Writing with Rox weekly prompt—"And what I really want to tell you..."

 I'll never forget the first time I dropped this prompt on a client during a one-on-one session in the summer of 2008. I was struggling a bit with depression but not quite sure what was going on, what the root was. So here I was with this client at Starbucks in St Louis Park, warming up by writing about, I believe, what we feared most in life. 

Typically my one-on-one sessions begin with an intuitive writing warm-up or writing meditation to get out of our heads, see what happens on the page, and then, if we wish, we share.  The prompt was likely "I'm afraid..." and we went from there, listing and free forming about what we fear: planes, centipedes, apathy, etc. For some reason, mid-write, I suggested we begin the next thought with "and what I really want to tell you..." and follow that. 

What came out of my pen and then my mouth to share was quite unexpected. I knew it was true...I just hadn't yet wrapped the words around it. But there in ink, the page was my mirror.  Thereafter my life and my writing life were forever changed.  My client's face reflected this and even though I tried for a quick recovery it was too late. "Oh dear, " he said, leaning back in his chair and stretching his arms overhead, smugly locking his hands behind his head. "I'm not sure how to respond to that." 

"Let's write," I said and so we wrote again.


I have a handful of prompts I offer when doing Intuitive Writing workshops, groups, individual sessions, etc, which I have been accumulating over the years of doing this. I don't want to say I "channel" them exactly (I'm not quite there, yet), but these prompts just sort of come to me in the middle of a session/class, etc. I've discovered that offering these prompts mid-sentence can change the direction and flow of the writing, serving as a sort of "check in" to the writing process, asking "are you here now? Are you present? Are you writing what you want to be writing?" 

Sometimes a fresh/mindful prompt mid-sentence can bring new life into a piece that seems to be hanging out on the surface, or distracted by being too much in its head,  a bit removed somehow. If you're writing, say, about cheese and you get hung up on what kind of cheese or what country it's from or where to get the really good cheese, you might get stuck because you are thinking too much or trying to get it right. That's when a good intuitive writing prompt might save the day. Intuitive Writing is never about getting it right. Or wrong. It's just about being with what is. But we forget how to be with what is.  A lot of time we are thinking about what was or what's to come. So: be with cheese. Linger with cheese.

For example, the prompt "and what I really want to tell you..." (variations are "what I really want to say;" or "the truth is...", etc). So say you are writing about cheese and trying to describe the perfect cheese from the perfect European country and then you get blocked because you have moved away from your truth and into the land of the head—let's call it Headland. Very quickly you have gone from Heartland to Headland. But if you are suddenly to write "and what I really want to say..." you are free to then say "I really have no idea about cheese and it smells like feet. And the truth is I've never liked cheese. I've tried to like it, for the sake of others, but the whole cheese thing makes me ill, like the time I was forced to eat it but then I tried gouda cheese when I was married to a gay guy and that changed my life and now I like some cheese and not other cheese, but cheese whiz..." etc. 

It won't always create on-the-spot poetry, or life changes, etc, but most of the time it will. For sure it will take you/open you to where you need to be on the page (and in life). The page is your mirror. 

The other thing about this that's so cool is that introducing a fresh prompt mid-sentence is that it also changes the pitch of the writing. We are sonant beings. We are rhythmic beings. The vibrations and waves of sound that we experience internally and externally inform our every move, thought, sensation. So if we introduce a new pitch to a piece of writing, it will naturally invite us to expand where we are, usually deeper into truth. Or maybe just over into truth, but over can be deeper. We are staying with what is on the page, just seeing what more of it there is. What's undercheese, you say? What's deeper than cheese?  Whatever it is, it's infinite. Changing the pitch means any prompt will suffice, say, "and another thing..." or "and what I really, really want to tell you..." etc.

Your Prompt

So try it like this: Start with "and what I really want to say..." and then in the next line say, "and the truth is..." and then try "and what I really want to tell you," and then maybe, "and what I really, really want to tell you..." and so on and on. Intuitive Writing is sort of like one big-ass long-ass run-on sentence. You just keep going, stay with it, and fly... Don't think: write. If you're not writing, you're thinking too much. Go. And then stay exactly where you are.

Another not a prompt, but just because post

Ma is here. She came in last night at 12 from LA. She only slept about 3 hours, she says. I had to send her out to Dunn Bros this morning while I saw a client. Dunn Bros coffee is right across the street. You just cross the street and you are there.

