Dad

  • By Susan Bono

    “That’s quite a sack of rocks you’re carrying, sweetie,” my father’s friend Bruce said more than once during phone calls last year. It was his way of acknowledging how heavily Dad’s poor health, hard-headedness and self-imposed isolation weighed on me. But I also took it as a tribute to Dad’s stubbornness and my strength, too.

    “Dumb as a rock” never made much sense to me, since stone strikes me as having its own unassailable intelligence. Its ability to endure illustrates its genius. I have never believed in the ability to factor equations or compose sonnets was proof of brain power, although I shared with Dad the idea that someone with rocks in his head was lacking in foresight and flexibility. Rocks may be smart, but they are slow. Time measured in stone is something else again.

    There were moments during my dad’s dying that were as slow as serpentine, sandstone, rose quartz, chert. His unseeing eyes were obsidian, and the pauses between breaths were long enough to form fossils. But just after that great wave rolled down from the crown of his head, darkening the air around him so his spirit glowed like a white shell at the bottom of a silty river, a tear slid from beneath his closed eyelids. That’s when the sack of rocks fell empty at my feet and I was surrounded by the tumult of released wings.

    Originally published in The Flashpoints 2008 issue of Tiny Lights. This issue was dedicated to the memory of Susan Bono’s father, Morris N. Zahl (12/24/24-3/22/09), whose light guides Susan.

    Susan Bono, a California-born teacher, freelance editor, and short-form memoirist, has facilitated writing workshops since 1993, helping hundreds of writers find and develop their voices. Her work has appeared online, on stage, in newspapers, on the radio, and in anthologies, including The Write Spot series.

    Susan is the author of “What Have We Here: Essays About Keeping House and Finding Home.”

    From 1995-2015, she edited and published a small press magazine called Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative, as well as the online component that included quarterly postings of micro essays and a monthly forum dedicated to craft and process.

    She was on the board of the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference for more than a decade and was editor-in-chief of their journal, the Noyo River Review, for eight years. Susan often writes about domestic life set in her small town of Petaluma.

  • Why write your story? So you can move on.

    Today’s post is inspired by Patricia Hampl’s book, “I Could Tell You Stories: Sojourn in the Land of Memory.”

    Tell your story so you can move on.

    “When a writer keeps things inside, it becomes a ball of tangled yarn. As each story is told, the ball becomes untangled. Writing from memory can help us to let go of those stories we tell over and over again. We may not even need to tell them again [after writing about them].”

    Note from Marlene: I think writing from memory can also be a type of self-help . . . a vehicle for transporting oneself back in time and getting in touch with what really happened.

    Patricia Hampl is an American memoirist, writer, lecturer, and educator. She teaches in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis and is one of the founding members of the Loft Literary Center. Source: Wikipedia

    How to write without adding trauma

    Does your heart hurt?

    Writing about difficult times in your life by guest blogger Nancy Julien Kopp.

  • The Write Spot Blog is all about writing: Writing Prompts to inspire you; Just Write tidbits to motivate you; Quotes to let you know others are in the same boat as you; Places to Submit to get your work out there; Book Reviews to share authors’ work; Guest Posts for all kinds of writing-related things.

    Today’s Guest Blog Post by Suzanne Murray talks about increasing your creativity by relaxing. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? But what about cortisol, adrenaline, and epigenetics? Factor those in, and it becomes apparent that relaxation isn’t as easy as drifting in a hammock.

    Fortunately, Suzanne Murray offers strategies to help us learn to relax. 

    HOW CREATIVITY CAN HELP US RELAX

    We all know that relaxation makes us and our bodies feel good whereas stress causes us to tense up and feel less that optimum. New scientific research shows just how important relaxing our bodies and minds is.

    The emerging science of epigenetics shows that our genetic expression is not permanently fixed at birth, but actually evolves as we grow and learn. Environmental factors including nutrition, stress and our emotional responses can affect how our genes express themselves without changing the basic blueprint of our DNA, the genetic material in our cells.

