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For the Week of November 9, 2014: Tell Me a Funny Story

Posted in expressive writing, tagged , , , , , , , on November 9, 2014 | Leave a Comment »

…when you are raised with the gift of laughter, as I was, it can’t stay suppressed forever. It’s too powerful. Thank goodness for that. I eventually could see bits of “ha-ha” in my own life. Certainly not in the cancer, but in the mind-blowing circumstances that suddenly consumed my life. And laugh­ing at parts of those experiences made me feel a little more alive.

The funniest part of it all was that the more I allowed myself to laugh, the more therapeutic my tears became.   —(Jim Higley, “Finding Humor in the Midst of Cancer,” Coping with Cancer Magazine, March/April 2012)

We all need a little laughter in our lives, whether we’re dealing with cancer, an overly-busy and stressful life, remembering those who’ve passed on, or simply sharing time with friends and loved ones.  We need to laugh just as much as sometimes, we need to cry.

It’s true.  In the summer of 2013, I participated in the Omega Institute’s “Living Well with Cancer weekend.  At the closing event, the topics turned from treatment, nutrition, and spiritual matters to an evening of comedy.  Kathy LaTour, Cure Magazine editor, performed “One Mutant Cell,” a humorous account of her cancer journey, and comedian and cancer survivor, Scott Burton, a cancer offered comic relief with his juggling and stand-up act designed to confront the mystery and fear of chronic disease.  The laughter among the attendees, all living with cancer, filled the room.

Laughter is good for us.  It breaks the ice; relaxes us, builds community, and reminds us not to take ourselves quite so seriously.  Even in the midst of something as soul shattering as a cancer diagnosis, we can still find things that make us smile.  Laughter brightens the day and our outlook.  Laugh a little, and we all feel better.

It’s why, a week ago, I shared David Wagoner’s poem, “The Junior High School Band Concert” with one of my “Writing through Cancer” groups as the inspiration for writing that morning.

When our semi-conductor

Raised his baton, we sat there

Gaping at Marche Militaire,
Our mouth-opening number.
It seemed faintly familiar
(We’d rehearsed it all that winter),
But we attacked in such a blur,
No army anywhere
On its stomach or all fours
Could have squeezed though our cross fire…

I can never read Wagoner’s poem without laughing out loud, remembering all too well a particular band concert decades ago, when I and two other students comprised the French horn section in our high school band.  For much of the academic year, we were a marching band, parading around the football field as half-time entertainment, buttoned up in red and black uniforms, matching hats, all outfit adorned with gold braid.  I hated football season because of it—the brass mouthpiece like ice, bouncing against my lips, the monotony of the French horn accompaniment, a steady “um tah, um tah” on the after beat or a “ta, ti, ta, ti” while it seemed that all the other instruments were given more interesting and melodic parts.  To this day, I cringe at Souza marches, and I don’t follow football season.

In Springtime, however, life in the band improved.  We became a symphonic band—of sorts—and spring was preparation time for the regional high school band competition. That memorable year, we French horn players were to lead with the opening theme of Dvorak’s “New World Symphony.”  We were positively beside ourselves, thrilled to finally have a brief, but major part in a musical score.  We practiced for weeks.

…And when the brass bulled forth
A blare fit to horn over
Jericho two bars sooner
Than Joshua’s harsh measures,
They still had the nerve to stare.

The day of the competition, we filed into the host school’s auditorium and onto the stage to take our places.  Our band leader, “Pop” Behnke, followed, looking proud and stately in his white uniform with the brass buttons and gold braid.  He tapped his baton against the music stand, we positioned our instruments and on cue, began playing.  Two of us had faithfully rehearsed for weeks, , but our third horn player, less inclined to regular practice, made up for the sour notes with an enthusiasm that overwhelmed us all.  We sounded the first notes of the “New World Symphony” like the horn blasts of a sinking ship…loud and without an ounce of modulation.  I glanced up and caught a glimpse of Pop Behnke’ s face—his look of shock, followed by a lopsided smile, the realization that any likelihood of our high school band walking away with the trophy had just evaporated.  Perhaps we knew we’d already lost then, but it seemed only to inspire us to play even more loudly, as if added volume could somehow tip the balance in our favor.  I still giggle when I think of it, although at the time, I don’t think we laughed much as the winners were announced– our band was not among them.

