WRITING WEEKEND

This past weekend I was lucky enough to spend three days at Kripalu.  For those of you who don’t know - Kripalu is a yoga retreat center in the Berkshire Mountains.  It is a beautiful facility with the coolest stuff happening.  There are a million forms of yoga training you can attend, you can take workshops in Ayurvedic healing or sacred chanting or meditation.  I could not even begin to describe the course offerings (or the amazing array of delicious organic foods).  So I will simply talk about my course: Writing Down the Bones with Natalie Goldberg and Sean Murphy.  

It was valuable but draining, truly.  Natalie and Sean led us through an array of meditations and writing exercises to help us learn how to “free the writer within”.  By giving us different writing prompts she encouraged us to dig deep and go to the difficult places within.  To get to the point where our minds stop thinking - stops the normal discourse and gets to what she calls “Wild Mind”.  She was most interested in letting the mind wander - to follow its own path.  To conjure up the little moments, in all their rich detail - where the energy lies.  The topics that were least appealing were usually the ones where the most pain resided.  It takes a lot of energy to go to those places.  Here are a few: Tell your story of love.  Tell your story of loneliness.  How did you get here this weekend?  

Some of them were more fun: Describe what is in front of your face (physical or mental).    Tell everything you know about jello.  What is your relationship with music.  My favorite was: Tell something you will never do again (or a place you will never be again).  So here is my response (although I could write about this one forever!) 

I will never again see the paper thin skin on the back of my grandmother’s hands, covered in age spots and blue veins.  I will never look upon her yellowed fingernails as she lights her Newport Menthol cigarette.  I will never again hear her say that she’d vote for Mickey Mouse before she ever voted for a republican.  I will never again taste her apricot bars or her snowball cookies (my favorite) or her peanut butter blossoms - or any of the other dozens of cookies she would make at Christmas.  I will never hear her say “Fight nice!” to my brother and me.  Or hear her say words like “Yens” or “Doo-hickey”.  I will never again see her take off her thick glasses and rub her eyes at the end of the day.  Or see her bright blues eyes twinkle as she laughs.  I will never again ride the Greyhound bus with my brother for fourteen hours, past Three Mile Island in the hot, sticky summer just to go visit her.  I will never see my grandmother again.

For most of these we were given 10-15 minutes to write about them.  It actually helps knowing there is an ending point.  You don’t have to go on and on forever (unless of course you want to!)  Maybe you would consider writing your own - whether you are a writer or not!  It can be serious or funny, sad or silly.  It actually feels good to remember the little details, the ones you haven’t thought about in forever - the ones you forgot you even knew.  So go ahead - give it a try!  You’ll like it!  Ask Mikey!

OLD FRIENDS

I had the chance to chat with an old friend today.  This friend and I go back almost 30 years - eek -hard to believe!  He is one of those friends that I only speak to once a year - maybe two years, but none the less it feels like yesterday.  We spent our time catching up on all that is new in our lives and where we are - where we’re going.    

I realize that those types of friends, the ones you’ve had forever - even though you are not going out for drinks or making lots of new memories together - they serve such an important role.  We discussed the fact that we are forever bonded over those memories, those pivotal moments, those formative years.  I think it’s necessary to have those friends in your life to help you remember who you once were.  To remember those parts of your life that were so long ago - another life time, really.  Similar to how my brother was there to confirm that time that my mom did in fact back hand me across the dining room table for being snotty or to recollect how she used to take us to Charlie’s restaurant for our birthdays and we ordered chocolate eclairs for dessert.  So too, old friends fill in those gaps for non family times.  Like the day we watched a gigantic oak tree fall in total silence in Steep Rock, or getting into Checkers bar under age and drinking pitchers of beer only to puke it all up on the walk home!  Ah - youth!  

Being a 40 something adult - mother with kids - responsible ALL the time, its hard to remember who I once was - good and bad.  While I’d like to think I was generally the same person, I know a lot of growing up has happened since then.  There were dumb things done, awful things said, as well as wonderful moments experienced.  Thankfully  old friends were part of it.  Friends who help bring me back to those times - in a good way.  Friends who help to reinforce the person I’ve  become today - thanks to those times shared way back when…

So readers - who are those old friends for you?  Have you talked to them recently?