Learn, Think, Write

Organizing myself online

52

my beach, playing with my Canon camera

I hadn’t been keeping track. But my friend, Donna, told me I’d written 52 poems for our project.

Writing, talking with Donna, planning, editing…all of this has been a joy. But I hadn’t really thought about the heft of this project until she mentioned the number. And that means, she, of course, has taken 52 photographs. The idea seemed simple: she’d send me a photo and I’d use it for inspiration to write a poem.

We didn’t plan for this to be so huge. We didn’t even envision it. We hadn’t realized how much this would end up being about those very things that drew us together in the first place– a shared experience with grief, complicated relationships with mothers, and aging. Our conversations drove this naturally, and it came to an obvious conclusion. A year. A season in our lives.

Poetry can be revealing, and for me so healing. Over the course of the year, as my poetry collection grew, so did my recognition of buried emotions. Writing about them helped me process feelings and come to terms with them.

Another challenge– imposter syndrome–came in like a storm. Even now I read some of my work with an overly critical eye, wondering who the heck I think I am to be writing poetry. This syndrome, first identified by Ruchika TulshyanJodi-Ann Burey, is one many women face.

Enter what’s known as imposter syndrome, which was originally coined by psychologists Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes in their study of professional women in a clinical setting. For people with imposter syndrome, self-doubt, insecurity, and perpetual trepidation that their inadequacies will be discovered is a way of being in the workplace. Any successes and accomplishments can trigger anxiety. Women and ethnic minorities are often the hardest hit because hierarchical and masculine cultures can contribute to imposter distress.

I have learned to speak gently to myself, calm myself down. In a few hours, I am usually able to realize where this is coming from. People pleasing tendencies manifest in many ways. Also, I know I am writing for me, and this writing has been healing.

When we write about psychologically upsetting experiences, we actively confront the event and the emotions it has engendered. We are able to give perspective to the experience and its relation to the rest of our lives by opening up (… and) constructing an understandable narrative of what occurred. In this way, expressive writing is much like excising a wound – rather than obsessively ruminating about the event in a manner that yields no answers, thus allowing the painful experience to fester and possibly lead to mental health problems, expressive writing allows us to cognitively confront, process, and heal from the pain.

https://www.artandhealing.org/evidence-of-the-healing-power-of-expressive-writing/

We will be putting the finishing touches on this project over the next month and then sending it to MILK, where they will create a beautiful book for us! I am so grateful to have shared this time with her. We’ve already talked about doing something together in the future. Both Donna and another friend Linda have rekindled my interest in photography. And I’ve signed up for a watercolor class. I don’t know where this will lead, but I am open to possibilities.

“Art is a wound turned into light.” ~ Georges Braque

Even in Winter

enjoying the barrier beach

We escaped from winter in Virginia to winter in Rhode Island, though people who know me, know the trip is not about the weather. I consider this place home, and I need to check in every now and again. My son’s family decided to come along, and his daughter Annie LOVES the water.

When we made a quick stop to see the beach, she asked if she could put her feet in the water. 30 degrees!! But she did, and she came back with a huge smile on her face. As long as I am with them, I will never say no to a passion or interest.

Today it is raining/snowing, and we’ll do crafts at the dining room table.

I am enjoying each moment.

This is it.

A friend pulled me up short the other day.

“This is it,” she said. “Stop planning your death.”

I hadn’t realized how much I talk about dying: where, when, how. All the details.

In some ways, I believed that planning would make it seem less stressful. But what has happened is that I focus so much on the end, I forget I am here now. This poem by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer says it all:

This is it, I think, as I lie in bed, not wanting to leave the warmth.

This is it, my feet meet the cold wood.

This is it, I water the orchid.

This is it, I boil water, make tea.

I think, I’ll be a better person tomorrow.

This is it, me dreaming of fresh starts.

This is it, defuzzing the sweater.

This is it, paying bills, answering mail, frying eggs, washing pans.

No life but this one.

No fresh start but here.

This is it, the cat sits on my papers.

This is it, the phone doesn’t ring.

This is it, the floors need mopping,

the letter needs written, the class needs planned.

This is it, me wishing I could be more perfect.

This is it, this. This only. Only this.

This is it, this flutter in my chest

when the sun enters the room,

the natural leaning toward the light.

This is it, this silence.

This cold. This warmth.

This longing. This song on my lips.

Holidays That Last for Days

When you have an extended family, celebrating means day after day after day! But one good element of this pattern is being able to spend quality time with each family. I have also come to know that love is the tiny moments. Pat Schneider was a poet who had a profound impact on me. This is her poem, “Lessons”

Have good lessons this holiday season.

LESSONS
Pat Schneider

I have learned
that life goes on,
or doesn’t.
That days are measured out
in tiny increments
as a woman in a kitchen
measures teaspoons
of cinnamon, vanilla,
or half a cup of sugar
into a bowl.

I have learned
that moments are as precious as nutmeg,
and it has occurred to me
that busy interruptions
are like tiny grain moths,
or mice.
They nibble, pee, and poop,
or make their little worms and webs
until you have to throw out the good stuff
with the bad.

It took two deaths
and coming close myself
for me to learn
that there is not an infinite supply
of good things in the pantry.

Update on Pair Project

Last April when my friend Donna Hopkins and I decided to try a poetry/photography project, I was excited. But I didn’t know we would still be working on it these months later.

Yet, I’ve found this project has given me focus. I’ve also changed the way I see the world, much like when children view events through their own fresh eyes. And I couldn’t be more grateful for this in my life right now.

This was Donna’s idea: to make a photo and send it to me where I would react to it in writing. “Let’s see where it goes,” she said, with a smile that drew me in.

photo-projectDownload

First, I love her photographs. They capture moments in her life, moments that show what it means to be human. Also, she knows I use the photos as inspiration, so my writing is not literally about the photo but what comes to me as I study it. We found we were much aligned as we moved forward. The other discovery came when she titled the project Natural Histories, a nod to this time in our lives. What a perfect way to document what we are both going through as we transition into what I think of as the last third of our lives.

An example above shows what she sent- a photo, stark in its dark green and white sign contrast, but also empty with a sign that says nothing. At first I focused on the blank sign, but then my mind moved to what happens at the moment of death. I found my feelings stirred up around the idea of after life and my mother.

We are mid-way through the project, aiming to finish up next April, a year from when we started. The beauty for me is I can create a poem but return to it before we finalize. I’ve already added and deleted lines from earlier poems, and I plan to do a once over before we publish our book.

Sebene Selassie said, “each of us can cultivate our capacity to live in ways that honor our inherent interconnection. Through intimacy and imagination we can consciously create the world we live in together.” This feels like I am creating the world in which I want to live. We will all grow old. We will all die. How do we honor the time we are here on this earth?