Last week, the spring series of the “Writing Through Cancer” expressive writing program at Gilda’s Club here in Toronto ended after eight weeks of writing together and sharing the stories of cancer and of life. Despite nearly twenty years of leading these workshops, I always become a little choked up as we close each workshop series. I have never ceased to be humbled and inspired by the men and women who write with me each year–and I return home full of gratitude after every session for each person who has written so courageously and honestly.
As the group began to disband, holding the small collection of writing we print at the end of each series, they were already discussing how they remain in touch with one another and, perhaps, write together in the summer months. One of the most healing aspects of writing together from the cancer experience is the sense of community that emerges from the workshops. People discover that there is no need to explain what one feels or judgment of their writing, only the safety and support to write deeply, honestly, and to feel truly listened to and understood.
In the writing groups, we are all honoring the storytellers that we, as human beings, have always been. No longer silenced by cancer, in the act of telling and sharing our stories, we begin to rediscover ourselves, who we were before cancer and who we are becoming. Our stories do much more than describe our experiences—they help to alleviate loneliness. Stories are the language of community, and as we write together and share our stories of the cancer experience, we discover we are not alone.
“A patient is, at first, simply a storyteller,” Siddhartha Mukherjee wrote in The Emperor of Maladies: A Biography of Cancer (2010), “a narrator of suffering—a traveler who has visited the kingdom of the ill. To relieve an illness, one must begin, then, by unburdening its story” (p.46).
… one must begin, then, by unburdening its story. Writing and sharing your stories of cancer helps to repair the damage done to your lives, the sense of who you are, the disrupted futures you face. “Decay is the beginning of all birth,” Kat Duff wrote in The Alchemy of Illness (2000). We are our stories, and in the act of sharing them, we affirm our uniqueness and discover is most meaningful. “I did not want my questions answered,” Arthur Frank wrote, describing, his illness in At the Will of the Body. “I wanted my experience shared.” While cancer–or any other serious illness–changes us, perhaps it has the capacity to “remodel us,” as poet Jane Hirshfield said, “for some new fate.”
“Recovery is only worth as much as what you learn about the life you’re regaining,” Frank said. And it’s not just cancer that teaches us—any momentous, challenging chapter of our lives has the potential for significant learning. Yet to learn from our experiences requires something of us: courage. As Maxine Hong Kingston tells war veterans who write with her, it requires that you “tell the truth.” It’s difficult to do sometimes, because we have to be willing to dive deep beneath the surface of the events and do some hard soul searching. Yet it is exactly that courage to go deep and tell our truth that, “in the exchange of stories, we help heal each other’s spirits,” Patrice Vecchione said in Writing and the Spiritual Life (2001).
Writing together with others who have experienced events and illnesses is beneficial, yes, but it is so much more. As I witnessed again these past eight weeks with the group at Gilda’s Club, as you begin to write and share your experience, you move beyond the shock, the fear, anger and sorrow, and gradually, your whole life makes its way into what is written, not only the cancer chapter. The real treasure lies in the truth you discover, and in unearthing that truth, the potential for true healing begins. Suffering, we remember, is part of the universal human condition, told and retold in literature, history and memoir. The act of sharing your stories with one another is not only about telling your story, but about telling the human story—the one that has been told and retold throughout our existence. It’s how you discover new insights and meaning from your experiences.
Because you are reading these blog posts, you probably like to write or at least, would like to do so. If you do not belong or are not near an organized writing program for cancer or other serious/debilitating life events, you can certainly write alone–each blog posted on this site has writing suggestions to help you get started (and always a year of archived posts). Of course, the shared motivation that inspires you to write is a benefit of writing with others. The more difficult part is to keep it going, to not try to do too much too soon with your writing, and to continue the group commitment–but it’s worth a try! One of my former writing groups still meets monthly as we did when I lived in San Diego, rotating the group leadership and continuing to write and share their words with one another–and the sense of a bonded writing community has grown and flourished. Alone or with others, you have everything you need to write.
…And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye
clear. What we need is here.
(From: “The Wild Geese,” In: Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1998)
Writing Together or Alone: Some Suggestions
- Where do you begin? Don’t try to force a poem or a narrative into being, to make it “interesting” or “descriptive.” Start with what you know. Something as simple as your name and how you got it or what it means to you, or use a family photograph, one of your father or mother or your younger self. Write about the moment you first heard the word, “cancer,” or simply make a list of “before cancer, I was…” and “after cancer, I am…” before choosing one and writing for a longer period.
- Try writing for just 5 or 10 minutes a day. Set the timer and begin with anything, a word, a phrase, something you see. Write without stopping; go wherever it goes. Now read it over. Underline any phrase that stands out for whatever reason. Use that phrase as your beginning and then write again as before, letting your words go where they may. See what changes.
- Write with a buddy or a small group. Some of my earlier writing groups have tried writing together after the program ends. Many have been successful, but it takes commitment.
- If you’ve formed a small writing group, pass the “facilitator” baton to one another for each meeting. For example, someone is responsible for bringing and introducing two writing prompts for the group to use as well as managing the time. Keep the writing time short (10 – 20 minutes). A reminder: When you write together, don’t try to critique and judge. The process is straightforward. You have come together to write, share your writing, and hear what in your work touches or engages others. Offering critique is a very different group writing experience and comes much later. Incorporated too soon, it can shut people down.
- If you’re writing alone, that’s fine too, but without the motivation we sometimes get from writing together with others, it requires a bit more discipline. And you must try to keep your internal critic at bay! The process is the same. Start small. Five to 10 minutes several times a week, preferably at a time you can “guarantee” a little space and quiet for yourself. (In her early days of motherhood, Pulitzer Prize winner Carol Shields wrote while her children napped.) Re-read what you’ve written. Underline the words or phrases that seem to stand out. Use one or more of those to write again for a short time, going deeper.
Stuck? Drop me at email or post a comment on the blog site, and I’ll do my best to offer some suggestions. It matters less what you write and as the members of my groups discover, that you write. Your mind, in partnership with your pen, will take you where you “need” to go.