WRITING WITH ROX WEEKLY PROMPT—ALL ROADS LEAD TO MA

How was your weekend? Mine was good. The usual. I birthed my inner star. You?


You see, I went to a training/healing workshop with William Emerson, which was deeply healing, nourishing, awakening, etc, etc, to say the very least, as these sorts of weekends tend to be. * The focus, "healing the wounds of spirit, retrieving the roots of soul," would be a bit heavy to get into for a writing prompt (don'tcha think?), but the experience, to be sure, could easily fill the pages of my soon to be released memoiretta, "Book of Pocket Prompts for the Here and Now." (Yes, I'm kidding. Maybe). 


The point is that at one point when we were all sitting around circularlia floor fashion, someone wondered aloud if in some ways we were all motherless, to which I replied, "Of course! Why else would we be here?! All roads lead to mom, yes?"


 Now. Now. Now. Please don't get all up and up and up about dear mother. I know, I know. I am one for Tilly's sake! And lord knows how I love Ma. How that love is now true, true in the way of my newly birthed inner star. Oh Jesus... I can just hear Dada now... "Oh Jesus, Woman!"


(((((((((((*THE BACKSTORY: I'm a "work on myself" junkie. I dedicate myself to deep healing retreats at least twice per year in honor and discipline of reasons many. Last September I was buried in the sand as part of Shamanic ritual in order to surrender to "dark mother"; this past Mother's Day weekend, I apparently surrendered to my spirit and soul body by viscerally remembering myself pre, post, and moment of conception, as well as pre, post, and moment of birth. As an incubator baby, I went back and birthed myself out of the despair that consumed me during that time.  ))))))))))))))


Got that?


That's okay. I'm still getting it. But I like it. Because there I was on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in a St Paul lushly and cosmically colored basement floor, spread octagonally and then some with little dippers of starlight streaking inward and outward ad infinitum. 

Old Star

As soon as I declared myself a star ("I'm a star!"), I realized the high hilari-rony  of my proclamation, for I am rooted in mythology, part of the collective offspring of stars gone bad. Conceived on the same block where dreams were dreamt and sold, I was a tumble seedling of the Los Angeles facade, wombed only by the debris of an old Hollywood set gone feral, aiming aimlessly for rebirth on the big screen... in other words...stardom. Though I've long ago given up the dream of life on the silver screen, there has always remained a part of me that has deeply longed to be seen in a big way.  I won't go into any detail, but at the risk of sounding full of woo, thanks to this weekend, I have finally been acquainted with the true star I am and was always meant to be. 

New Star

So how does this relate to all roads leading to Ma and what on earth is the prompt?  


Ma and I have had a long haul. We ebb and flow. Neither is very good at assuming their familial role, admittedly on both ends. This has been so extreme at times that we have gone our separate ways, said things we'd regret, etc. I can't speak for Ma, but I personally had to do a lot of therapy (and writing!) to at last individuate from her, a process that begins at birth and peaks in adolescence, which many theories of development will illustrate in far finer language than I. But instead of getting lost in all that theory anyway, I'll just share my Mother's Day clarity: 


As usual Ma sent flowers and a sweet card full of loving flowing momlove. And as usual my thoughts swelled with defense mechanism, saying, "well... yeah, but... she... well... yeah...no she doesn't..." which has been a resounding echo of energy since, well, I guess, according to what I learned this weekend anyway, the moment of conception, possibly before. "Hmmm" I thought listening to those familiar words, observing the self-protective compliance they carried, "perhaps I oughta reconsider these thoughts..." And as I listened, I realized I'd been inwardly reciting this love-denying mantra for a very long time, long before words carved this "knowing" into a painful personal mythology. But  as I glanced the swirls of her familiar cursive, so like pink icing on a white cake, there was a spark of light, of love, so clearly alive in those mom letters. "This is love," the letters seemed to be saying, each and every taloned one. "Take it or leave it." 


I took it.








Of course this is neither end nor means to the end of suffering. This does not guarantee forever dissipation of issues and dysfunction and intense snarls with Ma, Jude, Dada...intimates future and past. This does not mean there is not a very epic story that precedes this one. But I shall not give it away here and now; I'll save it for the memoiretta. 


What mother issues do you have? It's okay. We all do. For some of us they are still in the embryonic stage,  but when we work them through, birth and love them, we soar...much like stars reborn. 

Fin (for now)............ 


PS: A PSA FOR YOU! And... if ya believe me, why not join my Tuesday Evening Healing Group, beginning June 14 on Healing and Dealing with Mother Stuff. 

Jude Star

Writing with Rox 2012 Classes, Healing, Happy Hour, Mothers, Retreats, and More

New!  First Thursday Writing Happy Hour! 6.30-8 PM 

Fun! Creative! Low risk! Mix Metaphors! $10/Love Donation Please preregister!

6/7/12 Writing Party! Meet and Greet

8/2/12 Write a Kickass Singles Profile

9/6/12 Joy Writing: Stop suffering already!

10/4/12 Writing and Mindfulness

11/1/12 Start your Gratitude Journal already!

12/6/12 Writing the Holiday Letter you really WANT to write! Already!!!!

     ...                  ...                      ...

2012 Classes, Groups, Healing

Intimate gatherings, bright South Minneapolis loft studio, no writing experience necessary, all welcome.     Space Limited.       Pre-registration required.

Friday Morning Women’s Writing Group

10am-12:30pm (ongoing)    $36

Write together, share, peer review, discussion of craft, publishing, and the writing life. Students are encouraged to explore all genres of writing (poetry, memoir and personal essay, fiction, and more) and all are welcome.

Bi-Weekly Wednesday Morning Group

10am-noon (ongoing)            $30

Write together, share, peer review, discussion of craft, publishing, and the writing life. Emphasis on writing as discovery, gifting, and sharing.

Tuesday Evening Healing Group*

7pm-9:15pm (ongoing)        $45 (or what you can)

Ready for deep healing? Awaken to your most authentic self in a nurturing, safe, encouraging community. 

*Special 6 week session begins June 12: Dealing and Healing from the effects of Narcissistic Mothers  

New! WORD JAM! Thursday Afternoon

2-4pm(ongoing)  $30/what you can

Worderers...warriors of the word...lovers of the written,spoken sungin' dancin', meanderin,' unfettered word... come play with words!

Intuitive Writing and Painting Workshop

 WHERE IN THE WORDS ART I?     .                        

       SUNDAY MAY 27, 2012          .             .         .          .       .           .

  .   10AM-3.30PM     .          .                           .

STUDIO INSIDE OUT, ST LOUIS PARK     .                 .   (

12 MAX   .     $85     .                 .                                 

...Summer 2012 Classes THURSDAYS at THE Loft Literary Center register at www.loft.org  REGISTER ONLINE

The Healing Memoir Begins June 15  8 WEEKS!

Intuitive Writing   Begins July 12 6 WEEKS!

Teens! Can You Hear Me Now? Writing for Outsiders, Misfits and the Counterculture June 18-June 22

 2012 Retreats

PROJECT 25: Call and Response Retreat Series

Retreats from 10 a.m. – 10 a.m. $150

Deeply healing, collective raw writing creates powerful and unique stories of wisdom and self-expression, connecting us to our immediate and intuitive truths. Participants limited to 8.

A CALL AND RESPONSE TO ANGER

Saturday July 14-Sunday July15, 2012

 ...           ....                 

A CALL AND RESPONSE TO GRIEF

Saturday November 3-Sunday Nov 4, 2012

                     …

Wild Woman Solstice Writing Retreat: Write yourself wild, free, and reborn!

Saturday June 23, 2012 

10am-7pm                       $99                        Check website for details!

Psychodrama and Writing Retreat

Deeply powerful healing that will change your life.

Saturday July 28, 2012 

10am-4.30pm                             $99

Writing and Gentle Yoga a day of nurturing

September 15, 2012    10am-4.30pm  $99

                            …

Writing and Creativity writing into bliss

October 13, 2012         9am-2p       $50

WRITING WITH ROX WEEKLY PROMPT—MELANCOLE-IA

Lately I've been asking everyone I know and/or run into with great urgency, "Have you seen Melancholia?" I'll find a segue, a far reaching one, at any given moment to slip in this burning question. "You went out of town this weekend? Wow. Well, that reminds me of that movie Melancholia... did you see it?"

The typical response is blank.

Or, "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew... sounds like a winner."

I recover by explaining the plot of the story, that's it's directed by "one of those art house indie Swedish folk" and explain that Melancholia is the name of the asteroid on course to collide with the Earth. The "melancholia" part, I add, is also because, yeah, one of the characters is a bit of a downer.

"Huh," is the response to that one.

Though I truly would enjoy discussing this movie with someone who has seen it, the problem here isn't about the movie per se, but the way I pronounce it, which is exactly the same way my father would pronounce it: "Melan-cole-ia." Thats' M-E-L-A-N-C-O-L-E-I-A, with a long O. The proper pronunciation, as I'm sure you are well aware, is melancholia, —cholia, as in cauliflower, with a short o.

It's not like I'm unaware as this is happening. "Why am I saying it like that? Am I suddenly British? WTF?" I inwardly panic, watching the long O bounce over my credibility as a WRITING TEACHER to complete strangers, and perhaps, old acquaintances who have been suspicious all along.

It's naive of me to think they don't notice, but at least they are kind enough not to comment.

Folks, I know how to pronounce this word. I'm no stranger to melancholia—personally, professionally, academically. I often consider myself a "melancholia buster," in fact, when playing around with silly professional titles less threatening sounding than "therapist."  All the same, this quirky wrong turn of phrase is a direct inheritance from my dad, who indeed fathered several thousand misnomers and malapropisms. He reversed names in ways I never imagined possible. He dropped vowels and in their stead inserted sounds yet unsung. Some words even fell by the wayside only to be replaced by total humdingers. "Open the light, Rox," he'd say, when evening fell over a room. Once when I was visiting someone a hundred years ago in DC, Dad called looking for me. 


"He called me Carol," my macho lover confided, bemused, handing me the phone. His name was Carl.


 So here I am all these years later saying "hey, have you seen Melancole-ia?" 


