Writing with Rox WEEKLY—Year End Celebrations

When I first moved here in 2001, I had a handful of bylines to my name, but no idea where I was heading as a writer. I could have never predicted where I am today and if I saw it coming I would have been really confused. At the time, I was hoping to write a bestselling memoir or collection of essays (what we now call Creative Nonfiction and/or Personal Essay) based on my "dysfunctional" (I actually touted "dysfunctional" as though it would be a selling point) upbringing in Los Angeles. All of this, before yoga. 

Of course I can't attribute everything to yoga. First of all, there's the University of Minnesota for accepting me into the MFA program in the first place. Somehow they saw past the "dysfunction" and admitted me into their program in 2001. To this day (and still), I am ever grateful to the Minnesota literary (and illiterary) communities and folks who welcomed me so openly (if not somewhat Minnesotanly) into the books and pages of their lives. 

Today one of my students asked me why I don't do much freelancing anymore. Ooooooh, long story, I may have said. The short answer? Oooooh, I used to be a freelancing whore. Well now, let's not go...

True, once upon a time while I went through the MFA program at the U,  in addition to writing columns for the Minnesota Daily, I was very fortunate to connect with some local publications and eventually began writing for most of them, namely writing monthly columns for Minneapolis St Paul Magazine, with the occasional interview or feature. To those publications I am also very grateful! They put up with me. And I mean that. 

But I was a freelance addict, meaning I took and went after every gig I could get my young big-headed opinion over. Long before I was a legal resident, I learned there are advantages to not being a native Minnesotan when it comes to going after things one wants. For the first and last time, Minnesota Nice worked in my favor. (I suffered aplenty at its cause, you can trust me on that!)

Still, I was cocky, I was young, I was a hoarder, I was afraid of not being important or loved, etc... I look back on some of the things they printed and I go... Oooooh, shit. Really? Really? But then I remember me back then and try to have compassion. 

Try. I said I try.

Although I've veered from freelancing, one of the greatest things about it was I got to share my values, beliefs, and quirky passions with mainstream culture. Despite my cluelessness and want for fame and fortune, I wrote from a place of love. My monthly Top Tens column featured ten, "best" anythings based on any given topic of my choosing: Best places to make out while riding your bike, best pick up games, "inappropriate" public art, unsung heroes, cover bands, candy in bulk, folks who defy Minnesota Nice...  

I'm trying. I'm trying.

I don't miss the deadlines and line checks, the word count, the irony, and all the stuff that goes with regular freelance work, but occasionally I get nostalgic for sharing the things out there I think are really cool. Granted I don't get "out there" nearly as much as I used to, nor am I as savvy to the old hipster ways (thankfully, gratefully), but I don't know if that would change anything anyway. In any case, here are the things and people that make my life wonderful and I cannot live without: (And you have likely heard me talk about all of these things regularly, but now I am going on being cocky again and overtooting my welcome, so just bare with me)... 

First of all, you, students, readers, friends, like-hearted and minded kindred soul mates who come and make The Beach such a sacred place. Thank you. Thank you so much. Happy New Year. What a blessing that my life happens to be happening and weaving at the same exact moment as yours, that we found each other. It's a miracle and I am grateful. Terry Tempest Williams has an awesome line in her piece "Why I Write" about how writing is like "whispering into the ear of someone you love..." As I write this, my wish is for all my writing family, each of you, to hear these words whispered into your ear, as yours and yours alone...  You'll try? 
The "strangers" out there I will come to know and share and write with and love when the time is right
Studio Inside Out is brilliant! Oh to live in the colors! Meet your brilliant on the canvas! Guided by pure love...
BareBones Halloween Show is something you hear me talk about all the time
MayDay Parade ditto
Amy Pate—My one and only yoga teacher, a true light...at One Yoga Studio.
Wild Moon Bhaktas and Kirtan Path if you ever want to chant and be happy.
Yogananda Center
Common Ground
Dharma Field
One Yoga
Invisible Bee Yoga
All places and beings teaching and being peace
Milissa Link
Lovingkindness 
The Sun Magazine
The New Yorker
Viva Mexico who get me there every year
ARC on Penn for having clothes every Sunday for $1 and thereby keeping me and my son warm and overdressed year round.
Latest find on You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLERRYp8Oao
Favorite Parrot Totally random, but god, I love her. You have to watch the whole thing.
Jessica O who is one of my bff's, the original mother earth who teaches me how and why to love the planet and it's children and who is taking her 7 year old son to meet his dad for the first time in Japan this spring
Hot Chocolate at Caribou after x-country skiing at Hyland Park... that there is a two-for-one
Best Drum Circle
The man who taught me to drum and so much more
Omulu Capoeira is where Jude occasionally gets his kicks. One of these days, I'll join him!
Curran's so odd it's not even a dive, but I am in earnest ever grateful to them for providing weekly dinners of pancakes and chocolate chip cookies to my son and his dad
Cary Tenis I still cannot say enough things about this amazing writer, human, and being of peace.
That's not the end. Just where I am having to stop for now. 
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! 

WRITE WITH ME? WHAT CAN YOU ADD TO THIS LIST? PEOPLE? PLACES? EDIBLES? SPIRITUALS? ALL IN ONE?

AND IF YOU'D RATHER:
 "NEW YEAR'S EVE"... ANYTHING ON THAT. ANYTHING.

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—And what I really want...