    When we are stressed our genes produce hormones associated with fight or flight like adrenalin and cortisol that are associated with aging and making us more susceptible to disease. When we are relaxed and feeling good our genes produce chemistry that boosts our immune system and helps with cellular repair and growth. 

    A study looking at mindfulness practices like meditation, yoga, breath work, and other relaxation techniques, showed that we can actually “turn on” disease-preventing genes and “turn-off” disease-causing genes through relaxing. Research on the energy psychology modality EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), an easy to use self-help strategy that combines western psychology with Chinese acupressure, found that an hour session of EFT lowered cortisol levels by 24 percent.

    I’d like to add creativity to ways we can relax as well as develop more of our potential.

    Creativity is really a form of mindfulness since it puts us in the flow of the moment and feels good. Adult coloring books have been shown to reduce stress. I like doodling or free writing where you just let the words flow out of the pen with no thought to what you are writing.

    Bringing play to whatever process you are working with and letting go of attachment to outcome is important.

    Stress so often stems from the fact that our mind has leapt ahead with worry about the future or is chewing over something that happened in the past. When we do things that bring us into the moment we naturally relax.

    Find what works for you. Play with it and see if you feel better.

    Suzanne Murray is a gifted creativity and writing coach, soul-based life coach, writer, poet, EFT practitioner and intuitive healer committed to empowering others to find the freedom to ignite their creative fire, unleash their imagination and engage their creative expression in every area of their lives. She works with simple, powerful techniques to help clear whatever gets in the way and creates a safe and sacred space for your creative and soulful life to blossom. She provides an experience of the joy and beauty that comes from embracing your gifts and expressing them in the world. With a lifelong connection to the natural world, she enjoys sharing the grace and wonder that Nature can bring to your life and creativity

     Writing and Creativity in Nature
    One Day Workshop Point Reyes CA
    April 22, 2017, 10 am to 4 pm
    Spending time in nature is good for our health, enhances our creative capacities and increases our general sense of wellbeing. It can help us enter the flow. Join me for this one day workshop where we will work with our creativity in the beauty of nature.

    EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques)

    I’ve been working with EFT in new ways that allow us to laser in on the issue and shift it at the core. We often make significant shifts in a single session. Sessions are available by phone and Skype


         Original posted on Suzanne’s April 2, 2017 Blog

     

  • Excerpt from The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury:There was a smell of Time in the air tonight.

    What did Time smell like? Like dust and clocks and people. And if you wondered what Time sounded like, it sounded like water running in a dark cave and voices crying and dirt dropping down upon hollow box lids, and rain. Time looked like snow dropping silently into a black room or it looked like a silent film in an ancient theatre one hundred billion faces falling like those New Year balloons down and down into nothing. That was how Time smelled and looked and sounded.

    HourglassMarlene’s Musings: I love the idea of writing what Time smells like. . . sounds like . . . looks like. . .

    Your Turn: Choose an item, an object, a thing, that interests you. . . what does it smell like? sound like? look like?

  • ClaraGuest Blogger Clara Rosemarda reveals how to write with depth and clarity.

    Clara writes:

    Many years ago I took voice lessons from a master teacher. He worked with people
    who believed they were tone deaf. I was one of those people. My voice seemed flat as the ground I walked on, and I was too embarrassed to sing unless I was in a group large enough to swallow the sound of my voice.

    My teacher, robust and powerful, sat opposite me on the floor of his music studio. With full-bodied fingers born to make music he plucked the strings of his tambura going up and down the scale. Then he sounded a note and had me repeat it. At first I couldn’t reproduce the exact sound, but after a few tries and great concentration, I was able to. He told me I had a good voice which was a surprise to me. Once I got the hang of it, whenever I missed a note, he looked straight at me with his burning brown eyes, and asked where I had gone. Then he’d have me try again, and again, until I finally got it.

    These few lessons taught me that the problem was not with my voice, but my inability to stay focused and present. Although I was capable of deep concentration in many other areas, the life-long belief that I couldn’t sing disrupted my ability to listen and to replicate what I heard. Frightened that I would get it wrong, I tried to think my way through instead of trusting that if I listened I would be able to repeat the sound.

