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PATRONIZE ME, TREAT YOURSELF!

 

A little more scoop: I’ve started a new Patreon page and will be posting piping hot writing, tender morsels of my memoir-in-progress, and more over there. Please come on over! I can’t wait for you to meet and relax in my story sanctuary. Plus, treats await you.

with so much love,

Jen

Thank you so much for reading. You might notice that I don’t have a space for comments, but I’m certainly open to conversation about what’s written here. If you’re so inspired, feel free to start a conversation with me via the contact form on the homepage of this site.

The post Were you looking for my latest writing? appeared first on Jen Violi.

I’m studying silence right now, or maybe it’s studying me. Schooling me. Honing me. Regardless, I’m paying attention to silence. How I crave it. How I loathe it. What fear it can hold. What balm it can offer. What wisdom floats in its underwater caverns.

I’m committed to silence because as a writer, editor, and mentor, I’m committed to using my true voice and to supporting others in using theirs. To know voice means I have to get cozy with silence. To tap into the full power of voice means tapping into the full power of silence.

What silence has to offer to us, I think, is cavernous, like you can hear the echo of a drop of water falling from a stalactite and plopping on some surface ten miles down kind of cavernous. Which means lots of territory to explore and wonders to discover.

Silence has called to me for as long as I can remember, including when my twelve year old self thought it might be exciting to go be a barefoot, silent nun somewhere. She longed for the gifts of silence. I have such tenderness for that girl and how out of place she often felt.

Silence has called to me during the last long year of personal grief and loss. As I sat with myself and my broken heart in the saltlicks of dried up tears.

Beckoned me in discernment of how to use my white, cisgender woman’s voice with integrity, compassion, and impact, to be of service to the world and in addressing the particular hatreds and injustices active in my home country.

Silence summons me to attention as I acknowledge that at least eighty percent of my work as an editor and writing mentor is with women who are sharing stories of assault and abuse. Demands my inquiry into why and how women are silenced by others or tape their own mouths shut. How silence can be both punishment and gift.

So I’m starting a Studies in Silence Series here on my blog, and this is the first one.

May it be useful and nourishing to you and to me. Us, in the silence soup together.

What I’m chewing on right now is this:

Listening isn’t the same as reacting.

During the last several weeks in particular, I’ve recommitted to listening to my inner knowing and have noticed how much static I have to get through to hear it. As I was scrolling through Facebook the other day, liking and loving and ha-ha-ing at various pictures and posts, I realized what the static is: reacting.

Of course that’s not always how I use Facebook; sometimes I read and reread a post, taking it in and offering a thoughtful response. But that’s not how it was designed for me to use it. It’s designed to celebrate quick reactions, lots of them, one after the other. As soon as you’ve reacted to one thing, for you to see something else pop up and have your mind and energy bop over and react anew.

Sometimes I operate under the illusion that reacting is listening, but it’s not.

Whether I’m saying uh-huh in a conversation I’d like to end because I’m already thinking about the next thing, tossing back a defensive comment in a disagreement, or spacing out and hitting likes on social media, telling myself I want to “stay informed,” I’m actually reacting.

Reacting, as I see it, is a way of avoiding the initial discomfort of listening.

Listening means showing up, tuning in to all of my senses, and breathing, without reaction. Listening means witnessing, pausing long enough to process what’s in front of me, to float in the paradox of my separateness and connection to it, before proceeding into deliberate action. For instance, breathing space into an argument with a pause instead of a retort.

In the United States, where I live, listening is not culturally endorsed or regularly practiced. Sometimes, I know, it’s encouraged in schools or churches, but in my experience in both of those places, when I was told to listen it more often than not meant, “be quiet, defer to the authority in front of you, don’t misbehave, and memorize what you’re told.”

What was left out of the directive to “Listen” or “Listen up” was this: listening requires your full presence, all the brilliance you have to offer, and it’s not always about listening to someone else. You have to listen to yourself, too. Oh, and listening offers access to wisdom and a path to right action.

My gut tells me that listening may be countercultural but it’s one of the most natural things I can do, that listening is coming home to myself as a part of a greater whole, and honoring both self and the collective.

But because of habit and assumption and I’m sure a slew of other things, listening almost always initially unsettles me. When I let myself stay tuned in for long enough, I can relax into it and find that sense of belonging and insight, the nourishment of silence.

I know this nourishment most clearly when I write. When I show up to an essay or novel or the memoir I’m determined to finish this year, settle in, listen up, and just write. No surprise that I often need to write through some static first to get there.

For days now, I’ve been aching to write, but I’ve also been aching. Almost frozen shoulders and arms and back. A perpetually distressed digestive system. Broken, restless sleep every night. I’ve been running on anxiety, and while deep listening can ease anxiety, anxiety makes it really hard to listen. As does achiness.

So I’ve been moving my notebook around our apartment. Bringing it with me to eat breakfast, to bed, but not writing. Just sort of staring at it and feeling disgruntled.

Finally, at five this morning, when I couldn’t sleep, again, I gave up on willing myself to drift off, and got up to move into the dark silence of our apartment. I knew I needed to write. I went to the living room, turned on the twinkly lights. I copied some pieces of an essay from my notebook onto the computer and worked with it a little. I felt a glimmer of release, but not much. I got on Facebook for a little while. Like. Love. Ha-ha. I closed my computer and sat with my notebook. Nothing came. I shifted on the couch, annoyed. An hour or so after I’d gotten up, I climbed back into bed.

I tossed and turned, trying to find a comfortable position for my stinging shoulders and arms. I heard our downstairs neighbor wake up and move around. I fixated on the muffled buzz of talk radio, annoyed and still restless. I turned on the bathroom fan. I wondered if I’d ever feel better. I woke Mike up with all of my restlessness. He was annoyed. I got annoyed with him being annoyed. We snuggled and finally, somehow, I went back to sleep for a few hours.

When I got up later this morning, I wondered why my early morning writing didn’t help. It often does, but it hadn’t.

I realized I’d spent all of that time reacting and not listening.

I’d never actually settled in and listened to what wanted to come out of me.

Now I’m listening. I sat down, got still and quiet, noticed the dis-ease in my being, and stayed there. I stayed there long enough that silence stepped out of the shadows and released her treasures. The words came.

Today, I’m noticing my reactivity and calling it for what it is. It’s uncomfortable, but worth it. I’m hungry for the blessed center of silence. I’ve been away too long, and I’m ready to go home to myself.

 

Did this piece speak to you? Are you also feeling the summons of silence? What parts of it call to you? Any aspect of silence you’d like me to address? I’d love to hear from you and to be in this study and conversation with you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you so much for reading. You might notice that I don’t have a space for comments, but I’m certainly open to conversation about what’s written here. If you’re so inspired, feel free to start a conversation with me via the contact form on the homepage of this site.

The post Studies in Silence #1: Listening isn’t Reacting. appeared first on Jen Violi.

So I made this cake last Sunday to share with the Joy Search Party gathering in my apartment on Monday. It was a white cake with chocolate chips, and the first thing I’d baked since the car accident I was in several weeks ago. This felt like major progress since I’d been languishing physically, mentally, and emotionally since then.

Or let’s be honest. Some of the languishing was not new. Grief had been the metronome of my year, controlling my tempo, limiting my music. Still. I could make this cake.

On Monday, around four o’clock, I considered leaving the cake unfrosted and thus relegating it to muffin-hood. Honestly, that would have been the best choice, given that I was still so tired and off kilter. Then I could have taken a leisurely shower, and stretched my sore body out on the ground before attendees started arriving around six-thirty.

But no, how could I leave the cake alone like that? A joy workshop required a cake with frosting, didn’t it? It wouldn’t be so much work. I even had Mike pick me up a package of Pamela’s frosting mix to make it easy. All I had to do was add coconut oil.

Although, if I’m going to make frosting, I should make it spectacular. Shouldn’t I? I eyed the huckleberry balsamic vinegar, something that really fits into the ambrosia-food-of-the-goddess category, and felt delighted by my brilliance. This frosting would probably knock the socks off of the Barefoot Contessa, which would be no small feat (Note: I really, really wanted to type feet here, but I didn’t).