Permanently clean floors
a winter cabin in Encinitas, California
an aversion to sugar
more time
fewer hormones to deal with
a hugging shop (remember House of Hugs?)
skate skis
contentment with wanting and not having
sweet music piped into my condo every time a baby is born

a functional backpack purse. I really want a functional, simple, good quality, cute, purse.
100 dresses and boots that fit just perfectly so I never have to shop for them again.

daily massage from my amazing massage therapist
a hot tub
soft slippers
better feet
better hair
glitter and stardust to accentuate my hair and cheeks at the just the right moment
a yoga studio to move in downstairs
a vegetable garden
a lemon tree
a cat
a dog
a parrot
a sitar
a big drum
a piano

romance, always more romance

I want to be carried when I'm tired.
I want to be kissed on a perfect summer evening, whirled and twirled on a gentle, snowy night.
I want to dance and sing all night long.

a gargantuan family to go to on the holidays with lots of kids and family and music making and healthy food and cooking and merry making in a gargantuan house with high ceilings and dancing and a skylight and a piano and heck...you might as well throw in some ghosts because this is sounding a lot like the haunted mansion ride at Disneyland where everyone is having a big party

speaking of ghosts, bringing my dad back for a day

for Jude to never grow older
a younger body to make more children
to remember my dreams more often
to fly

a long table down on the the street, right here on 50th and Xerxes that sits about 100 people (and as long as across the world) who never met and never thought they would all gather and write together and realize how much they have in common and love each other

a new bike

lovingkindness
for everyone to know the love in their hearts

more time
more time
more time

to be here now
in wishing
in the gift giving that life breathes
in and out
every moment

WRITE WITH ME?
WHAT DO YOU REALLY REALLY WANT? WHAT'S ON YOUR LIST? 

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—Pop-Up Stories: Keeping it simple

I have a student who has been writing with me since my first class at the Loft back in 2005. The class was called "Creative Workout," where I had students do all sorts of "creative" endeavors in and outside the classroom in order to work the inherent creative muscle and maybe get some writing out of the deal. It's vague, but memories I have include students running around the room as their toddler selves, drumming out their feelings on the table, and trying out something new and a bit risky out in their community and then writing about it. I had a lot of nerve. D likes to tell the story repeatedly about how much she didn't like me back then, how she thought I was out of my mind. Who did I think I was teaching writing, what with my flaky west coast ways, drumming and rhyming games that I often  I used to teach poetry. Where did I think I was, the beach? Was this some sort of commune free-for-all love-in or was it a writing class? 

Well, turns out, I grow on a person, or as D would say, "you wear on a person."  Over the years we have written together privately and in my Friday Women's group, where she has gone from writing one page poems about her porch to epic personal essays in creative nonfiction about everything from running a discotheque with her husband in 1970s Minneapolis by night, teaching kindergarten by day, to "D + G Stories," which account for the daily mishaps that happen in a marriage, like butt-bumping in the kitchen when there isn't enough room for both of you. No matter what she writes about, she always wants more writing time, always returning to the table with a longing to write "because I love to write."

Together we have invented new forms of poetry (candy poems, yoga poems, etc), loving the simple permission we gave one  another to make poetry out of just about anything. Together we have taken a walk to the corner on a hot summer day, hugged a tree, and returned to write about it. There are many memories, many stories. One day out of the blue she started writing erotica. Where did it come from? Who knew? It just showed up. And man, was it ever good. And it just kept on pouring out of her, endlessly.   We later discovered she was on a healing journey, beginning, as she says, "to write the trauma out of my body." 

About this I could go on and on. But not today.

One of the things I love so much about D is her tendency to rebel against my writing prompts. Each and every Friday when we write together, she will either flat out refuse my prompt or she will  twist it into something much better. When I first started my blog, she went on about the lunacy of starting a "bog." When I proposed we all write some "spoken word," well, in classic form, D created a powerful piece of "open word," which I like a lot, lot better. And last week when I suggested we all write our memories of what had happened since we wrote together last, encouraging them to "write whatever pops into your mind and go with it because it will reveal important themes and energy..." she aptly named the exercise "pop-up stories." No beating around the bush there. Spoken like a true kindergarten teacher. 

It is this simple and fresh twist on the everyday seriousness of adult speaking and thinking that I find so refreshing about her and her writing. It is her way of questioning, mindfully looking at the world, the moment. Having a little poetic fun with it. In fact, within this twist, this space of interpretation (misinterpretation, translation, reaction, etc) between what is and what we do and write with it, where your true writer's voice lives, the unique you-ness.

Oh, I could tell your reasons why this woman struggles with this, why she insists she is not a writer, why she cries out in frustration when she can't come up with fancier, more "writerly" words and ideas. But, no, I tell her, please don't! Please stay with you and your unique voice which is so original and fresh. It's what makes you a poet! Please don't go trying to sound like Jenny, whose writerly job is to sound like Jenny, not you! Please try not to  compare! Stay with your unique voice, your truth, and from there you can write about anything. Plus, it's a lot easier that way. 

That's the beauty of having so many writers. We could all be writing about the same moment and it would sound like symphony. 

WRITE WITH ME? How does your unique voice and you-ness interpret the world? The moment? 

What part of your voice and you-ness do you struggle to accept? What part do you love and embrace?

And Another...

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—It's just another perfect day...

Beverly Boulevard!

We love it!

Finding a clam!

Greetings from the Hometown! Some photos as promised... More to come. Enjoying the sun, the food, the flowers and trees... not enjoying the traffic, the leaf blowers, the drama!!! Off to to Venice Beach... So far my highlight: Yesterday my cousin and Godmother who is 93 says, over lunch at Canter's Deli, "Happiness is an inside job." Love to you all, Rox 

Santa Monica Pier! 

We love it!

Remember the Randy Newman Song? We love it! We love LA!

Ma

We love it!

Just another perfect day!

Canter's Deli!

CBS where I once watched them film Young and the Restless

My first job...

Write with me? Do you love LA? LA Story?

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—I'M Grateful for YouTube

I don't watch TV. I don't do Facebook. But hot damn, I love YouTube.

I love the funny cat bloopers. I love the interviews with actors and musicians from my childhood, the obscure clips from the Love Boat or Z Channel. And god knows, I love those 80s videos. I love that I can YouTube my childhood summer camp, go back in time to a simpler place, long before personal video cameras were on anyone's radar.  I love that I can join a kirtan any time of the day, practice yoga with Saul David Raye, learn to play the ukulele (or sousaphone for that matter), brush up on my tap dancing, learn Arabic, attempt origami, prepare pompous pastries (or pom-poms if I dare!) make my own drum if I so choose, make my own feature film, be read to by famous poets, sang to by long gone musicians, welcomed into communities (and living rooms) just about anywhere.  Not to mention, if I look hard enough, I know I can find myself doing something rather silly out there in Bhaktiland, but why bother with that? I've been there!