    Even though I don’t plan on giving a recital in Carnegie Hall or anywhere for that matter, I do enjoy singing now for the pure pleasure of it. Most importantly, I no longer consider myself tone deaf. I have developed the ability to concentrate when I’m singing, to listen deeply, and to be present with the sounds. When you are of two minds, neither one can be used to its fullest.

    The same is true with writing. When your mind is concentrated on a single thought or image, when you ARE the writing, and not jumping ahead of yourself, or thinking of HOW you are writing, you will write with depth and clarity.

    In the initial creation, all that is required is that you put pen to paper and keep your hand moving. Stay with your original thought, rather than allowing the editor to sit on your shoulder telling you not to say that, or how stupid this is, or what makes you think you’re a writer? To sound a clear note, you cannot be of two minds; your mind must be fully present and focused on a single point.

    EXERCISES:

    1. “His reflection in the mirror … ” Write for 1 0 minutes.
    2. “Walking through … ” Write for 15 minutes.
    3. “When I woke up that morning … ” Write for 20 minutes.
    4. Read these pieces aloud to yourself, listening mindfully, as if someone else had
      written them. What did you, the reader, hear that you didn’t hear as you were writing?

    CLARA ROSEMARDA M.A. is an evocative writing teacher, poet, memoirist, intuition counselor, and workshop leader. She has been in private practice in Santa Rosa, California for over thirty years where she works with beginning as well as mainstream writers. Clara teaches workshops at Santa Rosa Junior College and internationally. In her private sessions as well as her teaching she helps people connect to and act from their most authentic selves. She was co-creator and coordinator of the popular writers’ program, The Writer’s Sampler, of the Sebastopol Center for the Arts. Her prose and poetry are published in literary journals and anthologies. She is co-author and co-editor of the anthology, STEEPED: In the World of Tea (Interlink Publishing, 2004). Clara has two poetry chapbooks: “Doing Laundry” (a letterpress limited edition, Iota Press, 2013) and “Naked Branches” (WordTemple Press, Small Change Series, 2014).

    Note from Marlene:  If you have a chance to take a workshop with Clara. . . do it!  I did and it was a transformative experience.

  • Prompt #123

    What is your body telling you?

    For today’s writing . . . sit comfortably. Take a deep breath in. Let it out. Another deep, refreshing breath in. Release. One more big, nourishing breath. Let it whoosh out.

    Mentally scan your body. Become aware of any area that draws your attention – notice what part of your body calls out to you.

    Place the palm of your writing hand on the place that calls out. Or bring your breath there if it’s not reachable with your hand.

    Allow your hand to be filled with the information from that place.

    Prompt #123

    When you are ready, write about what you have discovered.

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  • Prompt #122

    Gifts!

    Prompt #122

    Write about one or more:

    • The most disappointing gift you have received and what it revealed about the giver.
    • The most unusual gift you have received, or given.
    • The most wonderful gift you have received, or given.
    • Write about intangible gifts.
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  • Prompt #119

    Write about a gift. . .

    Prompt #119

    Part 1:  Write about a gift someone gave you that you didn’t like, didn’t know what to do with or had no use for.

    Part 2:  What does this gift say about the person who gave it to you?
    Whenever there is a prompt like this, you can also write about the opposite.

    Part 1A: Write about a gift you loved, a gift that was a surprise in a good way, a gift that worked really well.
    Part 1B: What does this gift say about the person who gave it to you? 

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  • The biggest difference between a writer and a would-be writer is their attitude toward rewriting. . . . Unwillingness to revise usually signals an amateur

    — Sol Stein

  • Woman Statue.JaneShame. . .

    For this prompt, you can write about “shame” as a topic in general.

    Or: Write on  something you are feeling shameful about. You can fictionalize your personal situation to write about a difficult subject.

    Or: You can write about shame as character development . . . a character feature to be overcome.

    Photo by Jane Person