I got out my hand mixer and attached the beaters. I poured the Pamela’s mix into a metal bowl, added the coconut oil and a tablespoon of vinegar to start, and I mixed. Soon I had a bowl full of little brown balls, like pie dough when you first mix in the cold butter before you smoosh it together and roll it flat. Maybe I should have gotten out the rolling pin at that point and done just that. But I didn’t.

Retrospect is such a jerk of a know-it-all.

I kept mixing, but something was wrong. I held the bowl tightly, metal clicking on metal, me scraping like a champ, and willed it to reach the magical moment when it shifted from rabbit turds into a deliciously spreadable cake topping. That didn’t happen. Even after five minutes.

Now friends, this wasn’t my first icing (I am from Pennsylvania, and if you’re not, icing=frosting) rodeo, so I was perplexed. Maybe it needed more liquid. I added a little water and another tablespoon of vinegar. I mixed. Five more minutes.

No change.

Now, I was tasting as I went, and I loved the flavor. Sweet, tart, a little edgy. But damn it, the consistency was still like the crumble for a coffee cake.

(And double damn it because just now as I’m writing this I realize that’s what I could have done with it. Stupid retrospect.)

I looked at the frosting bag for clues, and the directions did say that it took time to smooth out. Okay. To my recollection, it had never taken this long. Still, okay Pamela, maybe I could mix some more. Five more minutes. Nothing.

It was about 4:30 by now, and I still needed to shower and finish getting ready for the workshop. Also, I had a mess. Because blending crumbles leads to flying crumbles, tiny wads of powdered sugar and vinegar and coconut oil covered the kitchen counter and stove.

I stopped mixing and thought. Aha! The coconut oil is too cold and needs to melt. That’s it! I quickly filled a saucepan with water, lit the burner and set the metal bowl in it. I stirred and waited. Waited and stirred. I did a few dishes, wiped up the crumble droppings, and stirred.

Twenty minutes later, I thought I noticed some measure of melting, so I took it off and blended. No change, save a little more goop factor. I suspected that the vinegar was betraying me and had curdled the frosting.

Some other more balanced being might have given up by now, but not me. I hate giving up. An opinion, a great idea, a bad attitude, control. I put it back on the stove for a while and took it off and tried again. Nothing.

I walked away, although the frosting did not leave my mind. I moved furniture into place for the workshop, readied some other supplies, and wiped up the kitchen again. It was probably 5:30 by then, so I took a rushed shower, got dressed and returned to the kitchen. I may also have had the sugar shakes by then, because Project Frosting made me forget to actually eat dinner, and all I’d had were wads of fat and sugar.

Again, I could have given up. But I didn’t want to. I started it so I had to finish it. I needed to frost this cake, come hell or high water. I decided to go rogue. I got out a bag of powdered sugar and more coconut oil and slid aside the bowl of despair. I cleaned the beaters, and in a new mixing bowl, tried again.

Almost immediately, smooth and lovely frosting appeared. Victory!

Still, I wanted that incredible huckleberry balsamic flavor, so I added just a little, confirming that it was the curdling culprit. Luckily, since I’d already blended the fat and sugar, the curdling was minimal and just sort of speckled the frosting. Flavor wise, it turned out just fine, but consistency, well, I’d give it a C, for Curdled.

Or for chemistry, a subject that baffled me in high school. I just wasn’t good at it. I passed, but it didn’t make sense easily to me, and I had to fight to get it. If I was a natural at chemistry, I would probably have thought about how oil and vinegar work together and even when you keep shaking it up for salad dressing, they quickly separate. But I didn’t think about that then.

Anyway, I frosted the cake, finished getting ready, without down time, and soon, it was time for the workshop. The Joy Search Party was gracious and happily ate my imperfect cake, and really the cake hadn’t been the point of our gathering anyway. We were deeply considering our lives and excavating joy.

I’d like to say that the story ended here, but it didn’t. Perhaps because I’m the product of parents born into the Great Depression, I can be bullheaded about not wasting. So I didn’t throw the frosting away until Friday morning, four days later. Seriously.

I’m not proud to say that it sat out in my kitchen all week, in the mixing bowl, with a plate over it. It didn’t need refrigeration, and I thought I would figure out something to do with it. It didn’t have weird ingredients. Surely I could repurpose sugar and coconut oil and huckleberry vinegar into something delicious. But I didn’t.

Instead, since counter real estate in our apartment kitchen is severely limited, I kept moving the bowl around to get it out of my way. Occasionally, I’d peek under the plate, expecting to find, well, I don’t know. Insight? Alchemy? A flock of baby vinegar coconut birds cracking out of the crumbles and rising from the mess?

Instead, a whiff of vinegar would stop me every time I walked into the kitchen all week. Whispering creepily from under the plate: I’m still here and you know should do something about me.

Then, Thursday night, Mike, who didn’t want to dirty a new plate (we have some of the same issues), decided to use the frosting lid plate for his evening snack, and thus left my disaster thoroughly exposed on the kitchen table.

I set it on top of the trashcan near the kitchen sink. I don’t know why I didn’t compost it right then, but I didn’t. I couldn’t even bear to deal with those disgusting crumbles, and I walked away.

Friday morning, I found the bowl in the corner of the kitchen floor, taunting me. Probably because Mike needed to use the trash can to thrown garbage out. Novel idea.

And the metaphor, like the unplated bowl of wrecked frosting stared me down to explain something else.

I’ve been struggling so much to use my voice, particularly on social media. I’ve wanted so much to be fierce like my writer friends who charge full on in to each new local, national, and global disaster with biting commentary, calling out bullshit, starting and engaging in tough discussions, rallying me and many others to activism, arguing policy and position, thwarting trolls and still seeming to get their other work done.

I too see the horrors in the world, especially in this horrific week of violence, refugee crisis, ongoing natural disaster crises, and an administration in power in my home country that continues to enrage and disgust me with an unending vile assault on human rights.

I too am a writer. Words are my thing. I know how to use them. I can see bigger pictures. I speak metaphor. I have facility in the language of emotion. I don’t shy away from grief or dark matter. I have and know how to use all of these ingredients. Coconut oil. Sugar. Vinegar.

And yet, I hate arguing on social media. I suck at it. It brings out the worst in me. I have trouble separating my emotions from the emotions of others, especially when they’re intense. They just get wadded up like those curdled crumbles. My whole body gets shaky. I post something edgy or jump onto a friend’s comment thread to defend something or someone, and I self-destruct. I get defensive.

I read and reread, obsess about what I’m going to write or did write or should write. What the other person wrote. I can’t stop thinking or feeling about it. I stew in anger. I chew on comebacks. I step away from the computer but it’s with me all day. I can’t get my other work done. So I keep coming back and mixing, willing the blend to come out smooth. Words, emotions, insights. But I still come out with rabbit turds. I fight to make an offering, but it usually doesn’t work.

Then I feel bad about it because I should be able to make it work, so it sits in my kitchen for a week, souring the air, wasting space, a useless mess. And nothing else gets done in the meantime.

Sometimes, I get it okay, and it comes out only a little curdled, good enough that I can post it or share it. Still, I’m exhausted.

But Friday morning, as I scraped all of that goop into the compost bin, because it was so stuck to the damn bowl, hard pebbles of it hit me in the face, and I understood. This frosting struggle had simply not been the best use of me, just as arguing online is not the best use of me.

Sure those battles on social media could be part of my day, but they aren’t the point of my day. They’re not why I’m here, or the best I can offer.

When I do engage, what happens is that instead of contributing anything, I end up hardening on the floor in the corner of my kitchen. And I want to contribute. I want to and will be part of the resistance. But I have to be in it in a different way. The way I do best.

What I do best is show up and create sanctuary for people and their stories. Space for people to consider their lives deeply and excavate joy. What I do best is offer reverence and cultivate wonder, share levity and depth. And I have to trust in the power of that offering. I also must trust others to offer fierce words with skill and grace, or whatever they do best.

I can’t get trapped in the idea that I’m supposed to be all things to all people, or the arrogance and stubborn blindness that I can be. I’m here to do my work as part of the whole and to trust in the value of that.

It can feel paltry to show up and offer wonder and reverence and levity when the world is hurting so badly. To use my voice that way. And that’s the way I use it best, the way it comes together smoothly and easily without curdling, so that’s the gift I get to offer.

