Just popping in here to say that the only reason I'm not with you celebrating this Salon in the comments right now is because I'm on an essay deadline! I will be back--it was an incredible, beautiful hour!
My piece I read aloud today, from Week 12's exercise, making a thing of all the things over 12 weeks:
I Am Becoming
I remember salty air, my tiny fingers in her warm hand, our toes dancing in the surf. I remember safe. I would not float away. Shards of seashell stick to my feet, tickling me. Mommy’s good girl, big girl, best girl.
My mother watches the ocean like there’s a secret out there only she knows. I breathe in the distance between us, measuring it, making friends with it. My heart is a wild, tender thing I cannot contain. It won’t be captured or stilled. I am its servant. One day it will stop beating. I can run and run only to collapse against its desperately fluttering wings.
***
Her mouth tugs my nipple, the breasts release their milk and dribble down her chin. I wipe her face and bring my finger to my lips. Sweet, sticky, raw. She smells of toast and marmalade. I sing the lullaby she’s heard since before she came. She stops sucking, listens, sighs. This much beauty can be hard to bear.
I gave birth to another before I could give birth to myself. Hurry, hurry, the body said. Why do we move across this earth like lost creatures when all we want is to be found? I do not know this place. But it knows me. I wait to be discovered.
I slip bare bottomed into the murky blue tea of the lake, my breasts heavy but alive, nipples tingling in the cool air. Tendrils of cold snake up my legs and curl around my waist. I turn toward my daughter and offer my hand. This is nice, I say. Yes, she says. We look at the pines and the birch trees and the birds swinging through the branches. I squeeze her hand tight. Once she swam in my waters and now we float through this world entwined.
***
She waves a hand over her eyes, the membrane between worlds too thin to bear. I kiss her cheek and whisper, “You can let go now.” Salt of the earth, she and I. “We have come to the end of questions,” the poem reads. But I have so many still. Who am I on this earth if not my mother’s daughter? Her hand squeezes mine. She tells me with her body when the words are all gone: You are my girl.
Splattered mango on the wet road, exposed and tender, ravaged by a beast.
Maybe it’s me. Red hibiscus blooms impaled by the rain, too fragile to hold. Is it my trail of tears or yours? In the shower, I lift one breast and with a trembling finger trace the nipple. Tingle in my throat, my groin. I am sea, sand, animal, earth. I am becoming.
I cried as you read this. Thank you so much for sharing today. The recurrence of breasts and all the ways in which they are part of our lives as women really struck me. And this line, "Splattered mango on the wet road, exposed and tender, ravaged by a beast." After being with your mother at her death. Wow. And this last paragraph is just sublime. "Maybe it’s me. Red hibiscus blooms impaled by the rain, too fragile to hold. Is it my trail of tears or yours? In the shower, I lift one breast and with a trembling finger trace the nipple. Tingle in my throat, my groin. I am sea, sand, animal, earth. I am becoming." xoxox
Jocelyn, so appreciate you seeing and witnessing what I was trying to say (without my really knowing it, in that subconscious, visceral way we've been learning) and for the gift of your tears.
Thank you, thank you. This was an honor to hear you read it. I connected so much, saw so much in your words. I think a lot about "coming to the end of questions" but never knew this is what I was doing. Is this published somewhere publicly?
Thank you Amanda. I am sure that phrase came from a poem Jeannine shared these past 12 weeks but I can't recall it or quickly find it. Now I'm curious to track it down because yes, it is such a resonant phrase.
Oh Amy, for me, after you read this line "I gave birth to another before I could give birth to myself", I gasped! This is such a tender piece. Your imagery and details convey both love and longing. Thank you for sharing your compilation. Truly inspiring!
I appreciate that. I've come to enjoy reading aloud my writing through the voice-overs I do for my weekly Substack newsletters. It feels more intimate, like I'm in conversation with who ever might be listening.
This was wonderful, I’m so glad I could join and listen to all of your wonderful writing. I wasn’t feeling very brave today, but maybe next time, which hopefully will be soon!
I'm still basking in the glow of that wonderful experience. There's nothing like hearing authors read their own works. It's as if we get the gift of seeing your soul. Thank you everyone who read. Here's my offering:
Purple Baby
They nestled you into my arms, snuggled in hospital linen, new preciousness. I felt your warmth, the slightest hint of antiseptic scrub still lingering around your essence. They kept cooing to me, “She’s beautiful, she’s beautiful, she’s beautiful.” I watched the air of this world transform your cesarean purple to burgundy, to red, to pink, to you. The lightness of your body and the heaviness of your meaning moved me to hold you closer, hold you even closer. Smelling newborn air, focusing on dark eyes welling with new tears, hearing that faint little voice, I marveled at the effort needed to gasp the softest of cries.
And the heaviness of your meaning turned my heart of stone to a heart of flesh because it was no longer me, but we. I turned to my personal nurse, her presence required to make sure I didn’t fall out from the miracle. Then her heart softened, her eyes fixed on the tears streaming down my cheeks, just as they are now decades later. Then, from your wordless newborn soul, I heard you ask me a question. No, dying for you is just a given. I will never answer your question completely: “how will I live for you?”
Me too Steve, me too! I loved this line, "The lightness of your body and the heaviness of your meaning moved me to hold you closer," and this one is just stunning Steve, "I will never answer your question completely: “how will I live for you?”
Thank you so much, friend. Truthfully, I was afraid to share this one. Had another picked out if I couldn’t do it, but so glad I was able to share this one. The heaviness of that moment will never leave me and I am very thankful to have it.
I loved this line too! Actually, the whole piece Steve. Brought tears to my eyes. You gave me a glimpse of something - a father's unconditional and unwavering love for his daughter - that I have longed for. Thank you for that.
Thank you, Vanessa. Wasn’t sure if I was going to share this piece or another one and I’m happy I stuck with this one. The tenderness of it all is still so real for me.
The hint of antiseptic scrub, the “purple to burgundy, to red, to pink, to you.”, the transformation of you heart! Such a lot of beautiful, visceral imagery here. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you so much, Emily. I really loved this live experience so much…lol.. reminds me of my college days a lifetime ago when I would sit in the student lounge late on a weekend night and listen to poetry just basking in the wonderfulness of it all.
Thanks for a lovely salon experience, everyone! Here's what I read, based on the heart chakra exercise. I haven't titled it.
**********
As kids, we played with a realistic child-size stethoscope made of black rubber tubing and metal, like the one our pediatrician wore around his neck. I can’t recollect what sounds I heard through that toy though. When your mom dies of cancer and you’re in second grade, the totality of it eclipses memory. Silence claims you.
I was probably 8 or 9 the first time I learned of someone my dad knew having a heart attack. What a phrase! Heart attack. Immediately I imagined the heart beating out of the body as oversized red arms and fists, pummeling the person’s head. Then I giggled at such absurdity.
Laughter can be a way for the body to relieve tension or avoid painful emotions. By laughing at something uncomfortable, you tell yourself it’s not a big deal. I surely did not want to consider that dads too could die young.
I can’t ever forget the sloshing swish, swish we heard from my expanding belly, the rapid pulse of a new, unknown person’s heart beating inside my body. We’d held our breath as the midwife rolled the probe over the small swell hunting for this sign of life. Our audible release might have been laughter, the kind that’s followed by stinging eyes and dripping nose, because you feel so much all at once.
This tiny, soft rhythm whispered the immense terror of love. Death was not far away and done. It was right here beneath my heart. How would I protect this precious being? What if I died young and left my children motherless?
My dad did not die of a heart attack. He lived to age 82, after enduring a decade of dementia. Not a laughing matter.
Peg, this is so lovely. I enjoyed your reading very much. These lines grabbed me: Silence claims you. This tiny, soft rhythm whispered the immense terror of love. Thank you for sharing!
Peg, this was the first piece to make me cry which… I did not think would be a thing that happened to me! The whole thing was beautiful and I felt it, really felt it, in my body. Thank you for sharing.
Peg, I love how you transported us in time to give us glimpses of the heart and death, how "laughter can be a way for the body to relieve tension or avoid painful emotions. By laughing at something uncomfortable, you tell yourself it’s not a big deal." and then your ending....no, dementia is "not a laughing matter"'. Thank you for reading this today.