I'd rather travel timelessly, across the planet to gape at wild animals, to ski the alps, to bathe in Kawaiian waterfalls, dance with Fred Astaire, run with wildfire, remember the Santa Anna's, blow with the soft spring breeze in Palm Canyon. I'd much rather go back to that stretch of Oregon I biked with my dad in the early 90s, round the long green bend we did that one summer afternoon. I'd rather bike around the world, in fact. 

Heck, I'd rather fly a plane, chase a train, stop the rain... all possible in the Seusville that YouTube has become.


Of course I can go somewhere really dark with an intro like that. I can talk about how even though we  have such a cool thing—that we can go anywhere, anytime with a simple click—we are lonelier now than ever before. We are isolated in our abundance. 

But no, I won't go there. Not today. 

Because what I really love about YouTube are the helpful tips that folks are putting out there, free of charge, where the shiny human spirit comes blazing through, all the better when it comes blazing through someone's tacky, unkept, dusty, one-bedroom apartment, where cats or wild children or drunken uncles are coming in and out of the frame wily-nily. More and more, this is what I seek out in YouTube: the unedited, raw, human condition that has nothing to do with show business or sparkly anything put on.

In fact, my YT du-go-to usually takes me to someone's dining room or kitchen in a town I've never heard of. Year after year I find myself searching for DIY fixes or projects, my version of cyber thrift shopping or better yet, the matrix free-for-all.  Just yesterday in fact, like every winter when my skin begins to turn a rougher shade of reptile, I began the search for a homemade humidifier, given the ten I have cost a lot to run, don't last long, don't really work, and are generally a pain in the ass. I'm convinced that SOMEONE out there has an easier solution, fully aware that YouTube has perhaps warped my psychology in this way. But can you blame me? No sooner than I type in "DIY humidifiers," pages upon pages load with everything from bomb lookalikes to model airplanes coming at me in multiple languages.

I'm not saying it's all good. Overwhelm sets in rather quickly.

Just about to give up,  I come across a man who talks to me like the two year old I am... "First you take a bowl..." He pulls one of those cheapie ceramic-platstic (cerastic? plastamic?) Target type bowls out of his dark wooded cupboard, demonstrating, in case we don't know how to work our own cupboards. "Next, you take the bowl and set it on the counter." He does. Meanwhile, all we see of this man is his Buddha belly and his arm with the occasional profile working diligently in the same apartment kitchen we have all seen in our lives; I know I've lived in many apartments with that same kitchen. (And if you are not sure where this prompt is going, take "apartments;" there's a goldmine of prompts in that one!).

Well this is getting interesting. I wonder where this is going. I'm tracking so far. 

"Then you take your bowl and fill it with water." Okay. I can do that. But he demos just in case. "And there it is. That's your homemade humidifier." You can put it just about anywhere, he tells us. And for better results you could put it atop or next to your radiator. 

Of course, failing that,  you could always do the old reliable humidifier thing, he says.

Old reliable—?

You could just take a wet towel and hang it up. 

Well, I'd be lying to you if I said I didn't try them both. 

From there, things get a bit more complicated, but I won't spoil the surprise; let's just say a coat hanger is brought into the frame and leave it at that. Oh, and "surface area" is mentioned quite a few times.

Why am I so endeared to these videos? Is it the raw truth of the "characters" we are seeing? The good will nature of it? The reminder that life a'int so bad because good folks are out there helping us save money and heartache, not for self promotion, but out of their own good hearts?

I suppose I oughta pay if forward and make a little Writing with Rox You Tube vid of my own; would you watch it? Maybe I'll send it to the humidifier guy as a little token of thanks.


WRITE WITH ME?
WHICH YOU TUBE VIDEO ARE YOU MOST GRATEFUL FOR?
IF YOU MADE ONE, WHAT WOULD IT BE? WOULD YOU EVER MAKE ONE? 
FAILING THAT: "APARTMENTS." GO!

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—A funny thing happened on the way to love

There was no point in trying to hold it in any longer. Once the innuendo had worked it's way around the table, there was no going back, and I was going down fast. It wasn't obvious the first time she read it. Not even the second time. In fact, they were just four innocent words in a seemingly innocent poem about a seemingly innocent time of life. Before our minds hit the gutter, in fact, it was a very moving, insightful poem about how, as parents, we struggle to let our kids learn their lessons in their own time without us having to save them from inevitable strife. Well... that's what I heard. Others heard the poem as a spiritual journey, which naturally led to a lot of excitement. Another member was caught up in punctuation.  But I don't know... you throw in a little Buddha, a little Jesus, add that to the Lotus blossom and one thing leads to another. And like I said, once someone goes to the bedroom, well... that there leads to dancing. And at that point, the image just replicates itself, over and over, the meaning new and fresh and expanding. 

It reminded me of the time in my young adulthood where my dad and his brother Charlie came over to Ma's for a holiday dinner of some kind, having not seen one another for a long time since my dad had been doing a few months locum tenem in West Virginia. Ma, knowing dad and Charlie were regular tennis partners asked what Charlie had been up to since my dad left him without a tennis partner for the regular Saturday game. "Well... " Uncle Charlie said, in his cool, So Cal manner, "I've been playing with myself quite a bit.." 

The dinner was shot.

Now, one might argue that this is no way to run a family dinner, let alone a writing group. But there's no changing what was and where our minds went and what our bodies needed and quite clearly mine needed to heave with hysteria, roll along the blissful wave of out-of-control laughter. I can just assume we all needed a good laugh last Wednesday. Who knows why. Heck, it's Halloween time—the veil is thin—that's why. 