Which doesn’t mean I get tone deaf or silent about bigotry and violence and misogyny and injustice. That I won’t share others’ challenging words. Or that I won’t write about it myself in blog posts or essays or elsewhere. Or that I won’t be calling my senators and taking other action, and calling out bullshit during the parts of my life that are not tied to a computer or phone screen. Sometimes I do need to stretch myself and be uncomfortable. Sometimes I do need to put some vinegar in my frosting. Sometimes it’s called for and will serve a purpose. Also, my comfort isn’t the point of my life.

What I realized isn’t about being uncomfortable. It’s about being functional, purposeful. It’s about not engaging in a way that renders me a useless bowl on top of the trashcan, something that gets moved around the kitchen and is always in the way of making anything nourishing. If I’m not functioning, I won’t be any good to anyone.

I can’t let grief or anger or social media be my metronome anymore. Ticking away the moments of my life, controlling and corralling me.

I need to let emotions move through me.

I need to move myself, around my apartment and out, where the hummingbird hovers at the edge of our porch, out into my neighborhood and beyond, over the river and through the woods, to the grandmother’s house I can only find beneath all of that surface noise.

Where the wise woman within can remind me of the rhythm of my own heart beat, my unique offering to the world symphony. Which is never forced or beaten into submission, which comes together with ease and joy, an offering freely given.

Thank you so much for reading. You might notice that I don’t have a space for comments, but I’m certainly open to conversation about what’s written here. If you’re so inspired, feel free to start a conversation with me via the contact form on the homepage of this site.

The post Vinegar and Frosting Don’t Mix appeared first on Jen Violi.

As an aside, I mentioned the little toe on my right foot to Amy, my ND, at our appointment two weeks ago. She was about to do cranial sacral work on me, and I’d shared what seemed pertinent within my body, mind, and heart. It didn’t actually seem like much, which is funny to me now.

When Amy asked if there was anything else I wanted her to know about, I paused, almost didn’t say it, but then did: “Well, there’s my toe.”

A weekend of camping and walking on uneven terrain had left it aching a little. I’d broken it nine months before, and since then, after the acute pain had gone away, these aches would pop up now and then. “You should get it looked at,” Mike said to me more than once.

My reply was pretty consistently: “It’s a broken little toe. It just needs to heal on its own.” Maybe that was true. And, for the last nine months there’d been so many other parts of me aching or hurting or in distress that honestly, the toe seemed like low priority.

At my appointment, other aches had graciously receded, and my toe had been pulsing with especially vibrant pain. So I mentioned it.

I wasn’t prepared for what was about to happen in this healing session. Or the clear message I would get. Or maybe I was prepared, ready somehow, and didn’t know it. Anyway, on the table in Amy’s office, what happened gave me my way forward. But I had to go back first, because that’s where it took me and where I needed to go.

For a while now, I’ve been here, but not here. Living half of my life. You might not have known this from my attempts at graceful facebook posts or my newsletters or even conversations in which I sometimes share humor or flashes of insight or anger or the ache of grief. You might not have known the excruciating effort it’s taken to rally myself to do life in a way that looks like I’m here, to simply get halfway there. But in private, in solitude, and sometimes in front of only my beloved, I stare off at a place in the distance, one that I can’t even see, and part of me is there.

“Are you here?” Mike will ask.

Sometimes I try to explain the wordless ache, the sadness without a clear anchor. Sometimes I try to anchor it with an oh, I’m thinking about this particular loss or horror, but most often I don’t because it feels like letting out all of those motherfucking snakes on that motherfucking plane, and this isn’t a movie and I don’t have Sam Jackson to help me. Most often, when he asks, I turn my head back to Mike, willing the spirit of me back into my body, and get it yanked about halfway in. I force the memory of a smile onto my lips and say, “Yes.” Which is only partly true. Part of me is here, and part of me is there.

Although I can’t see it, it feels lighter there, a mild blend of breeze and sunshine, and I can hear the rhythm of waves. Sometimes I’m laughing. Sometimes holding hands with someone I love. Sometimes I raise something sweet to my lips and taste orchards and vines. There, I dance a lot. There, I don’t feel bound and gagged, weary and worn. It’s just…better. So, I’ve been here, but not here.

Here, I find occasional bright spots. I have gift moments of connection with Mike and other humans I love, with fir trees and hummingbirds who don’t care if I’m smiling or not. I still love editing and mentoring, and spending time focusing on someone else and their story can offer such sweetness.

But I’d be lying if I said that was true most of the time.

Here I’m just often trying to get to there, on the hunt for escape hatches. Scroll mindlessly through Facebook. Netflix. Watch, read, stare. Watch, read, stare. Except for Criminal Minds. Not watching that or anything like it anymore. Can’t take in the glamorization of what happens to women in real life. What happens to us. What happened to her. I need fantasy, comedy, often familiar things so I don’t really have to pay attention. Like rewatching all seven seasons of Buffy The Vampire Slayer for maybe the tenth time.

Last fall, Tricia was watching Buffy for the first time. She was on Season 5 and disgruntled, as I was the first time I saw it, that Buffy suddenly had a sister, Dawn. A human but not human, formed from mystical energy, Dawn was also a key to a portal between worlds. I meant to chime in on Tricia’s Facebook post about it, to assure her that ultimately it felt right for Buffy to have a sister, that it all worked out in a beautiful story arc, that she’d see if she just kept watching. But I hadn’t gotten around to mentioning it.

Last fall was also when my half-life began.

I think it started when I broke that little toe on my right foot. Or maybe the break in a tiny bone I never had treated, a crack in my foundation, the reverberation through the bone down the side of my foot, allowed for something that was already lurking to slip in and fester and form.

Either way, I broke my little toe and jammed the bone on the side of my right foot on November 11, 2016. Ironically, Mike and I were having people over that Friday night, just after the election, encouraging friends to come together, not to isolate, even though something terrible had just happened in our country, a long string in something terribles, one that stretches back to another place I can’t see but sometimes feel. One that has continued to unravel forward.

Anyway, I was rushing to get something ready I didn’t need to be rushing to get ready in the living room before our guests arrived, and I cracked my little toe on the corner of the wooden leg of the couch. It wasn’t an oh shit it’s stubbed and then better a half hour later event. It was a throb and swell situation. Angela, who got there first, generously sat and gave me reiki, but a bruise bloomed in regal purple and my foot swelled to queen-sized before the night was out.

The next week my birthday came and went. It didn’t seem all that relevant given that the night before, a writer I love had a hate crime perpetrated against her and her family. I struggled to find the right response – words, money, love?

I limped around for the rest of November and into December. I led a retreat called “Rebirth the Heroine” in my living room, and that was actually a bright spot. Inspired by a feminist crafting book gift from my friend Arin, we took those tall churchy candles and some mod podge and declared some new saints. For mine, I glued the head of Buffy onto an angel’s body and declared her Saint Buffy.

As Christmas approached, I didn’t feel like doing anything. I got sick and couldn’t go out on Christmas eve, but rallied for Christmas day with Mike’s family and Boxing Day with friends. We almost spent the night, but I had the urge to get home. Back in our apartment, I found a strange message notification in my email, which prompted me to look on Facebook and discover that Tricia, my vibrant friend in the middle of season five of Buffy, was missing. She’d left her apartment the night before to go join friends for Christmas dinner and never arrived. She’d missed her flight that morning to see her family across the country, in Oregon, where I live.

I knew that missing women don’t often turn up with happy stories to tell and felt my insides twist. My friend who was such a light. Who drew people close with her shining warmth and compassion and playfulness.

Mike watched me crouched into the screen of my laptop and didn’t want me to get sucked into more bad news on Facebook, staring at a screen as though it would make things better. I didn’t either. I had been doing so much of that.

I shared the information about Tricia, clinging to the hope that someone would see her car and find her, that some harmless kooky story would be revealed.

I got off Facebook and went to work, doing what I could do from far away. I lit my Buffy candle and made an altar. I drew animal medicine cards and centered my thoughts on protection for my friend. I reached into my bones and prayed hard, as hard as I had the night my dad was rushed to the hospital, which was with all my might. I hadn’t changed his death when I was fourteen, and I hadn’t changed Tricia’s either.