This was so wonderful, Peg- seeing your face and hearing your voice made me so aware of my heart. I loved your perception of what a heart attack was- that is so viscerally child-like. Thanks for reading.
Weepy and happy. What a lovely lovely view on my computer and music through my speaker. Full heart, what an honor to write and read with you all. I look forward to spending more time with the gorgeous work we heard. This was my offering:
VOICE LESSONS (Compilation of snippets from the Visceral Self Intensive)
SIGHT READING
I taught myself to fast while binging women’s voices—some fiction, some too matter of fact, some reflecting myself before the plunge.
Alone all night I’d sing to my colicky baby in the dark bathroom with the fan running. Sing every desperate Celtic hymn I ever loved in minor keys. Wanting all the absurd and wry words a surviving fictional sister might say to the music waiting decades for me to sing. But a real sister was impossible by then—her blue-black tempera expertly avoided and resisted all my Crayolas. So I cried commercial jingles and Joni.
VOCALISE
Another wet pandemic potato to peel—carve the dark wet dark off an elephant at night. Deny stuck Adobe crumbles in clear varnish on the bottom of the shutters of marriage one. A long night in a hut on the Zambezi— wet dark wet. When your mother asks, “Is it good between you, that way?” What should I have said? Sure, because concert pianists know how to make an instrument react? I didn’t need to know my father had clumsy fingers. At all their funerals the organ pedal paddles danced with patent leather organ shoes, tight in black satin bows. In a bag— banded, crimped, returned. 4 scoops Black Squirrel, 3 French Roast. Tap Tap Tap.
PLAYLIST
In school the syllabus often felt like a chalice, not an open door. But if I choose joy, like the groundhog, if I sing those spaces between myself, will I lay hopeful landing strips in the dark for someone else? Maybe boop my cornbread on the nose without spooking it to mush? Kiss like parsley kisses firm egg whites, then our teeth. Be a boyishly confident yellow, like egg yolk? Tasting these words would wash away the bitter, pry a wry window open, stabilize the fried chicken resistance with my free hand. While I chase dictation, will yesses burst behind my eyelids? I’ve made this dish for more decades than I knew my sister or my ex. But not my mom. If I sing, will the salt on my fingers and the smell of my beach towel still taste like the sun?
Emily, when you read this aloud I was struck by so many things I hadn’t tuned in on when I read it in the last visceral post. The bounce between fricatives and plosives, I could feel something like the beat of a drum. 4 scoops Black Squirrel, 3 French Roast. Tap Tap Tap.
That line: When your mother asks, “Is it good between you, that way?” What should I have said? Sure, because concert pianists know how to make an instrument react? I heard it, I felt it in a way so completely new from before.
Thank you for sharing! And so lovely to see everyone sat inside their little Zoom boxes, putting faces and expressions and energy to names!
Wow, Emily- thank you! And thank you for teaching me two new words— please write an essay or poem called “the bounce between plosives and fricatives!!!! “ Thanks for hearing my weird coffee/ line- it belonged in there but I cannot say why. Hearing voices and seeing faces really made things come alive and now I am so greedy for more!
Emily, your taped together shimmers and shards made my heart sit up and pay attention, what a visual! What a statement it made, and I'm picturing it mounted and framed somewhere.
Thankyou— this was the first time I really let the snippets guide me rather than guiding them . It helped to have all the work we have created together. Thanks for reading!
Wow Emily! I loved how you showed us up your cut up pieces from the intensive and from that you created this splendid piece! You tugged at my heart with this "Wanting all the absurd and wry words a surviving fictional sister might say to the music waiting decades for me to sing. But a real sister was impossible by then—her blue-black tempera expertly avoided and resisted all my Crayolas. So I cried commercial jingles and Joni." Thank you.
Thank you. I am finding so many siblings in WITD, but the writing from the inside really revealed that truth to me. Thanks for holding that space with me. 💜
Emily, I love just sitting with your imagery and letting the mind pictures paint the scene. Oh my gosh, what a treat it is to listen and to read all this. "...stabilize the fried chicken resistance with my free hand." Wow. Extravagantly rich, thank you, Emily.
Oh wow, Emily, this was a symphony! A cacophony, too! What a ride you took us on here. Loved it all, hearing you read it and then spending more time with it here. The titles are so perfect. I love how you've woven this theme of music and voice all the way through here and yet this is full of all the other senses, too. Delicious! And now I want some French Roast....
To all - this is what I shared at the truly special celebration Zoom today. What a gift to receive the readings - and all of your writing. This is what I read today from maybe a longer piece: Conversations with my Father:
Conversations with my Father
Do you remember the night we rowed across the lake to find the moon? I think I was seven years old because I know Mrs. Rylander was my teacher, and she lived across the lake. I was keeping myself awake by hanging out in the stairs behind the railing while you were just a few feet away watching Johnny Carson on the tv in the small living room of the lake house. I was coming up with questions you might want to answer so I wouldn’t have to go back to bed where my brothers and sister were already sound asleep.
“Dad – Dad?!” I asked insistently. I knew I had a good one. “Where does the moon beam end?” I asked you. “Is it like a rainbow? Can we follow it and get to the end? Can we reach the moon?
For a minute, I thought you weren’t listening, but then you bounded from the couch with your long legs and came over to me on the bottom steps behind the staircase railing. You put your finger on your lips to shush me.
“Let’s go find out,” you said, like we were two spies, two conspirators. “Don’t wake anyone.”
Then you grabbed the lifejackets and headed for the door. I tiptoed through the dark front porch and tried not to bang the screen door on my way out. It must have been early June; I remember smelling the flowers of the catalpa tree that had just bloomed. We ran across the grass to the old wooden stairs; I rcan still remember how that grass was cool and wet under my bare feet. The lake was low then, remember? The lake is a lot higher now. We tipped over the boat and pushed it out past the sand bar.
You had the motor on low – I think it was the old 7-horse-power motor from the first boat, the one with oars. When we got closer to the moon - it seemed like we were closer – you cut the motor and rowed. I was scrunched up in the bow, my usual spot. I didn’t even care that my bony seat had to find its spot around the anchor. I was so happy to be chasing the moon with you. It was slipping away from us of course, getting higher and higher, but I still had hopes of finding the end of the moonbeam. You never said we wouldn’t find it. Not once.
Well I hope you do remember, Dad, because I fell sound asleep and never did get to see the end. You were talking about the Big Bear and Draco the Dragon up in the southern sky. I was using the soggy soft boat cushion for a pillow and just couldn’t keep my eyes open he next thing I knew you were lifting me out of the boat and carrying me up the stairs.
When you set me down, you just said, “Go on up to bed now, and don’t tell your mother.” You probably were smiling your crooked smile but I couldn’t see it.
So, did you see the moon last night, Dad? Oh, I hope you did; it was so beautiful. Fat and yellow.
Well, it’s late, I'd better go home and get some sleep. Good night for now. I’ll stop next time. I think you need more flowers. Red geraniums, your favorite. I remember.
Oh my goodness, Joanne. You brought this piece of writing to life with all of the character in your voice. I lost myself in listening to you! I was there watching you both searching for a moonbeam!! And, of course, I cried buckets. Thank you so much for sharing.
Oh Joanne...first off, I loved hearing your expressive voice read your piece today. I was in the boat with you and your Dad all the way! This story conveys both his playfulness, imagination and his love for you. And that ending....well, just, WOW!
Joanne- I do loved this conversation and your reading- you transported us there — it felt so intimate because of the tone and inflection, like we were receiving this as your Dad. Them bam- the ending. You really rocked my world today.
Joanne, what a joyous journey you took us on today with this precious story. I fell in love with your dad, and your reading skills are top notch. Thank you so much for sharing!
The piece I read today--a composite of three Visceral Self writings. I ended up expanding this for my latest newsletter, but I kind of wonder if it works better as flash. Deep gratitude to Jeannine, Billie and everyone who attended.