I'd say dad would be proud, but the truth is I don't think dad was really aware that he did this. To him, Princess Di would always be "Princess Dee," and that's the end of it. Me, I'm quite aware. And frankly, endeared, once I get past the embarrassment. It's no surprise I inherited this trait, really. I also have his handwriting (sorry students!), his perioceptive challenges, and now, some of his gestures.  It's the weirdest thing: I'll be standing talking to someone and catch myself suddenly demure. "Well, what do I know?" I might say after a heated conversation, which is quite out of character as I really do believe I know everything. Still, when spoken, those words are oddly genuine.  In this way, I've exceeded my self-expecations thanks to dad and his quirky kindness. Whenever he played host to anyone—anytime, anywhere, say in conversation with a stranger—but mostly when people came to see him at his beach house loft overlooking the ocean, he made sure they enjoyed every moment of it with a sort of childlike fervor. He'd give up the master bedroom, his car, his routine, his opinion, anything. "No, no," he'd say pawing at the air when folks would object, "take it, take it. What do I need it? Don't be silly. You take it. Enjoy." 


So here I am pawing at the air and speaking malapropisms. 


Since dad died in 2008, I've felt him move through me a bunch of times. I don't say this with any particular woo or belief system (though he did come to me during a Shamanic journey last October in my drum circle, but that's another story), but with the awareness that he lives in me more powerfully than ever before, perhaps as an old mechanism of survival. Perhaps this means I am still in denial, keeping him alive within me so as to never have to really say goodbye. Now, that's what I call "Melancole-ia."

WHAT TRAITS/QUIRKS/ENDEARMENTS/ANNOYANCES/ETC HAVE YOU INHERITED FROM A PARENT? SO I'VE GOT MA'S ADD AND DAD'S QUIRKY LINGO, WHAT HAVE YOU GOT? AS ALWAYS, WRITE UNTIL YOU FEEL LIKE IT IS ENOUGH FOR NOW AND AS ALWAYS, PLEASE, PLEASE SHARE—EITHER WITH ME OR SOMEONE (ELSE :))YOU LOVE. THANKS FOR READING AND SHARING AND HOPE TO WRITE WITH YOU SOON! XOOX

Conversation Fillers Kill Conversation

Conversation fillers kill conversation

Hello Everyone! I'm googling myself again and having a laughfest reading my columns from the University  of Minnesota when I wrote for the Daily. Sometimes it feels like I am reading someone else's memoir, but at other times, it is so unrecognizably me! xoxoxo

DAWN GETS DOWN!

"Hang Dog" as Dawn calls Downward Facing Dog

WRITING WITH ROX WEEKLY PROMPT—DANIEL'S GETTING MARRIED!

THIS IS DANIEL. HE IS DIGGING A GRAVE FOR HIMSELF ON THE SHORES OF CROW WING, MN. COME NIGHTFALL, ALONG WITH 15 OTHERS, HE PLANS TO RELEASE WHAT NO LONGER SERVES HIM INTO THE LOVING WOMB OF THE DARK MOTHER. HE'S A BIT TENSE HERE. AND DETERMINED. HE HAS NO WAY OF KNOWING IF EVERYTHING IN LIFE WILL BE OKAY. HE'S NOT SO SURE. BUT LOOK THERE IN THE BACKGROUND... SEE THAT  GORGEOUS BLONDE SUNNING HERSELF ON THE ROCK, GENTLE BLUE WATER WHISTLING TOWARD HER ON THIS SPECTACULAR FALL DAY?  AT THIS POINT, DANIEL HAS BARELY SPOKEN TO THIS AMAZING PERSON, ONLY SANDSTEPS AWAY. AT THIS POINT,  DANIEL HAS NO WAY OF KNOWING THAT SOMEDAY SOON HE IS GOING TO ASK THIS BEAUTIFUL WOMAN TO MARRY HIM.

So what's it like to be a writing teacher, anyway?

What's it like to read so many stories from so many different people who have all led/are leading such extraordinarily (same, but different) human lives? What's it like to be trusted with so many amazing stories, read to me week-after-week-after-week-after-week-after-week? 

By the power vested in written words, I  have magically traveled everywhere. Everythere. And everyhere. I've been in the back of impoverished busses bound for the city. I've been in Minneapolis when the streets were still road. I've been orphaned in large cities, incubated, adored, lost, found, loved...  I've been to countless  Midwestern farms. 

I've read about small towns and big universities. I've read about first jobs, first kisses, first cars, first heartbreaks, first days of school... I've read about what happens when you lose someone you love and I've read the prequels, the stories about getting up the courage to ask the person you think you love to go for coffee, to a concert, to a movie, to get married...

 

THIS IS DANIEL. HE'S GETTING MARRIED.

One of the things that strikes me most about being involved in this amazing work and the stories of my students over the years is how we, in a community of writers, become so invested in the stories and lives of others. On numerous occasions we have joked that we know each other in our writing groups more than we know our families, coworkers, etc. But this is no surprise. When we linger with folks and go deep into their stories week after week, we build closeness.

But the other thing, the one thing I can say I have learned the most about being a writing teacher, is that the stories we share are gifts. I often feel as we are writing together in community that we are carefully wrapping presents for ourselves and one another and then ten or fifteen minutes later, we all gather beneath the writing tree and unwrap our gifts, unwrap our words, one-by-one. It's a sweet, simple, powerful ritual. For those moments, it's world peace. 

