across the pages.  “Who wants to read what you’ve written?”  I asked after a few minutes.  One woman, her head covered by a brightly colored scarf, raised her hand.

“I’m angry about losing my hair,” she began.  “It’s has been my signature, long and full…”  She looked up from her notebook.  Her eyes were red and teary.  Several of the women nodded sympathetically.  I recalled my embarrassment when twice, as a teenager, I sported a bald head after neurosurgery, covering it with scarves when I returned to school and praying no one would laugh at me.  I remember how unattractive and vulnerable I felt without my hair.

It grew back, of course, and so did the young woman’s, becoming full and long again over time.  She was one of the lucky ones, her cancer in remission and making it possible for her to resume a full, active life.  But so many of the people who write with me during their cancer experience lose far more than their hair.  When we write about loss, cancer isn’t always at the top of the list.  Dreams are lost. Friends are lost.  Loved ones are lost—whether by death or by the dynamics of families unable to come together in crisis—and even countries, for some, have been lost.  Although many of us may return to a so-called “normal” life, even a new life, what our lives were once will never be the same.

Being human demands that we come to terms, at different times on our lives, with different losses we all experience in life, small or large, continually adjusting to the changing seasons of being alive, and learning to let go, and.  It’s no easy task, this business of loss and losing, and yet, it is the thing we all are challenged to master—and learn from.

Write about loss this week—about losing something—small or large—about when you’ve had to let go and accept loss in your life.

 

Then we couldn’t help expressing grief

So many things descended without warning:

labor wasted, loves lost, houses gone,

marriages broken, friends estranged,

ambitions worn away by immediate needs.

Words lined up in our throats

for a good whining.

Grief seemed like an endless river—

the only immortal flow of life.

 

After losing a land and then giving up a tongue,

we stopped talking of grief

Smiles began to brighten our faces.

We laugh a lot, at our own mess.

Things become beautiful,

even hailstones in the strawberry fields.

(From: “Ways of Talking, “by Ha Jin, in  Facing Shadows,  1996)

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For the Week of January 5, 2014: Running Out of Time

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on January 5, 2014 | 4 Comments »

I found myself back on the treadmill this week.  Oh, not the one in the gym, unfortunately.  The other one, the one created by an overbooked life.  Meetings, classes, a bevy of deadlines for syllabi and proposals, social engagements.  It’s only the fifth day of the New Year, and already, I’m running as fast as I can.  Remember last week’s post?  I began with the first line of a poem by Lucille Clifton, “i’m running into a new year…”  At the time I wrote, it was only January 1st, the day after I’d returned home from a Christmas in Toronto, and I was enjoying the relaxed pace of my day, the return to quiet.

It didn’t last.  By the second, my online calendar was issuing multiple reminders:  go here, remember that, follow-up on this, finish that…  I complained about the sudden rush of activity to my husband.  He shook his head.  “How on earth did you manage to get so busy this month?”  I couldn’t come up with a reasonable answer.  The truth is, I’m often too optimistic about my time, and I find I’ve packed far too much into my days.

In the Middle 

of a life that’s as complicated as everyone else’s,
struggling for balance, juggling time…

One day you look out the window,
green summer, the next, and the leaves have already fallen,
and a grey sky lowers the horizon…

 This past Friday, I was at Moores UCSD Cancer Center with my wonderful writing group of cancer survivors.  I read Clifton’s New Year’s poem as the springboard to our first writing exercise.  K. used the treadmill metaphor to write about her sense of the New Year, capturing more than a few shared sentiments by those of us around the table.  The image that struck me most of was being on a racing treadmill and having it abruptly stop.  Ouch!  Everyone knew the feeling, but it’s not just an unexpected diagnosis, illness or emergency that stops us.  Sudden losses, disasters, Mother Nature’s onslaughts—all can bring our lives to an abrupt standstill.  Then what do we do?

Each day, we must learn
again how to love, between morning’s quick coffee
and evening’s slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises,
mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread.