Inevitably after the fits of laughter died down, somebody said, "god, I haven't laughed that hard in a long time." Doesn't someone always say that? It always takes me back to my brother's Bar Mitzvah in 1981, where friends and family gathered to celebrate in my sunny backyard in Los Angeles in the dead of winter, fleeing their native winterlands to see my brother off to manhood. The service was held beneath a long white canopy between the line of cypress and cumquat trees, transforming the basketball court into a temple, including the inevitable house of emotions which resulted from Ben's reading from the torah. Immediately following, we descended to the patio, where the reception and luncheon awaited us in paradise; elders stood around in circles with little plastic glasses of wine, a klezmer band played, kids dashed around lemon trees and founds things to throw and chase, adolsecents stood around awkwardly with their parents, wishing they could join. I must have been somewhere in between the worlds, harrahing around with my girlfriends, but also proud, obligatory, sister of the Bar Mitzvah boy. Amidst the merry celebration, suddenly, all eyes were on my Uncle Melvin, rotund, red faced, Irish in another life, perhaps, always jovial, engaged in a fit of indestructible laughter, loud, born deep in childhood, cooing and cawing as he tried to catch his breath, at last giving way to reverent, silent, laughter, his head bowed and bobbing, eyes crimping and crinkling.

The whole thing stopped us kids in our young tracks; was something wrong? Was he alright?

 "Man!" Uncle Melvin said, finally returning to his circle, "I haven't laughed like that in a long time!"

How could that be? I remember thinking in my young kid mind. How could laughter like that be so hard to come by? Of course, how could I have known then, on a day so idyllic and bright, that things would change? Somehow, the day my brother became a man was also the day I glimpsed life beyond the merry laughing lemon trees of my childhood. The lens shifted a bit toward serious, beyond the castle walls.

Last week at Wednesday Writers I was reminded that laughter is undervalued when it comes to appreciating writing. Typically, we don't expect to find ourselves laughing hysterically writing and/or workshopping a group member's writing; we don't think, "Gee, I hope this makes me laugh hysterically for reasons I do not even understand." We are more often geared to be moved, impressed, changed somehow by the good grace of well-used adjectives, perhaps because "good writing" has become oh so literary and perfect in it's old age of pretty bound books and polished perfect poetry. In this wise, erudite age of google university, we are in a battle of wits, on and off the page. All good, too, I say, but what happens if we come back down to earth, lower our expectations and simply expect to be gifted by merely being together in truth, perhaps expect to be enchanted? The point is, though I fear I've lost it somewhere along the way, is that whether we laugh or cry or argue, or fear or question, etc, as we are listening to someone's writing, this is all a sign of a strong piece of writing. And, no, we weren't laughing at her or her poem; she was laughing with us. 

And perhaps that laughter had nothing to do with the poem, but it was the catalyst to something deeply needed. Because later in the afternoon, the sky turned dark and, like all things, my mood had changed. I called TCF, hoping that sharing the morning's guffaws would lighten me up... but inevitably the lens had reverted back to seriousness by then. I remember thinking, but not saying, why don't we laugh anymore? Not saying because I knew it wasn't really true, but simply just true in the moment. Still, I'd already forgotten the deep gift of the morning, the reminder of another way of being in the world. I'd already forgotten about enchanted. As I write this, I remember.

So where does the love come in? To write with someone is to love them. To share writing together in community, whether it brings tears of laughter or joy or all in between, reminds me of my own humanity—that I am a being with a large spectrum of emotions, memories, thoughts, ideas, dreams, etc. If I didn't love the people I wrote with and the things they wrote (which can happen fairly quickly when you write together), I don't believe I would have laughed as hard and recklessly as I did last Wednesday; to write with someone or an entire group is to know them in a way where you can't help but love them. 

Ironically, it's hard to put into words.

WRITE WITH ME?
LAST TIME YOU HAD A GOOD LAUGH?
LAUGHING HARD MEMORY?
MOMENT YOU STOPPED SEEING THE WORLD THROUGH INNOCENT YOUNG EYES?
ANYTHING ELSE? GOD KNOWS I WENT EVERYWHERE WITH THIS ONE. DO YOU KNOW WHAT I WAS SAYING? :)

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—The best and worst Memoirs I read in the same week

I spend a lot of time looking for good memoirs. Aside form the micro-memoirs my students write week-after-week here at the Beach (which is likely why my standards are so high), I have a hard time finding anything I really like or have patience for. The same way I am increasingly intolerant of insipid produce that looks (and costs) like it should taste good, I am losing my patience for memoirs that promise but don't deliver. Now... I know what you're thinking... Or do I? Maybe you feel the same way. In any case,  there's no need to get me started on which memoirs and the myriad reasons I don't care for them, (but I'll bet you can guess which and why).


So here's how it happened: I came across two memoirs in the same week, the first of which I started at Too Cute's house and left behind (which says a lot about me since I never leave a good book behind), which he began reading and joked about not giving back. I must have been really desperate for a good memoir at the time (but what makes this day different than any others?) because I said, "no fucking way will you, bring it back! You can keep the Harpo Marx memoir, but bring this one back!" A travel memoir, I must have thought it had a good enough start, with a good enough premise, which it did now that I think of it. Sort of the way Eat, Pray, Love did, which was a much better book, but I still had issues with it. 

In the meantime the memoir I ordered on a whim from amazon, after googling "best (or maybe it was just "good" by then) memoirs 2013, 2014 + New Yorker + New York Times + Salon" showed up, so thankfully I could shoot up some fresh memoir while waiting for the stash I left at Too Cute's. 

I started House in the Sky, a travel memoir of an entirely different kind, that night and did not put it down for 4 days. One night I read 100 pages, unbeknownst to me until TCF woke up at 2 a.m. and said, "honey, are you still reading?" 

"Nope!" I said guiltily slamming the book shut, since I am always complaining to him that I don't get enough sleep. 

