Writing with Rox WEEKLY—Winter Survival

Greetings from Akumal! Even here in the sunny Yucatan winter has found her might way... reports of storms, rains, and even "shape shifters" have found their way on the (cyber) page here in Mexico, warning travelers and locals alike of how to negotiate the (if and when) coming tropical storm. If and when because you never know in Mexico. You can count on weather reports as much as you can count on the exchange rate being consistent. Still, I love the "whatever, manana," attitude here. I think it's partially why I return time and time again, frustrating as it can be.

But enough! I imagine you Minneapolis readers are shaking your pens at me for complaining, let alone being in Mexico and out of the negative climes!

The point is I love how writing continues to honor its roots of communicating vital information from human to human about how to survive. Before it was made all pretty and put into beautiful books (which I for the most part loooove, mind you), writing was a simple act of love, a gift, an offering, etc— an organic need to create and communicate. How many times have you said or heard someone say: "I have to write this down"?

Perhaps over time we added music and sang our wisdom from tribe to tribe to get folks to pay more attention. I'm sure ADD existed then too, after all. From there, we wrote things on the cave walls, which led to paper and pen and highway signs and note passing and book making and texting and ...

One such offering I read yesterday: 

BEWARE OF STONEFISH. DO NOT STEP ON THEM. BITE CAN BE FATAL. 

And wouldn't you know later that day while snorkeling I swam right over a Stonefish, which I of course thought was at first any old ocean stone (You know? Those!) and could have easily stepped right on it and gone fatal had I not known it had fins and a very ruby red mouth. It DID look less threatening when swimming, but still, I saw fire in that fish's eyes.

Last week in Tuesday Eve Healing group, we began our night by writing out our winter survival tips. Still being a relative newbie to MN, I was amazed at what I learned about how to get through this. (Of course, my contribution was "go to Akumal.") Everything from talking to natives about directions to carrying a shovel and kitty litter in your car to creating arte de snow by adding food coloring to your snow-folk. Oh, I guess I did also say "Go to the Loppet on Saturday night to see the fire lanterns go up into the winter sky." I stand by that today, now, even in the tropics.  We could have written all night on that. Perhaps into the morning. We were all feeling much better about winter, at least for then. But we knew if we ever again got discouraged, all we had to do was look into our little notebooks with the added tips etched into the margins and all would be well again. Remember that this too shall pass.

So, wherever you are, whatever you are doing or not doing, What is your winter wisdom/survival song? What is the story behind that wisdom?

And remember, when you share, you are helping us survive! We don't care (yes, we enjoy!) how pretty or poetic or literary it sounds... share from your heart and truth and it sings no matter what!

So help out your writing and human community alike... we want to listen to the whole story!

Sending love and sunshine (with a bit of wind and rain) from Akumal xoxoxo

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—Why writing is like playing the ukulele

HAPPY 2014 WRITING FAMILY!

Lucky for us, some might say,  Writing with Rox has not been shut down by the government! As always, the gates are wide open! So come on in and have a write with me! I have plenty of openings here at Beach for 2014 including my FRIDAY MORNING WOMEN'S WRITING GROUP,  MEN'S GROUP, INTUITIVE WRITING WORKSHOPS AND CLASSES, AS WELL AS HEALING WORKSHOPS AND RETREATS COMING UP.

A few months ago Too Cute Face mentioned that he could see me playing the ukulele.

"Ukulele? What am I, six?"

But Too Cute Face is smart in the way of music and in the way of knowing what makes me happy, so I listened on. He said a few reasons why, like it would be a nice addition to our little Kirtan band, might give me the melody that drums don't, might come naturally since I used to play the guitar a long, long time ago. I reminded him how that relationship ended badly. How I couldn't learn a song to save my life, how my fingers were to short and numb, that I was hopeless with strings.

He was persistent though and he promised it would be a lot easier than the guitar. He made a good argument. But what really sold me, shamefully, is that he said it would make me look cute. In fact, I think that's all that really mattered when I finally picked up the cute as pie little Flea, which I had to agree would make anyone look cute. So cute, in fact, that when I strummed it around Groth Music, I didn't even notice what it sounded like. I mean,  it sounded really sweet because it looked so cute. Anyway, I thought about it for a couple weeks, then went back and bought it.

It was still cute.

When I brought it home I wondered, "Now what?" As long as it sits around looking cute, I'm happy. It took me a while to finally play it. Too Cute sat on the couch, strumming liquid sunshine out of that little blue babe, while I puttered around with more important things to do. "Sounds great, honey!" I called from the kitchen.

"Are you going to try it out soon?"

"Maybe! After I vacuum under the dishwasher!"

A few hours later we gathered with friends. I picked up the Flea and began strumming around very softly, pretending I knew what I was doing (which is a nice skill to have by the way). Honestly, I was amazed how good it sounded. Is this what a ukulele sounds like? Like a mandolin? Seriously! Every chord or non-chord sounded good as I intuitively strummed around. Not just good, but like it was actually some kind of some-thing. A note, a song. Whatever I remembered from before about strumming and picking came remembering out body of and eventually I let go of expectations, of outcome, and I just played by feel. Then it sounded better and better, to the point where I finally said,  "I'm not doing this," I said, "this ukulele plays by itself..." and I still think this is partly true, magical little blue uke. By the end of the night I learned "Tears on My Pillow," "Blue Moon," "Earth Angel," and "Jambalaya," but they all have the same 2 chords so it's not big deal. What is a big deal is that I could've (and did) play those same 2-3 chords all night in different beats, tempos, rhythms, etc. It was hard to put it down!


When I started out years and years ago as a writer I remember buying fancy pens and notebooks and all the right writing things. I dressed a certain writerly way, I carried around writerly books. I read all the cool writerly writers I thought I should be reading and quoted all the writerly writers I thought I ought be quoting. I went to the right writerly cafes and museums and got to know all the right writerly people. Eventually I wrote for a few writerly magazines and because of all the writerly people I knew, I began to make a small writerly name for myself among certain writerly circles.   All of this makes me a writer, thought I!  Look at me, I'm a writer! I'm cool and pale, and thin and drink microbrew and write for the cool people and I live in the coolest writerly city there is and...

Yet I felt very, very empty. Unfortunately, I had nothing to write about aside from the very surface of things, which wasn't very satisfying. And in return, I lived a very surface life, where I allowed surface things to define me (if that isn't obvious enough).

Eventually, in the middle of a dark depression on a dark day, I wrote a letter. I wrote the letter that saved my life. Perhaps I'll write next time of that letter. For now I'll say it was the turning point in both my writing life and my life life. Somehow I allowed myself to dream a little on the page, and that created an opening...  And through that opening I fell completely in love with writing. Or remembered it, I should say. Before I got distracted by the external forces of life.

I am grateful that this intuitive/raw writing process and the love of writing just for writing/writing without outcome and writing in community has opened me into the world of intuitive ukulele-ing. Oh, the places you'll go on (and off) the page!

WHAT HAS WRITING OPENED FOR YOU?