Random Quotes

Here are some random quotes I came across as I perused the Internet yesterday.

• If you feel stuck in some area of your life, it’s because contradictory beliefs are competing for control of your behavior – Martha Beck (http://www.marthabeck.com).

 

• Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear – James Neil Hollingworth (pseudonym Ambrose Redmoon) (http://www.values.com Quote of the Day).

 

• There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle – Albert Einstein (http://www.values.com Quote of the Day).

 

• We unconsciously become the experience of previous generations, unless we consciously become the change – Ray Davis (http://theaffirmationspot.wordpress.com/).

Letting the Demons Out: Sharing Our Painful Memories with the World

I have many demons that vie for attention when I sit down to write. I am never sure which one will yell the loudest and demand that I select them for my next topic. Often, when I try to ignore these demons they start showing up outside of my quiet writing room and into my chaotic life. They interfere with my day to day tasks – driving, reading, bill paying, motherhood, meditation and most pervasively in my dreams. What’s a writer to do? Select one, of course.

This is how I most often select what I am going to write about. It is the demon that causes the most harm to my psyche that wins. But selecting a current demon to entertain is not as easy as it might seem. Yes, they have plenty to say, but what they say is rarely of literary merit. They want to cry, bitch, and moan about the unfairness they have faced. They want to place blame elsewhere while I am trying to remain neutral. How does a writer win the fight between the emotional demon and the logical mind? How does a writer keep the anger, resentment, and vengefulness out of their writing?

I have read many essays where the author chose to let it all loose and it alienated me as a reader. Maybe it is because I am sensitive and can easily put myself in the place of others emotionally. This ability brings with it all the negative emotions that come with a piece which sets out to even a score. I don’t feel good after reading these kinds of essays. Instead I feel unsettled, like I’ve just overheard an endless rant while waiting in the line at the grocery store. It makes me uncomfortable, makes me want to rush through the line and distance myself as fast as I can. I am sure this is not how we want our readers to feel about what we have written. I want to clarify here that I am talking about writing for publication in literary journals and what I have experienced writing my own memoir pieces and reading others’ that we aspire one day to have published.

So, how does a writer express what they are feeling without the negativity coming across to the reader? I think it comes from writing about the facts objectively. If what has occurred has angered us, just sharing the facts without embellishments will surely connect with that same angry part of someone else. It is our need to appease the emotional demon that leads to a strong biased opinion coming through in our writing. We are essentially telling our readers that they cannot figure it out on their own so we must spell it out for them. We, too, can be fearful that we are alone in our anger and pain and must defend the way we feel before anyone has the chance to respond. It is difficult not to tell our side of things and trust our readers to come to their own conclusions. We are worried that our readers will misunderstand our intentions, or, even worse, disagree with the perspective we so strongly hold as truth.

Regardless of how we write, though, there will always be readers who misunderstand or disagree with what we are trying to say. But, we do not want to alienate them by shoving our opinions in front of them and expecting them to read without walking away before they’ve finished. Instead we should aspire to let our readers watch the events unfold just as they unfolded for us and allow them to feel what we felt before we could form an opinion. We want them to read to the end and form their own understandings and misunderstandings regardless of whether they agree with what we have written or not.

So, yes, my demons control what topics I will write about, but I maintain control of how I share their stories with the world. It is through the elimination of ranting and strong opinions in my essays that I have been given a fresh perspective on events from the past that have shadowed me relentlessly. As I rewrite, revise, and embrace critiques, I learn to work through my anger before it is released to the world and my writing is better for it. My writing now holds more meaning for my readers and allows them to connect more deeply with the often shameful secrets I am compelled to share with them.

Writing under the Influence

I have recently been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome and what followed my diagnosis was a lot of trial and error with various medications. I have been on medications that have caused me to swell, gaining twenty pounds in a little over a month; medications that made me feel suicidal and hopeless; medications that gave me severe migraines; and medications that simply did not work. Once I realized that my deep, suicidal depression was being caused by the medications I was taking, I stopped taking them all swearing never to take medication again. What followed? The most horrific pain and fatigue I have experienced in my life. It felt similar to the aftereffects of a car accident where every part of your body hurts combined with what I can only describe as a cellular-level fatigue. My brain would tell my body to move, but my body could not oblige. It was as if my body was weighed down with lead and despite its desperate desire to move, it could not. Within two days I was sitting in my doctor’s office broken.