Well, the truth is, sleep didn't matter that week. Nothing did, in fact. Not my work, my kid, my boyfriend, yoga... nothing.  All that mattered was this alternative world where I was living alongside Amanda Lindhout and her boyfriend in Somalia in a dark, moldy, cockroachy room where we live because we have been kidnapped. Do I want to be in this world? Of course not. Is it disturbing and infuriating and deeply sad? Yes, it is. But we know how it ends. At least we think we do. But in the meantime, we are going to do whatever we can and survive whatever we have to in order go get free. 

So, why was this the best book I've read since Angela's Ashes, A General Theory of Love, and A New Earth? For one, it's well written, which means it takes it's time showing us every minute of her ordeal along with every person she encounters with such finite detail that you grow to love (or at least understand) all the players, the gravity of the political situation abroad, even when you don't want to. Because in each and every one of those characters and countries, we can't help but recognize a part of ourselves. 

Which is why we keep going until we get free.

There are other reasons I loved this memoir which I cannot put into words, which is why I am telling everyone to read it so I can understand. Part of me wonders if a trauma bond has been created between me and this book, much like the one created between between Amanda and her captors, much like that of anyone taken hostage is some form or another, and I have become overly dependent on my literary (albeit terrorizing) captor. We longed to be free, but couldn't bear it. 

Like a classic addict, instead of endure the let down and despair of ending the book—post-bookem depression—I immediately sought refuge in the first memoir, hoping it would ease the pain of being kicked out of the House in the Sky and back to the free world that I had to face. Sadly, once I returned to Nomad Woman, er... Female Nomad, I felt as though I'd been exiled to literary Siberia. Not that I have anything against females or nomads or any combination thereof; it's just that this book is one of the reasons (if not the reason) why memoirs get such a bad reputation about being a house of narcissism.  I realize anything I were to read following House in the Sky would fall short, but I would have settled for mediocre—anything to get me through the night. So please don't count on Female Nomad as your rebound memoir.

In the meantime, I begged Too Cute to read passages aloud and report to me frequently on exactly where he was in the book and what was happening so I could relive it over again. So I could temporarily go back, instead of grumbling about my booby prize memoir.

What does this memoir lack and why does it make me so mad? Especially since it's written by a famous children's author who abandoned her children to travel all over the world in order to write it? Honestly, it has a few good parts, good lands to get lost in, good people to meet. But the sad part is, I feel like I don't know any of them, let alone love them. And trust me: her characters are a lot more lovable than Amanda Lindhout's!

So there is my memoir cheer and jeer for the year. Oh dear! How queer, that I should rhyme in here! Steer clear!

Really, try not to be mad at me for speaking negatively about a memoir, when 99% of the time I say that everyone ought write her or his memoir if they are called to. And I do stand by that. In fact, I wish all of my students would hurry up and write their memoirs already so I can have something else good to read!

Write with me?

Your favorite memoir? Least favorite memoir?

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—What rereading my Blog taught me (again) about writing and (again) about life

Occasionally I'll wonder if anyone reads my blog. Not in the "no one cares" sense, but in the "There are so many blogs out there, so many magazines and books...hasn't everyone read everything there is to read already and aren't I just repeating myself... and besides everyone's busy" sense. Everyone gets the point about writing by now, at least as far as what I have to say about it: Write your truth, don't edit, trust your raw voice, writing together is a wonderful way to build community, stories are gifts, etc etc...

Even so, writing is a lonely business and even though it's a deeply satisfying, beautifully puzzling, sometime life-changing, magical process of discovery, on the other side of the shore, when you set the pen down, it IS comforting to know that someone is out there reading, resonating, etc. 

It's the same kind of thing my students will sometimes say in discussing why we write in the first place.  "What's the point? Who cares? Who really wants to read this? It's boring! etc etc..."

"What are you, kidding?" I'll say after a disclaimer such as that, "this is brilliant! NOT boring. Keep going!" Sure, I tell them that and I mean it. I DO want to hear it. It is NOT boring. It is beautiful. And truthful. And please keep writing...  But you know how it is. You can't always apply these things to yourself, especially when you're the "teacher." 

It's the same kind of thing my students will sometimes say about it not sounding polished enough, poetic enough, story enough...to which I will say, "but it is, it is it is! It's perfect just the way it is. Write now, fiercely, truthfully, and edit later." I tell them that all too often when we edit as we go, or too soon, that we kill the soul of the piece. We flatten the rhythm, the joy, the fluid juicy energy that feeds us in every sentence; we kill the ecstasy we feel when writing it. The live raw pulsing song of the piece (poem, memoir, essay, short story) gets sacrificed in the name of the big game of "what others will think."

Then—and only then—are we left with boring writing. Clean writing, with less heart and more head. Writing that no longer breathes or sighs. Slaughtered innocent writing that we hardly recognize as our own. Voices abducted, fragments of sentences brutalized and bleeding on the literary field, lonely, without their original, less polished verb companions. I've seen it time and time again. In you, in me, in everyone.

How long have I been preaching on these things here at St Beach? A looong time. And sure, for the most part, I do take my own advice. I have faith in what I say, I walk the talk, write the fight.  But sometimes, like you and me and everyone, I can lose faith.  I can forget and wonder what it's all about. I question. What am I telling these innocent writer people? What do I know? Maybe it does have to sound "better." 

But faith is a good thing. Were it not for faith, I could have easily given over to the literary dark side, believing that pleasing the external is more important than honoring the internal, the truth, the deeper knowing that always surfaces when we honor our truth on the page. And we can feel that truth and pulse and recognize that truth immediately when we are writing. We know we are in it. 

Luckily, when my faith is tested on (and off) the page, I am struck by a reminding wind, a gust of cool calm reminding, seemingly out of the blue. Just a few months ago I was caught up in a panicked existential flare up of "what's the point? why bother? nobody cares, nobody listens."  I was having a very challenging week. All the hormones were aligned to make for some serious crazy. My fibro was in retrograde. I was in the mindset of seriously believing that if I called anyone with my shit that no one would care to listen because X or Y or Z has it a lot worse off than I do, and besides, they'd heard it all before in some earlier version, hadn't they? Plus, wasn't that what my boyfriend was for? My therapist? My community? The makeshift family that I opted for and chose for myself, likely before I was even born? Where were they now?

