Healing Words
“There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.”
The third Monday of January, Blue Monday, is considered the most depressing day of the year. The day originated in 2005 when a travel company in the UK claimed to have calculated the date using an equation. Sounds like a sales ploy to me!
I have never given Blue Monday much thought, but these last few days have been a struggle. The allure of travel to a warm location is rather appealing.
We arrived home last Sunday after a few days of taking care of our granddaughter. Record-cold temperatures had us bundled up on the drive home, and while our home was cosy when we arrived, we had no water. On Tuesday, it began snowing. By Wednesday morning, ten inches of snow had accumulated. I was up early that morning, curled up by the fire with my coffee, putting the final touches to the new workshop series starting later that morning. Coffee made with tap water, water that had miraculously returned sometime during the night. A winter wonderland slowly revealed itself as the sky lightened - trees heavy with snow, a smooth blanket of snow across our property except for deer tracks heading towards the pond. At that precise moment, I felt content.
The lights flickered an hour later as I headed up to log into Zoom and welcome six women to Writing Our Life Stories. I stopped halfway up the stairs, hopeful but realizing the inevitable. The house went dark.
The need to reach out to these women was excruciating. In an email sent to them the day before, I had told them how precarious our power is during storms. There is nothing you can do, my husband reassured me. But I felt I had left them hanging, uncertain and wondering where I was. Their emails, received after the power was restored, reassured me that they all understood. My worry, I expect, stemmed from the excitement and anxiety I feel when starting something new.
So what did I do? This was supposed to be a week of writing, working on a website re-design, and developing some resources for my workshops. Instead, I ate. I read. I played mindless games on the computer. This week, which I thought would bring me creativity and connection, had taken a nosedive.
There were bright spots. And bright spots for me usually come through words.
I put on a brave face for my Thursday morning alumni writing group, and by the end of the session, I no longer needed to pretend. These women and their stories bring me such joy. They are brave, vulnerable, and so supportive of each other.
Every month, I present a theme accompanied by quotes, an activity, and writing prompts. The activities help nudge memories. They are voluntary for participants to do on their own. For January, I invited them to tease out their unique roots by writing a poem based on poet George Ella Lyon's poem, Where I’m From, which has been used as the basis of a project to gather voices of diversity. The poem is also a helpful tool for women - or anyone - to reflect back on their lives.
Several of the women shared the poems they wrote with the group. Their lyrical words sang through our speakers, giving us further insight into these women writing their life stories. Would you like to explore where you are from? Here is a template created by Freeology.
Another bright spot this week? Two books that had me highlighting quotes. I know it is only January, but No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister will be at the top of my favourite books list by the end of the year! This book, about the power of a story, reminds us that we may read the same words, but we interpret them differently.
“At some point, it’s written down, and that’s the book readers hold in their hands. But the story isn’t done, because it goes on to live in the readers' minds, in a way that’s particular to each of them…” - Erica Bauermeister
I also read Daughter of Ashes by Ilaria Tuti, the third in her detective series about Superintendent Teresa Battaglia, works to solve a crime that has haunted her for years while struggling with dementia. Tuti’s descriptions are beautiful and insightful. And I so enjoy learning about the human condition through fiction. In the book, she speaks of the relationship she had with her abusive husband when she was a young woman:
“He killed her every single day, one piece of her soul at a time. And every single day she would pick up the broken piece and stitch it back on. By sacrificing herself, perhaps she might bring forth his redemption.” - Ilaria Tuti
A stark reminder that we cannot change anyone; people must change themselves. Thankfully, I learned that many years ago, after a string of unhealthy relationships where I played saviour.
And lastly, not so much a bright spot but a reassurance that I am not alone. My body is changing. While I am not in denial of this fact, I am surprised, time and time again, when I see myself unexpectedly in a storefront window or catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror as I head to the shower. In her book, No Two Persons, Bauermeister offers a beautiful description of our ageing bodies through the eyes of one of the book’s characters:
“Greetings over, they continued on, breasts swaying like pendulums as they walked to the shower, stomachs rolling into soft mounds as they lined over to dry a foot, a crotch. Everywhere she looked were the gnarled roots of varicose veins, the shining ropes of scars - across abdomens, chests, along the sides of knees….This was all the fruit gone over-ripe, going back to the ground it came from…there was something so gracelessly graceful about it all.”
I also read Jody Day’s post this week, Who is that old woman in the mirror? Day captured how I was feeling through her words:
“…what shocked me most was that even lying down my body looked so much larger than it does in my mind. And whilst I don’t mind being a bit overweight, having made huge strides since mid-life in feeling gratitude towards my body rather than seeing it as some kind of capitalist ‘project’, I was still shocked. Who was this large, matronly, old woman lying there? And how could she be me?”
Like Jody, feeling fully present in my body doesn’t come naturally to me. Her words remind me that I am not the only one to feel that way, and it is comforting to know I am not alone.