So, why all this? Why all this waxing wonderful? Because, Daniel is getting married! And this week's prompt is writing him a Happy Wedding story and posting it right here on the blog. Why? Because, say it with me..."personal writing is the best gift you can give!"( Do you want a new stove or do you want a story about the time your mom cooked linguini on her first stove? Do you want a shiny new car or do you want a story about your dad's first date in his 52 Chevy? Remember Cameron in Ferris Bueller's Day Off? "What do you love, dad? You love a car!!!") Okay, so maybe you want a new car. TODAY. But a story lasts longer, lives forever!)

Why else? Because it's good for you. Because if you write it, you'll feel as good as you would after any yoga class. Because the reason we write really, is to communicate, to share, to see and be seen, hear and be heard. To raise consciousness. 

 Why else? Because Daniel is a man who deserves a thousand wedding wishes, whose journey toward happiness and authentic living and peace to all is an inspiration to many. Because Daniel, like many of us, has had some ups and downs in life. He's had some fairly tough struggles with his story, at times giving up on himself. But deep down he knew he would find truth and light and friends and dancing and drumming and Hudson Wisconsin and the joy of making pizza and motorcycle joy, winding down spring streaming roads of paper lilacs, ringing sweet nectar, paving petal-by-petal, the crepuscular creamy meadow toward good home.    Nu? What's not to celebrate? How could you not want to wish wellness and blessings on that?

SO, HERE'S THE PLAN: DON'T WORRY IT'S REEEEEEEALLY EASY:

1. Go here: http://www.writingwithrox.blogspot.com/

2.  Scroll to the bottom of this story and find the place where it says Comments and Click

3. You'll get a box. Step inside that box. Type your Happy Wedding story.

4. You may have options to post anonymously or as you. Either is good. 

5. Failing that (I know it's scary... oh, how I know it...) You can also send to me and I will post.

WHAT DO I SAY? you might ask? Whatever you want to say! Say it from the heart. Tell a story about your wedding or a wedding or your dream wedding. Say Mazel Tov or Namaste. Give wedding advice. Whatever! Dare to talk to a stranger or/and if you know Daniel, talk to him as the amazing writer, human, chi gong ninja that you know and love.

So Mazel Tov Daniel, my brother. And Mazel Tov to all brides and grooms and lovebirds everywhere. Love is a beautiful thing and the more we can celebrate the love that is all around us, the more love we will have within, without, witheverywhere. Choose love, brother, and Happiest Winding Meadow Trails to you and your beloved! xoxoxooxxo

WRITING WITH ROX WEEKLY PROMPT—BEAUTIFUL EMAIL

Last Friday Writers during break, one of the gals was intently scrolling down her phone until she came upon an email she wanted to share with the group.  While I certainly have my opinions about being read to via I-things and other mechanical stewards for reasons thousands, the listening experience—the receiving of the story—was not cheapened by its plastic bookends, as is my typical experience.  In fact, au contraire mon frere; I hung on every digitized word as an amazingly moving story typed by a friend in grief unfolded so beautifully we may as well have been sitting around the campfire. When she finished, we all sat in reverent silence.

Then we begged to hear her response...what she had emailed back to the friend in grief... the continuation of the story. By then we were so drawn into the exchange, we would have waited forever to hear her reply read aloud, even if it came out of a Ouija Board, never mind a cell phone.

The hunger for human connection, especially through storytelling is encoded in our human genes. The most beautiful thing in the world about the invention of the alphabet is that at one time we hungered for that connection so deeply that we learned how to scrape letters from the forest floors, branches, skies and sunsets and string them into words. Did we do that to get a good grade in cave-making class? No. We did that because by expressing our stories, hopes, griefs, dreams, love, etc in words on paper (or cave walls) we knew there was a chance that those words may perhaps, perchance, be received by another. It blows my mind that we have moved so far from acknowledging and embracing this simple miracle.

I know I have. I know I send countless mindless texts and emails just because I can. I also know that I send countless mindful ones for the sheer pleasure of it. Pleasure? We never can really know where the words will tumble and fall on the page. We never know what unexpected hallways of memory will appear as we let loose on the page and follow the inky trail. We never know what emotions may linger just beneath the surface and which answers dance beneath that layer. We discover what we love, fear, and wish for, and how certain words and images feel as they move through the body and onto the page.

All this is to say that I am known to write epic emails, often overflowing with loving thoughts and poetic word play. Of course these raw writings are never consciously intended for publication, yet they remain the best writing I ever do, similar to the RAW WRITING we do in my classes. Your inner critic cannot find you in this sacred writing space, does not know how to survive here. (Rest assured it returns when you decide to publish or share the thing, but we'll deal with that later.)

Wanna see what I mean? Here's a line I wrote this week in a quick email of thanks to a friend: "Because in a rainstorm, the trees somehow know to bend and cradle the wild wind." I was talking about how we, as humans, imitate nature, especially in regards to how we "know" how to care for one another. It just came out of me. I don't know how or why. It just did. I'm sure if I prethought it, or wrote it in the context of publishing, it would have been out the door before I even thought it up. Now. I'm not at all saying this because I think it's such a striking line of literary art; I'm just saying it was the truest most effective way to express what I was trying to say.

Earlier in the email I had questioned the origin of my free spiritedness, given its anachronistic tendency to get me in trouble here in the Midwest. I won't quote myself again, but it had something to do with rings of a tree and the Hollywood bigtop.


