Writing Therapy.

“And even though their son will always be alive in their hearts, like Pammy and my dad will be alive in mine- and maybe this is the only way we ever really have anyone-there is still something to be said for painting portraits of the people we have loved, for trying to express those moments that seem so inexpressibly beautiful, the ones that change us and deepen us.”
- Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

I found the poem I shared yesterday written on the back side of a scrap of watercolor paper, a painting I had begun that I destroyed entirely with too much of the wrong color. On Sunday evening I finally decided to clean out a bag full of things I had taken home with me that week before Christmas, when I knew that this was my last journey home to her. So many things were in that bag. Christmas cards, sympathy cards, receipts from the hospital cafe, a copy of mom's obituary, a Vogue that I flipped through mindlessly because I couldn’t bring myself to read the novel I brought, scraps of paintings that never turned out, scraps of writings from spare moments when fairly cohesive thoughts broke through my sadness. 

Two months later, I don’t even remember writing that poem. Was I in the hospital? Was I at home? Late at night or early in the day? Before or after she slipped and fell and hit her head on the cold bathroom tile and all the nurses came rushing in at once and I cried, but she didn’t?

I left all of that out, but the emotion is there. 

I’ve found bits and pieces of these experiences all over the place, scribbled on napkins and receipts and work notes. Like finding all the outer edges of a 500-piece puzzle I’ve been gathering them, trying to fit them together to keep the memories alive. Because sometimes, yes, I have to ask,

Did that really happen?

It did. 

And she’s gone. 

But she’s still with me.

Reading Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird has been very much like going to see my therapist, except that Lamott is like the therapist for my writing psyche. She tells me to write thoughts as they come to me on index cards or in a notebook. I think for a long moment about all of my notebooks and scraps of paper. 

“Oh yeah... I guess that’s what I’ve been doing, in a way.”

“Good,” she smiles. “That’s normal for a writer, whatever that means.” 

Poem : Ebb and Flow.

The complex fairness of it, and its paradox.
Fair, because she doted on me my whole life :
Swaddled, nourished, comforted, encouraged.
It’s her turn now.

But how unfair, that she should be weakened, helpless.
Her strength ebbs away, just out of reach for her, 
for any of us, to grasp. 
It’s the thing I cannot give her.

Where is the dignity?
All our lives we’ve struggled to find it.
It will be snatched away.
It will leave her lifeless in her child’s arms,
our world turned backwards.

The ebb and flow,
of fair and unfair,
of grief and joy,
of life and death,
of strange and familiar,
wears me down to nothing,
a smooth round stone for throwing. 

[Written : 12.20.11]

book·ish : films

After watching Midnight In Paris again over the weekend, I started thinking about bookish films, or movies that talk about the writing life, the creative struggle, the process of writing literature, or ones that examine the lives of famous writers, etc. 

These aren't film adaptations of literature, but films that address the subject of writing literature. Maybe I should have filed this under a new weekly column, "writerly"? But hey, it's my blog. 

Anyway, when it comes to bookish films, Stranger than Fiction is my absolute favorite, but there are many others out there. Adaptation, Atonement, Becoming Jane, Finding Neverland, to name a few. Do you have a favorite? 

book·ish/ˈbo͝okiSH/Adjective

1. (of a person or way of life) Devoted to reading and studying rather than worldly interests.

2. (of language or writing) Literary in style or allusion.

3. (of art and all manner of lovely things) devoted to the written word as a form of art and as a way of seeing the world.

4. (of SheWritesandRights.blogspot.com) anything of the aforementioned characteristics as they are found on the interwebs and reposted by Bethany, because bookish and writerly things always give reason for amusement.

Inspired By.

Source: kendieveryday.com via Bethany on Pinterest

Friends, my blog reader is feeling a little stale. It's like going to my closet full of clothes and sighing, "I have absolutely nothing to wear…" This a complete lie, but it's just that feeling that nothing feels new or particularly exciting that makes me feel a little... ennui. The truth is, there are some great pieces in my "favorite blogs" closet, and I love them, and I'm absolutely going to keep them around, but I'm ready to do a little shopping! 

So give me some good deals, okay? Tell me : what's your favorite blog? Leave your favorite in the comments.

My one criteria is not that you share a writing blog, but that you share a blog that has good writing. There is a difference, don't you think? It has to be a good read. And please, make sure it's one that's easy on the eyes. If the design is terrible (i.e. too crazy colors and backgrounds, ridiculous and unreadable fonts) I will immediately click away from it and won't bother reading. See? The clothing analogies are endless when it comes to blog shopping! 

Despite my restlessness, here are a few that I've found this week that did catch my attention.

"A study published last month in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social  Networking found that the more time people spent on Facebook, the happier they perceived their friends to be and the sadder they felt as a consequence. What we’re losing, Ms. Turkle said, is a healthy form of compartmentalization." - About over-sharing and over-obsessing in social media.

In a similar vein, Jess Constable talks about smurgging. 

And let's differentiate between "thinspiration" and "healthspiration," otherwise known as the dark side of Pinterest. 

The top 5 regrets of the dying. 

The academy is always late to the party (but Adele still deserved the sweep.)

"While I waited, I kept writing." Great advice about submitting book proposals to publishers. 

And what's your writing routine? I'm still working on mine. 

Can't wait to explore your links! Have a good weekend, friends.

Guest Post | One Letter

I love what my friend Missy said the other day, 

"Never waste a good crisis." 

She was talking about Grammy winner Adele's breakup with a terrible, horrible, no good boyfriend that broke her heart, and how that breakup gave Adele the fuel she needed to write the album that changed her life and changed the world. It's a beautiful concept isn't it? It's not something we think about in the midst of pain, but creativity has the power to heal if we let it. 

What experiences in your life can you put to good use? How can sharing those experiences through your art impact the lives of others? 

I answer those questions in my guest post for Missy's blog in her "One Letter" series, and talk about my relationship with my mom, the letter she left me, and the one letter I would love to leave for my own daughter some day.