By the last lost chord, our director
Looked older and soberer.
No doubt, in mind’s ear
Some band somewhere
In some Music of some Sphere
Was striking a note as pure
As the wishes of Franz Schubert,
But meanwhile here we were:
A lesson in everything minor,
Decomposing our first composer.

(From Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems. © University of Illinois Press, 1999)

During our workshop, we read first Wagoner’s poem aloud before everyone wrote about a humorous event in their lives. When the group shared their narratives, the mood lightened; we giggled and guffawed as the humorous mishaps in everyone’s life were recounted.  Everyone left the session with smiles on thier faces.  Laughter was very good medicine—its healing benefits experienced by everyone.

Remember Norman Cousins’ famous account of how he used laughter  to cure himself of a debilitating illness?  It turns out, he wasn’t the first to advocate for the power of laughter. Mark Twain, whose wit and wisdom is an established part of American lore, wrote:  “The human race has only one really effective weapon and that’s laughter.  The moment it arises, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.” Smiling and laughter are contagious.  Whether during cancer treatment or simply living a world be constantly dominated by hardship and struggle, it’s good to find something—even a small thing—to smile or laugh about.

As you write this week, dig back into your memories—the fun times, a time, perhaps you laughed so hard, tears ran down your cheeks.  Take a break from writing about cancer and the more serious topics of life.  Instead, try writing about something that makes you smile, even laugh out loud each time you remember it.  Laugh a little.  You’ll feel better.

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For the Week of August 21, 2014: The Different Worlds We Live In

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , writing and spirituality, , , on August 31, 2014 | 1 Comment »

Every morning, when we wake up, we have 24 brand-new hours to live. What a precious gift! We have the capacity to live in a way that these 24 hours will bring peace, joy, & happiness to ourselves & others.– –Thich Nhat Hanh

“How different my life is now,” I thought as I sat in silence this morning, taking pleasure in the stillness, the chatter and chirp of the birds, my terrier’s head resting on my thigh.  I remembered a time when the morning was never still, when I rarely did anything but jump in the shower, dress quickly, stop at Peet’s Coffee and grab a latte to drink as I joined the bumper to bumper traffic in the morning rush to the office.  My outer life seemed prosperous, successful, but stressed.  My inner life was all but neglected, parched and dying of thirst—I rarely had time to “feed” it as I ran from meeting to meeting.  By night, exhausted, I re-entered the world of family, wife and mother, occasional writer, the day’s demands already growing distant.  Rarely did my various worlds intersect.

We humans are complex.  Unlike other members of the animal kingdom, our lives involve much more than basic need.  We have the unique capacity to live more than one life at a time, inhabiting several different “worlds.”  As Patrice Vecchione describes in her book, Writing and the Spiritual Life, we live our lives on many planes.  Although we may not always be aware of it, our inner and outer lives interact; affecting and informing each other as we move between the different worlds we inhabit each day.  In the busy lives we often lead, it’s easy to move through one world and another, and ignore the needs of our inner lives.  Sooner or later, it catches up with us.

Once I moved between my different worlds—professional, volunteer, friend, mother, student—as if they were separate, without giving much thought to the way in which those different aspects of my life, the roles I played each day, interacted with one another.  I was on a virtual elevator, constantly in motion, and racing between floors.  Push a button, the elevator moved up or down, stopped and the doors opened:  “Second floor, family life.”  “Third floor, workplace.” “Fourth floor, Business lunches and dinners.  Fifth floor:  Volunteer committee meetings.” There were many floors to stop at every day:  my social life, even the classroom, where, for a few hours each week, I left my family at home, changed from the professional business suit to comfortable slacks and shirts, and pushed the elevator button, and got off at graduate school.  Once in a great while, the elevator would stop at my spiritual world, but for many years, those stops were brief and far apart. In my very busy and important life, I moved between those worlds quickly, and most times, one floor seemed distinct and separate from another.