I have a bad history with medications. Most often they have an opposite reaction. For example, sleeping pills give me an enormous amount of energy. Prescribing medication for me can be a daunting task. My doctor was willing to take on the challenge. This time she prescribed Strattera, an ADHD medication. Though I was diagnosed with ADHD ten years ago, I had not taken medication for it since finding out I was pregnant in 2004. I really enjoyed the chaos of my ADHD mind and had a difficult time with all the focus the medication gave me. It had significantly hindered my ability to multi-task so I did not return to it after giving birth. I had not taken Strattera before, though, and, after a day of deliberation, I decided to take it. Miraculously my bone-deep pain was nearly gone thirty minutes later. The only problem was that it wore off after about eight hours. So my doctor prescribed Neurontin for the evening. It was intended to help me sleep, but it, too, gives me a boost of energy. I am still having great difficulty sleeping, but at least I am pain free most of the night. I still wake up with the cellular-level fatigue accompanied by pain and burning in my legs, but now I know I have something available that brings relief.

What does all this have to do with writing? Well, my writing has suffered since I started taking Strattera and Neurontin. Though there were many times that the pain was too severe for me to focus on writing, there were also many times that writing helped me to escape the pain. In those times, I could visually walk through the scenes I was writing about and feel the experience fully. This amazing ability has been shut down. My writing has become more analytical rather than lyrical. It is more straightforward rather than uniquely expressive. It has become more tell than show. I find myself quite often staring at the blank page creatively mindless. I can no longer conjure the images that allowed me the full sensory experience of what I was writing. Instead, I am seeing the blank page and ONLY the blank page. So, the dilemma before me now is: Do I write under the influence of pain or under the influence of medication?

Authenticity

I have been on hiatus for over a month now trying to prioritize the important things in my life and also to figure out just what direction I want to take this blog. I have struggled with making a decision because I am a lover of everything and it is difficult to narrow down what I am passionate about. This has led to the creation of numerous blogs that have gone untouched and has kept me from posting something that is really important to me because I felt it was not in line with this blog’s purpose. But, life is writing and writing is life and from now on this blog will be about both.

For those of you who don’t know, I was recently diagnosed with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. Over the past two years these undiagnosed conditions have wreaked havoc on my health, my energy, my spirit, and my dreams for the future. In fact, it has caused my entire life to come to a screeching halt. Along with this illness I am caring for my four year old whom doctors believe is autistic with Asperger’s and can become violent at any second for any reason or no reason at all. I use the word “think” because I have been unable to have him officially diagnosed and have been waiting for specialists to see him for nearly two years now. The waiting lists are so long and are soul crushing for any parent who desperately wants to seek and receive help for their child. As if that wasn’t enough, I also have a soon-to-be-eighteen-year-old son who will begin college in the fall. AND as if THAT is not enough, I lost my job in mid-December because of budget cuts.

What has all this done for me? It has made me stop and reevaluate my life and where I want to go. It has made me realize that I need to be more authentic in all my interactions. I am was a firm believer in perfectionism and never asking anyone for help. I wanted everyone to perceive me as the person who knew how to do everything. But this mask of perfectionism I am hiding behind is not serving me very well. So, I plan to be more authentic in my writing on this blog, to share with you my fears, my worries, and my truth.

The biggest truth that I can share with you right now is that I am terrified of writing. I do not know the first thing about writing and yet the idea of learning everything there is to know in order to become a great writer is overwhelming and stops me in my tracks. I have so many interests (law, politics, neuroscience, psychology, social work, mental health counseling, sociology, criminal justice, writing, reading – you get the idea) that I find it difficult to settle down into one specific area. It is the perpetual “the grass is greener on the other side” philosophy. What I do know for sure, though, is that I want to help people, I want to teach, and I want to write. That is where I have to place my focus.

To start things off, I would like to introduce my authentic self to you: I am a 36-year-old woman who is still not sure what she wants to do with her life and has not made it past step one in Life 101. I am a woman whose legs hurt so badly some days that she has to crawl out of bed or not get out of bed at all. I am a woman who spends many mornings locked in the bathroom in an attempt to avoid her four year old’s stinging punch to the face. I am the woman who has finally started the journey toward authenticity and finding her place in this often scary world. I hope that you will follow along with me.

