The White Expanse

This piece blew us all away in class. 

It's very tricky to lean into a full-on metaphorical image like this. Though Tod said it happened without his thinking about it, and without planning, his practice has allowed him to stay very close to surprising connections. He says he didn't even realize it was him until teh part about "the other members of his writing group." 

The imposter syndrome - feeling a fraud is well-depicted here. Also, the more nuanced but super tricky feeling that anything we do well must be cheating, not worth reading. If the writing comes easily, if, for instance, we build fictional worlds easily with barely any effort, then that must be bad writing, or we are just tricking everyone into thinking we are a good writer.

How to overcome this? Practice. Regular and compassionate. Consistent. And companionship.

Tod's writing:

He sprung into the white open expanse of his blank notebook page as if he was diving into a swimming pool of milk.  When he surfaced, breathless, blinking away the liquid pearls from his eyelashes, he was astonished to find that he’d written an entire story.

            The story was about a man who wrote stories, but hadn’t always been able to do so because the stories got stuck on their way out, they spoke in languages the man didn’t understand, so he didn’t know how to write them down, how to spell them.  It was a matter that came before the actual craft of writing itself, because he had to learn the language the stories were speaking.

Christmas and Closeness

"Do Nothing" - a shot from the recent blizzard in Madison, WI

Please be gentle with yourselves as (if) you continue with the highest holiday season in the States:

In close quarters, we over think, second-guessing our own innate assumption of common humanness, which, I now think, boils down to a common need for kindness. We are cruelest to those who remind us of our capacity for cruelness...it (is) clear that they (don't) like who they become around us...not the hatred of the Other, but the self-hatred produced by the Other.
~G Willow Wilson, The Butterfly Mosque

In this passage, G Willow Wilson is referring to her conversion to Islam, her time in a tight-knit neighborhood full of suspicion in Cairo, and to the "clash of Civilizations." In all respect for the larger picture, I wanted to present this as also an inner battle - an inner clash. Long ago, a friend told me that returning home from her college stint at Sarah Lawrence College in upper NY State to her small town Neenah, Wisconsin upbringing made her feel schizophrenic - totally split, paranoid, divided against herself and her family and all she knew and knows.

Holidays - whether they are Christmas observed or not observed, simply time off, with family or not - are rough. Even if you really observe Haunakah or Ramadan, and eat out Chinese with friends on Christmas proper, the overall ethic of American society is one oriented towards this, the "biggest" of all holidays in the year. Co-workers ask if you are "going home for the holidays" even if you are 50. We use the euphemism "holidays" in order to ostensibly be inclusive, but let's face it: we all know that we really mean now - Christmas.

It is a time when it is easy to "disassociate in order to try and connect to others who are dissociated" as a friend recently put it. Families each have their own culture and identities, and when people grow up and split off into different areas of the States or the world, or different states of mind, going "back" can be confusing and even crazy-making (and I don't use that, or the word schizophrenic, lightly here).

Within everyone's families someone is always the scapegoat, the black sheep. Maybe you are that person, maybe you aren't. Be careful of aggression. Give space where you can and consider your own "inner other" - the parts of yourself, perhaps the ones most associated with your family - that you have divided off and attempted to hide from yourself. Your self-hatred will try to roost inside someone else, or your idea of someone else - watch out for that.

Above all, when you find you have resorted to gossip, aggression, fighting or shutting down, be gentle for the fact that you have done that. Our most intimate "clash of civilizations" happens each and every day in our transitions from work to home, family of origin to family of generation or chosen family. Even if your family is pretty peaceful, there's always going to be an edge of re-integrating when people spend time apart. Especially because of the school shooting, there's an edge of tenderness when the edges of people come together. Notice it and be as gentle as you can there.

Connect where you can and stay connected to yourself. I bid you good luck and as much heartbreaking connection as you can bear.