“I know I walk in and out of several worlds every day,” poet Joy Harjo wrote in her essay, “Ordinary Spirit.”  Harjo was referring to her mixed race, in part, and the struggle to “unify” her different worlds.  That struggle to unify my different worlds, my inner life with my outer one, was something I truly didn’t address, at least not with any sustained effort, until I heard my doctor say “cancer,” and then again, as I was gradually slipping back into an “old” way of being, when an unexpected episode of heart failure left me unconscious on the sidewalk, my dog’s still leash in my hand.

I paid attention.  I took steps to change my life, to blur the boundaries between my inner and outer life, and the different worlds I inhabited each day. As Harjo expressed in her essay, I realized that it was “only an illusion that any of the worlds we inhabit are separate.” This “new” world, the one where I had suddenly become a heart patient, living with the knowledge of how abruptly one’s life can end, indeed, how capricious life can be, affected all other “worlds” of my life in deep and significant ways.

Any predictability and routine in my life was scattered to the wind.  Where I once felt I had some control over the course of my life, I now felt as if I was in free fall, an unwilling passenger in a wayward elevator, moving randomly between floors.  Fear and depression colored my days, despite my cardiologist’s reassurances.  I sported a bump just to the left of my breastbone, a defibrillator underneath the skin, a constant reminder of what had happened and the need to change my life.    Unbeknownst to anyone, I began praying each night, silent pleas to some higher power, struggling to find hope where fear resided.  It took time.  It took change. I was forced me to think differently about my life and what, above all else, really mattered to me.

It’s an experience I find similar to what I witness among the men and women in my expressive writing groups.  Cancer.  The crises it ignites in everyone’s life who reels from the words they never wanted to hear:  “You have cancer.”  Every part of their lives is affected.  They move, numbly at first, through second opinions, treatment decisions, treatment regimens, appointments, and always, lurking in the background, that demon fear.  All that they are—who they have thought themselves to be–mind, body, and spirit–is thrust into upheaval.  They no longer inhabit the different worlds in their lives with the same assumptions they once did.  What was once familiar now seems strange, and when the elevator finally ceases its terrifying ride, the doors open, and they look out to a new and often confusing world.  Their challenge, as mine was, is to try to make sense of it, to find the path to wholeness and healing.  For each of us, the routes are different:  faith, meditation, yoga, writing, music, art—it hardly matters.  All of us are seekers, working hard to inhabit this new world and integrate it into all the other worlds that have shaped us into the people we are.

I look back to that self of more than a decade ago,  the one for whom stress was a steady diet, caught up in the world of a career I didn’t even like and yet, striving to climb the ladder of success like so many of my colleagues.  I pushed the knowledge of my unhappiness aside, until one day, as a corporate executive with a spacious office overlooking Park Avenue in New York, I caught a glimpse of myself in a store window as I walked from my apartment to my office.  Grim-faced, briefcase held tight against my body, shoulders hunched forward, stress oozed from every pore.  “Who have I become?” I remembered thinking.  It was a time when the different worlds I inhabited were as separate from one another as they could be.  But change wasn’t immediate.  I fumbled on for a few more years until cancer and heart failure delivered the whack on the side of the head I needed.  I stepped off the elevator and choose which worlds I truly wanted to inhabit in my life—but more, how I could make my life harmonious and whole.

Her first steps, though cautious, began immediately to reinforce her faith in greater possibilities.  –George MacDonald

 What about you?  What different worlds do you inhabit each day?  What are the many roles you play in your life?  How were your “worlds” affected by cancer, loss or another unexpected hardship?  What changed?  Write about how you’ve moved in and out of different worlds or the many roles you have played before and after your life was altered in unexpected ways.