So there I was convinced nobody would listen or cared. I wasn't due to see my therapist for another week, Two Cute was mad at me about something, Paula was traveling somewhere, I didn't want to burden my friends or Jude's dad, etc, etc. So as I sat there in my own pity party, convinced how inconvenient my deepest oldest pain might sound—either too much to handle or too shallow to indulge—my thoughts ran throughout the day, "who will listen? Who will care? Is there anyone listening? Is there anyone I can talk to?" I believe I was in the middle of taking down the recycling, trying to keep up with the everyday doing of life though I didn't feel at all every day on the inside. I felt lost and alone. "Is there anyone? Anyone?"

And then, there it was, a faint little voice coming from deep within the right middle side of my body. "I'm listening," the voice said. "I'm right here. Right where I always am.  I'll listen."

Well, I just about had to sit down right there in the recycling. 

That was unexpected. I mean, I knew it, but I just never really heard it. Not like that. Not in my body. Which likely explains why at first I wanted to ignore it. I knew it was good old me coming through, but what do I have to do with this? Of course it's me listening; who else would it be? Aren't I always listening to me? Aren't I?

Or maybe I didn't recognize it as me at first. Maybe I did, but didn't take me seriously. Oh you? So, what of it? 

In any case, when I came upstairs I did sit down. It wasn't a big emotional thing. It was't another tearfest. It was just like, "oh, yeah. You are listening. You do count. You can listen and you can also hear." So I took the time to listen to me. To hear me. In my raw truth.

Of course as I knew then, as I deeply-er know now, I'm the only one who can give me that undivided love and listening that I sometimes fall into the trap of believing I need to get externally. I have to be the first one to listen, the first one to hear, listen, and care. That way if there ever does come a day when my people don't want to listen (yeah, right), don't care (yeah, right), judge me for my struggles (yeah, right), find me boring  (yeah, right), etc, I won't fall apart. I'm there. I'm listening. 

I'm reading my own damn blog.

You can imagine how this translates into writing. You are, as am I, first and foremost writing for yourself. To yourself, for yourself. When you come back and find yourself on the page years or days or months later, you will recognize yourself and be so grateful for the gift you have discovered on the page. Finding yourself again—again and again—in an earlier form, writing and breathing.


WRITE WITH ME?
What will you write "just for me"? 
Just for me, I write...

Another Ma Said

It's been years since we've been to CA for Thanksgiving. This year may be the year. After all, fuck all this cold weather in advance! We're going.

Now to sort out who. Me and Jude. Me, Dada, and Jude. Me, Too Cute Face and Jude. Me, Too Cute Face, Dada, and Jude?

And when. Shit, may as well go the entire week since we're paying and flying. Make it a whole week. Why not? It'll be five deep in snow here by then!

So  I call Ma. "Guess what, Ma? I think we'll come Sunday to Sunday! Isn't that great?"

"WHY SO LONG?!!!!"

"I DON'T THINK I CAN STAND TO HAVE THAT MANY ADULTS IN THE HOUSE."

We're going.

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—Do You Dare?

Last week in Wednesday Writers, one of my longtime deeply awesome, majestically brilliant (and creative! unfair!) students was leading us through our first writing exercise, "I forgot to write about..." and off and writing went we.

As always, the mixture of story and sentiment was take-your-breath-away-and-knock-you-over. Some of us wrote about our fathers, some of us went to the country. Some of us wrote about not remembering what we did this morning, let alone what we forgot to write about. 

We had no idea where it would go when we started writing, but we had faith that it would go somewhere if we just stayed with it. If we lingered long enough. We knew it would go here and go there and then at some point, something would catch like wildfire and the pen would go burning up the page. 

This is a type of Intuitive Writing Prompt that is more open ended and less topic focused than the ones I often send out about a specific topic, theme, or memory. For example, last week's prompt was write about something retro, which might bring you back to your record collection or dancing beside the jukebox or wearing saddle shoes or... it may have got you thinking about the word itself, inviting more of an analysis or rant. 

The Intuitive Writing prompt, while more open, has a more rhythmic flow, more about process than product (though I'd argue most writing is process first, product later) and will ultimately open up a dozen or more prompts easily as you write. A few others (among the infinite) like it are: 


What I really want to tell you ...
I remember...
And the truth is...
By the way...


At the end of our sharing one of the students remarked on what a great prompt it was and complimented our leader du jour, to which she said "well it was just like something Rox had done before..." 

Well... yes and no. I may have done something like it. But not exactly it.  Something like "I don't want to forget to write about..." which is close, but not the same.  The thing is that every prompt, even ones that are similar, will entirely make a difference in what comes out. There is a certain pitch, tone, rhythm we all respond to, resonate with perfectly—perhaps developed in the womb or shortly thereafter—that will provide an opening when we dive into Intuitive Writing. It's like a melody or song, poem, language  or any other thing we latch more easily onto than others. Of course any prompt will and can ultimately get you to your hot spot, your writing prana, your word chi, your writing ju ju, your...

Once you have been writing a while, you begin thinking in prompts. You begin to realize that everything is a prompt. Any word, phrase, song... Anything you see, hear, taste, smell, touch and linger in will invite something. You may think "oh, no, I have nothing to say or think about tofu!" But that is just your head getting in the way of the best poem or memoir or whatever you are about to write. Go ahead try it: Tofu.

So what's this about "do you dare?" Do you dare go deeper, that is. In writing. In your life. What does that look like? Mostly allowing yourself to explore and open to your vulnerability on and off the page so you give live and write more freely because what are you waiting for? 

A few Intuitive Writing Prompts, going deeper into vulnerability are:


I'm afraid to write about...
I'll never write about...
If only I could write about...
I've never told anyone this, but..
I'm waiting for...


