Best Self or True Self? Stories from the Mud…
In my writing classes, I sometimes use the prompt, “Right here, Right now”. That prompt is an invitation to the women around my table to drop into what is true for them at this moment in time: I slept late the morning my father died; just seeing her makes me breathe harder; I don’t know what to write; I felt safe in this morning's fog; my neighbor’s heirloom roses smell like apricot and honey…
This prompt has a way of cutting through, accessing what is true before judgements and mind noise push them away. I use this prompt when I find myself floating along a word stream, when I’m on some kind of autopilot—like telling my stories the same ways over and over again, or glossing over details in some hurried search for some Big Truth, creating a narrative arc of transformation without giving the journey’s details their due.
There’s a lot of truth in the details. You know what they say about the muddy lotus: no mud, no lotus. I get how alluring the lotus is: we want our transformation after all! Whole Industries are built on transformation. Oprah made fortunes by telling everyone to be their best selves. But transformation usually comes only after honest inquiry. Sharing our stories from the mud is what allows us to know our truth, and that vulnerability is what gives us the opportunity know ourselves better and be closer to others.
There’s a corollary to all this to our daily lives. We can be so hell bent on improvement, we forget what’s true. We don’t want to feel jealous, or sad, or vulnerable, or all those other emotions that can be hard to acknowledge. What if, instead of trying to be our best selves, we try being our truer selves?
The poet Andrea Gibson wrote: “Because I realized that if I only reach out to you from the healed place, from the lesson learned, then we don’t get to sit in vulnerability together. Neatly resolved stories signal that the exploration is over. Sometimes it’s not about knowing the answer, but being inside the question together. Being inside the hardest winter together. Being beside each other in the cold when, finally, the first brave sprout pushes through the hard earth, and a smile breaks the surface of our faces, and another season of our lives is upon us. And we gasp in color.”
In the end, isn’t that what we want our writing to do? To show us who we are and make us gasp in color at words so beautiful they bring us to our knees? Isn’t that also what we want most from our lives? Moments where we gasp in color at the beauty of it all?
I wish you all a beautiful summer. Writing circles start up again in the Fall.
Love,
Dayna
*****
FALL WOMEN’S WRITING CIRCLES!! Next eight-week rounds of Women’s Writing Circles begin mid-September: Zoom: Tuesday, September 16th, 4 PM PT to 5:30 PM PT, and in-person classes in my Bay Area home: Friday, September 19th, 10 AM to Noon.
EARLY BIRD PRICING good through August 19th! $315 for series. After August 19th, $360. If you are experiencing financial challenges, please reach out.
You don’t need to be a “writer’ to write. Creativity is an equal opportunity sandbox!
*****
SPECIAL EVENT!! FREE Writing and Chocolate Tasting Friday, June 6th, 11 am to noon at the Xocolate Bar in Rockridge! We will write to poetry prompts using a free-style writing technique that helps us get a lot of words on the page quickly. Folks can share their circle writing if they wish. The group offers no feedback but simply listens with warm support. For those who haven’t tried this practice, it’s a joyful way to begin meeting your true writing voice with simplicity and ease.
I had the pleasure of interviewing the The Xocolate Bar's owner and chocolatier Malena Lopez-Maggi years ago for my memoir " Ravenous: A Food Lover's Journey from Obsession to Freedom" -- in the chapter on chocolate, of course!
We'd love to see you! No RSVP necessary. Come on down!