 

 

 

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For The Week of August 17, 2014: When Life Doesn’t Come With Instructions

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 18, 2014 | Leave a Comment »

I bought a portable stand up desk last week, part of a series of actions I’ve taken to manage the bouts of pain associated with my damaged tailbone.  It came, as so many of our household accessories do today, in several pieces, along with various sized screws, bolts, a small (highly ineffective) screwdriver and a set of instructions.  Instructions I tried my best to follow, since I tend toward the “plug and play” mentality and have, on numerous occasions, put together various sections of Ieka furniture backwards before reading those instructions with a more careful eye. 

Although compact, the desk took longer to assemble than it probably should have.  I made several trips to the garage to find other tools to help me put it together, since the small disposable screw driver was only minimally functional.  But I finally succeeded, and the desk sits in my home office, providing me with a way to vary and relieve the pressure of sitting while continuing to work.

Unlike “assemble-it-yourself” furniture, life doesn’t come with a set of instructions.  I remember devouring Benjamin Spock’s books on child-rearing when my first child was born, but a year later, quickly discovered that what worked with one baby didn’t necessarily have the same results with the younger one.  Several years later, as I was “getting” the hang of marriage (or so I thought), my marital status changed so quickly from “married” to “separated” to “widow” introducing an entirely new set of life circumstances, the best I could do was “play it by ear.”  It all worked out, of course, but then my daughters’ adolescence turned my apple cart upside down again, and I discovered life rarely remained neat and tidy for long.  Fast forward another ten years, and a diagnosis of early stage breast cancer did more than interrupt life; it changed mine forever.

In her poem, “There’s Not a Book On How To Do This,” Sharon Doyle reminds us that a cancer diagnosis, like so many of life’s difficult chapters, does not come with a set of instructions.  Sure, there’s treatment, but our lives are entirely disrupted and forever altered.  We are left to figure out things ourselves, hopefully with a little help from our friends and family, just what to do with this changed life.  Doyle uses the act of sketching the composition of her fall garden as a metaphor for creating new life and beauty after cancer:

There’s not a book on how to do this,
but there is an emphasis on composition.

The trucks that slug by under our window
hold trombones, mirrors, dictionaries.
It’s not my fault they invade
the calm of trees like cancer.  I

don’t have cancer anymore…

…I rarely remember the
uterus I don’t have.  One of my sons said,
“You were done with it right away, right, Mom?”
I guessed so…

Doyle plans her garden, but in the process, lets us see how loving gifts  –family, birdsong and flowers–offered hope, recovery and are symbolized in the design for her garden.  As the poem concludes, the design is completed, but among the flowers and colors, she leaves space to celebrate life:

I left vacant fourteen
trellis lightscapes for
balloons.

(from The Cancer Poetry Project, p. 52)

This week, think about your cancer—or another difficult and challenging–experience.  It’s unlikely you were handed a book of instructions for any of it.  What helped you navigate an altered body, a changed life?   Where did you find the resources, the knowledge, that offered you hope and new life?

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For the Week of August 10th, 2014: Take One a Day & Smile

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on August 10, 2014 | Leave a Comment »

…when you are raised with the gift of laughter, as I was, it can’t stay suppressed forever… I eventually could see bits of “ha-ha” in my own life. Certainly not in the cancer, but in the mind-blowing circumstances that suddenly consumed my life. And laugh­ing at parts of those experiences made me feel a little more alive.The funniest part of it all was that the more I allowed myself to laugh, the more therapeutic my tears became.  ( “Finding Humor in the Midst of Cancer,” By Jim Higley, In: Coping with Cancer Magazine, March/April 2012)

 

“You’re a lot perkier since you’ve gotten your dog,” a friend remarked last night as we sat together at an outdoor concert in a local park.  I laughed and said that my husband made the same observation a week or two earlier.  She laughed too as I described Maggie’s daily antics that keep me smiling– even laughing out loud–several times a day.  When I adopted her two months ago, it was soon after I had damaged my tailbone and right shoulder in a fall.  I was in pain, unable to sit for more than a few minutes and unable to participate in the African drumming classes I have come to love.  Worse, I was turning 70 and feeling as if overnight, I had joined the ranks of the aged and infirm.  Thankfully, it was only a temporary descent into “ain’t it awful,” but my funny little terrier helped pull me out of the doldrums.