Each day we must learn…there’s more to that phrase than we think.  Filling our lives with busy-ness is a kind of habit, a way of being that sneaks up on us over time.  How do we shift the balance, to move from “running out of time” to being vigilant about how we use our time?  To step off the treadmill suddenly would send us flying, and the landing would be abrupt and hard.  But to slow the speed gradually, take a few deep breaths and pay attention to the world around us, that’s something we all keep re-learning throughout our lives.

In today’s post from Brain Pickings Weekly, a site I inadvertently subscribed to over the holidays, the topic was about how long it takes to form a new habit.  We are what we repeatedly do, Aristotle once proclaimed.  Right.  I repeatedly overbook myself, building internal pressure and, to be honest, stress.  So I am a stress cadet?  Apparently so, if I accept Aristotle’s words.  William James, one of our first psychologists, agreed.  Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state.  Okay, my plasticity is not so great after all these years, but I can change my habit of over-scheduling myself, can’t I?  All I have to do is learn how to say, “No,” right?  I’ll just make this one of my new year’s resolutions.  I’ll start right now…well, in February, since this month is already completely booked.

I’m kidding myself, according to the folks at Brain Pickings Weekly.  They asked how long it takes for a new habit to take root in a person.  According to a study conducted at University College in London, it took 66 days of consistent behavior before a habit  formed, and in cases of well entrenched and complex behaviors like mine, it could take much longer—the better part of a year in fact!

I’ve often written about paying attention, the act of being fully present to our outer and inner worlds.  It is the writer’s work, yet even though I am a writer, the truth is, I get pulled in a dozen different ways just like anyone else.  It’s sometimes difficult to quiet my mind, notice and be attentive to the gifts life offers.  It’s difficult to slow down and pay attention.

Ted Kooser, former poet laureate and a cancer survivor, knows that even a poet can be distracted by life’s demands.  His book, Winter Morning Walks:  One Hundred Postcards to Jim Harrison, created from the postcards written to his friend as he recovered from surgery and treatment.  In his preface Kooser describes how the book came to be:

“In the autumn of 1968, during my recovery from surgery and radiation for cancer, I began taking a two-mile walk each morning…hiking in the isolated country roads near where I live…During the previous summer, depressed by my illness, preoccupied by the routines of my treatment, and feeling miserably sorry for myself, I’d all but given up on reading and writing…  One morning in November, following my walk, I surprised myself by trying my hand at a poem.  Soon I was writing every day… I began pasting my morning poems on postcards and sending them to Jim…”

The poems reveal a touching portrayal of a man recovering from the ravages of illness and treatment, whose spirit and sensibilities were reawakened in a habit of taking those morning walks.  Once again, he began to notice life around him, slowing down to take pleasure in the beauty of the natural world.

…Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging
us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches,
sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh
of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up
in love, running out of time.

(“In the Middle”, by Barbara Crooker, From:Word Press, 1998)

“Time is always ahead of us…”Where has the time gone?  It’s a question I ask myself a lot these days, but perhaps I should ask instead, “What have I done with my time?

What about you?  What are you doing with your time?  Explore the concept of time, how it seems to run ahead of you, how you might squander it, or how, when you realize how fast it runs ahead of you, how you manage to slow down and appreciate the gift of time.

Time wants to show you a different country.  It’s the one
that your life conceals, the one waiting outside
when curtains are drawn, the one Grandmother hinted at
in her crochet design, the one almost found
over at the edge of the music, after the sermon…


Time offers this gift in its millions of ways,
turning the world, moving the air, calling,
every morning, “Here, take it, it’s yours.”

 

(From: “The Gift,” by William Stafford, In: The Way It Is, Graywolf Press, 1999)

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January 1, 2014: Promise in Small Rituals

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , poetry and healing, writing and spirituality, , , on January 1, 2014 | Leave a Comment »

I am running into a new year, the title of a poem by Lucille Clifton, was the first line I jotted down in my notebook this morning, the first day of 2014.  I am aware that by tomorrow, my feet will be running on that treadmill of life.  It is happening much too quickly, as Clifton’s words suggest.  The truth is, I haven’t had much time to think about the advent of a new year, returning only last night from a week in Toronto, Canada, sharing the Christmas holiday with my daughter and her family and, in the process, looking back more than forward.