By that time, although I didn’t know it, she was already gone. Someone took her life in the most brutal of ways.

For the next day, the next week, for all through January, I found it hard to stop crying. The grief and shock were in my body, everywhere. Having sex, I felt constantly triggered. Watching the news, I felt triggered. Walking around, I felt triggered. I struggled to be.

In January, I went to a writing workshop in San Miguel de Allende, and with the compassionate guidance of our workshop facilitator Gigi and the support of new writer friends, I started an essay about enduring in the wake of such grief. While I was there, Lisa, one of the beautiful writers I was in the midst of working with, also died suddenly. Not brutal, like Tricia’s death, but shocking. She was working on a book about women and home. We’d only talked via phone but dreamed of having coffee in person one day to talk about all the things we had in common. Even though I wanted to crawl into the bed inside my heart, I made myself participate in the rest of the workshop, for Tricia and for Lisa.

After January, I don’t know. I did things. I worked. I made things – salads, jokes, and sometimes the bed. I even went out in public. I did an exercise routine for three weeks in a row. I accomplished things, even though I felt like I was on a slow treadmill to nowhere. As I said, I had moments of connection, and I don’t mean to say that none of it counted or wasn’t real. It did and it was. I mean to say, I wasn’t all there. I’ve been here and not here.

Last month, an old friend and lover died suddenly and tragically, too. The next day, the trees in our backyard were chopped at and shaven like Aslan’s fur in that terrible scene in Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Death at the stone table. Desolation. How long can a person stand at the stone table and survive?

And everywhere, it seems, bigotry, misogyny, cruelty and hatred on parade, marching, marching.

This year has been marked by such pain and loss. At times the loss I’ve experienced feels big, and at times it feels miniscule when I consider the suffering around me. Still, it’s there. I’ve been so low and off in my body and heart that I’ve felt like something was seriously wrong with me.

So last month, I went to see my Naturopath. I had full panels of bloodwork. I had my annual exam. All of it came back mostly normal. We talked about some hormonal things I could do, but mostly, she said, what I had was a lack of vitality. She thought some cranial sacral work might be helpful. I scheduled a few appointments out, ready to be helped.

The first few appointments were so nourishing. They helped my belly and my head. They helped my nervous system. When it came to that last appointment I had scheduled, I almost felt like I didn’t need it. I thought I was doing pretty well.

Well enough that I finally mentioned my toe.

During the session, Amy worked on the right side of my right foot and I noticed some pop-my-eyes-open pain as she pressed down and away from my little toe.

“You have some scar tissue stored here,” she said.

“Probably some emotional scar tissue too.” I laughed, then knew it wasn’t funny.

“Tell me more about that. What does it feel like? Does it have a texture or…?” One of the things I love about my ND is that she knows I speak poetry medicine. Metaphor healing.

I had a flash of a web, like one from a big spider, like that monstrous spider in Lord of the Rings, the scenes brought to life in the movie that are hardest for me to watch. “It feels sticky and white,” I said, “like that spider’s web in Lord of the Rings.”

All I could see behind my closed eyes was that image of Frodo, mummified in spider webbing, half of the life drained from him. So alone. Doomed. Frodo was me.

“Is there an ally here for you?” When we’d done visualization before, we’d talked about being open to whatever beings showed up to offer support. Sometimes I had whales, sometimes trees, sometimes wise old women. This day, my mind conjured up a lion, Aslan style, but his mane quickly blurred out of the picture. It was a lioness, standing close to me, watching.

As Amy pressed into the spot on my foot, loosening scar tissue, I thought of Frodo so alone, but then suddenly Sam not having given up on him, coming in and cutting him out of it. I wanted someone to come in and cut me out of the webbing.

Amy held a tender spot. “There’s a fear here. What is it?”

The lioness put her paw on my leg. “Of not being rescued,” I said, tears in my throat. “Of not having a brave friend show up to save you.”

As I realized Frodo wasn’t just me, I felt a tidal wave rise up from my gut. This was about something bigger. The wave rolled through me and arched my back off the table. The words spilled out of my mouth with a sob, “I wish I could have saved her.”

Vibrant pain. Vibrant friend.

I clamped one hand over my eyes and the other over my mouth. This truth was too big. This grief was too big. I wanted to run. I wanted to run all the way back to that night across the country. I wanted to storm into the past with a sword, with all of my bravery to save my friend. I wanted to do something I couldn’t do. The impossibility felt like it would drown me.

Amy encouraged me to let my grief flow. I sobbed. I shook. I couldn’t believe I had more tears in me.

I hated all of it.

She held my foot and shared the words that came to her, something about the need to be clear and present to move forward. Something about being present to reality, to what is here, so I could go on. I don’t remember the words exactly, but the truth of it rang loud and clear in my heart.

I’d been here but not here for almost nine months, long enough to give birth to something, and maybe long enough to now look death in the face.

The lioness put her paw on my foot and then breathed into my face. Warm. Not mouth to mouth, but maybe female to female.

In that moment, to heal, I knew I needed let myself gently wake to the reality of what is, to turn away from all of the escape hatches and be here. All the way here. To feel all of it, every bit.

“We need you here,” Amy said.

I needed to hear that. It helps to hear that it might matter for me to be here. I’ve been wanting to run all the way back into the past to change all the awful. Or leap into an imaginary future, past the caverns of shit and struggle. But the past and the future have been holding parts of me hostage for too long.

Here’s the truth: for what feels like too much of the time, I still don’t want to be here. But right now I am, and one day it will be otherwise. And if I’m going to be here, damn it, I’m going to be all the way here.

Being all the way here is a choice. One I will probably have to keep making. I can’t live in half a reality so that half of me can pretend everything is different than it is. Or at least I don’t want to. I know it’s not what I’m called to, and it’s not how Tricia lived.

After our session, Amy told me that the intensity of my grief showed the intensity of my love, for my friend and for the world. I believe that to be true. I love this world so hard that some might find it foolish, that even I find it overwhelming. But under the overwhelm is a me, rooted in the present, willing to choose it, knowing I can ride a tidal wave of grief and not lose myself. And so, I will be all the way here.

All the way here means living in a country where Charlottesville happens, where white supremacy has made a horrible violent mess of everything. Where I choose to be part of the clean up, the reframing, the renewal.

All the way here means standing in the rain after fifty-seven days of dry, heat, and smoke in Portland and crying with the sky, in my pajamas on our porch. Open to the water as hope and blessing. Grateful to and mindful of the water protectors who were shot by rubber bullets in the cold last winter.

All the way here means having a panic attack after breakfast without knowing exactly why, as well as having one on a dusky walk home as a woman alone, and knowing exactly why.

All the way here means getting up at four a.m. to go experience the totality of the solar eclipse, like I did this week, to travel with friends to witness the moon pass over the sun. It means knowing the solar eclipse was paired with a new moon, all of it happening in the sign of Leo, the lion. It means bearing witness to the dark being held by the light, and the light being balanced by the dark. It means understanding that light has more than one face. It means knowing in that moment that I am not separate, that I am whole.

All the way here means Buffy suddenly has a sister when she didn’t before, and friends are not here when they were before. It means living with what I can and can’t do, who I can and can’t save. It means that sometimes villains are obvious and sometimes there is no villain. And sometimes even people who make beautiful things, like beloved TV series about strong women, can behave in terrible ways.

All the way here means being present to the biggest pain in the smallest part, the tiniest sliver of delight in the grand canyon of despair. Recognizing insight in the ache, love in the grief, and myself in the universe.

All the way here means standing at the stone table long enough both to witness the massacre and to hear the roar of the lioness already risen and standing close, to know that maybe she is me. It means feeling the rhythm of the earth under my feet and tapping into my instinct for survival, for life, for joy. Hunting for it with all my might, all my me, however broken and broken hearted, for as long as I’m here.

 

Thank you so much for reading. You might notice that I don’t have a space for comments, but I’m certainly open to conversation about what’s written here. If you’re so inspired, feel free to start a conversation with me via the contact form on the homepage of this site.

The post All the Way Here appeared first on Jen Violi.

Discover the Book You’re Meant to Write Preview #4

The serious part of me will never go undernourished. I mean really, I can put the ponder in ponderous. I can stew for hours with life mysteries, with grief, angst, and a don’t-fuck-with-me kind of reverence for EVERYTHING. Especially now. What to be serious about first, you know?

