The Page Is My Counselor
Why I Write
The page is my counselor, it receives every word. It waits patiently as I watch the cursor flash. What dares to arrive on the page for me to observe, admit, attend, and refine?
When there is suffering in my body that I can’t name, I do an angry dance. I find a private place where my kids can’t see me. I attempt to move the chest pain, shoulder tightness, and throbbing thoughts that bounce around my brain. It is a tantrum that looks a bit like I, the stomper, mad at the earth for its extra gravitational pull, concentrate on all of the opposing force under my feet. It is natural, as if my blood-cells and muscles remember dancing with my tribe around an open fire. The movements take over, my emotions and thoughts get untangled from each other. The knots shake loose.
Afterwards I am able to project a reflection onto the page. This is an evolutionary leap. I used to skip these steps. I would swallow hard and schedule a girl’s night, where a bottle of red wine would wash down my throat and loosen the knots for me. Before I learned to project onto a page, I projectiled unfiltered and unprocessed stuckness, bitterness, and regrets that had yet to be named.
“What you don’t transform you transmit.” – Richard Rohr
Someone once asked a Buddhist teacher, “What do you think about punching a pillow to release rage?” The teacher’s answer, “Don’t ask me, ask pillow.”
When a writing prompt hits a knot that has been untouched for many years, it will take pages and dances and more pages. By the time all of the debris shakes loose, I am sick of looking at myself so closely. I struggle to stay for the next steps, the cleanup. What is left after the shake up? What needs to be brought forward? What needs tending? What needs nurturing so that I emerge stronger, clearer, and free? What parts were bound up in knots that could no longer receive nourishment? What parts of my story have roots that run deep to hold me steady when the next storm blows through?
Revising and editing is a process of discernment. Who wants to move into the next chapter? How will she show up differently? How will her questions find the answers that keep her interested in the protagonist and her journey? What defines her, the knots or the nourishment? How is she refining and defining herself on the page?
When a knot is fully processed, it will become an intention to carry into the next chapter. By the time it is ready for a reader, it is a one liner.
I am enough
From a collection of prompt responses gathered in my dear writing group. This group and these prompts are like fertilizer for the roots and knots this pandemic exposes. Deep gratitude for these wild woods full of wonder and hidden treasures.
post #315