So at the end of Friday Writers I got the bright idea that we ought to bring in and read any beautiful or moving emails/texts/notes/etc—either ones you wrote or received— to read aloud and share in class. So, this then is your prompt. What words of communication have surprised you in their raw beauty? Can be a note you found from long ago, yesterday's email, or maybe a text you've yet to send... This is sort of along the lines of "seeing beauty in everything," with a twist. I'd be jumping for joy to read any of these (of course with permission of any sender's). Or, you can post them at the, yes, really, blog, BEAUTIFUL EMAIL.                (forgive me! I'm Link Happy!)

Sad, but true to think that in the not too distant future we will be waxing nostalgic over the days of long emails written and sent with the miracle of click and send. "It was too good to be true," we'll soon say between telepathic exchanges to our beloveds across the planets. Of course in the beginning I opposed email, perhaps for the the same reasons I now oppose Facebook, but I don't have anything against letters sent via post. Remember those?

And now... Click. Send. Connect?

WRITING WITH ROX WEEKLY PROMPT—TO SHOW OR TELL... THAT IS THE QUESTION

Show Confronts Tell*

"Shut-up!  Just shut-up!" Show said throwing a plastic purple flower power ring at Tell.  It was lite and didn't travel far.  Wasted energy.  Just like Tell, Show secretly realized.

"I'm telling you...." Tell began

"No, don't tell me!  That's what I'm saying to you, don't tell me.  Damn it.  Just show me.  For once just show me.  Action man!  Words, words, words are all you've got.  I need you to take me there not tell me about it.  I want to see it for myself."        fin

Tell Fights Back**

Show was upset and told Tell to shut-up.  Show was mad because Tell only told stories and never let Show experience the story.  Tell tried to explain to Show but Show interrupted and threw a plastic purple flower power ring.  It didn't hit Tell.       fin

               The ubiquitous  "show verses tell" is all to familiar in the writing kingdom. Until the concept is introduced, many writers pass carefree days at the coffee shop, freely penning stories, poems, emails, and memoirs across the page, completely oblivious to the fact that one day, sooner than later, someone is going to come along and be a big old buzz kill.   You, too, will soon be caught. When you least expect it, someone will come along and write largely in the margins of your story: SHOW! DON'T TELL! 

But "hey!" you say, "what do you mean SHOW?" Que'est qu c'est SHOW? 

Again, the all-capped response in your once white virgin margins: CAN YOU GO DEEPER HERE? LINGER? WHAT DOES "SCARED" LOOK LIKE? WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'SUMMER WAS HOT'? WHAT DOES "LUSTING" LOOK LIKE? 

And then it dawns on you: The writing life as you know it is no more. Long gone are the days of writing just to hear the sound of your own memorysong flying around the cloudless page.

Of course, I am among those who unexpectedly take your whimsical word freedom to a dead halt in the middle of a steamy romance just seconds before the next article of clothing (or preposition) is about to come off. Indeed I'm the big Hollywood word-director calling out CUT! just when things are heating up.                           


But Why?       
                  Why?   
                                      "WHY?"


Because I want more, baby. I want to know just how hot that room is and how much sweat is falling off your brow and how it changes the color of the moon when it splashes into your eyes and smears away all reason. I want to see, relive with you on the page, exactly what passion feels like, high on that swirly hill in St Cristobol de las Casas, Mexico. I want to hear the stray dogs. I want to love those Southern desert stars as much as you do. Take me there. Show me there. I want to go with.


So yeah. I am part of the "Show don't Tell" Word Police, lurking on the sidelines of your pages, waiting to pounce on every last misused telling or overly told showing. I am dedicated to eliminating perfunctory unfelt language that sacrifices truth in order to sound or look good. I will force you to write "I WILL NOT ENGAGE OF TELLING SMALL TALK OR PERFUNCTORY DETAILS ON THE PAGE" over and over and take away your pens and notebooks if you insist on telling me what I already know or for telling me in cliches. AND IF YOU THINK I'M CUCKOO, PRETTY PLEASE READ GEORGE ORWELL'S  POLITICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE for more details.)


But, why why why? Because I care. Oh, because I so so so so care.


I care because I, too, once told. And oh, I kicked and screamed and defended my right to tell and tell and tell. I care because I used to spend hours telling you over and over just to make sure you understood me. I told you in case you missed anything. And I told you so you'd fall in love with me and my writing because I could use the words ubiquitous and avuncular and kudos in one sentence.  (It's no surprise that I tend to point out the obvious in real life and hit you over the head until you see it just as I do, but that's another story and clearly not one for the page if I am to make my point here at all!)


Then one gray Seattle evening in 2000, a classmate wrote in really small green fine point ink letters "we know," accompanied by a small happy face beneath one of my sentences. 


 I was enrolled in a weekly night class in creative nonfiction at U-dub—the University of Washington. I had written a story about me and Ma and a disastrous retreat we took to the ends of the earth that ended in a major medical crisis. After several scenes depicting how I wasn't sure if I was going to live or die, I ended one sentence like this: "Truth is, I was scared to death," beside which my writing companion kindly wrote the aforementioned, "we know." :)     She was kind. She could have written "no shit!" or "duh hickey" or "dude, we've been reading this entire story for eighteen pages... don't you think we like know you're scared?"

Ooooooooooooooh. I see. I get it. Trust your reader. Don't tell us when you already just showed us. 


Alas, the show v tell debacle remains one of the most controversial, confusing, and frustrating among writers. It's like the thing you are always aware of once you know it exists. However...