Thank goddess that’s not the only part of me. There’s another part, one that I often forget to feed, but never seems to get too bent out of shape about it. She’ll just sashay up to the table and hold out her Lochness Monster ladle, demanding I dish up not only deliciousness but also a dance.

If you, too, have a playful, fun-loving  part of yourself who needs a hearty meal, this post is for you.

Me, checking on you to see if you’re having fun yet.

This is the last in a series of previews I’m doing for Discover the Book You’re Meant to Write, the course of my heart that I’m offering to you. Registration is open through Tuesday, January 17, and the course starts Wednesday, January 18. So if you want to sign up, now is the time!

In the last three posts, I’ve written about a book as not the point but an entry point to something bigger, about composting unhappy endings, and about the importance of reaching out for help, whatever that looks like for you. I’ve written both to give you a taste of the particular flavor of this course, and to give you resource materials whether you take this course or not.

For this final preview post, I want to address perhaps the most important component of this course: it’s fun.

I know fun isn’t supposed to be a good selling point (not nearly as good as fear, right?), but I’d rather say what’s true than what’s marketable. I’m not nearly as interested in selling you this course as I am in you having fun, whenever you write and make stuff up.

Um, Jen, you may say. Do something for fun…right now? Have you seen the impending apocalypse outside your window this week?

Yes, I have. And yes, right now. The apocalypse might last for four years or more. Or maybe even less, goddess-willing. I don’t know. What I do know is that people who nurture themselves through simple pleasures are better equipped for just about everything, including being steadfast advocates for awareness, compassion, justice, and inclusion.

So if it sounds pleasurable to you to

devote some of your life force to getting that book out of your dreams and onto the page,
give voice to something that matters deeply to you,
share something you’ve learned, or
learn about something you’ve shared (it often works that way with writing; understand and learn as you write),

I say, go forth and enjoy! When it comes to writing a book, I believe this: if you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong.

Okay, let’s address all the voices of protest that popped up in my head and perhaps in yours. Yes, writing a book is also hard work. You may cry or bleed or sweat while doing it. You may sometimes curse at it, or curse at yourself, or the people who interrupt you when you’re especially busy cursing at it.

Along with all of that, writing a book is a fundamentally creative act, something I choose to do. At least for me, a creative impulse depends on hope (I could actually do this), nurturing (I will give you pineapple juice and a new purple pen), and pleasure (I get to play with words and how they go together! I get to make something!). Otherwise, why am I making whatever thing I’m making?

And fine, I don’t really think you’re doing it “wrong” if you’re not having fun – that was just me, playing with words. I would, however, say that if you’re writing only because you’re supposed to, or because it’s another way to suffer, or because everybody keeps saying you need to do it but it doesn’t really flick your bic, that may be something to look at.

In Discover the Book You’re Meant to Write, and, in fact, in all the work I do with writers, I encourage playful exploration. Since you’ve done me the honor of reading this far, I’m also going to encourage you to pursue some pleasure right now, with a few activities:

Make a pleasure list. Things you enjoy. Things you think you might enjoy. Things you enjoy thinking about enjoying.
Pick something from said list and do it. Now.
Ask yourself: what would I have a ball writing about? Then answer, in a 5-10 minute free write.  A list, a paragraph, whatever. Note that it’s possible to have fun writing about serious things and you can enjoy the release of a story you’ve held captive in your heart for years.
For bonus points, send me your free write, and I’ll respond!

I hope that this post has given you at least a little spark of delight, and if it sounds like fun to you, I would love to have you in this new session of Discover the Book You’re Meant to Write. Just make sure you sign up by midnight, P.S.T. on January 17, or, you know, EVERYTHING WILL BE RUINED.

Just kidding. Everything’s already ruined! So why not have some fun when you write?

With so much love for you, and some giggles,

Jen

Thank you so much for reading. You might notice that I don’t have a space for comments, but I’m certainly open to conversation about what’s written here. If you’re so inspired, feel free to start a conversation with me via the contact form on the homepage of this site.

The post If You’re Not Having Fun, You’re Doing It Wrong appeared first on Jen Violi.

On heavy things like unwritten books and headboards trapped in hallways. Welcome to:

Discover the Book You’re Meant to Write Preview #3 (see “The Book is Not the  Point; It’s the Entry Point” to explain what I’m offering here). 

I will start with the moral of this story, which is: you don’t have to carry the heavy thing by yourself. Please be aware that this is also a how to story, as in, how to finally move the heavy thing you really want to move. (note: the heavy thing may be your unfinished book)

This morning I had to stop myself three different times from carrying this big wooden headboard down one steep flight of steps, plus two more sets of steps, over an icy patch, by myself to the outside door down into our basement.

Now I’m a smart woman, but I didn’t go to do this once. I did it three times. 

Three times I picked up the headboard, each time remembering how heavy it was, and each time talking it through with myself (the smart part of myself will be in italics, because italics just say cunning, don’t you think?). Our dialogue:

It’s not that heavy.

Um, yes, it is. You’re using two hands and barely getting it a few inches off the ground. 

Well I’m just not using my full strength.

Would your full strength involve throwing your back out? 

The headboard in question. With glove pointing to how heavy it is.

*blank stare; feels back; slowly nods*

Okay regardless: steps. You know you couldn’t carry that and hold on to the bannister at the same time, right?

Well…

Do you want to fall down the stairs today? Not to mention ICE. DO you want to slip on ice?

No.

As Tina Turner once said, we don’t need another hero. Wait. For. Mike.

Okay.

Finally. *stays on call*

To back up a little bit, I’ll share this. A few months ago, Mike and I had gotten our very first bed frame -a hand-me-over from a dear friend- but to our dismay, excessive squeaking made it unworkable. One day, while Mike was at work, I took the bed frame down (with some help from our kind landlord and the power of a screw gun) and moved it out to the hallway, intending to get it out asap, either gifted to someone else or moved to the basement. But then holidays, plus depression, plus unexpected loss, and the frame has stayed, annoying us both, in the main hallway of our apartment.

Regardless, I really want to move the heavy thing, but it hasn’t happened. Every day, I can’t help but notice the heavy thing. It’s right there, taunting me. This morning, I decided something had to happen, so I carried the side and foot boards, which are much lighter and actually manageable, down to the basement. That felt great. But the big heavy thing is still there.

Since my mind works in strange connections, I immediately thought of how this whole thing was like writing a book, maybe the one you’ve always wanted to write. How there are manageable pieces you can do yourself (a whole bunch of writing, or even a little writing). And some with a little help from a friend (maybe a writing date). But then you get to that point when you’ve moved it as far as you can move it by yourself and it may not be appropriate or feel right to ask your friends for help again. You get stuck. And that big heavy unwritten book taunts you daily. You might not be doing anything with it, but you can’t stop thinking about it.

If you’re American (or even if not), you might feel that nagging impetus to do it your own damn self and if you can’t, to beat yourself up about that, every day.

I’m getting increasingly frustrated with this independence impetus and feel like I might need to take a big sharpie marker to my wall to scrawl: YOU DON’T HAVE TO CARRY THE HEAVY THING BY YOURSELF (if my landlord is reading this, please know I’m kidding about the sharpie). When we can’t or don’t know how to do something hard or heavy, we don’t have to struggle at the expense of our physical wellbeing and sanity. We are interconnected beings. We are stronger together. People like helping each other, so can’t we please learn to like being helped?

Any of this resonating with you? If yes, here’s a question: What if you didn’t have to write this book by yourself? And another one: Who or what could help you?

Just asking the question can help to lighten the load. Exploring answers even more so. To answer it, do some old fashioned brainstorming of resources you already have or resources you want to find. Look stuff up online. I googled “how to write a book” and 397,000,000 results came up in .75 seconds, including helpful articles, ideas, and guidelines. Reach out to your community, online (Facebook, email) or in person (the library, writing programs). Check out available courses, like Discover the Book You’re Meant to Write (I personally love this one :), and others.

At this point, you might even feel overwhelmed with the possibilities of what’s out there, so I suggest you back up and ask yourself another question: What kind of help do I most want and need?

