Writing with Rox WEEKLY—But if you try sometimes...

I cannot tell you how many times I have written about my first concert—The Rolling Stones—since the long ago day in 1980 when I was ten. And I cannot  tell you what joy it brings me every time I write about it, despite it not being a very pleasant evening. I could write about that night a million different ways with a million different details and it would still make me smile. 

I don't know why it happens every time, but it does. I mean really... what's fun about the 1980s anyway? What's fun about feathered hair, the LA Coliseum, the nosebleed seats, the drunk, raunchy Dead Head who squeezed my ass on the way to get Nachos, the roach my boyfriend's mom passed us in the limo, the puke in the gas station outhouse on the way there? What's fun about waiting for your preppy boyfriend to kiss you all night, the loneliness of coming home to an empty house and having to kick in the door, shirtless Mick Jagger in lemon yellow tights worming around the stage, and the foreboding echo of You Can't Always Get What You Want careening through your innocent, almost adolescent mind?

But never mind what I wrote. My-soon-to-be-famous-in-my-opinion students wrote about first concerts put on by their kids, the excitement of an upcoming Dessa concert, Bon Jovi, the bittersweet memories of listening to records of Judy Collins and Bob Dylan... As we listen, we relate; we laugh, we long, we regret, we remember... our hearts beat a little faster. We might cry. But why do we bother with all this? Aren't there better things to be doing with our time?

But somehow when we write and share—for better or worse—in addition to making us stronger writers, it feels good. It's deeply satisfying in ways I will never understand. It's fun! We can reframe old stories and take control of new ones. It's a deep cleansing, honoring, and remembering. It takes you back. Or forward. You get to hear yourself again... or for the first time, only with a gentle voice of experience looking back on innocence, on that one evening or moment in time and being able to say to your little(r) self, "hey, I'm back. I'm here. I've been here all along."

And if you do this long enough—this writing and sharing—you just might find...all these years later... you get what you need.

Oh yeah.

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—My cat gives me Reiki

Happy Valentine's Day Writers!

Now, now... before you go saying saying about Valentine's Day, remember that this day is loaded with prompts because no matter how you slice it, it's about the heart. And no matter what you write about, it's really all about the heart. And the heart is always up to something.

It's been all over the place, hasn't it? It's fallen hard, broken in pieces, gone missing, gone into hiding,  stripped, dressed up, run away, danced with you, given your blissful rhythm, the chills, the drunken nerve, beat so fast you thought you'd pass out... and here it still is,  beating in time, reminding you that a heart connection is still always right in front of you.

When we write together and share, we connect from the heart and it comes naturally (which is why it feels so good most of the time).

Lately, when I need it, my cat Lola jumps on my lap and puts her paw on my heart. I kid you not. She just sits there, looks me in the eye, and rests her white gloved paw heart center. She senses something. She is wise in ways of the heart, a constant reminder that my heart is always primed for opening. Even if my mind is up to something else, my heart can always be opened.

Sometimes I forget that and I engage a little less alive with life, I give less, I receive less, I think more... and my writing sounds... off... sort of like those Valentine's heart candies with the messages that get more and more cryptic every year: "H&M?" What the heck is that and do I really want my kid reading these things? "Smoo Mes"? Er....? "Lympy?"

Of course we get a good laugh about it and that opens the heart. So you can't stay annoyed for long.



What opens your heart?

Writing with Rox WEEKLY—Every Wednesday, 4pm

Happy February Writers!

Today I am feeling happy that there is sunshine outside and that we can feel it on the couch in the corner of the living room where the kitty likes to lie out.

I am also satisfied by a full day of writing with you, always nourishment. "Welp, another morning totally wasted," one of my dear students likes to joke after our monthly morning group, the same group that has been writing together for several years and experiencing the same inexplicable magic that happens when we write together and see ourselves in the words of one another, because we can all write about our cars or going to the dentist or the clutter on our tables or what we had for dinner last night and have a deeply moving life changing experience.

I am also sad today because for forever and a day, Weds has been my day to finish off the work day with yoga at One Yoga with Amy and those familiar bodies I took the same class with for years and years (though I think I was there the longest). I miss those familiar limbs in triangle poses and warriors and downward dogs and the corpses that kept me safe company in Savasana.

Even though it's been almost a year, today I struggle to accept that I cannot go and do what I have done for 18 years at 4 pm on Wednesday, what is so familiar. I want it back so much I embarrass myself with the inability to grow up and accept myself where I am. I suppose if I could be okay with not being okay and not accepting where I am than I might be okay with where I am. I might be onto something.

And I am enjoying a laborious text exchange with Ma who is across town trying to understand exactly what sort of feminine product I need her to pick up and were it not for her many questions, it would never occur to me how difficult this was, how words fall short, and how many feminine products there really are

I am also baffled by how much  harder and more complicated things are given how easy things have become and how many options there are

For some reason I can never remember what floor I am supposed to get off at my clinic because there are two main floors

especially on Wednesdays

because I think part of me is always expecting to get off on the floor with the yoga studio

It is Wednesday at 4 pm and instead of doing yoga, I am doing this. And isn't it  really the same thing?


What's your Weds at 4p?
What do you miss and long for like a petulant child?