My husband and I spent our Thanksgiving holidays with friends—sharing meals and conversation on Thanksgiving Day, and on Black Friday, ignoring shopping centers to share, again, another meal with our neighborhood friends. I was grateful for the company, sharing the holiday, and the fact we weren’t caught in the crush of people traveling by air or automobile for the holiday weekend. Yet there was some turbulence amid the warmth of the holiday: the inevitable discussions, often heated, over the outcome of the presidential election. More than once, I excused myself from an emotional discussion to seek respite from all things political in an effort to retain the warmth and gratitude of a Thanksgiving celebration.
I would settle now for just one perfect day
anywhere at all, a day without
mosquitoes, or traffic, or newspapers
with their headlines.
A day without any kind of turbulence—…
(From: “Three Perfect Days,” by Linda Pastan, in: Traveling Light, 2011)
Yesterday, a winter’s storm moved into our area—ominous clouds preceding the wind and sheets of rain. We don’t get much “weather” in this part of the country, and in a place increasingly arid from years of drought, rain is always welcome, but the gusty winds that toppled potted plants on our deck—hardly comparable to the hurricanes and typhoons other parts of the world experience—felt like an apt metaphor for the turbulence that permeated emotions during the election and in its aftermath. Yet so dominant is our national discussion, it’s difficult to remember that turbulence is the current state of much of the world as unrest, suffering and devastation affect so many lives.
Don´t know why
There´s no sun up in the sky
Stormy weather…
Gloom and misery everywhere
Stormy weather, stormy weather
And I just can get my poor self together
Oh, I´m weary all of the time
The time, so weary all of the time
(“Stormy Weather,” lyrics by Harold Arlen & Ted Koehler, 1933)
Turbulence: storms, upsetting events, unrest, conflict, intense emotion. It’s a term used often to describe the upsetting or unexpected events of our lives and our world. Google “storms,” “turbulence,” or “cancer,” and you’ll find more than a few blog posts, book titles and articles referring to turbulence written by those who have experienced serious and debilitating life events.
I’ve experienced turbulent emotions in past weeks, but the election has been only a part of my unsettled feelings. Several weeks ago, a very dear friend was diagnosed with malignant melanoma, and earlier this month, another friend learned he has lymphoma—a friend who once gave me extraordinary support after the sudden death of my first husband. Yet another friend wrote as her husband was sent to emergency following heart surgery, and I hoped and prayed he would be all right. (Happily, he’s back home and recovering). Yesterday I had an appointment with my optometrist, and learned she was taking a leave of absence. When I expressed surprised, she told me she had been diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer and soon will undergo surgery and chemotherapy.
I returned home once again with a heavy heart. For the many years I’ve been leading writing groups for cancer patients and survivors, the news that yet another friend or colleague has become a cancer patient never gets “routine.” I felt as unsettled as the weather outside, remembering that anytime anyone hears those dreaded words, “you have cancer, “it’s as if a fierce storm has suddenly upheaved your life.
In the eye of the night I lie awake,
half-afraid, half in awe of the wind
penetrating every crack in my being.
I think of my brother and his wife
in the next town downwind,
open-eyed and clinging to each other
as the wind that mocks everything
to which we think we’re anchored
roars through our lives…
(“Windstorm,” by Larry Schug, in The Cancer Poetry Project, Vol. 1, 2001)
How do you learn to navigate through the turbulence of daily life, much less having your life turned upside down as if struck by a tornado or hurricane? It’s something I often ask the men and women in my writing groups. The initial shock and disbelief are common, but gradually, most everyone finds their way of coping and riding out the storm. The writing group, for those who attend, is one of the activities that helps them cope, but there are many others that are also helpful, for example, meditation, therapy groups, yoga, expressive art, gardening, the support of loved ones, being in nature, or prayer, all ways that can help you regain a greater sense of calm and navigate the rough waters of cancer treatment and recovery more successfully.
Writing has been an important life line for me throughout the stormy periods of life. It offers me the safety to write out of strong emotion, make sense of what has happened and gradually, write my way into understanding and healing. Writing has always helped me to navigate through upsetting life events that threatened to leave me adrift in rough waters.
Whether nonfiction, poetry or fiction writing is, for many, a way of making sense of life. Commenting on her debut novel, Eye of the Storm (2013), Irish author Julie McCoy said, “Writing has always been this for me: peeling back the visible layer to see the much more interesting and meaningful stuff underneath. But more than that, it is a coping mechanism, a way of setting this overwhelming world straight on a page, a way of dissecting tragedy, love, life and trying to make sense of it all.” (Posted on www.Writing.ie, 2013)
Barbara Abercrombie, breast cancer survivor and author of Writing Out the Storm: Reading and Writing Your Way Through Serious Illness or Injury (2002), got the idea for her book from teaching a writing workshop for cancer survivors and caregivers at the Wellness Community in Los Angeles. As she notes in her introduction, she quickly realized a traditional, genre-oriented workshop was not what the participants were looking for, but rather, a way to deal with a life-threatening illness through writing…”as a tool for finding voice in a situation that leaves you feeling as if you have no control, no voice…”
It’s why writing can be one way, a powerful way, to help you navigate through the storms and emotional turbulence of life’s difficult chapters. As novelist Alice Hoffman so eloquently expressed in her essay, “Sustained by Fiction while Facing Life’s Facts (New York Times, August 2000):
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… What I was looking for during 10 months of chemotherapy and radiation was a way to make sense of sorrow and loss… Once I got to my desk, once I started writing, I still believed anything was possible. ( New York Times, August, 2000)
Writing Suggestion:
Coping, setting the world straight on a page, making sense of it–it’s why writing can be such a powerful way to help you cope with the stormy periods of life, whether cancer, other emotional or physical hardship, or loss. This week, write about one of those turbulent chapters you’ve experienced. What was the event? Describe how it felt or what happened. What helped you navigate through it all?
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