For instance, are you someone who needs structure, accountability, or someone to meet with once a week? Do you need some basic pointers on writing? Emotional support? Someone to help you refine a sense of purpose? Someone who has done this before and can guide you through a process? Feedback on your writing?

Once you’ve answered that question and come up with the help you most want and need, use those answers as your filters to sort through the help that’s out there. To rule out what wouldn’t work for you and to call in what would. If you’re going to invest (time, money, energy) in a creative pursuit, it matters that your investment both feels right to and works for you.

As you consider your options, I invite you to check out Discover the Book You’re Meant to Write, a three month course that’s filled with heart, a balance of playfulness and structure, plus some live coaching and editorial feedback from me! Registration is now open through Tuesday, January 17, and the course begins on Wednesday, January 18. If it feels like the right fit to you, I’d love to adventure with you in this way.

I hope this is all of service to you because, without a doubt, the world needs all the brave writers it can get right now. Please feel free to reach out if you have particular questions. I’d be glad to help in your discernment.

As for me and my heavy headboard, I know that Mike could and would help me when he gets home from work tonight. In terms of the kind of help I need: well, I need someone physically stronger than me with some knowledge of how to move stuff without hurting oneself. Applying that filter, Mike looks like a great resource for me to pursue. Side note/bonus: he’s also pretty handsome and funny, and I love him.

with so much love to you and your heavy stuff,

Jen

P.S. Stay tuned for DTB Preview #4: If you’re not having fun you’re doing it wrong.

 

Thank you so much for reading. You might notice that I don’t have a space for comments, but I’m certainly open to conversation about what’s written here. If you’re so inspired, feel free to start a conversation with me via the contact form on the homepage of this site.

The post You Don’t Have to Carry the Heavy Thing by Yourself appeared first on Jen Violi.

Discover the Book You’re Meant to Write  Preview #2

 

Many people know me for my hopefulness, my spirit of renewal, and for always looking on the bright side. Popular thought holds that I may even be part unicorn.

Yes, glitter might run through my veins. What you also need to know is that my bright outlook relies on a murky dark side.

And this: dark fertilizes light.

Endings fertilize beginnings. And honestly, saccharine happy endings, in addition to being deceptive illusions, don’t make for great compost. The more miserable the ending, the better the fertilization.

In my last post, “The Book is Not the Point; It’s the Entry Point,” I wrote about beginnings. I suggested that the call to write a book might actually be about something much bigger, as well as some first steps to answer that call.

This post is preview #2, to give you a sense of my approach in Discover the Book You’re Meant to Write (registration opens officially tomorrow, January 11, 2017!). Here I want to talk with you about endings, not as a goal, not in terms of how the book you want to write will conclude, but rather as compost for rebirth and something you can use to get started.

If you’re feeling the urge to write a book, I bet you have lots of endings in play.  Maybe some that you want to write about, or maybe some that are making space for you to finally write something at all. Perhaps the ending of illusion, relationship, employment, or struggle with addiction.

Here’s a question for you: What endings are connected to your current book-writing urge?

Whether or not those endings are your subject matter, I encourage you to tap into the power of the endings you’ve experienced, especially the unhappy ones. Instead of getting over those dark finalities, I encourage you to get into them—to play in the dirt of them and find or plant some seeds there.

I know the ache of endings. My dad’s death when I was fourteen. Leaving home. Leaving another home. Leaving another home. Marriage ending. Moving. Leaving. More loss of beloveds and friends to tragic ends. Some recent and raw.

With much gratitude, I recognize that somehow, in this life, I’ve been given the gift of knowing how to start over and launch into a new adventure, and how to help others start over and launch forth themselves.

Supporting rebirth is one of my favorite things. After over twenty years of doing that in various ways, I’ve learned that people can so easily stay stuck in and defined by endings. Well, I was rejected, so clearly I’m a reject. Well, I moved to this shitty apartment, so I can only live in shitty apartments. Well, I compromised my ethics to take this position, so I’m bound to be shady forever. Well, my marriage imploded, so I’m a disaster at relationships. Well, I lost that job, so I’m unemployable. Oh well.

What so many people don’t realize is that within the wormy earth of endings is always a seed for a rebirth. Without exception, you can find something there that can and will become something else, and not just anything else, but something enriched by the life compost of it all.

So, time for some alchemy. If you are considering writing about a particular unhappy ending, break it down into parts. Take an inventory of all you lost, and then see if you can build a parallel supply list. For each component of your loss, ask yourself, what might be a gift it has to offer?

I used to be enchanted by the happy ending, but not anymore. Now I’m much more interested in the redemptive ending, the renewal ending, the ending that takes into account the dark as fertile ground for a beginning.

Whether you choose to explore the course I’m offering or not, may these reflections be useful to you and your book.

To summarize your tasks, should you choose to accept them, with a few suggestions for how to go about them:

Get to know the fertilizer at your disposal, and consider what endings are connected to your current book-writing urge. You might use the writing prompt, “The endings I see at my starting line…” or “Out of the wreckage…” or “In order to start, I had to end…” Note: such writing prompts are a fun component of Discover the Book You’re Meant to Write.
If you are considering writing about an unhappy ending, break it down into parts. Take an inventory of all you lost, and then see if you can build a parallel supply list. For each component of your loss, what might be a gift it has to offer? How might it be useful? Note: If you’re not careful—and I encourage you to be not careful—this work might turn into a book outline.
If these tasks resonate with you, I invite you to sign up to get early registration access and some bonus treats for Discover the Book You’re Meant to Write. I would love to have you on the course roster.

Registration opens this Wednesday, January 12. The course begins January 18. All kinds of wondrous details about the course are here. I’d love to hear from you with any questions or comments.

Coming soon, Preview #3: If You’re Not Having Fun, You’re Doing it Wrong.

With love and compost,

Jen

 

Thank you so much for reading. You might notice that I don’t have a space for comments, but I’m certainly open to conversation about what’s written here. If you’re so inspired, feel free to start a conversation with me via the contact form on the homepage of this site.

The post Happy Endings Make Terrible Compost appeared first on Jen Violi.

Discover the Book You’re Meant to Write Preview #1: The Book Is Not the Point

 

Let’s just get this out of the way: I don’t care if you write a book.

I’m not supposed to say that. In fact, I’ve been told I’m supposed to build my business on the fact that I help people to finish their books. But when I think about what matters deeply to me—and in these times how can I not?—whether or not you write a book is low on my priority list.

So why offer a book writing course at all? It’s simple. Because to me, the course of action, the path, the way through is what I care about most of all.

To me, the book is not the point, but the entry point to a process of discovery that can help you unleash your voice, wield words with intention and clarity, and change your life.

Does that sound dramatic? It should. Because it is. These times call for dramatic measures. For brave leaps and barbaric yawps.

This is the first in a series of four blog posts I’m going to share as a preview to the kind of support I offer in Discover the Book You’re Meant to Write, which opens again to registration in four days, on January 11. If you want to be notified about that, just let me know. My intention is that each of these posts be of service to you, whether or not you take the course. It matters to me that your voice is activated, that you learn to use it with dynamic integrity. So I’m taking extra measures to make this session of DTB supportive and accessible, including how I spread the word about it.

This first post is to support you in receiving the gifts of this entry point, that is: when you feel called to write a book.

When my book was published, it was the entry point to me claiming the power of my voice, to deeply considering how I wanted to use it in the world, to start this business, which is, in large part to awaken and invite other voices forward. While I love that book I wrote—the physical tangible end result of hard work and heart work—it’s not what sustains me. What sustains me is the ongoing work. The process more than the product.

That’s why the whole first month of Discover the Book You’re Meant to Write is about playfully exploring and reflecting on not just what you want to write, but how your whole life and self leads to this moment of writing. How all of that is source and resource material.

Yes of course DTB also gives you practical tools for structure, organization, and writing.

And if you take this course and do write a book—well, praise the lord and pass the pancakes! I will cheer for you, I will celebrate your accomplishment, and I will spread the word. I’ll buy your book and encourage others to do the same.

If you deeply care about finishing your book, I’m all about nurturing you in that process of writing and revising, honing and polishing, the process of unearthing the deepest it that your book wants to be. I will help you set a schedule and support you as you follow it.

But I don’t do it because I want to see a finished book. I want something bigger and more satisfying for you.