I. King of the goddamn fairies
In 11th grade I transferred from a large, chaotic public school to a tiny all girls school. Mr. E. was the drama teacher there, and I guess he saw something in this tiny, shy teenager, all stutters and elbows, who hid behind her hair and kept her anger in a lockbox.
Anyway, he cast me as Oberon in that years production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. On the first day of rehearsals, he handed me a leather biker jacket and cap, and a literal riding crop. When I put them on, I looked like some kind of cross between motorcycle Marlon Brando and a Tom of Finland drawing, though I wouldn’t have gotten either of those references at the time, and he didn’t offer them. The jacket smelled foreign, sensual, evocative in a way that was both deeply familiar and strange. It creaked when I swung my arms. The zippers jingled.
Mr. E. taught me how to walk with a swagger, how to stick out my chest and bluster and sneer and generally embody machismo and entitlement as king of the goddamn fairies. And I had such a good time, moving around like I owned the stage, acting the part of a genuinely selfish douchebag. I would slap the crop—stingingly!—against my thigh for emphasis as I belted out my lines. My stance changed. My face took on new expressions: smugness, complacency, arrogance, bravado.
II. Lana Del Rey and the blood on your hands
Lana Del Rey! I love her bluesy sound, her draggy, weaponized femininity, her audacity, her pettiness. Her edgy eroticism and her sheer vocal virtuosity. Her point-blank refusal to let you get away without acknowledging the violence in your gaze.
Lana’s voice flips from breathy, empty femme-bot to deep, grief-roughened blues in an instant. She never lets you escape the uneasy paradox of her hyperbolic femininity and her urgent agency. Her kitschy sentimentality and ruthless intelligence.
There’s a way in which Lana appeals to the worst in me, the part of me who is in her early 20s and just beginning to understand the impact her body has on the men around her, who is incandescent with rage. Who wants to run herself through on the blade of the misogynist’s gaze to just to make visible the blood on his hands.
III. If my gender falls in the forest, and only the mere idea of Judith Butler is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
I have always experienced gender as a kind of drag. It is a site of power and surrender, creativity and play, triumph and dysphoria, fraughtness, fascination, and fun. Where I can experiment with compliance with, and resistance to, gender norms that I did not choose, but cannot escape, that are part of the cultural air I breathe. My body a billboard onto which I can articulate desire and rage, anxiety, playfulness, compliance, and resistance.
But all this occurs in a kind of dialog with the world around me, and the gaze of people around me. So what happens when I’m no longer being perceived by a gendering gaze?
When you’re sick for a long time, your identity starts to get soft around the edges, as if illness, or the isolation that it enforces, is a solvent. Or as if, when you’re isolated from the outside world, there’s nothing to push up against, so you begin to lose your shape.
Where do spare parts of us go when we are ripped out of the environments, the relational ecosystems, that define and co-create them? In the absence of feedback, our edges become diffuse. There's a certain groundlessness.
I don’t know the answer to this question. But I’m posing it here, nevertheless.
Rachel, I absolutely loved hearing this and your voice brought it to life. So sparkling. I smiled a lot at the imagery of you, swaggering around as Oberon and the title of part three!! Thank you for sharing.
Rachael - loved your imagery too. And this question: Where do spare parts of us go when we are ripped out of the environments, the relational ecosystems, that define and co-create them? So much to ponder....thank you!
Rachel, so much here, so viscerally observed, with humor, poignancy, curiosity and such edgy honesty. "In the absence of feedback, our edges become diffuse. There's a certain groundlessness." I am thinking so much about that lately!
In the dream I am lying on a stainless steel operating table. I hear machines beeping, I see a blur of persons in surgical scrubs and masks moving about the room. A nurse, standing next to the left of my head, has her hand holding securely onto my shoulder. Both my arms are stretched at a ninety degree angle from my sides and another nurse is holding my right hand.
There is a team of doctors: neurosurgeons and cardiovascular surgeons standing on either side. I was told previously that this has never been done before. But I am fighting for my life. To reclaim myself. To be fully my own and only me. Hope bubbles up that, through this surgery, my Voice and my Agency will be restored. I will become my Best Adult self, my Best Resourced Self.
I glance up and notice a large mobile above me hanging from the ceiling. On it are many pale aqua green leaves, dangling in clusters. I recognize they are all of my splintered Parts of Self that, after the surgeons excise the scar tissue from my heart, my brain and my body, will be restored back to me. It's the last thing I focus my attention on before going under.
What parts of my heart are fully my own? Surely not the scar tissue encasing it, scar tissue from years of trauma and abuse adhering to it, leading to my own heart's strain and increasing burden.
What thoughts are my own? Surely not the declarative statements recorded in my adolescent brain that, at times, still echo in my unconscious thinking:
“Having you live here wasn't my idea.”
“What's wrong with you?”
“You're not good enough.”
“That never happened.”
“He wouldn't hurt a fly.”
“That wasn't sexual abuse, he - was - experimenting.”
And who stole my feelings? Who overwrote my personality with years of manipulative gaslighting?
The anesthesiologist, behind me, places the mask over my nose and my mouth, repeating the instructions for me to count backwards, starting with one hundred. I am fighting to stay awake for my reckoning.
Trisha, wow! This is so good. So powerful. The statements are especially effective. I'm sorry you ever had to hear those flung at you. I'm so glad you are here. Thank you for sharing. xoxo
This piece just really got to me. The statements especially. They were so powerful and your fighting for yourself, how you repeat that theme in different ways throughout. And this question, "What parts of my heart are fully my own?" thank you so much for sharing this with us today.❤️
Thank you so much for today Jeannine and Billie! So powerful and soul-nourishing be together, to share our writing and our hearts. Sharing what I read from the January 2024 Exercise Home to Proclamation.
The Shell
A long, sloped and curved asphalt driveway
leads to a rain-stained plywood two-bedroom cabin
with large and small single-paned glass windows.
Pink rhododendron blooms
attempt to cover rusted letters on the propane tank
near the open carport with shelved cupboards and metal locks.
Around back, a workshop with the
smell of machinery and pegboard walls.
Below, a leech field for excrement.
On summer Saturdays,
the sounds of chain saws and cyclist chatter
and squirrel feet clawing the tree bark
mingle with the musky smell of scrub oak
and clean redwoods.
Inside, plywood walls with nail holes,
unfaded in spots where pictures once hung
and thinning carpet from a decade of use.
A wood burning, red-bricked fireplace,
smudged with yesteryear black soot.
A U-shaped kitchen with wooden louver pantry doors,
Lisa, This is so beautiful and heartbreaking. And the ending...so powerful! Able to rehab only herself, not him, not them, this place, now sparkling, is still a shell. Some marriages don’t last forever. Wow!
Lisa, as soon as you opened with this I knew it was going to be a special hour. I lived inside this while you were reading. The snippets I scribbled to myself:
This speaks so deeply through the metaphor of this "shell" of a house, so that when you give us that last line...oh! It settles exactly where you meant it to, in the heart.
Thank you for this time together. What a pleasure to see you all and to hear so many beautiful pieces that were born from this intensive. The piece I read today is below.
Coming to my Senses
Afternoon
Mama sat at one end of the brown tweed couch listening to Elvis’s mournful Love Me Tender. A Winston Red burning in the green ashtray on the table with the built-in lamp.
Had she forgotten how to elbow her way into the light?
I wanted to fix her sadness and came shy into the room. A California kid on the razor edge of puberty. A question on my eyes.
She patted the cushion beside her, and my head landed in her lap. Can you taste the rainbow?
Suntanned elbows and kneecaps and sharp angles sprawled to the other end.
Mama’s manicured fingertips smoothed my sun spun hair behind my ear on repeat.
Evening
Me and the boys from around running through slanted light, sweat soaked and stinking of outside.
A snake of budding bodies climbing trees and bellying under fences.
I hold my own, but my socks are swallowed by dirty canvas Keds, and I don’t yet let such things derail me.
We are on a garage roof ready to fly. Do you trust me? His confident brown eyes tell me I can.
The ground does not give but my strong body is not hurt. Only jarred. An awakening.
We gather in a circle under the streetlight. Panting. Laughing. Whooping.