Christmas Memories

Marci pulled out the plastic bin from underneath the splintering shelves in her storage unit and wiped a year’s worth of dust from its top. She drew in a sharp breath of mold and mildew as she lifted the red bin, leaving only its imprint among the dust and dirt. She carried the large bin up the stairs and into her living room and placed it atop her perfectly polished table. She drew in another sharp breath, this time of fresh pine and sap. She could hear the Christmas music blaring from her upstairs neighbor and her floors and walls seemed to vibrate with its sound. She paused for a moment before lifting the lid off last year’s memories.

Last year, the music had played in Marci’s home, her three-year-old daughter, Amanda, singing along so loudly that the same neighbors upstairs had complained. But her house was quiet this year, Amanda gone before last year’s Christmas tree had even been taken down. Now Marci was forced to listen to the same songs her daughter had loved as she set about decorating this year’s tree.

Marci pulled each shiny ornament out of the storage bin and placed it in perfect order upon the tree. She reached into the bin for another ornament, but instead pulled out a small pink shoe. The laces were frayed at the edges, the tennis shoe dirty and torn. It was Amanda’s. She had been wearing this shoe the night she died. Marci could not figure out how the shoe had gotten into the Christmas bin, could not understand how she could have been so careless. When she had removed Amanda’s body from under the Christmas tree where it had lain, lifeless, the shoe must have gotten caught in the fallen ornaments. She was sure before she had secured Amanda’s body in the Christmas tree disposal bag that nothing of Amanda’s had been left behind.

She tossed the tattered shoe into the fireplace, surrendered to the Christmas cheer offered by her upstairs neighbor’s music and began to hum “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” letting the sound take her mind far away from last year’s Christmas memories.

The Numbing Effect (Cont.)

*This is a continuation of my first imitation so you might want to read that first before reading this so it makes more sense.

Tom pulls Natalie from behind the dumpster saddened by the blisters on the lips he used to kiss. He pulls her sallow, bruised arms behind her and lightly clicks the cool, silver metal around her frail wrists. He puts his hand on her back as he leads her towards the flashing blue lights and feels a knot forming in his throat blocking his air.

“Daddy?” Natalie asks looking up into Tom’s eyes as if they are her father’s.

He protects her head as he gently guides her into the back of his cruiser.

“Daddy?” she asks desperately.

“How could I have let this happen?” he thinks as he catches her reflection in the rear view mirror. It seemed like yesterday they were watching her parents’ dancing, he envious of their love. He hoped as he watched them that he was seeing Natalie and his future. He had been working, bagging groceries, saving to buy her a ring. He wanted what her parents’ had. He thought he would have it with her.

He flips the blue lights off and drives through the darkening streets to his home. He takes off the cuffs. Natalie is passed out, no longer a threat. When he picks her up the softness of her neck catches him off guard; nothing but bare, undisturbed skin. He had kissed her there, on that soft, undisturbed skin, as he tried to convince her to leave her father’s birthday party with him. But she didn’t want to disappoint her father. Maybe things would have turned out differently.

He sets her down in his bed, removes her tattered clothes. He touches her blistered lips and watches them return to the smooth, fullness that he remembers. He touches the needle marks in the delicate curve of her arm and they disappear. As he touches each part of her body, her skin comes alive, no longer fading quickly from yellow to blue. It seems that he can save her, from the pain, from the outside world, from herself. He falls asleep next to her hopeful of his new future, of the life he has breathed into her with his touch, until he wakes up the next morning to an empty bed.

After shift, he comes to find her each night behind this dumpster, thrown out like yesterday’s trash. He touches her cold body, bringing it back from the darkness it had fallen into. When she opens her icy eyes she only calls out for her father. But he takes her to his home anyway, tries to salvage what has been lost, having faith that one day he will finally save her.

This short was for a class assignment. It is an attempt to imitate Toni Morrison’s Beloved with a little bit of Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being.

‘Tis the Season to Write Poetry

A conversation with Sage Cohen

author of Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry

 

As the holidays approach in a down economy, Sage Cohen proposes that poetry can provide a meaningful way forward. Author of Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry, Cohen sees poetry not just as an art form, but a way of life. Following is our conversation about the possibilities of poetry today.