The thing is, I like to laugh.  A lot.  On a class conference call with my UCLA writing students earlier this week, someone asked about teaching online vs. the classroom.  “I miss the classroom,” I said, adding that online is great; I can teach from anywhere at any time, but “I laugh more when I’m in the classroom.”

It’s true.  Whether it’s a writing workshop for cancer survivors or a regular creative writing class, a good deal of laughter is shared between us.  Shared laughter breaks the ice; it relaxes people and builds community.  We learn not to take ourselves quite so seriously, and more, even in the midst of something as horrible as a cancer diagnosis, there can still be things that make us smile.  Laughter brightens the day and our outlook.  We feel better.

Laughter is good medicine.  Author Norman Cousins used it to cure himself of a debilitating illness.  And long before Cousins, Mark Twain wrote, “The human race has only one really effective weapon and that’s laughter. The moment it arises, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.”

We all need a little laughter in our lives, no matter if we’re dealing with cancer, an over-busy and stressful life, remembering those who’ve passed on, or simply sharing time with friends and loved ones.  We need to laugh just as much as sometimes, we need to cry.

It’s one reason I like being around children.  Last night I watched toddlers and kindergarteners frolic together on the grass at the outdoor concert.  I found myself smiling, laughing as they laughed, wishing my grandchildren were not as far away as they are.  Frankly, the laughter they bring to my life is  the primary reason I even check Facebook.  I love to read the funny and imaginative accounts of what comes out of their mouths.  Nathan, my five-year old grandson, offers regular doses of that particular brand of child humor  I find so delightful.  Several times a week, I read what he’s said and laugh out loud.  For example, as Claire drove her children home from a day at the beach this week, he announced: “Mommy, The Moon Master shot an egg into space, and it gave all the stars color. But it was really to send a message to Nathan, I; Nathan. He just said ‘ beee a gooood booyyy’ and so then I will get a white kitty, who is clean, and I will name her Tiger. You Mommy will put her in a basket, in the fridge but only the tail sticks out, so I can be surprised and find her and say ‘OH MY GOD, IT’S TIGER!’ Is that correct?”

I don’t think he’s going to find a white kitten in a basket in the refrigerator any time soon, but it was a good try, but what’s more, I began my day with laughter and a smile—the best medicine in the world.

There’s an old song my mother used to sing  as she did the household chores when I was a child, one made popular at by Louis Armstrong in 1929 and recorded over the years by many others, including Billie Holiday, Louis Prima, Frank Sinatra and more.   And no wonder.  Even singing the lyrics makes me happier.  It’s a good reminder that every day can be a little brighter if you find something to smile about.

When you’re smiling
When you’re smiling
The whole world smiles with you

When you’re laughing
When you’re laughing
The sun comes shining through…

(Lyrics by Larry Shay, Mark Fisher and Joe Goodwin)

Smiling and laughter, as the song reminds us, are contagious.  In a world so fraught with hardship and struggle, it’s good to find something—even a small thing—to smile or laugh about.  This week, write about something that makes you smile—or laugh out loud—each time you remember it.  Notice how a little “ha, ha” lifts your spirits.  Try laughing at least once each day.  It is, as Norman Cousins discovered, the best medicine.

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For the Week of August 3, 2014: When Death Comes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 3, 2014 | 2 Comments »

“Life changes fast.
Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.

(Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking)

His death was expected for these past many months, but now that it has happened, my heart is heavy as I think about my sister-in-law’s loss of her husband. Only yesterday afternoon, I drove to the airport to welcome my husband home after his long—and very delayed—flight from Okinawa, Japan, where he’d been visiting our daughter and her family.  Early morning, I returned him to the airport to fly north to Seattle to spend three days with his older sister, Joan.  It wasn’t a trip he’d planned or one he wanted to make under the circumstances, but during the long hours he was in the air, his flight already delayed by a day from a typhoon, his brother-in-law died after a four-year battle with bladder cancer.