I have passed a test. Am silently declared fast enough, brave enough, wild enough.
Can you hear the bliss?
Night
A midnight cry. Shattering glass and drunken slurs explode me and my Cinderella nightgown into a million pieces. Can you smell the fear?
The weight of a thousand unspoken sorrows ground my bare feet against the feral urge to run. A child should not have to learn that darkness can swallow hopes and dreams. Diminish the light in her father’s blueberry eyes.
She should not have to build a life of jagged shards with a grenade in her gut. But like a weed growing in a sidewalk crack she can scream her joy into the world.
Oh Vanessa, the pacing of this piece and it's ending is stunning. These sentences were like jolts to my nervous system. "Shattering glass and drunken slurs explode me and my Cinderella nightgown into a million pieces." "She should not have to build a life of jagged shards with a grenade in her gut. But like a weed growing in a sidewalk crack she can scream her joy into the world." Thank you!
Honestly Vanessa, this was like magic to hear. I could feel the crackling, the electricity. The lines I scribbled down:
- elbow her way into the light
- the razor edge of puberty!!
- a snake of budding bodies
- I don’t yet let such things derail me
- blueberry eyes
There is so much here. That middle passage took me right back to adolescence. Keeping up with the boys. The rush of acceptance. I was there. Thank you for sharing.
You got me in six dimensions today with this- knowing how you worked up to it, knowing your husband‘a ovation after sharing it in a post. And now you and your voice. You slayed me six ways, Vanessa.
Thank you so much for your generosity and wisdom (writing, healing, life, yoga, meditation) with this intensive, Jeannine and Billie. I learned loads and while I wasn’t always able to participate in the way I might have liked, the lessons nevertheless soaked in. I especially appreciate the permission granted to do it in this partially participatory way, Jeannine. I would not have been able to continue otherwise. Very special. Gratitude for being part of this wonderful creative community. I am blessed.
That's really really really important to me. WITD was founded on the principle (among others) that we can bring exactly what we have/are able, no more, no less. It's always enough. Really glad you are here.
I'm so sad I had to miss the Salon - I ended up in the ER for 9 hours with a family member who had a medical emergency. She's okay and I'm grateful, but still a little rattled. I plan to spend today in slow mode, reading what all you gorgeous writers have shared in this thread.
Oh, no, that somehow got dropped from the post, though it's in every other post, how silly. It is at 1 PM CT on Zoom. We updated the post--thank you, Marian!
That was just such a beautiful thing that we all just did together. Thank you everyone! My piece from today:
I looked down in time to see the still body of a pelican in the sand. "This one." I thought. "This one fished and flew and dove. This one touched clouds and maybe angels. Maybe even God. "What was it like?" I wanted to ask. I studied her wings, her beak, her perfect webbed feet. They were laid out flat, each the size of a child's hand, dark brown and etched with scales. As I walked away, I pictured them, tucked up against her belly in flight.
Thank you Jeannine for the encouragement. 🙏 I submitted five minutes ago! Wheeeeeee!
Ahh Jocelyn. This is so gorgeous and I just loved hearing you read it — and your expression when Jeannine said submit! A tiny, beautiful moment to witness. Thank you so much for sharing.
Oh thank you thank you, Emily! I wish I'd seen my expression, but I can feel my surprise and delight again reflected in your experience of it, so thank you! It's funny because I almost didn't say anything when I realized I'd posted my desire to read to just one person in the group, and then I felt awkward bc I didn't have a whole long piece like everyone else, but there's something about this community and I just thought it's now or never and they will love you whether you did it right or not.
A tiny beautiful moment. I feel like that's the title of something. :) xoxoxo
Oh that makes me feel so good. I worked and reworked and reworked that last line until it sounded and felt right. So thank you for saying that. And thank you for the high five! I'm not all that attached to the outcome, though it would be a super thrill, right? I'm also just proud that I sent it out too. That was always my big hangup about submitting, I was and still am a little overwhelmed and scared of not doing it right, so I freeze up and don't do it at all. It's funny bc it has very little to do with my writing and everything to do with getting the submitting of it right.
I totally get that- I have never met an official form or guideline I could not botch, or worry I botched. Then worry if they received it, then worry if they would reject it for being simply formatted wrong, worry they would reject it because hit the submit button too hard and broke the internet…. As I always say when I finally send something out: It is someone else problem now! You did it. So happy for you.
Exquisite Jocelyn! I remember reading this during the silent writing salon a couple of weeks ago. Just wonderful to hear you voice your words. Keep us posted on your submission :)
Thank you! It was so fun to play around with just that little snippet that started out pretty different except for the dialogue, as it were. Fingers crossed and I will let you all know! xo
Just popping in here to say that the only reason I'm not with you celebrating this Salon in the comments right now is because I'm on an essay deadline! I will be back--it was an incredible, beautiful hour!
💜 land that essay, hugs will be here when you set it free.
My piece I read aloud today, from Week 12's exercise, making a thing of all the things over 12 weeks:
I Am Becoming
I remember salty air, my tiny fingers in her warm hand, our toes dancing in the surf. I remember safe. I would not float away. Shards of seashell stick to my feet, tickling me. Mommy’s good girl, big girl, best girl.
My mother watches the ocean like there’s a secret out there only she knows. I breathe in the distance between us, measuring it, making friends with it. My heart is a wild, tender thing I cannot contain. It won’t be captured or stilled. I am its servant. One day it will stop beating. I can run and run only to collapse against its desperately fluttering wings.
***
Her mouth tugs my nipple, the breasts release their milk and dribble down her chin. I wipe her face and bring my finger to my lips. Sweet, sticky, raw. She smells of toast and marmalade. I sing the lullaby she’s heard since before she came. She stops sucking, listens, sighs. This much beauty can be hard to bear.
I gave birth to another before I could give birth to myself. Hurry, hurry, the body said. Why do we move across this earth like lost creatures when all we want is to be found? I do not know this place. But it knows me. I wait to be discovered.
I slip bare bottomed into the murky blue tea of the lake, my breasts heavy but alive, nipples tingling in the cool air. Tendrils of cold snake up my legs and curl around my waist. I turn toward my daughter and offer my hand. This is nice, I say. Yes, she says. We look at the pines and the birch trees and the birds swinging through the branches. I squeeze her hand tight. Once she swam in my waters and now we float through this world entwined.
***
She waves a hand over her eyes, the membrane between worlds too thin to bear. I kiss her cheek and whisper, “You can let go now.” Salt of the earth, she and I. “We have come to the end of questions,” the poem reads. But I have so many still. Who am I on this earth if not my mother’s daughter? Her hand squeezes mine. She tells me with her body when the words are all gone: You are my girl.
Splattered mango on the wet road, exposed and tender, ravaged by a beast.
Maybe it’s me. Red hibiscus blooms impaled by the rain, too fragile to hold. Is it my trail of tears or yours? In the shower, I lift one breast and with a trembling finger trace the nipple. Tingle in my throat, my groin. I am sea, sand, animal, earth. I am becoming.
I cried as you read this. Thank you so much for sharing today. The recurrence of breasts and all the ways in which they are part of our lives as women really struck me. And this line, "Splattered mango on the wet road, exposed and tender, ravaged by a beast." After being with your mother at her death. Wow. And this last paragraph is just sublime. "Maybe it’s me. Red hibiscus blooms impaled by the rain, too fragile to hold. Is it my trail of tears or yours? In the shower, I lift one breast and with a trembling finger trace the nipple. Tingle in my throat, my groin. I am sea, sand, animal, earth. I am becoming." xoxox
Jocelyn, so appreciate you seeing and witnessing what I was trying to say (without my really knowing it, in that subconscious, visceral way we've been learning) and for the gift of your tears.
You are so very welcome. Hearing this was a gift.❤️
Amy, this is so powerful and your reading of it had my heart. Thank you so much for this wonderful gift.
Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate it so much.
Thank you, thank you. This was an honor to hear you read it. I connected so much, saw so much in your words. I think a lot about "coming to the end of questions" but never knew this is what I was doing. Is this published somewhere publicly?