It’s the holiday season. Why poetry? Why now?

In today’s economy, many people are seeking alternatives the typical holiday spending frenzy. The good news about hard times is that they challenge us to find creative new ways to give, share and create meaning. Poetry can be a powerful instrument for conjuring such alchemies.

These days people have less cash than usual. How can poetry help?

Poetry can’t change our bank statements, but it can change the way we think about wealth and prosperity. In fact, it is my lifelong relationship with poetry that has taught me that income is one thing, but prosperity is frequently something else.

For example, a few years ago, I heard Mary Oliver speak. She reported that a critic of her poetry complained that she must be independently wealthy to have so much time to lie around in the grass and ponder nature. This made the poet laugh, because the critic was reporting in an underhanded and confused way about a truth that Oliver tapped into long ago: the act of lying in the grass and listening to the world IS wealth.

The truth is, we don’t need to go anywhere special to tune in to poetry. Our lives are already inundated with sensory information that is the raw material of poems. All we need to do is slow down, pay attention and write down what moves us, intrigues us or stirs our curiosity. This does not require an inheritance or a 401K. It simply requires a willingness to welcome the abundance that is already ours, and to follow the golden thread of language wherever it leads us.

What poetry can give us is something far more valuable than money could ever buy – it gives us ourselves. Poem by poem, we write our souls into existence. Weighted in words, the spirit that animates us becomes palpable. By the same token, each poem we read offers a small window into the human condition, in which we may better recognize some glimmer of our own being.

The world seems to be falling apart around us. Why should we be focused on poetry when it can’t help change anything?

You’re right; poems may not stop the clubbing of baby seals, domestic violence, child trafficking, dog fighting, genocide, conflict in the Middle East or whatever it is that feels most difficult on any given day. But as the motorcyclist must lean into the turn to prevent a fall, poems become a kind of machinery of transport, giving us a context for leaning into the pain that we meet and safely navigating through it.

My father always said, “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.” And poems are the treasures that can be exhumed from those undesirable experiences. Just think all of the great, poetic opportunities for understanding that lie coiled at the heart of every mistake, heartbreak, disappointment, and regret.

What if you were to literally look to your poetry practice as a way of moving through what pierces you to the core? What injustices might it help you examine unflinchingly? What epicenter of pain or grief might it help you enter and consider? How might you relax into the universal truths of divorce, death, intolerance, and change, and make a poem offering that illumines these truths with compassion?

How do you recommend that readers get started with their holiday poem-making?

I always remind people that their ordinary lives will offer more than enough source material for poetry. The following exercises are designed to get folks mining their own daily experience to see what inspired thoughts and language might be awaiting them below the surface.

1. Choose an activity you do regularly that is the absolutely most routinized, unremarkable event of your day. (Mine would be doing dishes.) Write down the answers to these questions about it:

• Notice the physical feeling of this routine. Which muscles are involved? What kind of rhythm or tempo does it involve? Are you cold or hot, energized or depleted?

• How do you feel emotionally when you do this?

• What are the smells associated with this activity? (I use lavender soap, so my sink smells like a French garden.)

• What do you see when engaged in this routine? (I look out at the butterfly bush and magnolia tree in my back yard. I enjoy watching meals erased from plates and glasses.)

• Pay close attention to your thinking. What images and ideas bubble up as you are doing this activity?

• How does the time of day or weather or location (indoors vs. outdoors, your home vs. someone else’s home, summer breeze or snowfall) affect your experience?

2. What wildlife, plants and trees do you see out your window at home, at work, or en route? What do they look like, feel like, sound like? What are their names? What are the visual cues and references in your home and/or workspace?

• Make a list of the 20 things you come into contact with most.

• Write down something else in the world that each of these 20 things remind you of. For example, the red teapot reminds me of the robin red breast. The worn wood of the mirror over the sink reminds me of the door to Grandpa’s barn. The curlicue pattern on the silver platter makes me think of storm clouds.

3. Think of someone you see regularly in passing but do not know well, like your mail carrier, barista or neighbor. Write a poem that imagines what their life might be like:

• Who do they love?

• What have they lost?

• What do their pajamas look like?

• What are their aspirations?

• What do they eat for breakfast?