I called Joan this morning after I’d taken him to the airport.  Her phone rang several times before I heard her voice, “Hello?”  She was crying and quickly apologized.  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I just went into his room and saw how empty it is, and…”  She began sobbing again.

“Your brother is on his way,” I said.  “He just left from the airport, and he’ll be there after lunch.”

“Oh,” she said, “thank you.”  Then, “I’m sorry…he must be so tired…”

I watched him walk toward the gate, exhausted and jet-lagged from the long flight from Japan, doing what he felt he had to do.  Although their lives rarely intersected, he knew Joan needed him, that his presence would be comforting to her.  She and Ed, her husband, were high school sweethearts, marrying early despite the disapproval of her parents.  They had sixty-four years together as man and wife, weathering hardship and setbacks for much of their marriage, yet remaining steadfastly devoted to one another.

Just weeks before Edwin learned he had an aggressive Stage Four bladder cancer, Joan was diagnosed with Stage Three inflammatory breast cancer Somehow, the crises ignited strength and determination in Joan we hadn’t before experienced.  Only in the past year or so did her newfound resilience flagged, as Ed endured surgery after surgery, one experimental procedure after another and the medical expenses continued to multiply.  Her days were spent driving to and from doctor’s appointments and the hospital.  Now and again, her children dropped by to help as they could.  Edwin seemed determined to do whatever it took to give him a chance at winning a battle already described as most definitely terminal.

Joan and their four sons and daughters were at his side when he took his last breath.  She called soon afterward. “He’s gone, Sharon,” her voice heavy with exhaustion,  “He’s been my life for sixty-four years.”

 

It is hard to give up after months of making lists,

phoning doctors, fighting entropy.  But when the end comes,

a bending takes over, empties the blood of opposition

and with a gentle skill, injects a blessed numbness…

(From “Numb,” by Florence Weinberger, in The Cancer Poetry Project, 2001)

 

There’s a great deal written about dealing with the loss of a loved one from cancer, and while some may think of grief as a single instance or short time of pain or sadness in response to the loss—like the tears shed at a loved one’s funeral—as the American Cancer Society reminds us, the real process of grieving lasts longer and involves the entire emotional process of coping with the loss.

It can be hard on those friends or acquaintances, even family members, to let grief takes its normal courses.  It’s painful, yes, but it’s important that those whose loved ones have died are allowed to express their grief and supported through the process.  It’s different for everyone, but most important is honoring however the bereaved person chooses to express their sorrow and grief.  John, brother and psychologist, understands that, and in this time of sorrow for his sister, he will be a source of quiet support and comfort for his sister.

After sixty-four years together with Ed, Joan may be grieving for a long time.  According to the studies have identified emotional states that people may go through while grieving. The first feelings usually include shock or numbness. Then, as the person sees how his or her life is affected by the loss, emotions start to surface. The early sense of disbelief is often replaced by emotional upheaval, which can involve anger, loneliness, uncertainty, or denial. These feelings can come and go over a long period of time. The final phase of grief is the one in which people find ways to come to terms with and accept the loss.

Joan’s tears finally came this morning with the realization that Ed is truly gone.  Her daughter had tended to the details, overseen the removal of Ed’s body and all the medical equipment which had become part of the landscape of his room for so long.  It was only this morning, as Joan went downstairs and entered the bedroom, now barren and empty of everything that had defined the past year or so of Ed’s life and hers that she broke down.  “It’s so empty,” she cried.

Today my thoughts are with my sister-in-law and all that she has endured and must face in the wake of her husband’s death.  I’m grateful her four children are nearby.  I’m grateful for the quiet and loving presence she will experience with my husband, her brother.  There is nothing easy in losing a loved one, even if you’ve lived with the certainty of death for months.  My hope is that she can begin, in the months ahead, to create a new life in this stage called “widowhood.”  But for now, I simply pray that she has the strength to put one foot in front of the other and go on.