That line reminded me of Mary Oliver but I don’t know from where or if that’s true.😉
Thank you Amanda. I am sure that phrase came from a poem Jeannine shared these past 12 weeks but I can't recall it or quickly find it. Now I'm curious to track it down because yes, it is such a resonant phrase.
Loved your reading.
Thank you.
Amy, I loved seeing/hearing you read your beautiful words. xoxo
As I did yours, what a journey you took us on in your piece, so beautifully visceral, poignant and ultimately triumphant.
Thank you for sharing, Amy. I cried as you read. You took us on such a journey. During the salon I scribbled some lines:
- she smells of toast and marmalade
- this much beauty can be hard to bear/the membrane between worlds too thin to bear
- ravaged by a beast/ maybe it’s me!!!
SUCH a visceral piece of writing.
Thank you Emily for your close listening and appreciation. That means so much to me.
I’m so glad to read it here. So many beautiful images that I missed in hearing.
Oh Amy, for me, after you read this line "I gave birth to another before I could give birth to myself", I gasped! This is such a tender piece. Your imagery and details convey both love and longing. Thank you for sharing your compilation. Truly inspiring!
Thank you Lisa, for sharing that. Yes, the love and longing was there; it kept my voice shaking as I read!
This was so moving, Amy. I loved hearing your words in your voice.
I appreciate that. I've come to enjoy reading aloud my writing through the voice-overs I do for my weekly Substack newsletters. It feels more intimate, like I'm in conversation with who ever might be listening.
💜
This was wonderful, I’m so glad I could join and listen to all of your wonderful writing. I wasn’t feeling very brave today, but maybe next time, which hopefully will be soon!
Everything happens in its own time. I hope we’re a pretty soft audience.
I can assure you it’s not the audience ❤️
Also, I absolutely loved what you read about your father 🌙
I was so happy to see your face! And when it feels right it will feel right.
Likewise, Emily! I loved hearing you read your piece aloud after just having read it last night ❤️
💜
I'm still basking in the glow of that wonderful experience. There's nothing like hearing authors read their own works. It's as if we get the gift of seeing your soul. Thank you everyone who read. Here's my offering:
Purple Baby
They nestled you into my arms, snuggled in hospital linen, new preciousness. I felt your warmth, the slightest hint of antiseptic scrub still lingering around your essence. They kept cooing to me, “She’s beautiful, she’s beautiful, she’s beautiful.” I watched the air of this world transform your cesarean purple to burgundy, to red, to pink, to you. The lightness of your body and the heaviness of your meaning moved me to hold you closer, hold you even closer. Smelling newborn air, focusing on dark eyes welling with new tears, hearing that faint little voice, I marveled at the effort needed to gasp the softest of cries.
And the heaviness of your meaning turned my heart of stone to a heart of flesh because it was no longer me, but we. I turned to my personal nurse, her presence required to make sure I didn’t fall out from the miracle. Then her heart softened, her eyes fixed on the tears streaming down my cheeks, just as they are now decades later. Then, from your wordless newborn soul, I heard you ask me a question. No, dying for you is just a given. I will never answer your question completely: “how will I live for you?”
You're giving so much here, Steve. I appreciated hearing you read this aloud.
Thank you Amanda. I’m glad I had the opportunity to share it.
“I will never answer your question completely.” So profound!
Thank you, Rachel. That question still lingers in my mind all the time.
Me too Steve, me too! I loved this line, "The lightness of your body and the heaviness of your meaning moved me to hold you closer," and this one is just stunning Steve, "I will never answer your question completely: “how will I live for you?”
Thank you so much, friend. Truthfully, I was afraid to share this one. Had another picked out if I couldn’t do it, but so glad I was able to share this one. The heaviness of that moment will never leave me and I am very thankful to have it.
I am glad you were brave and we are honored you shared it.
Me too!
I loved this line too! Actually, the whole piece Steve. Brought tears to my eyes. You gave me a glimpse of something - a father's unconditional and unwavering love for his daughter - that I have longed for. Thank you for that.
Steve, I could see and hear the emotion in you while reading this beautiful piece. So special to have this time with all of you today.
Thank you, Vanessa. Wasn’t sure if I was going to share this piece or another one and I’m happy I stuck with this one. The tenderness of it all is still so real for me.
“I watched the air of this world transform your cesarean purple to burgundy, to red, to pink, to you.” Beautiful.
That's my favorite line. Thank you for appreciating it, Monika.
Oh good. For me, it’s the “to you” at the end. Goosebumps every time.
This is truly incandescent, Steve. Moved me so much. That incredible feeling of seeing our newborn, striking awe, fear and joy in us all at once.
Thank you for seeing all this Amy. Yes, seeing your newborn changes you mightily, forever.
The hint of antiseptic scrub, the “purple to burgundy, to red, to pink, to you.”, the transformation of you heart! Such a lot of beautiful, visceral imagery here. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for your thoughtful comments and noticing, Emily.
The colors in this captured me, Steve— that line from purple …….to pink to you. Gah- and in your voice. What a gift.
Thank you so much, Emily. I really loved this live experience so much…lol.. reminds me of my college days a lifetime ago when I would sit in the student lounge late on a weekend night and listen to poetry just basking in the wonderfulness of it all.
Thanks for a lovely salon experience, everyone! Here's what I read, based on the heart chakra exercise. I haven't titled it.
**********
As kids, we played with a realistic child-size stethoscope made of black rubber tubing and metal, like the one our pediatrician wore around his neck. I can’t recollect what sounds I heard through that toy though. When your mom dies of cancer and you’re in second grade, the totality of it eclipses memory. Silence claims you.
I was probably 8 or 9 the first time I learned of someone my dad knew having a heart attack. What a phrase! Heart attack. Immediately I imagined the heart beating out of the body as oversized red arms and fists, pummeling the person’s head. Then I giggled at such absurdity.
Laughter can be a way for the body to relieve tension or avoid painful emotions. By laughing at something uncomfortable, you tell yourself it’s not a big deal. I surely did not want to consider that dads too could die young.
I can’t ever forget the sloshing swish, swish we heard from my expanding belly, the rapid pulse of a new, unknown person’s heart beating inside my body. We’d held our breath as the midwife rolled the probe over the small swell hunting for this sign of life. Our audible release might have been laughter, the kind that’s followed by stinging eyes and dripping nose, because you feel so much all at once.
This tiny, soft rhythm whispered the immense terror of love. Death was not far away and done. It was right here beneath my heart. How would I protect this precious being? What if I died young and left my children motherless?
My dad did not die of a heart attack. He lived to age 82, after enduring a decade of dementia. Not a laughing matter.
Peg, this is so lovely. I enjoyed your reading very much. These lines grabbed me: Silence claims you. This tiny, soft rhythm whispered the immense terror of love. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks so much for sharing this response. It means a lot.
Peg, this was the first piece to make me cry which… I did not think would be a thing that happened to me! The whole thing was beautiful and I felt it, really felt it, in my body. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you! I'm so touched to hear this.
Peg, I love how you transported us in time to give us glimpses of the heart and death, how "laughter can be a way for the body to relieve tension or avoid painful emotions. By laughing at something uncomfortable, you tell yourself it’s not a big deal." and then your ending....no, dementia is "not a laughing matter"'. Thank you for reading this today.
Thanks for receiving my words!
This was so wonderful, Peg- seeing your face and hearing your voice made me so aware of my heart. I loved your perception of what a heart attack was- that is so viscerally child-like. Thanks for reading.
Thank you!
"....the immense terror of love." oh yes! This was wonderful, I appreciated hearing you read it today.
Thank you!
The ending here really stuck with me. Thank you for sharing it.
Thank you!
Weepy and happy. What a lovely lovely view on my computer and music through my speaker. Full heart, what an honor to write and read with you all. I look forward to spending more time with the gorgeous work we heard. This was my offering:
VOICE LESSONS (Compilation of snippets from the Visceral Self Intensive)
SIGHT READING
I taught myself to fast while binging women’s voices—some fiction, some too matter of fact, some reflecting myself before the plunge.