If you want more on that I still have a few openings in my Wednesday Writing Vulnerably class which meets monthly, beginning this Weds at 9:30-noon. Let me know asap if you want in!



In the meantime, Write with Me? "I forgot to write about..."



Thanks beautiful student and friend of mine for this inspiration. You know who you are. xoxoxo

Writing with Rox WEEKLY— RETRO Weekend

Yesterday TCF and I went to Cheapo (remember?) and looked at Compact Disks (remember those?). Wow, what a flashback. When I moved here in 2001, to the heart of Uptown, I wondered what that huge yellow and red place was; Ma and I speculated it was some sort of discount clothing store akin to the ones we have in LA.  Little did I know I would spend countless afternoons click clacking my way through the "new arrivals," looking for anything Thievery Corporation, Afro Celt, Peter Gabrielle, and anything 80s. Those were the days when eighties dancing was still easy to find, before texting, where people made eye contact more, Orr Books,  before Facebook, before...

"What a retro weekend we are having!" I sang joyfully, nostalgically, as we walked the quaint sunny streets of St Paul, Moby CD and (the original) Bad News Bears movie in hand. "Aren't we? A retro weekend!"

"Yes, honey," TCF agrees with a wide sunny smile; retro pace is his pace. "What else was retro, though?" 

Here, I know TCF won't mind me disclosing that he still uses a record player, owns no microwave, becomes excited upon purchasing new kitchen tools like a dish-wand, and only recently bought a cell phone. He embodies classic retro and wears it well, inside and out. This is a man who appreciates watching the sparrows swarm the feeder, proudly proclaiming, "I could easily make an entire day of that!"

Still, he has a point.  What is retro anyway? My bff Paula in Austin just told me that I'm the only who actually listens to and leaves voice mail. Is that true? Is voice mail now retro? I suppose if The Smiths are now in the Classic Rock section at Cheapo, then voice mail (never mind answering machines) are definitely a retro possibility (retrobility?) 

Lately Jude and I have been doing Mad libs. Is that retro? Or is retro more of a psychology, an appreciation for watching the birds, lingering in the groove of the moment, no matter what the record player or boom box or player piano or campfire singers are playing?



Write with me? What retro activity have you been up to lately? What the heck is retro anyway? 

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—What We Learn When We Linger

 Aside from the cabin bauble, one of the simple pleasures I get when staying a few days at these darling, lakeside mini doll houses is reading the little guest books. In ways I am not proud of,  I enjoy that it's a little like reality TV or Facebook (neither in which I partake) in that you get to eavesdrop on other couples' lives, get a sense of them as people, and read about all the great fantastic things around town and in the cabin they are doing, while feeling superior or inferior in comparison. 

Typically the entries can be a bit low key, rote, even a bit boring, but this latest one in Grand Marais, where I spent Labor Day Weekend, made for much livelier reading: individuals heeding the call to consciousness on this beautiful shore, couples going deep into their feelings, often writing love letters to one another within the pages, honoring the peaceful, romantic respite on Lake Superior with the man/woman of their dreams. In particular, there was this one couple who had been coming for 5 years in a row, writing faithfully of their renewed love and commitment to one another. Their story began on the page at Cabin # 9 in 2008, only a few months into their relationship, both of them swimming in those early months of love and lust. 

"Typical," I said, "the bliss of early love. Enjoy it while it lasts...Of course, we're kind of like that... aren't we?" 

And it did last. Despite my skepticism, I'd hope it would last; how could I not? And it lasted another year. As I turned the pages, I found the second entry from each of them, a year later, doting on one another, having endured a tough year, but staying strong in their commitment. "Well surely, it can't stay this lovey-dovey," I said, eagerly turning the pages to see if there was more. There was. Five years worth. Sure, there were challenges to the relationship. There were kids and divorces involved. There was lack of support. But they stayed strong in their love to one another. "Shit," I told TCF, "they gotta make a memoir out of this book!"

And as we read more of this couple on the page, as we lingered with them, we grew to love them, attach to them. We began to root for them, perhaps even see ourselves in them as the protagonists we aspire to. Perhaps unconsciously we wished our relationship was more like theirs; on the ride home TCF compared me to the female "character" in the book because unlike her, I wanted to run around and hike and bike too much, whereas (I'll call her) Kathryn, simply wanted to lounge around all day and just be together with her lover. "Oh that's great," I stormed, "you're comparing me to a fictional character?"


If you've written with me before, you've likely heard me say "linger" enough times to know it is a very important part of writing. The first time I heard the term linger was from my reader at the U of M, Charles Baxter, who upon reading my memoir, suggested I take the time to linger longer in certain scenes. Let us really be here. Let us see this. Take your time. 

"Linger" is a term I have integrated and morphed into its own animal around here, borrowing from my own experience as a writer and teacher, as well as my life teachers, naming a few—yoga, chanting (both lingering in action), and my bible, A General Theory of Love. My point is everything Charles said, with the added twist of "stay here on the page as long as you can, and then some more, even when you think you can't," especially during process or healing writing. 

Why? Why linger? Well, there's the first answer: because it makes you a better, deeper writer, filling in the human details of the moment that we can all relate to. So we can care about you and your characters, fictional or otherwise. Because if we don't care about you and love you on the page, why do we want to see what happens next?

The less obvious reason is because you can. What you do in writing, on the page, especially if it feels hard, is an opening. A gift waiting to be discovered if you can stay here long enough, have faith in the process, without having to know where you are going. Taking some time to stop listening to your mind with it's typical defenses, telling you to stop, or why bother or this is going nowhere. If you linger long enough on the page, you begin to linger off the page. You start to love and care and accept yourself and whatever else you are lingering with just as you (they) are.  The grooves get deeper.

