Writing with Rox WEEKLY—The moment you knew

Recently a student told me that her favorite writer, Haruki Murakami, described the moment he knew he was destined to be a writer. My student described it far better than I could (or anyone else/anything I have found written about it), but the short answer is baseball. Not just baseball, mind you, but the lingering, sensory, amniotic, depth of it. Says Murakami,

"...The crack of the bat meeting ball on the sweet spot echoed through the stadium. Hilton easily rounded first base and pulled up to second. And it was at that exact moment that a thought struck me: You know what? I could try writing a novel. I can still remember the wide-open sky, the feel of the new grass, the satisfying crack of the bat. Something flew down from the sky at that instant, and whatever it was, I accepted it."

So, what is it about baseball anyway? I mean... is it everyone's muse?  What is it about this game that makes it the literary darling of ball sports? That's the first thing.

But the main thing, what I find so striking (no pun intended, really), is thinking about the exact moment when we knew we were writers. Not just the reasons why we write (which are great too, obviously), but the wordless collision of all perfection, the muse, the "I have to write this down" moment.

I agree. It's hard to pinpoint. It's elusive.

I knew it when I wrote my first short story in first grade about the color purple and could not stop writing. I also knew it when I wrote a letter from my 24 year-old self in the basement at my first counseling job in Seattle to my future self, living under sunny skies, far from here, reminding myself things would get better, to hang in there. 

I knew it every time I wrote a love letter. 

I knew it when Jude spoke his first word: "Bus!" I knew it the first time I heard that huge crystal singing bowl that Deb played that night at Lake Harriet among a small gathering of drummers, where suddenly I was among a hundred whales breathing me back into my body. 

I knew it six years later when Jude came running toward me—walk, trot, skip, ruuuuuuuuun!— across the green summer fields at Camp St Croix after five days at sleep-away camp. I knew it when I knew I could never ever put into words how long that sprint toward each other lasted and how very right that moment felt when he jumped up into in my arms.

Regretfully, I knew it with each heartbreak and I knew it when I was well aware I was doing the absolutely wrong thing at the wrong time and proceeded anyway. I knew it when I saw a young man carrying a clipboard run across six lanes of traffic before he was struck by a car, knocked onto the sidewalk and died in front of me on a sunny afternoon in Los Angeles a week before my first wedding. I knew it when I felt nothing at the height of celebration, when I felt everything when it was over, and when I felt the earth against my spine while laying in corpse pose at yoga.

I know it even when I have nothing to do with anything. When there is no I, no me, and amazingness is happening anyway.

I knew it and I know it each and every time I surrender. To music. To love. To the moment. To being wrong. Or right. When I laugh so hard I pee my pants and when I let someone else drive so I can enjoy the ride.

Oh, I could go on. I could mine deeper into this wordless world where I am endlessly moved by the earth's poetry, layer upon layer, where each of these moments reveals a brief window, an opening, a portal into everything at once, a oneness, a sense that I have absolutely been here before countless times and will be here again. Perhaps it takes me back to the womb, the wordless womb.

So why? Why do I have to write it down? Why not just leave the wordless alone? I do... most of the time. But each time I attempt to translate the wordless collision, I am giving back to the writers and musicians and all whoeverybodys who have understood me, translated for me. Because of their gifts, the sharing of their stories, I can celebrate, embrace, and worship this one life, navigate and belong here, at times tolerate, occasionally just get by in, and once in a blue moon want out of this life, well knowing it will all pass and that I am exactly where I am meant to be. 

And that's a moment to write down.


WRITE WITH ME?
AT WHICH MOMENT DID YOU KNOW YOU HAD TO WRITE IT DOWN?

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—It's just writing

READERS! THIS WEEK I AM PLAGIARIZING MYSELF FROM A BLOG POST I DID RECENTLY FOR THE LOFT TO PROMOTE MY UPCOMING HEALING MEMOIR CLASS! READ ON FOR MY "PROFESSIONAL" TAKE ON WRITING YOUR TRUTH! ENJOY! 

If I could get a nickel for every time a student brought up the topic of, “but what if someone reads this and doesn’t agree? Will they sue me? Will I lose my home? What if it’s too self-indulgent? Will everyone be mad at me?” I’d be rich—well, less of a starving artist anyway.

The truth is, for now it’s just writing. What others think is something to consider—later. But for now, it’s just writing.