So if you find yourself at this entry point, feeling called to write a book, here’s a question for you: If writing this book is about something bigger for me, how might I describe that something bigger?

I used to think I wrote because I wanted to publish a book, to be a published author, and I did. But I keep learning that the end will never satisfy or justify or fulfill the means. For me, the means fulfill, justify, and satisfy the end, whatever it is, whether it’s a book or you realizing you don’t want to write a book and doing something else entirely. The means—for me, if they are beautiful, soulful, fun and provocative—are what makes anything worthwhile.

The meaning comes from the means.

So here’s another question for you: what are the common ingredients, the means, that make something worthwhile for you?

Mine include beautiful, soulful, fun, and provocative. If I have at least two of those ingredients going in any endeavor, I am content. All four together are like magic words that open-sesame me, right into pure delight.

So to summarize your tasks, should you choose to accept them, with a few suggestions for how to go about it:

1.     Answer the question: “If writing this book is about something bigger for me, how might I describe that something bigger?” You might first try this through a five or ten-minute free write. And if you’ve never done a free write or want a little guidance, just drop me a line, and I’ll offer some support.  You might also do this visually on a big piece of paper, putting “my book” in the center of it and drawing or writing words outside of it that are bigger than your book.

2.     List the common ingredients, the means, that make something worthwhile for you. See if you can narrow it down to three or four ingredients. Once you do, you might also consider a few endeavors in your life right now to see where those ingredients are or aren’t in play.

3.     If these tasks resonate with you, I invite you to sign up to get early registration info and some bonus treats for Discover the Book You’re Meant to Write. I would love to have you on the course roster.

DTB Registration opens this Wednesday, January 11. The course begins January 18. All kinds of wondrous details about the course are here. I’d love to hear from you with any questions or comments.

Please stay tuned for DTB Preview #2: Screw the Happy Ending, and feel free to sign up to have it delivered to your inbox.

With love,

Jen

Thank you so much for reading. You might notice that I don’t have a space for comments, but I’m certainly open to conversation about what’s written here. If you’re so inspired, feel free to start a conversation with me via the contact form on the homepage of this site.

The post The Book Is Not the Point: It’s the Entry Point appeared first on Jen Violi.

This week, I got a much-anticipated check in the mail. My deposit from the apartment, which, up until three weeks ago, I lived in for seven years. When I opened it, I thought I might cry, or confetti might drop, or a gilded mermaid fountain might rise from the carpet in my new living room. But you know, it wasn’t all that exciting. Which totally surprised me.

Of course this, as with everything else, made me think of writing. How writers can work for years on a book or a project. Pour time and money, heart and soul, and blood, sweat, and tears into it. Then, when we’re finally done—whatever that means—a profound sense of “well, shit, what was that all for?” can surface.

I guess I could have titled this post: Well, shit, what was that all for? Because that’s the question I’ve been answering all week. In the answers, treasures abound.  Which, of course, I had to share with you.

As for the apartment deposit, I was glad to see the full amount returned, especially after how many muscles I strained and layers of skin I lost scrubbing that damn oven. I was a little let down, given that the deposit was hundreds of dollars less than what they’d raised the rent to over those seven years. I felt grateful because moving is expensive and the last month has been tight financially. But mostly, I felt a profound and unenthusiastic Hmm.

I’ve been so excited for this deposit—to fatten my bank account, to close the chapter on the place I called home, and perhaps even some kind of payback for the last few stressful years of living there (another story). I invested a lot in that place. But getting that check mostly gave me a Hmm. And reminded me that a sense of closure or worthwhile-ness, a return on investment for most things that matter, does not come from money alone, or really, much at all.

My published novel, Putting Makeup on Dead People, came from decades of grief and healing, thousands of dollars of higher education on writing and otherwise, and four years devoted to writing, revising, rewriting and re-revising. That’s just scratching the surface of what I put into it.

As with many writers, since publication, I haven’t earned any money from the book itself. So back to that questions: well shit, what was that all for?

The answer I know is that writing is a layered investment with layered returns.

Yes, like other writers, I have dreams of being so prolific and best-sellery that I could earn enough money to live on writing alone. However, as a little girl, when I started writing, when I first got the taste for it, it wasn’t about money at all. I wrote from a lust for books, a need for stories to heal and survive and make sense of the world, a passion for words, and a deep satisfaction from getting feelings and ideas out of my head and heart and onto the page. From figuring out my life as I wrote.

Now, as I approach my forty-third birthday this November, I ask myself, am I satisfied? I’ve lived in this writer body, actively writing, for at least thirty-five years. In many ways I know that I’m still a young writer, that most likely, I haven’t seen anything yet, which is equal parts exciting and shocking. I get to be a beginner! And, oh shit, I’m only a beginner! Still, I’ve put in time, effort, practice and learning, a down payment on a fancy house worth of education, a sea of tears, three to four tons of angst, and more.

Okay, so what? What, at this point is my return on investment in writing? Allow me to give you a glimpse of my treasure chest.

My R.O.I. in Writing, in writing:

Community. Through claiming myself as writer, I’ve joined the ranks of incredible humans, living and dead. I’ve shared wine, terrible poetry, and excellent cheese with writing groups. I’ve consumed a Great Lake of coffee and conversation with some of the smartest, heartiest, most courageous people on the planet. Sat around tables in classrooms and bars and living rooms with poets and fiction writers, essayists and playwrights, trading insights for revision and process. I evacuated New Orleans for Hurricane Katrina with a best writer friend. Grieved profound losses and tragedies with writers. I’ve drank and danced and made out and fought and rejoiced and skinny-dipped and commiserated with so many beautiful, pain-in-the-ass fantastic writers. Writers get me, get it, get this word urge I can’t shake. I’ve grown up and then regressed with writers, sometimes in the same evening. I’ve done and shared things with writers I won’t ever tell you about.

To be loved by writers is a staggering thing. Writers have bought me drinks and plane tickets and dinner when I’ve been dollar and heart broke. Writers have saved my life, my heart, my sanity. Writers also drive me bonkers because each other writer is a mirror for my own doubt and awkwardness, brilliance and ridiculousness, ego and passion and delight. Sometimes, because of this, it’s hard to be around other writers. It’s like being in a dressing room trying on bathing suits, or a wall-to-wall reflecting dance studio for a beginner’s class, or a hotel bed with a new lover in the Poconos. I can’t escape my own bulgy, bumpy mortality. But wow is it fun and wow, does it bring me alive. Loving other writers also helps me to love myself, tender little silly sprout that I am, and well, isn’t that the work beneath all of the other work?

As for readers, well, that deserves a whole separate article. The way that writing allows me to connect with another human. The way words break barriers of time and space, the way they zip from heart to heart. The way it feels when someone takes the time to say, “I read what you wrote, and it mattered to me.” The conversations and friendships opened. I am awash in awe and gratitude. My cup runneth over so much that I’ve had to get a mammoth trough.

Vocation. I’ve built a career rooted in writing, one that sustains me now, financially, emotionally, creatively. I get to lead writing retreats and workshops. I get to work with new writers and old writers and people who won’t ever call themselves writers but just love the business out of words, playing with them, or reflecting through them. I get to send out a newsletter every month and every time, people read it, and respond. (see community above). My work meetings are about words. My work hours are about words. People let me read their words and respond to them, edit them, engage with them. I get to gather groups to write, make space for other humans to find and use their voices. How amazing is that?

Confidence. For a long time I wasn’t confident in my body, my beauty, my capacity for romance, and my financial savvy, among other things, and I still wobble with all of this and more. But no matter how or where else I feel like an unqualified weakling idiot, words have always given me confidence. Writing has always been sturdy enough to stand on, enough to bear the weight of me, enough to lift me above insecurity.

Magic. From the fairy tales and myths I read as a little girl, to the prayers and incantations I use now in ritual, to the free writing I do to converse with my deepest self, words have thrown open a gate between worlds. Thanks to writing, it’s a regular witchy wonderland over here.

Healing. Which has to do with magic. Which is about transformation. Writing has healed me the loss of my dad, the loss of other loved ones, the loss of virginity and a feeling of safety as a woman in this world, the loss of a marriage, the loss of relationships, jobs, a sense of security. Loss of trust and income and belief in myself. Through words, I am a phoenix. I rise from the ashes of my life again and again. I write my way from compost to new green shoot, almost daily.

