Choppy Waters

July 10, 2013 By

DSC01405I’ve been on quite a roll with my memoir writing lately. But suddenly I’m in one of those places, where to move forward even more, means that I must build up my courage and reenter places and times that were cruel and heartbreaking. I’ve been in this situation numerous times in the past as I’ve gone back in time, processing the occasions that brought me to the place on which I stand today. It means remembering and feeling the way I did when both good and horrible things were happening in my life.

The good parts are no problem. Who wouldn’t be willing to revisit the births of their children? As physically painful as those happy occasions can be, they are times of celebration, bringing new life into the world and watching as tiny copies of ourselves take wing and find their own way.

It’s the heart wrenching times that can send me into hurtful funks. But I realize that in order to go where I’m headed, I must enter a roiling sea of emotions and make my way to the opposite shore, where I no longer have to hide from the things that made my life a living hell at times..

By revisiting those dark memories and arriving on the other side, I stand taller, unafraid, and grateful for the chance to move along into my new life. It is a rebirth in which I release myself from the tangle of horrifying events that left me stranded; a broken, needy person.

When I  enter the dark, I find the light and recognize where I am, knowing that I am not all that has happened to me. It is who I am becoming now that is important. It allows me to live each day with joy and forgiveness. It’s a place I never thought I’d find and I’m very grateful to have arrived here.

So this week, I’ll probably spend a few days procrastinating.  I’ll sharpen pencils, clean up the huge mess on my desk, and feel slightly depressed. I’ll listen to my inner critic who seems to think I’m useless and a horrible writer.  When I get tired of  her ranting about how useless I am, I’ll don my Super Woman cape, hold my breath and jump headlong into the mess of living.  I’ll arrive on the other shore with much less baggage, watching her as she tries to catch up with me, rowing a small, leaky boat across the choppy sea.  She’ll eventually make it and will try to torture me with her presence once again. But she’ll still be carrying her oars and hauling the little boat that holds all of her heavy stuff, behind her. I will be freshly bathed and ready to dive into the next waves that roll my way.  She’ll be screaming at me as I go, but I’ll reemerge on the other side once again, even lighter than I was before.

Filed Under: Fear, Healing, Life, Memoir, Navigating Through Life, The Journey, The Sea, Trauma, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Picking And Choosing

June 25, 2013 By

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Acrylic on Paper, Untitled, © Joan Z. Rough

Heaven and hell are not some places I’m going to go to later on.  Heaven and hell are here, right now, and I create them for myself with my choices.

Hae Doh Gary Schwocho
Beneath Belief

Driving in Ireland is quite frightening for me. It’s one of those places where you drive on the left rather than on the right side of the road as we do here in America. It can also be very difficult to figure out where I’m going. I’m not always good at reading maps. When I reach a crossroads there are usually road signs pointing to the nearest village, but more often than not, the signs may have been spun around by the wind and I can easily be lead astray. Many an hour has been taken up in my travels on that magical Emerald Isle, backtracking … trying to find my way to where I’m supposed to be. Fortunately it’s always a beautiful drive along the way.

And so it is with life. Crossroads are always in front of me and road signs are rare, if they exist at all. One minute I’m in a state of bliss. The next moment can take me on the most terrifying journey I’ve ever imagined. Taking one road over another can sometimes make a big difference. It’s always a hit or miss situation. Though I may get to my destination in the end, one way may be full of boulders and potholes, while the other way may be a straight shot on a newly paved surface.

I try to follow my intuition most of the time. But I’m not perfect at it in any sense of the word. Moving to Virginia from Vermont was one of the best choices I ever made. Up north I felt at the end of my rope. I felt I had seen every horizon that existed. I didn’t enjoy the part every winter when the snow was deep, the winds would howl, and I’d get very depressed. I suffered from Seasonal Affective Disorder, a problem brought on by lack of enough hours of natural daylight during the shortest days of the year.

Here, in Virginia, the road has indeed been tough at times.  Though it was especially hard to move, my world suddenly opened up to new possibilities.

And talk about making choices … we’re close to Washington, DC, where things change or not, depending on how the Senate or the House are feeling on any given day. But right here in Charlottesville there are more educational possibilities at my fingertips and a much more diverse community than I found up north, close to the Canadian border.

The weather here is most agreeable until summer comes along and cooks me with its heat and humidity. I’ve been here for 35 years, and I’m finally getting a bit used to it. Gone are the days of my winter depressions. The only weather bit that sometimes gets to me are summer heat waves when going outside is torture. But summer here is much shorter than winter in Vermont, so less suffering.

Pick and Choose

Which to choose?

But it’s somehow the day-to-day choices that don’t seem to have a great impact on my life that get me in trouble … placing me on the hot seat within spitting distance of hell. Simple choices, like what to eat when I’m feeling I need a bit of energy. Will it be protein or sugar?  Usually it’s sugar. Should I do my hour of exercise in the morning when I have more energy? Or can I make myself do it at four PM when when I have some free time?  If it’s not done by noon, it won’t happen at all.