Of course it's really rather harmless. It's intended to make you a more confident writer and to trust in yourself and your story. And it's all about balance. There's nothing hard and fast about it other than write your truth, slow down, know that we are here reading and/or listening to your words because we want to be here and we want to see it all. If you went all the way to India and are writing about it, by God I've never been there, so show me everything. Get me to feel for you and whoever else is with you by showing me the color of the sky and what your expression looks like reflected in the Ganges. Show me enough so I can have a relationship with you as you relate to others on the page. Show me so I can really care. Show me so I can root for you and hope you fall in love and find your way home and rescue yourself.


PROMPT ONE in case I have totally lost you and you have no idea what I am talking about, how about a little bit of  intuitive writing?: "Show me so I can... "(and keep going)

*PROMT TWO, borrowed begged and stolen from a brilliant student in my Friday Writers** who came up with this amazing dialogue to illustrate the frustrating and ever elusive dynamic between showing and telling: (Create your own show v tell dialogue)

Show Confronts Tell

"Shut-up!  Just shut-up!" Show said throwing a plastic purple flower power ring at Tell.  It was lite and didn't travel far.  Wasted energy.  Just like Tell, Show secretly realized.

"I'm telling you...." Tell began

"No, don't tell me!  That's what I'm saying to you, don't tell me.  Damn it.  Just show me.  For once just show me.  Action man!  Words, words, words are all you've got.  I need you to take me there not tell me about it.  I want to see it for myself."        fin

Tell Fights Back

Show was upset and told Tell to shut-up.  Show was mad because Tell only told stories and never let Show experience the story.  Tell tried to explain to Show but Show interrupted and threw a plastic purple flower power ring.  It didn't hit Tell.       fin

Now.....show me what you got. 

Writing with Rox Weekly Prompt—Pass-ster? East-Over?

Happy Monday after Easter and Passover! Is it Good Monday?

Saturday Jude and I were at Target rushing around to buy stuff for Passover (Saturday eve) and Easter (Sunday afternoon) and out of the blue he goes, "Easter is my favorite holiday, Mama."

"No it isn't," I say. What does he know from Easter?

"Yes it is," he insists, "And I love the Easter Bunny."

And I go, "No it isn't. No you don't." He must be really tired. "You're confusing the Easter Bunny with Santa," I say.

"But Mama, Easter is my favorite holiday." His little legs start pedaling under his familiar red plastic ride.

"Jude, it can't be your favorite holiday. We're Jewish."

"No we're not," he says.

"Yes we are," I say and stop in front of the apples. "Jude. Yes we are."

"I know that," he says. "But I still love Easter."

"Jude, what do you know from Easter?"

"What?"

"What is Easter? How do you know anything about Easter?" Is my memory really that bad? Did we do Easter last year?

Of course I am the one who must be really tired because I forget that he is a five year old American boy and it would not be unlikely if the Easter bunny hopped on over to his preschool this week. That would be to you and me el conejito de pascua.

Of course I am the one who is really tired because what do I expect him to say? Lucky for me, he doesn't ask what it means to be Jewish or what Passover is. Lucky for me, no one gives me a hard time when later that night after Seder and it comes time to look for the afikoman (the hidden matzo which kids hunt around for in exchange for loot, perhaps in lieu of Easter eggs, one might wonder) Jude joins in on the excitement with "Time to look for the matzo ball! Time to find the matzo ball!"

He never found the matzo ball.

And lucky for me that when it comes time to discuss the meaning of Passover round the seder table, the other five year olds know all the answers, which I find myself waiting for year after year and going, "oh yeah... that."  I am also pleasantly reminded that these simplified answers are often the ones I most understand, the goldenest of answers, closer to the mouths of Gods that I'll ever come, what for their raw innocent light.

 "See there, Jude?" I say, riding the tribal wave, "it's all about freedom."

"Okay!" he says. "Can I have some ice cream?"

Freedom to have ice cream.

The following afternoon, we go to his grandparents house and as soon as we sit down for Easter dinner, Grandma Rose says, "when you finish your dinner, we'll have to see what the Easter Bunny brought for you."

And today he shows them off, one giant pastel plastic egg at a time, closely inspecting their shiny candy contents over and over. He carefully pulls them out of his makeshift Easter basket, a small yellow shopping bag laced with fresh green soft St Louis Park spring grass and lays them out on the dining room table cracking open the colorful lot of jelly beans, stickers, and milk chocolate Kisses of all the finest foils, again and again, only to carefully refill them so he can do it all again... so he can relive the glorious moment of finding each and every carefully hidden one.



How did you explain Easter or Passover (or anything holiday) as a kid? What did you make up in your head about it? Or, if memory serves you not so well, how do your kids or the little people in your life interpret them? Or, how do you explain them?

I'm still not certain, so anything you share will be of great help and highly entertaining. If nothing else,
write about how you celebrated Easter as a kid and who the heck the Easter Bunny is.

PROMPT RERUNS—MAY 21, 2011

Good Evening!

I had a great prompt ready to go around six this evening when I sat down to send it off, but was delayed with Jude things, which led to watermelon, which led to   delays in the backyard, which led to practicing non-judgment when accidentally overhearing my neighbors sitting in Cozies on their deck, which led to dandelions, which led to my second great prompt! 