Process. Writing has given me a trust in the process, the process of writing words and the process of living. Every time I gather a group of writers to facilitate a retreat or a workshop, and we all face the tyranny and terror of the blank page, I can always come back to a profound sense of trust that if we each just give ourselves to the page, to the words, the words will take us somewhere new and surprising. The words will offer themselves to us, in gifts remarkable, lovely, and breathtaking.

Voice. This may be the biggest one of all. I found my voice and I’ve learned how to keep finding it, everyday. To keep excavating and refining. To enjoy the dig for it. To respect the feminine power of it. To celebrate when such a unique sound comes out of me—like a perfect middle C sung clear and bright, or that one remarkable fart that blares like an angel trumpet, or a pure giggle, or a wail that erects a temple of sacred silence—that I am stopped in my tracks and so grateful for this tangled dance with words. Through writing, I’ve learned to speak for and know myself as a woman. No small thing. A big and essential thing, in fact.

This list, this accumulation, this wealth of return brings me to my knees. And if you, dear writer reader, have the time and inclination to take on such a question, I highly recommend it.

I don’t know how much more time I’ll have to write. How long my life will be or how much of it I’ll get to devote putting words to a page. I don’t know if I’ll ever make a million from a book I write. The thought of getting that check is seductive. I’ll tell you what. It’s tempting to say that receiving it would make it all worth it, would be such a satisfying “deposit” to get back, to finally be The Return on my investment in writing.

But I know it would be a lie. That’s not what I’ve worked for. Do I want it? Yes. To say I don’t would also be a lie. But it’s not what I’ve worked for. It’s not the motivation that gets me up in the morning and writing. And as much as culture and media and American values might say otherwise, my hands and heart are not empty without a seven-figure check

Just as the deposit check I got in the mail yesterday does not reflect all I put into making my last apartment home. Or all it gave me—a soft place to land when my marriage, career and identity combusted. A place to rebuild myself and relearn what I liked to eat and when, what I wanted to devote my time and energy to, how I liked to sleep and how to move through the world, without a partner. A place to build a community of friends. To host retreats and build a new business. A place to welcome a new love and a new set of relationship challenges and delights. Even without that deposit, my hands and heart are not empty.

As I take stock, as I am right now, in this woman writer’s body, I am deeply, profoundly grateful for all I’ve gotten back from writing, which is exponentially more than anything I’ve put into it and more regal than any royalties I might receive one day.

What I’ve gotten back reflects what I’ve put into it, which is me. In giving myself to words, I’ve gotten a whole me.

The relationship I understand with writing is a love affair. A startling adventure in which no matter what I invest, the return will be a bit of a mystery. I wrote nine drafts of a novel that’s still sitting on a proverbial shelf. Four drafts of another. Two of one more. I’ve started thousands of essays. I’ve finished hundreds. I’ve spent almost two years on a memoir, and who knows where that’s going? I’m submitting parts of it and accumulating rejections. I blow poems like kisses on Facebook and sometimes people read them and like them. Sometimes not. Will my words be read or will they not?

The only thing I can count on is that if I give myself to writing, if I trust the process, it will gift me in return, in ways remarkable and lovely and breathtaking.

My heart and hands may ache from what I give. My heart and hands may be covered with ink and blood and tears. But they are not empty. They hold community, magic, and confidence. Healing, vocation, and voice. For all of this, writing, I say thank you and thank you and thank you.

And for you, dear reader, I say thank you and thank you and thank you. And if you decide to take stock yourself, I’d love to know what answers you uncover. I’d love to respond: I read what you wrote, and it mattered to me.

Thank you so much for reading. You might notice that I don’t have a space for comments, but I’m certainly open to conversation about what’s written here. If you’re so inspired, feel free to start a conversation with me via the contact form on the homepage of this site.

The post I Want My Deposit: Writing & Return on Investment appeared first on Jen Violi.

This afternoon a neighbor came by to bring me flowers, and I had a panic attack.

I was sitting in my grandma’s old La-Z-Boy, editing a manuscript, when the screen door rattled with repeated knocks. A pause, and more loud knocks. On the main door now. I almost jumped out of my skin and left it there on the recliner while my spirit slipped out the window and up into the spruce tree.

Intellectually, I realized someone was at the door, it was a little after noon, and probably not a cause for alarm. But my intellect was not in charge. In defense of my panic, the knocks were kind of aggressive, but still.

Working to slow my heart rate, I opened the door, and there stood one of our neighbors, who lives in a house next to our apartment complex, with a handful of orange and white blossoms. “Want some flowers?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said, surprised that the crisis I feared actually involved a thoughtful gesture and a handful of posies. “Thank you so much.”

In the kitchen, my hands shook as I cleared pieces off of the lower parts of the stems. I let the leaves fall to the ground, a bright pile of green on the cream colored kitchen tiles. I filled a vase with water and set the flowers in it. Aren’t they lovely?

I sat back down in the La-Z-Boy.

What is wrong with me? I wondered. This was not my first freak out of the week.

Just last night, at around 10:30 p.m. someone else in my neighborhood let off an alarmingly loud series of what were most likely fireworks, and all I could think was gunshot. All I could feel was fear. An urge to get away from the windows. A sense of waiting for something terrible to happen.

When Mike got home after having a beer out with a friend, we hugged and I felt my body stiffen, noticing the tightness in my hips and protective of the knee strain I somehow acquired last week. He tried to help me adjust my stance, and even that led to words and tears. I was just so immensely tired of being tight and on edge.

All week, I’ve been thinking about – and to be honest, lamenting – how sensitive I am. After a bodywork session on Wednesday with the gifted Lori Krampetz, I felt both grateful for her support and disheartened at how hyper-sensitive my body is in so many places right now.

She reminded me that lots of factors could contribute to the sensitivity and the activated nerves, that we humans are complex.

Aren’t we, though?

As Lori worked on my knee strain, she showed me how I could lightly push into the strained area, then release pressure, but keep my hand there to reset my limbic system, to calm down my nerves.

This helped enormously. Before the session I hadn’t wanted anyone, let alone myself, to touch my knee. I’d been bracing against all of the pain – past, present, and future. No wonder I was tense.

After the flower-induced panic attack this afternoon, I wandered around my apartment, feeling into the rattled feeling, almost numb at the news of this tragedy in Nice, wishing for a solution to the tremendous violence we humans hear about, witness, or experience first-hand, daily and daily and daily.

I remembered my session with Lori and found a sliver of comfort in her suggestion to put my hand where it hurts, to press into it, just a little, and then stay with it. Since I only have two hands, it might take a while to cover all of the places I have to cover right now. I’m starting with my knee.

Next my heart. And on from there.

What we’re finding out about violence in the world each day can leave us all in a constant state of bracing against pain, of always anticipating attacks instead of allowing for kindness. And who can blame us?

But I don’t want that constant on-edge feeling for me or you or anyone in the world.

I also just remembered that at our session, Lori added that while it worked for me to do this practice on my own body, that it was more effective for someone else to do it.

I wonder how that applies otherwise. Yes, I can be gentle with and present to my own pain, but how might I do this for others? What occurs to me is this:

Gently press into the pain: ask a hurting someone how they are and encourage them to answer honestly.
Release pressure: wait for a response without pushing further. digging into the pain won’t help.
Maintain contact: hold steady. don’t run away from silence, or tears, or expressed frustration. be a witness until someone else’s pain can calm down.

I’m going to try it, because I’m not sure what else to do. I’m going to try it, because something I learned long ago is that we’re all connected, that how we treat each other matters.

Will you join me? Will you ask me how I am and let me answer from my heart? Will you stay with me, even if it’s uncomfortable, until I can reset?

If you can, if you will, I will be grateful and I’ll offer the same to you. And if you happen to bring me flowers and I look alarmed, please be patient. I’m a little rattled right now.

Thank you so much for reading. You might notice that I don’t have a space for comments, but I’m certainly open to conversation about what’s written here. If you’re so inspired, feel free to start a conversation with me via the contact form on the homepage of this site.

The post Hold the Place Where it Hurts appeared first on Jen Violi.