“But the moment I saw the brilliant proud morning shine
up over the deserts of Santa Fe, something stood still in my soul. . .
a new part of the soul woke up suddenly,
and the old world gave way to the new.”
~ DH Lawrence
I’m finally getting more than 3 hrs. sleep at a time. I’ve hit 4 in a row five times already! I still wake tired, but for now, I’ve let go thinking 5:30, gotta get up. And I love drifting back to sleep.
Restoration & Recovery, what it’s all about. Too many successive months of brutal push writing & launching a book, beginning a new journey to a creative life by my definition. Six weeks assaulted by allergies that not only robbed sleep, but my full breath, life rhythms, & clarity. I’m recovering my Happy. Cheer the triumphs, what I say.
Today I’m in a groove moving forward. Ticking things off a list. Not just things, really. But markers toward goals I made by my definition of success for myself. I still fret. Still wonder if it’s enough or I’m too late. But this motion is on the outside. A shift from the motion on my insides so intense I could call this blog Part 3, coming into daylight.
I’ve declared Thursdays for writing, a path back to fiction and poetry, deep loves of mine. 9am memoir class offering great prompts no matter what you write. Afternoons, a prompted writing group a block from home making it easy to go. Workshops when one speaks to me. The first workshop at a place with a cool name – Academy of the Love of Learning.
I’m not sure how to explain the magical cohesion of that writing day. How everything pointed to Home. How the morning was about place, specifically Santa Fe. Write what it means to you, the teacher said. My short answer – Home. Home’s been up for years. I’ve written about it here, and here, and here. Four moves in five years + divesting 80% of one’s belongings can sure bring it up, too.
That afternoon I wrote “How strong is the heart. How much battering can it take from the blood pumping with strong emotion. How long ‘til it wants to surrender. The huff & puff of overworking this central barometer of my Being that needs care & maintenance.”
That night the workshop was a process of spoken word, writing, and painting. The prompt a poem “where i’m from” by George Ella Lyon. My spoken words landed at age 8-9. When I lost family & home for the first time with awareness. Everything else blank, as if those two years were all I was from.
I took a journey in the writing segment. Starting at a slant from the corner of a 12×18″ thick sheet of paper, I wrote intuitively. Changed direction 7 times. I started, “Iam from red oriental rugs and books, stacks of stories.”
I traveled across the page. “Home a four letter word lodged in my chest like a chicken bone – ’til the day I said I am happy. I am from Alone & Angels & Wonder & Curiosity & Willingness & fear & sadness & creatingcreatingcreating. I am from dry winds.”
I wrote on down to “I am from heart and mind, and space, and the swirl of stars. Deep beyond bone deep longing. Deep where the beat I hear is not my own heart. . .to the light I am from.”
And then we painted on the paper. Without thinking or looking at words, I painted blocks and swirls and lines of richness and wash – COLOR. The facilitator put on Vivaldi’s ‘4 Seasons.’ I don’t remember which one of the four, but my whole body moved with the music. Only after we stopped did I look how the color washed the words. How the blank space on the page held shades of reddish-pink. I remembered thinking it like blood in water, then thinking a flower. My beginnings are covered in green. The deep yellow circle I needed saturated. It was a sun cradled in turquoise & green, washed over the word God and “I am from the Universe, star of stardust. Dust. I am from some days I wish I could remember how to fly and how to walk thru walls. I am from dreams. . .”
I decided not to think myself thru this exercise. The next day the answer to the memory I asked my sister about, the one that’s haunted me for decades, emerged.
With so much interconnectedness, I thought this inner work on Home complete. But two days later, thrilled the restrung & cleaned blinds were going up, I moved the sofa to help. Which toppled the lamp that knocked over a vase with lilacs in water that soaked the edges of fav periodicals I valued enough to bring cross country. Before it crashed and broke the large textured & painted ceramic bowl made by a Santa Fe artist that can’t be replaced. The one I babied thru 6 moves in 22 years. And to top it, the wrong blinds were delivered, so no comfort there.
I watched a BBC documentary about Neil Young after that. Kept glancing at that broken bowl, the large black plastic bags still taped to the window, thinking Home.
But something miraculous happened the next morning. Rain came. Tamped down the pollen that aggravated my allergies. The plants & trees got watered effortlessly. When I opened my computer, an email announced I won a small painting by Lori Walters in a random drawing. I love Lori’s colorful, heart-filled images. They reflect something inside me that makes everything feel OK. You know I don’t believe in coincidence, so for me it was all about Love.
That same day, I stopped at a place 1/2 block from my home to inquire about a permanent venue for my “Writer’s Block Myth” mini-workshops, got a provisional Yes. A day later, when the guy at a restaurant delivered my salad, my notebook open on the table to the page I just wrote across, me playing with the phone to get a picture of my cool view in the place, I got surprised. So, sorry, I’m trying to be creative here, I told him. ‘I’m always trying to be creative. I’m a writer!” he said. His face bright. But I off-handedly said ‘I’m a writer, too. Creative what I do.’
As I ate, I thought how I might’ve engaged him, been more open. I sent him my card. “Wishing you the Best with your writing” written on the back. And during the conversation with the gal sitting next to me (the tables are really close), she says her husband writes, goes to conferences and bookfairs, and asks for a card. A bit later, the waitress comes over, asks if I have another card. Heloise World officially shifted.
Sometimes finding Home is not what we expect. Sometimes Home is a new story of coming back to something inside us. Those five years in Florida as me coming back to my intuition and connection with the Universe. Here, to being fully Me fully supported. Something I knew could be true.
I don’t have to do this alone. None of us do.
Another small journey. Getting to Wise.
A Writer’s Life.
Tell me. . .what are you from?
I’ll tell you a secret. . .that quote above by DH. Happened just like that for me, too, in 1993. The quote was shared at the end of the workshop.
St. Benedict quote painted by Lori Walters.
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Love the George Ella Lyon poem as a prompt. I have used it in the past with students but you just helped me see that it can take us back into a variety of times in our lives–and into a new present.
Thanks. So glad you got that. It was an amazing & unexpected experience. Orchestrated by the Universe for me that day, evidently. hahaha I’d not heard the poem before (so many good ones out there!), so felt particularly sparked in the process. I plan to use it in my work, too.