 

Perhaps this surrender foreshadows my own old age

when I have raged to exhaustion and finally have to go.  For now,

the numbness wears off.  I drive to the market, cook my own food,

take scant note of desire

with no one to consider or contradict my choices.

Something in me will never recover.  Something in me will go on.

 

This week, consider the process of grief and mourning.  Have you lost a loved one to cancer?  What helped you deal with the loss?  Write about it.

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For the Week of July 27, 2014: A Place of My Own

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , pets and health, , , on July 27, 2014 | 2 Comments »

“Goethe once wrote that all writers are homesick, that all writers are really searching for home.  Being a writer is being on a constant search for where you belong.”— Mary Morris, “Looking for Home”

I’ve stubbornly refused to call San Diego “home” since relocating here in 2006.  Never one for crowded beaches, deserts and arid land, my heart finds no affinity with the landscape.  It’s little wonder, I suppose.  I was raised in rural northern California, a place where residents resented Southern California’s drain of our natural resources and periodically sought to secede and be the State of Jefferson.

I grew up among Jack pine and Douglas fir trees, in a small valley surrounded by mountains, part of the Cascade Range, and where summers were spent swimming in cold mountain lakes and rivers.  Yet I admit that as I waited in the Oakland airport to board a flight to San Diego on Friday evening, I was eager to get “home” to San Diego.  After a week of teaching in Berkeley, I was ready to sleep in my bed, sit in my easy chair, and resume the routines that mark my days:  walks with my dog, coffee on the deck while the birds cavort at the fountain and chatter in the treetops, writing in the quiet of early morning.

“I am here alone for the first time in weeks,” May Sarton wrote at the beginning of A Journal of Solitude, “to take up my ‘real’ life again at last.”  I suppose that’s how I felt in my return.  Whatever city we live in at the moment is less important that the space we shape for ourselves, one that offers that “room of one’s own,” whether a corner of the kitchen or a bedroom turned into office.  Remember Virginia Woolf’s, A Room of One’s Own?  Written at a time when women were not allowed into particular universities nor recognized in a literary world dominated by men.  Woolf famously said, “A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.”

There are many analyses of the book, and while I am not a fiction writer, what I took from reading Woolf so many years ago was simply the necessity of making a place for my creative work.  Without one free of interruption or distractions, my creative work is compromised.  I love my teaching, but it consumes my energy, and when I turn to my writing, I am often spent.  Add to that the intensity of the week-long class, “Writing as a Healing Ministry,” one I’ve taught for over ten years and requires I travel to Berkeley each July and reside in faculty housing for the week.  At the end of the week,  I am all the more in need of reclaiming my routine, the mental and emotional space I need to nurture my creative life.

In solitude we give passionate attention to our lives, to our memories, to the details around us.—Virgina Woolf

In her delightful book of writing invitations, Room to Write, Bonni Goldberg explains the choice of her book title as “creating room for your writing…  Making room in your life to write,” She adds, “generates even more room for your writing.”  Creativity doesn’t just happen.  Our muses don’t just come whenever we beckon.  We have to create and protect the space needed to nurture creativity.  Only then will the artist within each of us be fully revealed.

This morning, my dog Maggie and I were once again up at 5:45 a.m. to walk.  She knows my routine by heart and seems to find nearly as much satisfaction in the certainty of that walk, as I do, even our time sitting on the deck, and as I prepare to write, in taking her place on a cushion near my feet.  We’re  at home again, stepping  into the comfort of routine and the place we call our own.  This morning, even the birds seemed to welcome us back.  Hummingbirds frolicked nearby at the fountain; a woodpecker set to work on the century plants below our deck, and a red tail hawk glided over our heads to fly across the canyon.  I sighed and smiled.  It was good to be here.  It was good to be back in place, in the place that is my own.