Toronto is the city I still think of as “home,” or indeed, as more “home” than any place I’ve lived since our return to California several years ago.  Even in the aftermath of a record-breaking ice storm there, power outages, city streets lined with broken trees and ice-covered sidewalks keeping us housebound for a few days, the time was filled with reminders of time past:  a granddaughter who bears an uncanny resemblance to her mother as a preschooler, driving past familiar landmarks, short walks around the neighborhood where I lived and studied so many years ago.  For much of the time, the past occupied my thoughts, certainly not the future, and I was filled with longing for my old Toronto life.

“So when are you moving back?”  My daughter asked us this many times, but old friends did too.  We were vague in our replies.  Our intent, whenever that foreign concept of “retirement” defines our lives, is to make Toronto our home base once again, but, as we experienced Canadian winter over several days, that probability sometimes blurred.  “Soon,” was as definite a response I could muster.  My husband hates the cold, and enough to delay any move to a place where winter exists in full force, which means we’ll compromise—time there; time in warmer climes.  Yet, as we braced ourselves for the dash to our son-in-law’s car for the drive to the airport yesterday—the thermometer dipping well below zero and accompanied by wind chill—I blurted out that, for once, I was happy to return to San Diego (a remark my husband will likely repeat any time we have the “when and where shall we move” discussion).

But it was much, much more than mild weather that beckoned us home.  We both missed the comfort of our own space and routines.  Guests for a week, we slept in unfamiliar beds and lived out of suitcases.  Our waking hours were focused on our granddaughter but, as we knelt and rose repeatedly from the floor where we played together, we winced with discomfort, knees aching.  Any “quiet” time we had depended on her naps and bedtime, and with the cost of roaming fees for our mobile phones and infrequent internet access, communication with the outside world was limited.  We realized how much our lives are defined by certain daily routines, maybe even more we liked to admit.  When we returned to San Diego last night, with little more than an hour left of the old year, each of us breathed an audible sigh as we entered our house.  The longed-for familiarity and comfort greeted us with a silent “Welcome home.”

It was more than just the familiar.  Coming into our house and space signaled a return to the daily life that is ours, its predictable comings and goings, freedom to move through the day as we each prefer.  It was the little daily rituals that mark our lives, the ones that ground us, that say, “Yes, you are home.”  Home, I realized, is as much tied to the familiar as anything.

Today, this first day of the New Year, those rituals pulled me back into my life, the here and now.  I rose early, as is my habit, grateful for the quiet of early morning.  After grinding the beans ground to a fine powder for morning coffee, with Bach playing quietly in the background and my notebook in hand, I sat down in my usual spot to gaze out at the morning light and, after an unintended week’s hiatus, began to write.

The shoes put on each time

left first, then right.

The morning potion’s teaspoon

of sweetness stirred always

for seven circlings—no fewer, no more—

into the cracked blue cup…

How did we come to believe these small rituals’ promise

than we are today the selves we yesterday knew,

tomorrow will be?

(From:  “Habit,” by Jane Hirshfield, in Given Sugar, Given Salt, 2002)

My little rituals and routines help me feel grounded, connected to the world.  In times of upheaval or struggle, our rituals can be a source of comfort,  talismen against fear, an assurance that life will go on.  I know that by tomorrow, the new year will be pulling me headlong into the busy-ness of life:  course preparation, teaching schedules, appointments, household tasks, and social commitments.  There is excitement, promise and possibility in it all, but I need the assurance, the comfort of small quiet moments, my little daily rituals that help me remember who I am, once was and will be.

Write about habit, the things that offer you calm, connection or renewal in life.  Write about the promise to be found in the small rituals you keep.

I wish you all a new year filled with promise and the joy of life fully lived each day.

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