Though I'm an old pro (ha), I forget this on a daily basis. At the end of the trip to Grand Marais, as I was about to drive off,  I realized I neglected to write in the guest book. Inspired by one man who had written in the book about risking a late check out in order to write his thoughts, I was called to task, one I typically enjoy greatly, but was oddly not up for in the moment. Still, rushing out, I wrote a few lines about a great hike, thanked the owners, before heading down to the shore for one last moment with the great Lake. As I sat on the warm rocks and contemplated the trip, slowly  releasing one-by-one the rocks I had gathered back to Mother Superior, I considered how blocked I'd been in writing in that little book.  Then I remembered how heartfelt and truthful everyone was in writing in that book. I realized I was blocked because I had not written my truth. 

Seriously? Doesn't my brochure say something like, er, "Write Your Truth" on the cover? What kind of teacher am I? What kind of writer? Of course, "write your truth" does not necessarily mean only when you feel like it or all of the time; it just means if you are feeling blocked on the page, you are likely not writing your truth.

Risking late check out, once again, I returned to the little cabin and to the little guest book and I wrote the truth. The truth that it had not been the perfect vacation. That even in this breathtakingly beautiful place, ideal for a romantic getaway, it had its ups and downs. I mean, it was dreamy. It was relaxing. TCF and I laughed and played and lingered in the bliss of the moment, fleeting as it was. But it had its ups and downs. It certainly was not romantic in the way of Kathryn and Bob. Not really. 

But didn't I have to linger with that too? 

And I did. 

And we'll last.



Write with me?
Linger in your ideal place? Your challenging place? 
Where you don't want to linger? On and off the page?
Guest books? Cabins?

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—What are we, Stupid?

There's next to nothing I enjoy more than a bike ride on a summer night in the Midwest. It must kinesthetically resemble womb-time, what with the perfect float I fall into on darkening nights, with those wide open streets, cicadas and azure bellied insects echoing like a singing bowl, the neon ring guiding my way, bugsong, in the black of night. To that, add the Midwestern moon (we don't have moons like this where I come from; heck, I don't think LA has a moon), humidity hugging me like the Santa Annas I remember from childhood, yet with the speed and breeze of the wind on my bike, I am heaven in motion.  Here it is like no other place I have lived and I cannot get enough. I could easily—easily—bike endlessly into this evergiving night.

On these particlar summer nights, all my fears and worries fall away. Love is the only answer on these nights. All else is just petty. My heart blossoms, the world is completely loving, forgiving, enchanted.  One such recent night, this past Friday, after an amazing dinner at Fujiya in the tatami room to celebrate a friend's birthday, Two Cute Face and I sailed the Uptown seas, before cutting down 31st street, arriving shoreside at Lake Calhoun. We took up the path toward home, following the lower curve along the Parkway. Here, giddy from Mojitoes, yellow tail, and laughing with friends, we paused to look at the stars rising above the lake, noticing a particularly bright, bright star that neither of us recognized. Seriously. This was a star. The kind that twinkles and sprouts in five directions. The movie kind. "I don't think I've ever seen a star like that before," we both said, "is that a planet? What is that?"

Then, another appeared in the southwestern corner of the lake. But wait, it was coming right toward us. What is that? Are we still in the Perseids? Are we in a dream? 

Of course all too soon we realized it was an airplane, then another, but on this particular happy night on our bikes, we concluded that the advantage to being "right brained" and not knowing a lot about how the nitty gritty scientific world works is that we get to live in a world where (most) anything is possible! "A state of wonder," Too Cute Face said, as we left the planes and the stars and the other unknowns over the Uptown lake.

Of course living in such a state, some might argue,  has its disadvantages because it can lead to rule bending. As we headed back up Calhoun and cut over to Lake Harriet, winding blindly up and down the roller coaster hills leading to the bandshell, we descended upon the wild rumpus that was letting out  (outdoor movies in the park!) and to avoid the masses of people, we ended up taking the walking path around the outside of the biking path for a few short pedals before skipping tracks back to the bike path. Going the wrong way. 

Now. I know what you're going to say. I know what you're thinking. It's not like I haven't thought it myself. But here's the thing: We were tired. It was late. No one was on the path, save for a few stray walkers, who when we politely excused ourselves as we came through, apologized for being in the middle of the bike path (might I add, walking the wrong way, as well) to which we said something like "no worries, thank you, thanks, good night!" before pedaling cautiously down a few more blocks before turning off at 47th street. Did I mention it was 11:30 pm? 

So just before we turn off, out of nowhere comes this thundering buzz kill, shouting at us from the street. Well you know who I'm talking about. There's always one of them. So, he says, this bully of a buzz kill on a bike, says he, "You're going the wrong way... You're going the wrong way on the bike path. You're going the wrong way!!" 

Best strategy for me in this case is always to ignore it. What am I, ten? What is he the hall monitor? Even when the hall monitor goes on and on, long after he's out of range about "you are also breaking the law!! Which is dangerous. And stupid. And totally disrespectful and...               "

Suffice it to say, we got off the path unscathed, save for the buzz kill. "And peace to you, Brother as well," Too Cute said, joining me in the wide open street toward home. 

"Seriously!" I said. "What's the deal with that?" Of course I was gungho to launch into my tirade about over-the-top bikers who follow all the damn rules and outlandish "cars are coffins" politics who make it miserable for the rest of us bikers, etc, etc, but Too Cute, being Too Cute, took another approach. "I mean, really, where's the Good Will anymore? What happened to kindness? Compassion? How about instead of shouting at us, just say, "Hey, be careful, just so you know, you're on a one-way path... Wouldn't that be a better approach?"

Really. It's not like we're out to run into people. What's all the excitement about? Since when did we all become so f'ing mean when things don't go our way or when others are behaving in ways that don't coincide with ours and/or the masses behavior. What's all the anger about? What's wrong with us? What are we, stupid? Er, oops, is there something about kindness we seem to be forgetting?

Write with me? 
When was a time you were the biker? Or me and Too Cute Face? 
How do you see the world wondrously? 
What do you live for in the summertime? 
Anything else?!