Think about what it’s like to return to your place after a busy day or time away, the “room of your own” that lets you bask in quiet and solitude, even briefly.  What is it like to have that place where you can be alone, and, as May Sarton described, take up your real life again?”

 

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For the Week of July 20, 2014: Writing as Prayer

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , writing and spirituality, , on July 20, 2014 | 5 Comments »

I’m on my way to Berkeley this week, teaching “Writing as a Healing Ministry, a week-long intensive course for clergy, seminary students and anyone interested in attending.  During the week, we’ll explore the arena of therapeutic writing, witness many different approaches to leading healing writing groups, and by week’s end, each person will define how writing can be a healing ministry – for themselves and for others.  Part of the course is to also experience what it is like to write, deeply and honestly, from the heartaches and struggles of one’s life.  Invariably, we segue into the spiritual aspects of writing to heal, and for many in the workshop, writing turns to prayer.

Prayer.   It’s interesting that in this day of modern medicine, something as basic as prayer has such beneficial impact on our health and well-being. Dr. Larry Dossey’s book, Healing Words:  The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine, summarizes a number of studies demonstrating the positive influences of prayer on health and healing among patients with breast cancer, HIV, and coronary disease, among others.  “I believe that everyone’s prayers helped me make it through with grace and strength,” one former member of my writing groups once said.

We find prayer in every religion and culture, written in every language.  Studies have found that religion and spirituality are very important to the quality of life among many cancer patients.  Prayer sustains us and offers solace.  My daily writing practice is my meditation, my solace and my prayer.  Although religion and spirituality are related, they are not synonymous.  Religion refers to a specific set of beliefs and practices, usually within an organized group, while spirituality is more concerned with our beliefs about the meaning of life.  You may think of yourself as religious or spiritual or both.

Whatever our religious or spiritual beliefs, our faith or spirituality can provide strength and comfort.  “As part of our wholeness,” Stephen Levine said in a 1994 Sun interview, “we need our woundedness.  It seems written into spirituality that there’s a dark side to which we must expose ourselves.”

Cancer may seem like a dark night of the soul; it may even challenge your faith, but it may also offer you the chance to explore your spirituality by deepening your self-understanding and compassion for others. “My faith grew, and I prayed a lot,” said another.  Laura, who lost her struggle with metastatic cancer, wrote a prayer for mercy as she struggled through long periods of treatment:

A wad of pain
In the pit of my stomach
Lord have mercy

I focus on it
Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy…

Writing can be a form of prayer or meditation and it often becomes the prayer itself.  “When you’re caught up in writing…” poet Denise Levertov remarked in her final interview, “it can be a form of prayer.”  Writing takes us on a voyage of discovery, and in the wake of cancer or other life-threatening illnesses or suffering, it can become a deeply spiritual practice.  Writing offers a door into our spiritual journeys. During cancer treatment or other serious illnesses, we’re often face to face with our mortality.  That’s when the irrelevant and unnecessary falls away, revealing the meaning in our lives.  Call it what we will–hope, prayer, faith, or a meditation–we discover a higher consciousness, something larger than ourselves.

Varda, who died of metastatic breast cancer several years ago, wrote throughout her cancer journey, often humorously, sometimes poignantly.  As she neared her final weeks, she examined her faith, acknowledging that even though challenged by cancer, her faith had offered her strength and solace:

But our relationship has changed.  In asking me to surrender to this illness, God has asked me to let go—to trust—float free.  And I have found this to be a most precious time.  My cancer has challenged my faith, and I have found an incredible well I did not know I had.  I have found true surrender, enormous peace.

This week, think about those beliefs or practices that sustain you.  Write about prayer or meditation, about your faith or spiritual journey.  Perhaps your faith has been challenged like Varda’s.  Perhaps your illness or life struggles led you to a spiritual journey you didn’t anticipate.  Write about it.

Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes.

Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way,

clear in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we

pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart,

and in eye, clear. What we need is here.

(Wendell Berry, “What We Need is Here,” Collected Poems, 1957-1982)

 

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