(No, "dandelions" is not the prompt, though it sure could be if you're all fired up... )

 Actually, dandelions, the entire gulf of them, with their happy sunny heads, once again filled me with infinitely happy.  This "happy" reminded me of way back in the late 90s when I lived in Seattle and my friend Nancy and I were going through a lot of hardtimes about the usual late-twenties hardtimes... and she came up with the great idea to keep a notebook of "happy things", which included the simplest of things, the barely noticed like: Beach Noise, the  paper hamburger wrappers from Dick's, the basketball players at Green Lake, running your fingers through shiny pennies in a bowl, hardcandy, sweatpants, etc.......

So tell me about your happy things. Tell me a few and if a memory comes creeping in, see what happens if you follow that memory on the page... You may want to jumpstart your process with "Happy things are..." and remember to keep writing without stopping (no thinking/editing!) until you feel done. Enjoy. This one is a dandy (puns are happy things!)! 

As always, thanks for sharing if you choose to do so and thanks to all of you who did so last week! I could really feel the love in those limbs!

Guess I'll have to wait a week to send out the original prompt that was born this morning while writing with my Thursday gals. (Writing with Thursday gals is yet another fine example of "happy things"!)     If you can't wait until then, (how could you?!), come write with me! Check out my corkboard website writingwithrox.com and see all the writings-ons goin'. (I crack myself up).

Night-night,  ("night-night" is happy things...)

Writing with Rox Weekly Prompt—Magical Moments of Self Love

I have a new friend. She's one of those friends that I have known all my life; in fact, I'm fairly certain she is actually my dear soul sister friend from Connecticut who has secretly moved here to Minneapolis, changed her hair color, height, and life story. "Nance? Is that you?" I want to ask this new friend, to whom I relate on a cellular,  preverbal level, whose ebb and flow is the mirror tide of mine, whose wild locky hair so deeply understands my own.

One of the reasons I am so enamored of this new friend is because she out of the blue drops things like the following into most of her emails: "hows your week going? any magical moments of self-love?"  Of course, I speak this language. I know what she means. I know she is referring to the same dying war against old ancient renditions of myself that no longer serve me... or you... or anyone for that matter. I know she is really talking about having the courage to mindfully tune into what we love about ourselves and allow it. Allow ourselves to be surprised and delighted at the miracle of our own voice as it reads Dr Seuss to our little ones before bed, how the words, the rhythm and vibration and rhyme have the ability to actually massage our innermost deepest wounds.  I know she is really asking if I have allowed myself to be my own seer... to truly see me the way I've always hungered to be seen. For isn't that love, really? To see and be seen?  

Okay, maybe that's not exactly what she was asking, but I think she'd be willing to go with that interpretation. But, really, isn't that a mindset we could all stand to integrate?



A hundred years ago when I lived in Seattle, Nance and I sat across from each other at the Greenlake Starbucks on worn green leather couches at least one evening per week. We just sat there. Sometimes we wrote, sometimes we talked, but sometimes we just sat. Oh, I'm sure we talked about men troubles and being a writer troubles and how many calories in a muffin troubles, but it was our commitment to being together to "do whatever" at Starbucks that we were after. When I was really down, truly distraught, I was a manic whirlwind... I "had to"  get up and do the dishes and run around the lake and put away clothes and write a list, or else... or else... "Or else what, Roxy?" Nance would say, now sitting steadily across from me on my couch. "There's nowhere to go, Roxy."   And so we sat.

 (She was wise beyond her years( (we were only 28).

Do we still do this? With screen time and places to go and people and stuff to Twitter, do we still do this? Do we still just sit with one another to feel the feel of company, specifically their company? A few weeks ago one of my students with whom I have been working on their incredibly page-turning, soul-wrenching, yet somehow also humorous-at- times childhood memoir asked me if I thought people came to write with me as much for the nurturing as for the writing, to which I replied absolutely and good for them. And good for you. And don't we all do that, really? Most of all, don't we seek good bedside manner behind every encounter we have?  Would my wonderful writing family keep coming to the Beach and sitting around my table if I made them do writer's jumping jacks and treated them like the dictators at Iowa?

I'm not sure where or how these stories mesh or what prompt they inspire, but any way you care to respond would be most welcome (Here at the Beach we call this a "RESPONSE WRITE.")

Failing any response other than "Rox has gone over the edge", you could write about "Places/People Where or With Whom You Have Sat," and go from there. That oughta be a goldmine actually.

Hope to SIT and write with you soon, Rox

Writing with Rox Weekly Prompt—Flower Power

Here's your prompt. What can I say... it's spring. I'm speechless. Aren't they just delicious?

WORD JAM! WE'RE JAMMIN IN THE NAME OF THE WORD...(not THAT word!)

Hello Writers, Friends, Wanderers, Worderers...warriors of the word...lovers of the written and spoken and sungin' and dancin' and meanderin,' unfettered word...

I would like to add another class at the Beach and am thinking of starting mid-April on Thursdays. Time? Oh, 2-4, 3-5... depending on what the people want. The People? You. What will we be doing? Whatever. Wordplay. Wordjam. It's open. Writing. More writing. Healing. Sharing. Giving Feedback. Going Deeper. Writing. Just writing. Lots of writing. We'll meet. We'll write. We'll see. The Kicker? We'll try out new prompts. You bring the prompts. BYOP! Cost: The usual per session or pay what you can or pay in words...Why? You love writing, you love sharing, you love being read to and you just can't get enough. You've always wanted to write or write in a group in a safe, supportive, nonjudgemental light spacious beachplace with the coolest writers in the world with guaranteed dark chocolate M+M's and liquid laughing tears of joy. How? Let me know. Right away. Now.