She drove there.

Writing with Rox weekly prompt—What is Intuitive Writing, anyway? (everything I ever needed to know I learned from intuitive writing)

This morning I was doing a little intuitive thinking and started thinking about my MFA program and how I got there... and how I got from there, over the years, to how I got here. And where is here? Happy. Here is happy. 

"Here" is also following this whirlwind intuitive writing path that I've been following now for about ten years. A lot of folks will email or call to ask what is intuitive writing exactly and how does it work? I tell them it's hard to explain, you have to just do it. I tell them it's a practice like any other and the more you do it, the easier it gets and before you know it, it changes your life.  The short answer to how it works is it's hard to explain because I make it up as I go, and because there is so much to it—it's infinite!—yet you begin with just one word. You just start with a word, a line, a memory, a feeling, a moment, and commit to it with love. See where it takes you. You won’t know where it’s going when you do it and if you think about it or try to prethink it, you’ll get stuck. If you just trust that the words know where they need to go and you stick with them, you’ll remember everything you love and then some. 

                                  

                                        THERE

I remember that rainy Seattle day vividly. I was driving to my job in Auburn, a 40 minute commute to misery. On clear days, you could see Mount Reineer and though I couldn’t appreciate it at the time, those commutes made the miserable job worthwhile. Of course it wasn’t the job, the rain, the divorce, the traffic, the clients, etc… it was me. I  was miserable.

I wasn’t doing what I loved. I didn’t like myself very much. So nothing at all was very joyful. I’m not sure I had much clue what I loved, though I knew I loved my cat. And the feeling I got swing dancing and singing camp songs with others and listening to Cake and Leonard Cohen, Eminem, and Sublime. Or following a strand of words across a blank page. Or playing air hockey. And being silly. And thinking about a first kiss somewhere dreamy out in nature or in a seaside city of cobblestone. Romance. I loved that. Or skipping. Or riding my bike in the dark cool summer nights. I loved the night.  Or parties where everyone talked about what was real, spoke from the heart.  Speaking Spanish with natives was cool. Speaking gibberish was a heck of a lot of fun. Admittedly, so were making crank calls. Whatever it was, I recognized this fleeting feeling as "completely alive," in full flow. 

Still... so what? Subconsciously I told myself this was not a "real" way to go through life. It didn’t add up. I didn’t pay attention to these things, give them much credence. They were hardly relevant because, what was I going to do with them?  None of these flashes of feeling fully alive, in my truth, etc, could ever actually make anything. And even if it did, it wouldn’t amount to anything. I tithed to the societal pressures telling me “well, you can’t make a living being silly. You'll never make it as a dancer, writer, etc..."  buying into the same mythology that you did: “So then why bother?” and gave up most of what I loved. Before I could even consider doing or even feeling the flow and excitement of what I loved, I shut it down. Didn’t even think about it. Of course growing up in LA this message came pretty early on. Everyone wanted to be a star and they nearly killed themselves trying. Well, some did. 

Still, even if I did pursue what I loved in any sort of organized outcome-based way, it was all too soon infected and then killed by self-consciousness, external expectations that I internalized for way too long. The love lost its spark. I could feel it in my body; I was out of sync with my authenticity. Of course I was only doing what most of us do, looking for permission to do what I loved, as though I had to pass some sort of test that granted me that right. I don't know if you all got the same message I did, but I grew up believing that only the very special/talented/beautiful/loved get to do what they love, live their truth. The rest of us had to hide who we were, shut ourselves down. And play it safe, get a  "real job."  Oy. What a setup. I took a "real job," lived a "real life." It's just what you do, right? You shut down your life force. And then you wonder why you want to eat so much. Or drink so much. You're only living half a life. So I went through life like that. Half alive.

Sadly, I wasn’t serving myself or God, or the “universe.” What does that mean? What is this "universe" speak? It means, I wish we taught our kids first and foremost to tune into what they love,  what makes them feel most alive and that as long as we do that we are serving self/God/universe best we can. It doesn't matter if we end up writing books, doing standup, or selling used cars; if we love it, allow it, if we are in our truth, we're going to be good at it. Otherwise we aren't good for anything. If we are killing ourselves and miserable dong (yes, I mean "doing," but I like "donging" better; somehow it seems more appropriate) what we think we should do or should be, we are not contributing to anything except an old mythology that is ready to fizzle out.

