Ganesha: Lord of Beginnings, Remover of Obstacles, Patron of Letters...
Good morning & Happy New Year’s Eve!
What a tremendous, educational year 2010 has been! Lots of lessons offered and learned (or, learning). What did 2010 offer you? What will you bring forward with you into 2011 from this year just passing?
Comments Off on Thank you, 2010 — Welcome, 2011!
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged gratitude, how you can help!, prompts, pronoia, writing practice
Hello and Glad Yule, Writers and Friends!Comments Off on How you can support life-changing writing workshops!
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged gratitude, how you can help!, intersection for the arts, looking back, looking forward, what helps
(to create is to resist!)
Today is going to be a good day.
Last night, a few people sat with me in the writing ourselves whole workshop space, and talked with me about how they can help me do the stuff involved in running this organization. I don’t know how much more I can say about that except how amazing and somewhat overwhelming it feels to have help — from many different sides.
Comments Off on filled with Thank You
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged gratitude, miss tic, nostalgia, prompts, writing the flood
Last night, my friend said, Whatever you want, you deserve it.
Do you ever sink into that belief, even just sometimes? And then let yourself want big? Like, quietly, when no one’s looking, do you think, I really want to live in Paris for a year: and then let yourself experience the possibility for a moment, fully, before the naysaying editor voices jump in and stomp all over it?
This morning, in my notebook writing, I made a list of the things I want — and, as I read through it, felt: why not?
Comments Off on the most audacious thing of all
Posted in Uncategorized
(Just a little explicit language of sexual abuse in here: so you know it. Be easy with you. xox, Jen)
It would seem I’m having some trouble getting back into my regular blogging routine, after the road-trip break. If I were a smart blogger, I would have brought my camera with me on the trip, so that I could create posts out of photos — but with no iphone and a lightly-packed (at least for me) self, there was no camera.
I’m in a nostalgic mode — about a month ago, my ex-wife sent me a box that she’d salvaged from the storage shed we filled when we moved out to CA in 03. On Sunday, I spent the morning in my newly-designated creative space in the little back cottage behind our house, going through cards and letters and papers from up to 20 years ago. Among all the college papers and postcards from friends on their semesters away in foreign countries were: transcripts from the trial (after my mother’s husband was arrested for sexual abuse and incest); letters from my mom, both before and after the trial (and how different they are); handwritten letters from two very close friends when they were away in the Army (xox, you two); a couple old photographs; even a letter from my sister from before the ‘break.’ (How to find the language to talk about the experience of befores and afters — I often just use those words themselves, capitalized and fairy-taled: the land of Before and the land of After: doesn’t the terrain change that much? Of course, it’s not a hard and fast boundary between those two places, and going through some of the papers I’d saved, I found an email I’d sent to my sister during the DMZ time, after we’d broken contact, after I’d confronted my mom about what her husband had done, and she was still living with him. I forget about that part, about that terrain — a lot, I forget about that terrain.)
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged friendluv, gratitude, nostalgia, prompts, trauma aftermath
Good morning! It’s wet and chilly here — what about where you are? I’m learning about space heaters in houses with very little insulation, but more I’m learning about how grateful I am just for space heaters, and a house.
Yesterday was the last Write Whole workshop for 2010 — we had a gorgeous potluck (a plenitude of chocolate offerings!) and powerful writing. (Thank you!) This morning I was up at 5 without the alarm, and went ahead and let myself get up, out of bed, make tea and head out to the small space that I’m reallocating for creativity. I put my candle on and wrote my morning pages in dark and quiet and hope. A lot of my writing these days is about being in my body — what if I let myself be in my body? What if I got help as I re-find myself here? How do people do that? I have a project in mind — I want to tell you about it, but I think I better do it first, get it started, and show you along the way.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged creative spaces, gratitude, prompts, workshop write, workshops
(Click the image to see more of Emily Mclaughlin's photos!)
How many times have I written this in the blog recently: there’s so much I want to tell you, and not nearly enough time? I’m sorry to have missed blogging over the last several days! During my trip from Friday early morning to yesterday, I was completely off-line (always kind of amazing).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged AWA, body empathy, ethics, gratitude, pat schneider, writing practice
This morning is a sleep-in, catch-up-a-little-bit morning — tomorrow morning at this time I’ll be on a plane to the east coast.
Last night was wonderful dinner with a good friend for me and the Mr. — thanks, Cayenne, for the delicious meal and wonderful company!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged femme, friendluv, gloria anzaldua, gratitude, prompts, queerness, workshop write
(click on the image for more of Frank H. Jump's collaborative project, documenting vintage mural ads and more)
Good morning! This is a very sleepy morning — is going to be a very sleepy day. I’ve been awake since 4 at least, earlier, I think. My morning-self was ready to write early, I guess, but my physical-self wasn’t quite ready to pull hirself out from under the warm covers and into the chill dark until about 5.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(click the image to see more of this photographer's flickr page!)
Short short today — I’ve got a review to finish and a piece to prepare for tomorrow’s “Risque Fantasies and True Confessions” LitCrawl reading (!) before I head out to the city (The City) this afternoon. I’m sleepy this morning, but singing somewhere inside my body, singing under my organs, grateful.
Last night’s first meeting of Declaring Our Erotic: Reclaiming Our Sexuality just felt gorgeous. I continue to reach for language to describe what happens when strangers gather and are willing to risk writing about desire, are willing to risk being witness to others’ writing about desire. Every time it feels like a miracle, and by miracle, I mean something human and present and deeply connected, I mean something wonder-ful, astonishing. Every time I am astonished. Every time I am grateful at this willingness, at this desire to be present with others in our own desire, every time I am torn open-and-smiling by the honesty, by the power of that honesty, by what it takes to say, yes, this is what I want (or this is what someone else wants, and, yes, I get to step into the experience of it as I write about it).