Hope to write with you soon!

Writing with Rox Weekly Prompt—WILL YOU BE MY FRIEND?

Okay Folks, I'm getting closer, though I don't like it one bit.

                              (By the way, what are "folks" anyway? Are they friends? Almost friends? Old friends? Small town friends? Small friends?) If memory serves me well, I do not recall hearing the term "folks" while growing up in LA., unless you count  parents "folks" which is how Richie Cunningham referred to his mom and pop on Happy Days.

We just weren't a folksy kind of folk. In fact, I wonder how different my life would be today had I been raised among the warm fuzzy idea of "folks," verses the feral threat of "fuckers," assholes, and actors, where everyone posed some sort of danger, mainly of being better than you. Not that we didn't have nice folks among us—we did! But most of the time, according to Ma anyway, those folks were either "unhappy" or "completely unconscious."

                     So what then were we, we folkless Angelenos?

                  And does this explain my continued reluctance to join Facebook?


My politics surrounding Facebook stem from a book I call my bible book, "A General Theory of Love," by Thomas Lewis and  coauthor experts on neuroplasticity, psychology, etc. The main idea is that things like Facebook and other two-dimensional intimacy substitutes (though it was written pre FB) erode empathy and are among the ways we are frighteningly fading out as a (human) species.  I still agree with this, could go on about it and will.

However. However. Is there something deeper at play here? Is my refusal to conform really a fear of rejection?  Admittedly, I do not speak Facebook so forgive my broken understanding here, but are you really my friend or are you just saying you are? I mean, I get that it's a cute catchy lingo thing, but look, if you're my friend on Facebook are you the same friend in person? Do you even know me? And then you have to decide whether or not you like me? Don't you like me already if we're friends? If so, how do you show that in real life... what does a real-life thumbs up look like?.......

             ..... And if we carry on like this, calling cyber-friends friends, aren't we subtly changing the definition of the word friend? Are we then substituting the intimacy of in person friendship for the volume of friends we have online? And eventually does this more convenient quick rush substitution win out over the real thing?  Is this NOT what George Orwell went on about in Politics and the English Language?

Yes, I'm over thinking it, but it's my job to over think things and then write about them. What do you think? Are you on FB? Why or why not? What's your Facebook story? Rant? Rave?   And if none of that matters, let me know exactly what a "folks" is.      Or... meet me in the middle:

Is it folksy or feral on Facebook? Shall I instead start a FOLKSBOOK page?  What if folks and.........

Writing with Rox Weekly Prompt—WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO...?

I've been wanting to post this ever since last Thursday after Intuitive Writing at the Loft. No matter what I'm teaching, I find a way to read NOSTALGIA, a short short by Richard Shelton from the wonderful creative nonfiction anthology IN SHORT (ed Judith Kitchen).

After listening to Shelton lament the end of  nightingales, kindness, bucolic, the use of the word crepuscular, and a "day in the country," my students wrote for five or so minutes on "What ever happened to....?" Simply, begin the sentence with "What ever happened to...?" (as Shelton begins his short) and follow the trail, see where it takes you. If you get stuck, simply come back to "and what ever happened to....?"



Without fail, wow. Every time we write together and share this exercise I am reminded of how it must have been before TV, before radio, before movies and I-things. Perhaps it is a bit like the days of the wandering poets... the days of the oral tradition where we went door-to-door, (village to village? hut to hut? ocean to desert?) reciting all the days news in the form of a song. The raw uninhibited form of storytelling that was freely given, until we discovered that words could be bound and sold (whatever happened to unbound words...?).

I suppose I am reminded of "the good old days" (what ever happened to the good old days?) when we sat around the davenport and told stories and sang camp songs for amusement instead of heading out to places of amusement like coffee houses where we isolate ourselves on facebook (whatever happened to talking to people at the coffee shop?).  In any case, by the time class was almost over, I was, rather unprofessionally, begging my students to read their responses.

"See?" I pointed out in a teacherly fashion (though I have no idea if it was teacherly factual!) "This is what it used to be like! Back when we had to commission writers to write up their most beautiful thoughts and musings! Please, please read!"

A few other students chimed in, lending their support. "Yeah! Come on! Read! You heard about our weird childhoods!"

When we respond to this prompt, something magical happens. We go places. We see decades and details we have never seen. We meet other mothers, cars, states, fishing holes and middle-of-nowhere restaurants. We get on the page with rare insects, the sounds of another country,  language, century... We meet each other's uncles and doggies. We learn about teenage soccer in England, Anti-I-Over,  One-Two-Three O'Leary,  We see fireflies and long gone utensils of the kitchen. We see the stories within the everyday objects and times of day. And clothing... we see clothing. And dancing. And church. And...

So please, I can hardly stand it. What is your version of "What ever happened to..."     As always, just follow the energy and see where it goes... you won't know before you write it. You may have some vague ideas, but when you meet yourself on the page with this one, you are in for some nostalgia of the holy shit kind. Enjoy. And then share. I'll pay you a quarter.