It might sound simple, but many struggle to “just write” a single word, let alone a paragraph on the page when considering writing true stories, or heck, writing an email for that matter. It’s not that we don’t have ideas and passions—we’ve all got enough material to fill volumes. It’s that our busy, thinking, judging, worrying minds get to the page quicker than our hearts, running over our truth with panic: “What if no one wants to hear about this? What if someone gets hurt? What if I’m making this up? What if I am not sounding writerly enough? What if? What if? What if?”

Sadly, this fear shuts down the creative flow, drowning out your natural voice to the point where you have no idea what and why you wanted to write in the first place.

You’re not hurting anyone or asking for a lawsuit simply by writing your truth. This is a hard thing to trust for many students; they hesitate to get started because they feel the very act of writing is going to get them in big trouble. There seems to be a collective guilt about writing (let alone publishing) memoir these days, a sense that, by nature, writing creative nonfiction is incriminating.

What if I don’t say it right? What if I hurt someone? What if I spell it wrong?

Still, these questions come up all the time and public opinion is a valid concern. To soften the struggle a bit, I always come back to the same two questions when teaching Healing Memoir (or just about anything, really): What is your intention? What are you afraid of?

Intention is simple: “I am writing this memoir because…” Along those lines, “What are you hoping to share and teach your readers by writing your memoir? What is the one thing, the one gift you hope readers walk away with after reading your memoir?”

Chances are you began writing just to get something out of your body, to heal something, let something go. Later, if and when you think about publishing, chances are, your intention is clean and loving. None of us really wants to hurt anyone or make problems for relatives or get back at anyone who didn’t love us enough. Likely, you want to benefit others, help others heal something that you have lived through. Perhaps your intention is to make someone laugh or embrace yoga or overcome trauma.

On the other hand, your intention could be to bust someone or get back at them. You might be writing for revenge. Whatever your intention, there’s no good or bad, right or wrong. You’re just writing. You can decide later how you want to sound when you publish: loving or angry. You can bust someone lovingly and it will end up okay. However, a loving intention typically, like in the movies, wins readers over. No one wants to root for you if you are still pissed off at your first husband and it’s still ruining your life. We’re more apt to root for you if you heal through the grief and then make your life better. If your intention is loving, even the most questionable characters will end up beloved by readers. And especially you.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t be mindful of how others might receive your published memoir/personal essay/article/etc. When I write about friends and family on my blog or in articles, I have to ask myself how they will feel being revealed doing or saying something—however silly or mundane—in the middle of a story. Most of the time, it is celebratory and makes them feel good. My intention is always loving.

Fear is a bit more challenging. Asking, “What am I so afraid of? What is the worst thing that can happen?” are good questions to linger with.

For these purposes there’s a writing exercise I like to do. Imagine your book is done and published and shining in bookstore windows and cyber windows across the galaxy. Imagine the person you most fear reading it picks it up, reads it cover to cover. Then they sit down and write you a letter. Write that letter in their voice… “Dear Rox...I never threw you and Lisa out of the f***ing car at the Santa Monica Pier and told you f***ers to walk home!"

Chances are it’s not as bad as you think. Even if it is, what are you going to do about that? Is it their anger? Is it still yours to carry? Does it really matter if your truth does not match theirs? Typically, these issues can be sorted out and certainly worked through on the page so your story honors your intention.

But on a deeper level—deeper than the fear of what others might think or say or do and judge—often times the deeper fear is facing one’s own truth. In all its “ugliness.” The truth even you don’t want to think about, that you may have forgotten or pushed to the depths. The irony is that this deep fear is a great gift—it is the life force, the prana, the juju, of your memoir, not to mention the weight you’ve been aching to lift from your life. Once you allow for that truth to come to the surface, you can make peace with it. And if you can make peace with that deep fear on and off the page, you will have a very lively memoir where everyone (friends, family, and readers) is rooting for you to unveil the truth you’ve been holding on to for way too long and get on with the business of living a whole life. Making darkness into healing light. It’s your typical hero’s journey. Everyone’s journey.

But first, it’s just writing.

WRITE WITH ME? 

WHAT IS YOUR WRITING INTENTION?

WHAT WOULD YOUR LETTER TO YOU SAY?

WHAT TRUTHS MIGHT YOU BE AVOIDING ON AND OFF THE PAGE?