And so it goes. There are always questions to be answered and choices to make.  Should I hang out with Louise, even though she sucks all of my energy away? And exactly why don’t I tell Steve that I don’t want to see him any more?

When I do nothing about the things that really bother me and just let them be, no matter how much they hurt, I am making a choice. Most often doing nothing leads to the stress and anxiety I’ve already been suffering from. And because I’m afraid of what might happen if I don’t call Louise and invite her to lunch, or tell Steve, that I don’t love him, nothing changes. That is the kind of the choice that will most likely lead me to hell right here and now. The deed not done, is done.

But if I let go and decide not to invite Louise to fill me with her doom and gloom over a healthy salad, or tell Steve the truth about how I feel, there are also consequences. Those two people will be gone from my life and maybe I will miss them. Maybe I won’t be able to find another guy that is attractive to me, and I to him. Maybe there won’t be another Louise to whom I can tell my deepest, darkest secrets. But then, just maybe, I’ll be happier and feel free to go about my life the way I choose to.

Making choices always has consequences. Some are good. And some might be bad … at least for a while. Making choices means making changes in what fits in my life and what doesn’t. Maybe I’ll be lonely for a little while until I find just the right guy. But if I keep hanging on to someone who doesn’t naturally make me want to sing and dance with him, I won’t be happy ever.

When decision times come along, I always try to ask myself what the consequences will be. If I remain where I am, will I be happier or does the alternative have more promise?  Yes, it’s hard, but without change where would I be?

How about you? Are choices hard for you to make? How do you handle those monumental crossroads? What helps to move you along and out of the reaches of hell?

 

Filed Under: Navigating Through Life, Quotes, The Journey, Travels Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Truth Or Consequences In Writing Memoir

May 15, 2013 By

IMG_0687“I was sitting at a beach with my notebook, and I’m thinking about how to get back into [writing] and what matters to me, and I just sort of self-destructed at Brothers & Sisters. I had written about personal events that implicated other people in some way, that I hadn’t taken into account the consequences, and I found myself very much like the character in my play … a writer who is a dangerous creature.”

“And I had a note to myself, ‘play about daughter of a famous family who writes a book about her growing up in this family,’ something like that; ‘the danger of telling the truth that turns out to be a lie.’”  — Jon Robin Baitz, playwright

This past weekend Bill and I went up to the Arena Stage in Washington, DC to see a show.  Every year we buy a half series of season matinée tickets, jump in the car and make the two and a half hour trip up and back in one day.  It’s a great way to get out of Dodge for a short period of time, cleansing the mind of huge and trivial pursuits, and giving us a taste of city sophistication. Though Charlottesville is a pretty sophisticated place it doesn’t hold a candle to being in the capital, where like it or not, it all happens, good, bad and indifferent.

The only persons who know where we are and our cell phone numbers are family members and whoever is looking after our dogs and cat.  And we don’t usually hear from any of them. The only huge drawback is the trip itself, which involves sitting in the car and the theatre for about eight hours in one day.  Not my favorite thing to do, especially if the show doesn’t grab me, which sometimes happens.  My body gets stuck in its seated position and as the years go by it gets harder and harder to get my muscles to get myself upright and walking again. If the theatrical production we see doesn’t stimulate my mind, my entire body will start asking questions like, “Why do you insist upon doing this to me?  Don’t you know that the more you sit, the shorter our life span will be?”

This past year has been a fairly good season for us in which we saw, Pullman Porter Blues (great music, so-so otherwise), Metamorphosis, and Good People, both stellar in almost every way.  Should you want to know more about them go to Bill’s blog, at View In The Dark, for his reviews and his interesting theatre chatter.

But in my mind, the best this year is the last of our series, Other Desert Cities, by Jon Robin Baitz, who created Brothers & Sisters for ABC.  And if truth were told I wouldn’t mind seeing it again and often, and I think I’ll even read it.  A very rare thing for me.

Set in the living room of the well-connected Wyeth family, who live in the desert community of Palm Springs, this family drama caught my attention for it’s references to writing memoir and truth.  Something many of us who are involved in the genre of memoir deal with every day as we put pen to paper. In this theatrical production, daughter, Brooke, comes home for the holidays for the first time in six years. She brings with her the manuscript of a book she has just sold and will soon be on bookstore shelves.

Intended to be a novel, her story turns into a memoir during the writing process, as she deals with the suicide of her brother, with whom she was very close.  Her parents, old friends of Nancy and Ronald Reagan, and the darlings of Republican politicians, far and wide, plead with her to wait to publish the book until after their deaths, claiming the consequences would damage too many lives.

I won’t go any further in telling the story and the secret that eventually comes out, as I hope all of my memoir writing friends and everyone else for that matter, will go out and see this heart-wrenching drama when you have a chance.  It was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2012, and will hopefully continue to make its rounds in regional theatres across the country.

Filed Under: family, Friendships, Memoir, Navigating Through Life, Quotes, Theatre Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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