Alone all night I’d sing to my colicky baby in the dark bathroom with the fan running. Sing every desperate Celtic hymn I ever loved in minor keys. Wanting all the absurd and wry words a surviving fictional sister might say to the music waiting decades for me to sing. But a real sister was impossible by then—her blue-black tempera expertly avoided and resisted all my Crayolas. So I cried commercial jingles and Joni.
VOCALISE
Another wet pandemic potato to peel—carve the dark wet dark off an elephant at night. Deny stuck Adobe crumbles in clear varnish on the bottom of the shutters of marriage one. A long night in a hut on the Zambezi— wet dark wet. When your mother asks, “Is it good between you, that way?” What should I have said? Sure, because concert pianists know how to make an instrument react? I didn’t need to know my father had clumsy fingers. At all their funerals the organ pedal paddles danced with patent leather organ shoes, tight in black satin bows. In a bag— banded, crimped, returned. 4 scoops Black Squirrel, 3 French Roast. Tap Tap Tap.
PLAYLIST
In school the syllabus often felt like a chalice, not an open door. But if I choose joy, like the groundhog, if I sing those spaces between myself, will I lay hopeful landing strips in the dark for someone else? Maybe boop my cornbread on the nose without spooking it to mush? Kiss like parsley kisses firm egg whites, then our teeth. Be a boyishly confident yellow, like egg yolk? Tasting these words would wash away the bitter, pry a wry window open, stabilize the fried chicken resistance with my free hand. While I chase dictation, will yesses burst behind my eyelids? I’ve made this dish for more decades than I knew my sister or my ex. But not my mom. If I sing, will the salt on my fingers and the smell of my beach towel still taste like the sun?
Emily, when you read this aloud I was struck by so many things I hadn’t tuned in on when I read it in the last visceral post. The bounce between fricatives and plosives, I could feel something like the beat of a drum. 4 scoops Black Squirrel, 3 French Roast. Tap Tap Tap.
That line: When your mother asks, “Is it good between you, that way?” What should I have said? Sure, because concert pianists know how to make an instrument react? I heard it, I felt it in a way so completely new from before.
Thank you for sharing! And so lovely to see everyone sat inside their little Zoom boxes, putting faces and expressions and energy to names!
Wow, Emily- thank you! And thank you for teaching me two new words— please write an essay or poem called “the bounce between plosives and fricatives!!!! “ Thanks for hearing my weird coffee/ line- it belonged in there but I cannot say why. Hearing voices and seeing faces really made things come alive and now I am so greedy for more!
!!!! Okay, that sounds like a very fun prompt. I’m on it. And me too! I want to read with you all some more and always!
💜oh I cannot wait to read that! And thank you. I can’t wait for our next chance to write together.
Emily, your taped together shimmers and shards made my heart sit up and pay attention, what a visual! What a statement it made, and I'm picturing it mounted and framed somewhere.
Ha! Maybe a mobile??😂
Beautiful! I'm in awe of you - how you put it all together.
Thankyou— this was the first time I really let the snippets guide me rather than guiding them . It helped to have all the work we have created together. Thanks for reading!
Wow Emily! I loved how you showed us up your cut up pieces from the intensive and from that you created this splendid piece! You tugged at my heart with this "Wanting all the absurd and wry words a surviving fictional sister might say to the music waiting decades for me to sing. But a real sister was impossible by then—her blue-black tempera expertly avoided and resisted all my Crayolas. So I cried commercial jingles and Joni." Thank you.
Thank you. I am finding so many siblings in WITD, but the writing from the inside really revealed that truth to me. Thanks for holding that space with me. 💜
Emily, I love just sitting with your imagery and letting the mind pictures paint the scene. Oh my gosh, what a treat it is to listen and to read all this. "...stabilize the fried chicken resistance with my free hand." Wow. Extravagantly rich, thank you, Emily.
Thank you, Steve. What a treat to see you weave your magic in person.
Oh wow, Emily, this was a symphony! A cacophony, too! What a ride you took us on here. Loved it all, hearing you read it and then spending more time with it here. The titles are so perfect. I love how you've woven this theme of music and voice all the way through here and yet this is full of all the other senses, too. Delicious! And now I want some French Roast....
Hahaha- thank you- you made me weep,so…. Life has me away from the comments for a bit but I can’t wait to savor all the things. Thank you.
Pandemic potato!! I will never forget this!
To all - this is what I shared at the truly special celebration Zoom today. What a gift to receive the readings - and all of your writing. This is what I read today from maybe a longer piece: Conversations with my Father:
Conversations with my Father
Do you remember the night we rowed across the lake to find the moon? I think I was seven years old because I know Mrs. Rylander was my teacher, and she lived across the lake. I was keeping myself awake by hanging out in the stairs behind the railing while you were just a few feet away watching Johnny Carson on the tv in the small living room of the lake house. I was coming up with questions you might want to answer so I wouldn’t have to go back to bed where my brothers and sister were already sound asleep.
“Dad – Dad?!” I asked insistently. I knew I had a good one. “Where does the moon beam end?” I asked you. “Is it like a rainbow? Can we follow it and get to the end? Can we reach the moon?
For a minute, I thought you weren’t listening, but then you bounded from the couch with your long legs and came over to me on the bottom steps behind the staircase railing. You put your finger on your lips to shush me.
“Let’s go find out,” you said, like we were two spies, two conspirators. “Don’t wake anyone.”
Then you grabbed the lifejackets and headed for the door. I tiptoed through the dark front porch and tried not to bang the screen door on my way out. It must have been early June; I remember smelling the flowers of the catalpa tree that had just bloomed. We ran across the grass to the old wooden stairs; I rcan still remember how that grass was cool and wet under my bare feet. The lake was low then, remember? The lake is a lot higher now. We tipped over the boat and pushed it out past the sand bar.
You had the motor on low – I think it was the old 7-horse-power motor from the first boat, the one with oars. When we got closer to the moon - it seemed like we were closer – you cut the motor and rowed. I was scrunched up in the bow, my usual spot. I didn’t even care that my bony seat had to find its spot around the anchor. I was so happy to be chasing the moon with you. It was slipping away from us of course, getting higher and higher, but I still had hopes of finding the end of the moonbeam. You never said we wouldn’t find it. Not once.
Well I hope you do remember, Dad, because I fell sound asleep and never did get to see the end. You were talking about the Big Bear and Draco the Dragon up in the southern sky. I was using the soggy soft boat cushion for a pillow and just couldn’t keep my eyes open he next thing I knew you were lifting me out of the boat and carrying me up the stairs.
When you set me down, you just said, “Go on up to bed now, and don’t tell your mother.” You probably were smiling your crooked smile but I couldn’t see it.
So, did you see the moon last night, Dad? Oh, I hope you did; it was so beautiful. Fat and yellow.
Well, it’s late, I'd better go home and get some sleep. Good night for now. I’ll stop next time. I think you need more flowers. Red geraniums, your favorite. I remember.
This is just so beautiful, and makes me think of Jeannine’s post about the power of child narrators. Thank you for sharing!
I loved this Joanne and will think of it as I do Moonrise Yoga tonight , you and your wonderful dad chasing moonbeams!
Oh my goodness, Joanne. You brought this piece of writing to life with all of the character in your voice. I lost myself in listening to you! I was there watching you both searching for a moonbeam!! And, of course, I cried buckets. Thank you so much for sharing.
The tears happened when you read, "I think you need more flowers." As a dad, I felt this in my soul. Thank you so much for this, Joanne.
Oh Joanne...first off, I loved hearing your expressive voice read your piece today. I was in the boat with you and your Dad all the way! This story conveys both his playfulness, imagination and his love for you. And that ending....well, just, WOW!
Joanne- I do loved this conversation and your reading- you transported us there — it felt so intimate because of the tone and inflection, like we were receiving this as your Dad. Them bam- the ending. You really rocked my world today.
Joanne, what a joyous journey you took us on today with this precious story. I fell in love with your dad, and your reading skills are top notch. Thank you so much for sharing!
The piece I read today--a composite of three Visceral Self writings. I ended up expanding this for my latest newsletter, but I kind of wonder if it works better as flash. Deep gratitude to Jeannine, Billie and everyone who attended.