4. Explore your holiday archives:

• What was your biggest holiday surprise?

• What holiday is most meaningful to you and why?

• Who do you yearn to see during the holidays?

• How has Santa (if you have a relationship with Santa) satisfied you and let you down over the years?

• What is the most embarrassing thing that ever happened around the dinner table with your family at holiday time?

• What outfit comes to mind when you think back on past holiday celebrations?

This should give you a foundation of source material to start playing with. Circle a few words or phrases that interest you, and let those be the kindling for your poetic fire.

Don’t know where to go next? Freewriting can be a useful way to take your ideas and language a little further into the realm of the poetic. Set your timer for 10 minutes, sit down with your notebook, and keep that hand moving across the page, no matter what, without stopping, for the entire 10 minutes. You’re not trying to be brilliant here – just to get loose and let words start coming without thinking too hard. The more you practice, the looser you’ll get. And the looser you get, the more your language will surprise and delight you.

I’d like to send readers off with a thought about poetry and holiday cheer

Egg nog, move over. Rudolph, there’s a brighter light guiding our sleigh tonight.

I’ve never experienced any holiday cheer that rivals the state of grace that poetry invites into our lives. That is why I often give poems I’ve written as holiday gifts. I print them on pretty paper, place them in an attractive frame and presto – the most treasured holiday gifts I’ve ever given only cost me the time I spent creating them.

Try it! You just might get hooked.

Wishing you all a peaceful and poetic holiday season.

* * * * *

Sage Cohen is the author of Writing the Life Poetic: An Invitation to Read and Write Poetry (Writers Digest Books, 2009) and the poetry collection Like the Heart, the World (Queen of Wands Press, 2007). An award-winning poet, she writes four monthly columns about the craft and business of writing and serves as Poetry Editor for VoiceCatcher 4. Sage has won first prize in the Ghost Road Press poetry contest, been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and been awarded a Soapstone residency. She curates a monthly reading series at Barnes & Noble and teaches the online class Poetry for the People. To learn more, visit www.sagesaidso.com. Drop by and join in the conversation about living and writing a poetic life at www.writingthelifepoetic.typepad.com!

 

*Read my reviews of Like the Heart, the World and Living the Life Poetic.

MIA = NaNoWriMo

If you are wondering why I have been MIA from my blog it is because I am participating in NaNoWriMo. Stop by and visit me to check out my progress: TheNightWriter

See you soon!

Just Before Dawn

My latest Halloween short “Just Before Dawn” has been posted on The Campfire Pages: Halloween Edition. Take a look and let me know what you think! You can read many more fabulous Halloween stories there too!

You can read my other Halloween short “Reclaiming of the Soul” here!

Happy Halloween!

Birthday Wishes

Well, my birthday is today and that got me thinking. I have never been too good at New Year’s resolutions, but maybe that’s because I’ve been celebrating the wrong year. I think from now on my goals will follow the time span between my birthdays. I have definitely made progress over this past year. It seems as each year goes by my life seems to get a little bit less complicated. I am just beginning to fully embrace the idea that I create my reality and that the Universe is abundant in every way. I am going to take this next year to test this belief by having a positive mind, solidifying goals, taking action where I can, and leaving the rest to the Universe. What is it that always stops me from moving forward? That cursed how. I am going to try this year to focus on my goals and leave the unknown “how” to a Higher Power. 

My goals for my 36^th (technically 37^th) year are as follows: 

• Relocate to a beach community
• Continue earning MFA
• Complete my first memoir
• Receive funds to support my writing
• My son’s successful enrollment in college
• Create a long-term healthy eating plan
• Incorporating exercise into my daily routine
• Make my health a top priority
• Significantly reducing debt and monthly costs
• Replace TV time in my family with reading, music, and arts
• Find alternative ways to earn money rather than traditional 8-5 job
• Continue my journey towards healing the past
• Embrace the Law of Attraction consistently
• Be a more positive/less complaining person
• Downsize/Simplify
• Build lasting relationships with others 

I am sure these goals will evolve as I grow and learn and I will update them accordingly. I truly want to make this year my best year ever and am finally willing to do what it takes to make that a reality. Why wait till January when I can start right now?

*To see progress on my birth-year goals go to my newest blog: http://livefromtheheart.wordpress.com