Tag Archives: trauma writing

what’s at our backs?

Posted on November 7, 2012 | Comments Off on what’s at our backs?

stencil graffiti: "Et Apres...?"Good morning this good morning. Barack Obama is still our president this morning, isn’t he? They didn’t take that back, did they? Let’s hold him accountable to his commitments once again. We welcome the news this morning, and we move back into our work together.

I’m diving into a ten minute write with this quote:

“There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy” –Friedrich Nietzsche

Yesterday was a day with this body. We stretched and talked to friends about exercises, we let our vulnerability show. Today I’m conscious of how unergonomic my various writing locations are around the apartment, and, too, how much my body is trying to tell me. Continue reading →

Comments Off on what’s at our backs?

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , ,

(nablopomo #14) writing the wolf

Posted on November 14, 2011 | 2 comments

graffiti of a shorts-wearing Little Red Riding Hood, next to the words "Fear makes the wolf look bigger." In the image, Red is placing a spray-paint can back into her basket.Good morning good Monday morning. Here, things are just beginning — it feels like they’ve been churning for hours: thin dreams, half-waking, in all the worlds at once.

The nablopomo prompt for today is another from Ricki Lake: I was terrified to go on DWTS, but facing my fear and overcoming it has been an incredible experience. Have you faced fears and overcome them?

There’s another prompt that my friend Ellen offered me recently: What would you write on a piece of paper that you were going to burn immediately after writing?

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , ,

(nablopomo #8) in the other rooms

Posted on November 8, 2011 | 1 comment

graffiti of a pink-red heart with a black bar emerging/opening from the middleGood morning. It’s light already by the time I’ve gotten myself situated at the computer and by the time my poor old pc gets all booted up and warm and ready. I’m tired this morning. The alarm goes off at 4.30 and I don’t even pretend to get up, just reach over, turn it off, and snuggle back down under the covers.

Last night’s Write Whole workshop was fantastic: strong, deep and engaged writing. It’s been a couple weeks of hard processing around my head and heart, lots of excavating writing, all that damn self care and the energies that it stirs up and the way I need to slow down, take some time to process it all without writing, away from the notebook.

I figured that this morning I’d just get up and do a quick blog in response to the nablopomo prompts — last week those were pretty light-hearted, writing-focused prompts, so, no problem.

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , ,

enter the mess

Posted on June 21, 2011 | 2 comments

graffiti: summer hat, pink & yellow with a blue ribbon & flowerWe try things and try things, we find out what works for this moment, this timeframe, and then when it stops working, we try something else. Sometimes we spin for awhile, trying to figure out what changed: why isn’t it working anymore? But eventually –don’t we?– we relent, and let the change in.

Good Tuesday morning! This morning, Sophie and I walked down to the water, we saw a great blue heron drifting overhead, and she saw her first calling seagull, lifted her ears to the sound, got distracted then by the thud of the small bay waves hitting the seawall. As of last Saturday, she’s been with us a month. What changes we’ve all been through — and here’s this new life that’s pushed her warm face into both our hearts.

Today’s the first official day of summer, summer solstice, the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere — how are you going to mark this day?

Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , ,

saturday nights in 1987

Posted on June 20, 2011 | Comments Off on saturday nights in 1987
pen & ink drawing of a young woman in hot pants kneeling down next to brick wall

click the image to see more of Friend Called Five's drawings!

When the puppy is sick at 4am, the parents don’t get up early to blog, unfortunately —

(she seems to be better now — whew!)

Continue reading →

Comments Off on saturday nights in 1987

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , ,

is it too much? wrangling with trauma memoir

Posted on May 6, 2011 | 3 comments

stencil graffiti of a green butterflyGood morning! Bay Area folks, are you soaking up this amazing sunshine? You know how fickle our weather is here — get yourself out in it before it’s gone! Take a notebook, even better, and let the words flow while you sit somewhere outside; let the people, the growing things, the small birds around you be your prompts!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(A bit of this morning’s post gets into some specific details around sexual trauma — just be easy with yourselves as you read, ok? xox, -Jen)

Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , ,

vozsutra: who have you become, to be thinking about this

Posted on September 2, 2010 | Comments Off on vozsutra: who have you become, to be thinking about this
street art -- silhouettes of swallows, painted black on white brick, flying around, maybe out of a cage

(all the images on the blog are clickable, linked to their source -- this one comes from a graffiti blog based in the UK)

Ok — so I found out yesterday that writing ourselves whole didn’t get a grant from Horizons that we applied for. Today I’m disappointed but not knocked down — could it have something to do with not feeling so isolated, not so alone in the work? I’m grateful, today, for all the folks I get to work with in building writing ourselves whole to something sustainable and stronger.

Here’s exciting news — last night we ate the first of our own tomatoes with our dinner.  Deep orange like a peach but with tomato flesh, and still warm from the vine.  The first my-home-grown tomato I’ve had since I lived in Maine: I mixed it in with the guacamole, and it was so good.

Continue reading →

Comments Off on vozsutra: who have you become, to be thinking about this

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , ,