writing

What is silent?

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What is silent?

Dark, a bowl of water, a table, a chair, a TV turned off, flowers, statues, a closed book, introversion, soft fluffy clouds, an unused piano, cat fur, a comb, a spider, pillows, a bed, a broken clock, Christmas boxes, paper, pens, cards, a dresser, a mirror, a guitar in its case, dinner, a cup of coffee, a pile of dirt, pots and pans, photos and frames, a bedspread, a still bell.

Many of these silent items have sound hiding or waiting in them. A bowl of water holds the thirsty lapping of a cat’s tongue. A flip of a switch and a silent TV or radio flickers into noisy life. A piano or guitar eagerly awaits fingers to play them, latent musicality. A book opens up words—even though the sound is only in the reader’s mind, but it’s something that’s heard none-the-less. Spiders should always be silent. The ones you can hear walking are terrifying. A deck of cards when shuffled brings noise and the possibility of play. A mirror can reflect the noisemaker, but remains silent itself. Pots and pans hold the sounds of meal preparation, and on New Year’s Eve, the echoing clang of them banged together.

My house is silent. But not in a “no noise” sort of way. It’s silent in a way that feels lonely. Bored. Painful. I try to keep busy, to keep noise in my life. The noise of being, doing, feeling. But the night still comes. The silence creeps in. Even when the television makes its noise, it doesn’t fill up the empty spaces. I find myself fighting off sleep, but only because I don’t want to ruin my sleep schedule. But the silence of sleep beckons to me each night. I wonder, is it that ultimate end-of-all-the-days sleep that calls to me? I think it is. But I don’t want to hurry it. It will come soon enough. Maybe I need to find new pastimes and new people, new sounds to fill the days and nights.

I was silent because they said if I made a sound, they would hurt me more. Don’t cry. Don’t scream. Don’t tell.

(I have a deck of cards with writing prompts on them. Writing Down the Bones: 60 Cards to Free the Writer within by Natalie Goldberg. I’ve started writing in my journal everyday with writing based on these prompts. This is the first one I did a couple of months ago. Don’t worry about the negative turn this took. I’m fine. I may share more of the prompted writings later.)

find the magic

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find the magic
that will only come
through telling your story
the one you’re afraid to tell
you’re afraid to open that box
because you may never stop crying
sit in the sunshine
and write the story
in bits
and batches
phrases
words
prose and poetry
when the tears well up
stop
close your eyes
let the sun warm your eyelids
and then try
to sing

– from Grief Song

the fabric of my soul

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inside the fabric of my feelings
in the warp and weave of my existence
you wove yourself into my life and
more than my heart broke that day

you took more than my hopes and dreams
you took more than life itself
as I doubled in agony the tears poured
drowning in the blood-tinged grief

my heart rendered into pieces
unfixable, surrounded in death and pain
did you rejoice in the torment you brought?
were you aware of the devastation?

I lost track of the hours days months years
one empty day weighing as much as another
the days were long the nights were longer

on those days when I gave up on life
were you pleased to have such an effect?
did you feel even the smallest regret?

as my heart kidneys organs failed
did you know you held the power of life?
did you know you held the power of death?

you don’t hold that power now
now I can count the days again
there may be joy missing
but there’s no longer torment

there may still be empty spaces
but there are new loves and joys
I gave you the power of life and death
but I have now taken that power back

I will never again give someone
the power to destroy me
even if you still rejoice in my pain
I refuse to let your joy torment me

I will always miss the you I used to know
the truest love and deepest friend
but I will never miss the you who you’ve become
the you who attempted to murder
the very fabric of my soul

snapshots of the ward

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fig. 1

I thought the hallways would be cold and sterile. Unpadded tile floors. Echoing with footsteps and wheeled meal carts. Tile would make it easier to clean. Instead, the halls were warm and quiet. Dark carpet (to hide stains?) and the soft shuffle shuffle shuffle of patients doing their laps of the ward in their non-skid hospital slipper socks.

fig. 2

The front desk holds the list of unwelcome visitors. I find myself thankful I made my list. The person I least want to see shows up as a visitor. Why? To gloat over my breakdown? To shame me? To apologize? To make up? I’ll never know. But even just the thought of seeing them sent me into a panic attack and a need for meds.

fig. 3

The lunchroom is the hub of patient life. Coffee. Snacks. Puzzles. Every jigsaw puzzle is missing at least one piece. It’s almost a form of torture. Do they do it on purpose to test our ability to handle stress? My puzzle partner has OCD and the end of the puzzle sends her to her room shaking. This can’t be therapeutic. But there it is.

fig. 4

Occupational therapy is called arts-and-crafts or “going to camp” by the patients. We’re going to decorate light switch covers. The man next to me starts to cry quietly. “Are you okay?” I whisper. He wipes his eyes and whispers back, “I’m homeless. Where am I going to put a light switch cover?” I feel a sniffle of my own coming on and give him a quick sideways hug. The therapist says loudly, “No touching the other patients!” Oops. In trouble for being compassionate. Everyone looks at us like we’d been making out in art class.

Expressive Writing

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Someone recently told me about a writing technique, Expressive Writing, that’s supposed to help a person to process difficult situations. It’s a three day process that requires twenty minutes a day. I tried it out and found it somewhat helpful, so I thought I’d share about it here.

On the first day, you write for twenty minutes (either typed or handwritten) about the general situation. Write whatever comes to mind. Let it flow out of you. You’re not writing for anyone else to read, so don’t edit yourself. After you’ve completed your twenty minutes writing time, reread it one time. Then delete it (or tear it up and throw it away if handwritten).

On the second day, do the same thing but this time spend time looking more deeply at an aspect of the situation. Once again, after you’ve completed your twenty minutes writing, delete it (or otherwise destroy it).