I. King of the goddamn fairies
In 11th grade I transferred from a large, chaotic public school to a tiny all girls school. Mr. E. was the drama teacher there, and I guess he saw something in this tiny, shy teenager, all stutters and elbows, who hid behind her hair and kept her anger in a lockbox.
Anyway, he cast me as Oberon in that years production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. On the first day of rehearsals, he handed me a leather biker jacket and cap, and a literal riding crop. When I put them on, I looked like some kind of cross between motorcycle Marlon Brando and a Tom of Finland drawing, though I wouldn’t have gotten either of those references at the time, and he didn’t offer them. The jacket smelled foreign, sensual, evocative in a way that was both deeply familiar and strange. It creaked when I swung my arms. The zippers jingled.
Mr. E. taught me how to walk with a swagger, how to stick out my chest and bluster and sneer and generally embody machismo and entitlement as king of the goddamn fairies. And I had such a good time, moving around like I owned the stage, acting the part of a genuinely selfish douchebag. I would slap the crop—stingingly!—against my thigh for emphasis as I belted out my lines. My stance changed. My face took on new expressions: smugness, complacency, arrogance, bravado.
II. Lana Del Rey and the blood on your hands
Lana Del Rey! I love her bluesy sound, her draggy, weaponized femininity, her audacity, her pettiness. Her edgy eroticism and her sheer vocal virtuosity. Her point-blank refusal to let you get away without acknowledging the violence in your gaze.
Lana’s voice flips from breathy, empty femme-bot to deep, grief-roughened blues in an instant. She never lets you escape the uneasy paradox of her hyperbolic femininity and her urgent agency. Her kitschy sentimentality and ruthless intelligence.
There’s a way in which Lana appeals to the worst in me, the part of me who is in her early 20s and just beginning to understand the impact her body has on the men around her, who is incandescent with rage. Who wants to run herself through on the blade of the misogynist’s gaze to just to make visible the blood on his hands.
III. If my gender falls in the forest, and only the mere idea of Judith Butler is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
I have always experienced gender as a kind of drag. It is a site of power and surrender, creativity and play, triumph and dysphoria, fraughtness, fascination, and fun. Where I can experiment with compliance with, and resistance to, gender norms that I did not choose, but cannot escape, that are part of the cultural air I breathe. My body a billboard onto which I can articulate desire and rage, anxiety, playfulness, compliance, and resistance.
But all this occurs in a kind of dialog with the world around me, and the gaze of people around me. So what happens when I’m no longer being perceived by a gendering gaze?
When you’re sick for a long time, your identity starts to get soft around the edges, as if illness, or the isolation that it enforces, is a solvent. Or as if, when you’re isolated from the outside world, there’s nothing to push up against, so you begin to lose your shape.
Where do spare parts of us go when we are ripped out of the environments, the relational ecosystems, that define and co-create them? In the absence of feedback, our edges become diffuse. There's a certain groundlessness.
I don’t know the answer to this question. But I’m posing it here, nevertheless.
Rachel, I absolutely loved hearing this and your voice brought it to life. So sparkling. I smiled a lot at the imagery of you, swaggering around as Oberon and the title of part three!! Thank you for sharing.
Thank you so much! It was such a pleasure to read and listen to work in community ❤️❤️❤️
Rachael - loved your imagery too. And this question: Where do spare parts of us go when we are ripped out of the environments, the relational ecosystems, that define and co-create them? So much to ponder....thank you!
❤️❤️❤️
I smiled all the way through this. And to hear it in your voice? Perfect.
Rachel, so much here, so viscerally observed, with humor, poignancy, curiosity and such edgy honesty. "In the absence of feedback, our edges become diffuse. There's a certain groundlessness." I am thinking so much about that lately!
Thank you for this lovely comment Amy! I am so glad this resonates ❤️
Rachel, this is so full of greatness! I'm so glad to have heard you read it today.
Thank you so much! I am so happy it resonated ❤️
I loved the imagery, Rachel and I love Lana Del Rey😉
She is everything, right?? And thank you ❤️
Written from the "In the Dream" prompt:
In the Dream
In the dream I am lying on a stainless steel operating table. I hear machines beeping, I see a blur of persons in surgical scrubs and masks moving about the room. A nurse, standing next to the left of my head, has her hand holding securely onto my shoulder. Both my arms are stretched at a ninety degree angle from my sides and another nurse is holding my right hand.
There is a team of doctors: neurosurgeons and cardiovascular surgeons standing on either side. I was told previously that this has never been done before. But I am fighting for my life. To reclaim myself. To be fully my own and only me. Hope bubbles up that, through this surgery, my Voice and my Agency will be restored. I will become my Best Adult self, my Best Resourced Self.
I glance up and notice a large mobile above me hanging from the ceiling. On it are many pale aqua green leaves, dangling in clusters. I recognize they are all of my splintered Parts of Self that, after the surgeons excise the scar tissue from my heart, my brain and my body, will be restored back to me. It's the last thing I focus my attention on before going under.
What parts of my heart are fully my own? Surely not the scar tissue encasing it, scar tissue from years of trauma and abuse adhering to it, leading to my own heart's strain and increasing burden.
What thoughts are my own? Surely not the declarative statements recorded in my adolescent brain that, at times, still echo in my unconscious thinking:
“Having you live here wasn't my idea.”
“What's wrong with you?”
“You're not good enough.”
“That never happened.”
“He wouldn't hurt a fly.”
“That wasn't sexual abuse, he - was - experimenting.”
And who stole my feelings? Who overwrote my personality with years of manipulative gaslighting?
The anesthesiologist, behind me, places the mask over my nose and my mouth, repeating the instructions for me to count backwards, starting with one hundred. I am fighting to stay awake for my reckoning.
Trisha, wow! This is so good. So powerful. The statements are especially effective. I'm sorry you ever had to hear those flung at you. I'm so glad you are here. Thank you for sharing. xoxo
Trisha, this was so engaging and thought provoking. Your reading was perfect for the weightiness of it all. Thank you for this.
You know when you started reading this, I immediately forgot the word dream because it felt so real to me! My scribbled notes during the salon were:
- what parts of my heart are fully my own?
- and who stole my feelings? / who overwrote my personality
- my reckoning!!
Thank you for sharing, Trisha.
Trisha - Reclamation and integration of your beautiful authentic best adult self. With the writing of this piece, I believe you have done that. Brava!
So powerful and fierce, Trisha, I heard it and saw it in your voice as you read this--your heart is so strong. That last line...pow!
This piece just really got to me. The statements especially. They were so powerful and your fighting for yourself, how you repeat that theme in different ways throughout. And this question, "What parts of my heart are fully my own?" thank you so much for sharing this with us today.❤️
Thank you so much for today Jeannine and Billie! So powerful and soul-nourishing be together, to share our writing and our hearts. Sharing what I read from the January 2024 Exercise Home to Proclamation.
The Shell
A long, sloped and curved asphalt driveway
leads to a rain-stained plywood two-bedroom cabin
with large and small single-paned glass windows.
Pink rhododendron blooms
attempt to cover rusted letters on the propane tank
near the open carport with shelved cupboards and metal locks.
Around back, a workshop with the
smell of machinery and pegboard walls.
Below, a leech field for excrement.
On summer Saturdays,
the sounds of chain saws and cyclist chatter
and squirrel feet clawing the tree bark
mingle with the musky smell of scrub oak
and clean redwoods.
Inside, plywood walls with nail holes,
unfaded in spots where pictures once hung
and thinning carpet from a decade of use.
A wood burning, red-bricked fireplace,
smudged with yesteryear black soot.
A U-shaped kitchen with wooden louver pantry doors,
food-stained butcher block counters
and a brown glass front oven
with baked on grime from past Thanksgivings.
Isolated, far from the hustle and bustle
of city life. This place,
a diamond in the rough,
torn down to its studs,
a shell of what it once was
After a three-and-a-half-year renovation,
rotted wooden steps remain in the clearing
for a never built greenhouse near
the bedroom she would never sleep in.
Able to rehab only herself,
not him, not them,
this place, now sparkling,
is still a shell.
Some marriages don’t last forever.