                                             HERE

It took me years to realize that there is no point. You just do what you love and see where it goes. You just do what you love, live what you love, and suddenly a million doors open up. You can’t know what those doors are before you start being and doing what you love; you just have to trust that they are there and will open.  And it might take a long time to see those doors because at first you don't recognize them; they can be subtle, unfamiliar. At first you may not recognize kindness or love so you don't see those doors. But eventually they start to appear more frequently, like everyday. And then you can't believe how many there are. It's infinite. And what you really can't believe is how they are never to rarely the doors you had hoped for before you got started on your truth path. 

So it’s not that honoring your truth/what you love doesn’t take you anywhere—it does— but outcome is not the point. In fact, you'll miss the outcome altogether if you are too distracted by it. I'm not saying anything new, I realize. The mindfulness folk say it a lot better than I. I'm just recycling the millions of gifted and well earned "aha" moments that have finally caught up to my body.

                    THEN, NOW: HERE, THERE

Of course none of this occurred to me on that rainy drive to work when I called Ma back. I may have been hungover. 

“How’s the job, hon?” 

“Awful. I can't stand it. I'm miserable. The only thing that ever made me happy is writing. Still. All I want to do is write."

"So why don’t you?"

"What do you mean? How? Actually, I have been thinking of MFA programs..." 

"So go." 

"What am I going to do wih it? You can’t make a living writing... Besides I already know how to write."

"No you don't. Just go. It'll be fabulous. If you're miserable, do something about it. If you know this is what you want, then fucking do it.  Why the fuck wouldn't you? You have to go... Roc?"

"Really? How am I going to pay for it?" 

"Your dad will pay for it. He'll do anything for your happiness."

So I took a leap of faith. Really, I didn't have too much to lose, but I thought I was losing everything, which, thankfully, I really was, though "letting go," is more like it.  So I got a free ride in the U of M's MFA program and up and moved. I was fairly miserable the first year and thought many times about going home to Seattle. Then one day a door opened. I took a yoga class. I wanted to get more flexible because I was a runner; I had no idea I was heading into a revolution of self. Gradually, very gradually, I settled in to the program and over time stopped trying so hard to be something or be someone I was supposed to be and began being more of me.   So there I was getting to know me, remembering me, doing what I loved, and sure enough, a million doors opened.

So that’s what Intuitive Writing is. That’s the long answer anyway.  If you just trust that the words know where they need to go and you stick with them, you’ll remember everything you love and know exactly where to go from there.

YOUR PROMPT

what do you love?

Writing with Rox weekly prompt—Not a prompt, just a story about Ma

Sometimes you just have to write it down.

Tonight I talked to Ma. It's been about a month, typical. I really should keep better track of what she says. At some point I had an idea that I would publish all of her answering machine voicemails from over the years and I do have a rather large email collection of her greatest hits. And, and, and... she is the most beloved character in my memoir ("Here's Fifty Cents and You Two Fuckers Can Take the Bus Home!")...

 For years Ma has been dogging on herself for her ADD, dementia, lack of discipline, losing her keys/wallet/checkbook, etc all the time, missing airplanes, getting lost, etc. It's occasionally funny, but mostly rote by now, even predictable.  I don't even get annoyed anymore. Tonight, though, it was funny:

Ma: Well, after three days of hell and rearranging everything, I found my checkbook that I thought I lost.
Rox: That's good.
Ma: But I wasted all this time having to redo everything.
Rox: You should always count on finding it again. It usually shows up.
Ma: Not really. Things disappear all the time. I've lost rings. A really beautiful coat. (I may be wrong, but I think she also said, I kid you not, "a rocking chair...") All kinds of jewelry...
Rox: I thought you said X stole your jewelry....
Ma: No. It turns out she didn't. I found it. But things disappear; I lose them.
Rox: Oh.
Ma: You'll never guess what I did today...
Rox: You lost your sunglasses?
Ma: No. I was getting gas on Overland... you know, that place. And I pulled away with the pump still attached to the car, pumping gas.
Rox:
Ma: And then it came out of the thing and smacked against my taillight and broke it.
Rox:
Ma: Can you believe that? I'm getting dementia, I swear.
Rox: Ma, how is that even possible?