On the third day, focus your writing on the here-and-now. On the present time. On where things stand today. After twenty minutes, reread it, and destroy it.

And that’s it.

I chose to write about a very painful topic from a few years ago that had been haunting me lately. I’d been having nightmares and disturbing thoughts about it throughout the day. I was afraid that maybe writing about it might bring it too much to the forefront of my mind, and that scared me a little bit. Then I realized it was already taking up space in my day, and perhaps just focusing on it directly might give me a release of some sort.

I do feel a bit better after going through the process. I might try it with a different situation just to see how it goes. If there’s something haunting you, maybe it might bring some relief.

Unknown Futures

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I’ve been doing a lot of contemplating lately about the paths and journeys we take into unknown futures.  Here are today’s ruminations.  (first draft, very rough)

How do you live best? Being true to yourself is being present in the moment.

We’re all on a pilgrimage. Often overwhelmed by circumstances. Look back to where you came from. Look forward to the horizon. Look up. What is your relationship to the horizon? To the future? Who will benefit from the place where you are? Who needs to receive your song?

The transitions of our lives are like living with storms, weather, rain. We need to shape our lives to meet the demands of the weather. In the presence of something new, we don’t yet know how to be in conversation with the new circumstance. We have to get over ourselves. We have to get out of our own way.

Do the brave thing. Take the path to your future. Begin by not denying any part of yourself. Bring the frightened parts of you along the path. Look at the parts of your life you don’t want to look at. Finding these parts comes out of silence. Listening to our deepest interior voices. Are there wells you don’t want to drink from? Grief? Regrets? Mortality? It’s tempting to give ourselves easy, unsubstantial answers. Speaking to ourselves in trite clichés. Spend time in silence, listening for the wisdom to speak. Then speak out of silence. Tell the story. Make your story.

Don’t run from vulnerability. It’s going to become the foundation for where you’re going. Helplessness comes with great loss. We don’t appreciate what we have, until it—or they—are gone. Helplessness and loss are like medicine leaving a bad taste in your mouth. We turn away from these experiences, not realizing we need to go deeper in. The full depth of the experience of loss brings knowledge, wisdom, and a reshaping of our lives we would’ve never experienced without the loss. Don’t wait until their deathbed to reach out to loved ones with your true self. Do it now. Be present fully in the moment. Be your authentic self.

Be the person your future self will always remember with thanksgiving.

~Debi

34jkie

Storytime: Kitchen creepiness …

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Several weeks after my dad installed a new sliding door between our kitchen and laundry room, I heard my mom laugh. A good, solid belly laugh. I ran to see what could be so funny. Mom was nearly doubled over, pointing at the far end of the room and stuttering between sobs of laughter, “It’s Satan! HAHAHA! It’s Satan!”

I looked where she was pointing, but I saw nothing out of the ordinary. Yellow walls, a new door, turquoise and copper cannisters, a goldfish bowl on the counter by the sink. Nothing that could earn the title of Satan.

She laughed harder. “You don’t see it, do you?”

I looked at her as she removed her cat’s eye glasses and wiped tears from her eyes. The laughter seemed less hysterical now, but quiet chuckles still shook her shoulders. She leaned against the countertop and looked back at me, laughter still lurking in her eyes.

“Oh, gosh. You must think I’ve gone crazy.”

Um, yes. The thought had crossed my mind.

“Look at the new door, Sweetie.” She walked over and began running her hand over the grain of the wood. “Look. Do you see the two horns? Here are the eyes. Here’s the pointed beard. Do you see it?”

I looked at the door as if I were looking for shapes in clouds.

And then, suddenly, I saw him. Satan’s head took up the entire door. His horns branched from his head at the top of the door. His beard just touched the bottom. I had a brief momentary shudder. The face was frightening. And then I laughed. I laughed at the humor of finding the Prince of Darkness looking out of our kitchen door as if it were a portal from the Underworld. I also laughed with relief that my mom didn’t have a straightjacket in her future.

After that day, whenever a new friend came to our house, I would take them to the kitchen so they could meet Satan. I’d trace the wood grain as mother had done, describing the facial features, one by one. And then, suddenly, that magic moment we’d been building toward. Recognition. They saw him! Sometimes a scream. Oftentimes a shudder. Many times a hand clamped over a mouth. Always horror in their eyes.

My friends didn’t like to come into our kitchen or sit in the dining room where they had a view into the room. It’s understandable, though. Satan lived in our kitchen door.

[Sadly I don’t have photos of Satan in the door. I guess people don’t think to take photos of their kitchen door. Or at least my family didn’t.]

 

You Who I Will Never Hold

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I may love your forever
you, who I will never hold
a relationship based on intimacy
of feelings, of thoughts
always yearning
always disappointed
never satisfied
never full
the desire to die
or to be fulfilled
wishing for the hunger to cease
or be satisfied
the flame to be extinguished
before it destroys
how do I live with this desire
this hunger
this flame
we met at the wrong time in this life
too late
but even so
I may love you forever
you, who I will never hold

Poem: be aware

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Short excerpt from the new book-length erasure poem, BAD THINGS HAPPEN.

31m2vqk1gvlthe evil
in this world

troubled
human history

call for help

LISTEN

in confidence ask
begin to understand
discern wisdom

LISTEN

open your eyes

BAD THINGS HAPPEN

be aware

BAD THINGS HAPPEN

they have been
deluded
they bought into
deceit

words
deluded them

LISTEN

you were captive
to traditions

you were buried
you were dead
you were hostile

you judged
defrauded
your mind

BAD THINGS HAPPEN

your freedom
distressed people

LISTEN

you learn
significant truths

BAD THINGS HAPPEN