Lisa, This is so beautiful and heartbreaking. And the ending...so powerful! Able to rehab only herself, not him, not them, this place, now sparkling, is still a shell. Some marriages don’t last forever. Wow!
Thank you Vanessa!
Lisa, as soon as you opened with this I knew it was going to be a special hour. I lived inside this while you were reading. The snippets I scribbled to myself:
- rain-stained
- summer Saturdays
- brown glass front oven / baked on grime
- the bedroom she would never sleep in!!!
Thank you so much for sharing.
Thank you Emily!
The ending took my breath away, Lisa. You wove a spell
Thank you Emily!
This speaks so deeply through the metaphor of this "shell" of a house, so that when you give us that last line...oh! It settles exactly where you meant it to, in the heart.
Thank you Amy!
Wow. The ending. Thank you, Lisa.
Thank you Steve.
Thank you for this time together. What a pleasure to see you all and to hear so many beautiful pieces that were born from this intensive. The piece I read today is below.
Coming to my Senses
Afternoon
Mama sat at one end of the brown tweed couch listening to Elvis’s mournful Love Me Tender. A Winston Red burning in the green ashtray on the table with the built-in lamp.
Had she forgotten how to elbow her way into the light?
I wanted to fix her sadness and came shy into the room. A California kid on the razor edge of puberty. A question on my eyes.
She patted the cushion beside her, and my head landed in her lap. Can you taste the rainbow?
Suntanned elbows and kneecaps and sharp angles sprawled to the other end.
Mama’s manicured fingertips smoothed my sun spun hair behind my ear on repeat.
Evening
Me and the boys from around running through slanted light, sweat soaked and stinking of outside.
A snake of budding bodies climbing trees and bellying under fences.
I hold my own, but my socks are swallowed by dirty canvas Keds, and I don’t yet let such things derail me.
We are on a garage roof ready to fly. Do you trust me? His confident brown eyes tell me I can.
The ground does not give but my strong body is not hurt. Only jarred. An awakening.
We gather in a circle under the streetlight. Panting. Laughing. Whooping.
I have passed a test. Am silently declared fast enough, brave enough, wild enough.
Can you hear the bliss?
Night
A midnight cry. Shattering glass and drunken slurs explode me and my Cinderella nightgown into a million pieces. Can you smell the fear?
The weight of a thousand unspoken sorrows ground my bare feet against the feral urge to run. A child should not have to learn that darkness can swallow hopes and dreams. Diminish the light in her father’s blueberry eyes.
She should not have to build a life of jagged shards with a grenade in her gut. But like a weed growing in a sidewalk crack she can scream her joy into the world.
This is so visceral. Just gorgeous. The razor edge of Lu earth. The snake of budding bodies. Socks swallowed by Keds. I love this.
Thank you, Rachel! Our words come alive when we share them.
“Razor edge of puberty” is what I meant, autocorrect is my enemy.
Oh Vanessa, the pacing of this piece and it's ending is stunning. These sentences were like jolts to my nervous system. "Shattering glass and drunken slurs explode me and my Cinderella nightgown into a million pieces." "She should not have to build a life of jagged shards with a grenade in her gut. But like a weed growing in a sidewalk crack she can scream her joy into the world." Thank you!
Thank you, Lisa! This means so much to me.
Honestly Vanessa, this was like magic to hear. I could feel the crackling, the electricity. The lines I scribbled down:
- elbow her way into the light
- the razor edge of puberty!!
- a snake of budding bodies
- I don’t yet let such things derail me
- blueberry eyes
There is so much here. That middle passage took me right back to adolescence. Keeping up with the boys. The rush of acceptance. I was there. Thank you for sharing.
Oh and how could I forget the jagged shards and the grenade in her guts!! These lines.
Emily, Thank you so much! Magic...crackling...electricity. If I did that, then I did my job ;) I appreciate your comments more than you know.
You got me in six dimensions today with this- knowing how you worked up to it, knowing your husband‘a ovation after sharing it in a post. And now you and your voice. You slayed me six ways, Vanessa.
Emily, Wow. I can't even figure out how to express my gratitude for your generous comments. Thank you isn't enough. xoxo
The writing is enough- keep doing it! And keep hanging out with me here. 💜
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Beautiful, heart-breaking, ultimately triumphant. It was powerful to hear you read it.
Thank you, Amy.
Timed myself...under 2 minutes 😉
Yay, Steve! We can’t wait!!
Thank you so much for your generosity and wisdom (writing, healing, life, yoga, meditation) with this intensive, Jeannine and Billie. I learned loads and while I wasn’t always able to participate in the way I might have liked, the lessons nevertheless soaked in. I especially appreciate the permission granted to do it in this partially participatory way, Jeannine. I would not have been able to continue otherwise. Very special. Gratitude for being part of this wonderful creative community. I am blessed.
That's really really really important to me. WITD was founded on the principle (among others) that we can bring exactly what we have/are able, no more, no less. It's always enough. Really glad you are here.
I'm so sad I had to miss the Salon - I ended up in the ER for 9 hours with a family member who had a medical emergency. She's okay and I'm grateful, but still a little rattled. I plan to spend today in slow mode, reading what all you gorgeous writers have shared in this thread.
Oh, no, I'm so sorry, Phyllis! I am glad all is well. Love to you.
what time, please? i can't seem to find the info!
Oh, no, that somehow got dropped from the post, though it's in every other post, how silly. It is at 1 PM CT on Zoom. We updated the post--thank you, Marian!
Thank you!
That was just such a beautiful thing that we all just did together. Thank you everyone! My piece from today:
I looked down in time to see the still body of a pelican in the sand. "This one." I thought. "This one fished and flew and dove. This one touched clouds and maybe angels. Maybe even God. "What was it like?" I wanted to ask. I studied her wings, her beak, her perfect webbed feet. They were laid out flat, each the size of a child's hand, dark brown and etched with scales. As I walked away, I pictured them, tucked up against her belly in flight.
Thank you Jeannine for the encouragement. 🙏 I submitted five minutes ago! Wheeeeeee!
Ahh Jocelyn. This is so gorgeous and I just loved hearing you read it — and your expression when Jeannine said submit! A tiny, beautiful moment to witness. Thank you so much for sharing.
Oh thank you thank you, Emily! I wish I'd seen my expression, but I can feel my surprise and delight again reflected in your experience of it, so thank you! It's funny because I almost didn't say anything when I realized I'd posted my desire to read to just one person in the group, and then I felt awkward bc I didn't have a whole long piece like everyone else, but there's something about this community and I just thought it's now or never and they will love you whether you did it right or not.
A tiny beautiful moment. I feel like that's the title of something. :) xoxoxo
That last line and image are still with me, and will be. Thanks for reading it today. And huge high five for sending it out.
Oh that makes me feel so good. I worked and reworked and reworked that last line until it sounded and felt right. So thank you for saying that. And thank you for the high five! I'm not all that attached to the outcome, though it would be a super thrill, right? I'm also just proud that I sent it out too. That was always my big hangup about submitting, I was and still am a little overwhelmed and scared of not doing it right, so I freeze up and don't do it at all. It's funny bc it has very little to do with my writing and everything to do with getting the submitting of it right.
I totally get that- I have never met an official form or guideline I could not botch, or worry I botched. Then worry if they received it, then worry if they would reject it for being simply formatted wrong, worry they would reject it because hit the submit button too hard and broke the internet…. As I always say when I finally send something out: It is someone else problem now! You did it. So happy for you.
Ohmygosh, I'm so glad to hear I'm not the only one. That's exactly what goes through my head. I love your mantra. ;) I'm going to use it. xoxox
Exquisite Jocelyn! I remember reading this during the silent writing salon a couple of weeks ago. Just wonderful to hear you voice your words. Keep us posted on your submission :)
Thank you! It was so fun to play around with just that little snippet that started out pretty different except for the dialogue, as it were. Fingers crossed and I will let you all know! xo
Just gorgeous, Jocelyn. The way you see the world and capture it. I'm in awe. Fingers crossed on the submission.
Thank you thank you. Such wonderful, kind words. and mine too! We'll see, you just never know. 🤞
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