Category: writing alone

February 6, 2022: When the Words Just Won’t Come

Published on by Sharon A. Bray, EdD2 Comments

“Writing about a writer’s block is better than not writing at all”
― Charles Bukowski, The Last Night of the Earth Poems

I have a confession.  For the past three weeks, I’ve been trying to write a new post for this blog and, generally, failing.  I’ve gotten the mental affliction that is the result of  prolonged pandemic living.  Inspiration is hiding in some dark corner and I can’t seem to coax it out.  For someone who writes, that lack of inspiration can simply increase one’s stress and add to the blockage.

This strange existence of the past two years has finally gotten the better of me—or at least, my brain.  “I feel like I’m moving through sludge,” I remarked to a friend this past week.  She too admitted feeling effects of this prolonged pandemic.  In fact, it would be difficult to find anyone who hasn’t been experiencing similar frustration, lethargy, blues or just a lack of motivation for ordinary tasks.  Thankfully, Toronto is beginning to open up again, although I’m not rushing into so-called normal living just yet.

But while the prolonged nature of the COVID pandemic has been worrisome, it’s fueled divisiveness and protest that only add to this sense of spiritual malaise.  I shun the news reports and headlines–they just unsettle me more. Yet I am saddened by the conflict and aggression that has appeared in Ottawa and beyond in the past many days.  It all challenges my sense of what this country is and has been for me, and why I chose to become a Canadian citizen so many years ago.  I can only hope that the pandemic will not permanently rob us of our humanity to one another.

So I admit to “writer’s block.  The  words just won’t come, or any that do appear on my notebook pages seem heavy and leaden.  It’s the emotion I and so many others have felt like during this pandemic. To wit,  I’ve  found more than a few articles on the impact of the Corona virus on writers’ block!   

 I know this siege of my  “writer’s block” will end or at least, be tempered as my expressive writing workshops begin.  Other’s stories, written and  shared, are uplifting in their honesty and humanness. Even though participants are writing out of life-threatening illness, their honesty and openness are the stuff of courage and hope.  I am always humbled and inspired by the experiences and stories shared with others in the writing groups. 

For the moment, however,  I am trying to honor the need to be more reflective in my daily writing practice, to let the approaching start dates for my workshops be my focus and spark my  inspiration.  I am also taking the advice offered by so many writers in the world to those  of us who write and sometimes face these empty periods.  So if, by chance,  you’re feeling a bit stuck too, I will share that advice to those of you who read this blog.  What is it my mother often said in the midst of any upsetting event?  “This too will pass.”  We can only hope.

Suggestions for re-igniting your writing:

  • Meditation or breathwork can be useful.  I use a short deep breathing exercise each morning before I open my notebook, letting my mind go where it goes as I concentrate on the breath.  It helps my focus and lightens my mood.
  • Music can be calming—and it can also be inspiring.  I have taken to writing with classical music playing very softly in the background.  It helps me settle down and focus.
  • When your worry or dampened spirits take over, name them.  Write them on the page of your notebook as a practice of releasing them.
  • Write about what’s troubling you—and why.  Invariably that leads to other topics, other experiences.  When something feels insistent for me or seems to need exploration,  I tag my notebook page so I can return to it.
  • READ.  A writer writes, but a writer also reads.  I have a steady diet of novels, essays about writing, articles of interest in healthcare, and daily, poetry.  Poetry is a balm, an inspiring and moving experience for me. 
  • Keep writing, but leave the worry behind about not “producing.” It’s not uncommon that you’ll write your way into something new you want to explore further.  My writing, in recent weeks, has been free-wheeling, sometimes reflective, sometimes all over the map, but among all the disconnected paragraphs, an idea or two comes out of nowhere that warrants pursuing.

August 31, 2021: I Guess That’s Why I Called It the Greys

Published on by Sharon A. Bray, EdD4 Comments

Everywhere in North America, children are heading back to school…only it’s not with quite the same unabated enthusiasm for many youngsters and their parents.  COVID, despite the many months of lockdowns, social isolation and available vaccinations, hasn’t finished with us, as the Delta variant and climbing case numbers demonstrate.   Since my three grandchildren are beginning another school year, I can’t help but wonder about the spread of the virus among schoolchildren who have not, as yet, been eligible for vaccinations. 

That low level anxiety lingers–all too frequent a visitor in my life during the past year and a half. While my husband and I enjoyed some of the gradual opening up of restaurants, galleries, and stores during the summer months, we also remained cautious.  Then the dog days of August descended with haze, heat and oppressive humidity. That, coupled with the daily reports of drought and wild fires around the world, put the reality of advancing climate change into sharper focus, and coupled with the rise in COVID cases, my anxiety rose.  The blistering heat forced me back indoors, which was all too reminiscent of the months of lockdown.  Days dragged, headlines screamed disaster, and my spirits took a nose dive.

Mornings, which are my quiet time for writing, offered little relief.  For many days, my notebook pages contained more white space than words.  I couldn’t seem to get inspired, unable write through my monumental case of sagging spirits.  The days seemed cast in muted, colorless tones. And worse, when I looked at myself in the mirror, my image reflected back seemed dull and grey, just like my mood. I remarked to a friend, “In these times, grey has become a primary color.”

That one spontaneous sentence, and the next day, my associations with “grey” came out of hiding.  I recalled Mordecai Richler’s wonderful children’s book, Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang, published in 1975, read and re-read to my young daughters.   Jacob, is a  young boy in a large family who has to repeat everything twice just to be heard, which results in his nickname, Jacob Two-Two. His habit is also the reason he is misunderstood and considered rude. All of it results in his being punished and sent to the children’s prison,  “Slimer’s Isle,” which is run by the Hooded Fang.  Slimer’s Isle is a place where captive children like Jacob never see the sun.  The image of that sun-less place seemed a perfect description for the grey mood that had lingered in my psyche for months. 

Yet Remembering Jacob Two-Two and Slimer’s Isle was also an inspirational nudge.  It was enough to inspire me to a fruitful morning writing, and this time, the words came.  I had fun tinkering with the song lyrics of  “I guess that’s why they call it the blues,” substituting the color grey and adding a few lines about COVID in my version. While it’s hardy ready for public consumption, my husband and I had a laugh over my attempt at song lyrics.   A day or two later, time spent with my granddaughter led me to the old memory of the Crayola Box of 64 colors—an item which accompanied every “back to school” bag during my childhood.   Grey was my most unused color in the box, but thinking of it transported me to the memory of  a delightful poem about color written by a medical student in a writing workshop I led for faculty and students of Stanford Medical School in 2015.

I used color as a writing prompt.  To get people inspired, I spread out a handful of paint color chips on a table.  Not only are a full range of colors represented in the interior paint chips , but they have somewhat exotic—one might even say “silly”—names, such as “first light,” “little princess,” “dinner party,” “head over heels,” “windmill wings”…  Whether using the color or the names associated with them, participants had great fun working them into poems and stories.  But one med school writer’s poem stood out above all the others.  She had chosen the least popular color of the lot:  grey, labeled “hickory smoke.”  When she volunteered to read aloud, we were in awe of how she’d brought that mundane color to life.   Here is an excerpt of her poem, simply titled “Grey”:

…“Air with dirt,” they say.

Floating soot clamoring cold and unwanted

against a clean white wall…

…Grey is the color of “yes, life has been here,”

and “don’t you know I have a story to tell?”

Grey is the sidewalk that’s been walked,

the white house that’s been lived in…

White is before, but give me the after

Give me the ninety-year-old under her old grey comforter.

Has she lived? Well, tell me the color of her soul.

Show me the spots of grey, and tell me how you’ve lived,

the story printed dark and true in the deepest, most imperfect,

ugliest and sweetest shade.

–Workshop Participant, 2015

It’s probably no surprise that after re-reading her poem again, my grey mood had begun to dissipate.  Since then, I’ve pulled my ancient and well-worn copy of Jacob Two-Two from the shelf to recall his experiences on Slimer’s Isle, how he won over the Hooded Fang and returned to his family a hero.  I suppose that all the little memories of grey served as a reminder that while life has been difficult, and despite Zoom, lonely at times, it’s within my control to find ways to navigate this rather strange “new normal”  with a more positive outlook.  Even in the greyest of times, it seems we can find new insights, ideas, perspectives.  School is starting for my grandchildren, my teaching daughters, and even for me, beginning new series of writing workshops for cancer and heart patients.  This is activity I truly look forward to, and I am particularly grateful that despite these months of lockdown and isolation, I can be engaged in meaningful ways.  While my mirror doesn’t lie—I am getting grayer–but that would have happened even without COVID! So grey hair or not, I’m engaged in ways that matter to me.  And that’s  how I want to live.

 “Show me the spots of grey, and tell me how you’ve lived…”

WRITING SUGGESTIONS

.  How have you navigated the long months of COVID isolation?  What kept you going?

.  Did you experience “the greys?”  or “the blues?”  What helped you through those less positive moods?

.  Pull up a color wheel on the web—or open a box of 64 colored crayons.  Choose a color, any color. Make a list of what comes to mind for just 3 minutes.  Read it over, then choose one thing from your list and write for 15 minutes.  Try playing with a narrative or a poem that uses that color in it.

.  Did COVID help you gain clarity about what matters most in your life?  Write about the lessons from lockdown.

.  Back to school.  What memories do you have from your childhood about a new school year beginning?

May 11, 2021: Living the Questions

Published on by Sharon A. Bray, EdD1 Comment

Like you, there have been many times in my life that questions seemed to dominate my thoughts far more frequently than answers.  In my youth, my burning questions were often about whether or not some high school “love” interest “liked” me or not.  I was terribly shy around the opposite sex, and at the time, as tall or taller than many of the boys in my class, which only increased my insecurities in the arena of teen-age romance.  Then there were questions about college:  Which one?  Where?  Would I do well?  What if I didn’t? 

Some years later and newly married, my first husband and I contemplated his choice of graduate schools.  Questions dominated our conversations for months. In the end, we opted for adventure (it was the time of youthful idealism and protests) and ended up in Ottawa, where he began his doctoral studies.  We were wholly unprepared for Canadian winters or the loneliness we felt at the time, but gradually, Canada began to be “home” to us, especially in the years after his death.    Decades later, after returning to California for several years with my new husband, he announced his decision to retire from academic life.  We had our own questions, but family, friends and acquaintances peppered us with their questions.   “What are you two planning to do now?”  “You’re returning to Canada? Why?”  Their questions prompted our questions of one another: “But what would we do there?”  “What about our friends?”  “Will we sell our house?”  “What if we spent six months there and six months here?” 

Our transition revealed not only questions, but the realization that we didn’t always share the same wishes and wants for our “What’s Next?” chapter.  Nights were often punctuated by restlessness, the questions invading my dreams.  My notebook was filled with questions, a continuous loop of repetition, and I wasn’t finding any answers in what I wrote.  I don’t quite remember how long it took or when, but we stumbled into a joint decision, downsized our lives, sold our home, and watched as the movers loaded up the van with our worldly belongings and set out, as we did, for Toronto. 

This past weekend, I presented a workshop for Young Adult Cancer Canada (YACC) on the subject of writing for health and specifically, writing alone.  The willingness to “live the questions,” to find yourself groping in the darkness, are part of what writing honestly demands. The answers, in life or in fiction, are revealed as you write, gradually writing yourself into knowing, but not without making your way through the dark before stumbling on a new insight..  E.L. Doctorow, author of the award novels Ragtime and Billy Bathgate, famously remarked that when one sits down to write a novel, “You can only see as far as your headlights but you can make the whole trip that way.”  

Life doesn’t come with a set of answers, but it is riddled with questions.  It’s like making our journey in that darkness of the unknown at times.  We navigate through it as best as we can, deal with unexpected events, difficult chapters, the illnesses and losses we experience.  Cancer is one of those unwelcome chapters in your life, and the journey through it is not unlike what Doctorow describes.  You survive the shock of diagnosis, the worry and after-effects of surgery and chemotherapy, roller coaster of recovery, but despite all that, you can’t see very far ahead.  There are no certainties.  Your life is punctuated by more questions than answers. “Has the treatment worked? How likely is my cancer to recur?  What if it has metastasized and is lurking somewhere else in my body? Stage four?  Then how long do I have?”  No one can offer you certainty.  You navigate through it all in the same way Doctorow described of writing, able to see only a short distance along the path, but gradually finding your way into the answers.

 “Questions in the Mind of the Poet While She Washes Her Floors, “a poem by” Elena Georgiou, poses several questions, ones that play in in the poet’s mind, and like life, don’t come with answers.  Here is an excerpt:


Am I a peninsula slowly turning into an island?

If I grew up gazing at the ocean would I think
life came in waves?

If I were a nomad would I measure time
by the length of a footstep?

If I can see a cup drop to the floor and shatter
why can’t I see it gather itself back together?

If a surgeon cut out my mistakes
would the scar be under my heart?

How much time will I spend protecting myself
from what the people I love call love?

Would my desires feel different if I lived forever?

  (In:  Mercy Mercy Me, © 2000)

Georgiou offers no answers to the reader.  Nor did Austrian novelist and poet, Maria Rainer Rilke (1875-1926) when he offered advice to a youthful protégé, published in his wise little book, Letters to a Young Poet.   “Don’t search for the answers,” he wrote, “which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”

Live everything.  Live the questions…  Live the questions now.  Live your way into the answer.   I have often quoted Rilke to the men and women who attend my writing workshops.  His words are as insightful now as they were over a century ago.  Whether cancer or embarking on a significant change, living through the questions is not easy, yet it is all you can do. Your task is to be present, to pay attention and live life fully.  Not surprisingly, when you do, you often stumble upon the answers you seek. 

Writing Suggestions:

  • Whether you’re wrestling with the aftermath of a cancer diagnosis or some other unexpected life challenge, make a list of the questions that keep replaying in your mind.  Choose one and for 15 minutes, explore it as you write.
  • Recall an earlier time in life when you faced the unknown.  What questions did you have then, and how did you find your way into the answers?  Are there insights that may pertain to your current challenges?  Write about that time, the questions and how they were resolved.
  • You might use one or two of the poet Elena Georgiou’s questions as your prompt.  Choose it and again, writing nonstop for 15 minutes.  Then read over what you’ve written, underline those words or phrases that stand out.  In a day or two, you might begin with one of those phrases you underlined and explore it more deeply.  You just might discover some wisdom that leads you to some of the answers you’ve been searching for.