Telling Herstories: The Broad View

Let Mother Nature Be Your Guide

Have you ever gazed upon the clouds and identified other image within the cloud formation?   How about peering into the dew-laden blades of grass and seeing diamonds or crystals?    Some of Mother Nature's most common occurrences can easily be used to set your muse in motion.       

Clouds.... who or what do you see in each of the puffy white wonders?  What memories of childhood cloud-gazing are brought to life when you repeat the activity as an adult?

Raindrops....  Have you ever taken a walk through a forest or garden after the rain?  What struck you the most about the ways in which the raindrops mingled with the plant life?  Try spending some time peering into the raindrops that have perched on the grass, leaves and flowers... and then allow your mind to take you on a trip down memory lane to rains and nature walks of days long gone.        

Rainbows... Whether it is the memory of a family viewing of the movie "The Wizard of Oz" and the well known song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" or it is a memory of the appearance of a rainbow at a significant time in your personal life, almost everyone has a rainbow story 

  

Lightening, ice, fog ......  all of these evoke such powerful memories for me when I take the time to stop and appreciate the wonder of Mother Nature's beauty and mystery.  How about you?  Are there stories within that are just waiting for the perfect nudge from Mother Nature?  Spend some time over the next two eeks or so communing with Mother Nature's phenomenon and turn those moments into opportunities to write your own stories.                                                                         

                                               

Blackberry Winters, Indian Summers & ???

      
Blackberry Winters, Indian Summers and ???

It's May and everywhere I look the emphasis is on summer's immenent arrival. Everywhere except in the air where store merchandising schedules mean nothing and Mother Nature has the final word. Here in northeast Tennessee not more than ten days ago we had "Blackberry Winter"—the blackberries are in bloom but the temperatures are more winter-like than late spring-like. Just when I thought it was safe to pack away the winter clothes, I woke to find temperatures in the 30's.

As I sat and contemplated this "Blackberry Winter" phase I realized that there are other fleeting seasons named by ... well... by whom?   Indian Summer... Harvest Moon... Blackberry Winter... Halcyon Days... I'm certain that some of you can name more such days in nature.

What names would describe certain phases of your life? What name would tell someone who doesn't know you exactly who you are this month of May? Why not spend some time in the days ahead reflecting on various times in your life—give those phases appropriate names much like the Blackberry Winter we've just had here in Tennessee?

 Are you in a place in your writing life that seems to be a major flood? or perhaps a phase that resembles a drought? Has your writing experience opened you up to rainbows and sunshine or dark clouds and storms? Mother Nature provides us with so many examples of the mix of positive and negative forces coming together... So does the practice of writing life stories.   

Gardening for Lifestory Writing Prompts

I love this time of year!   Birds are chirping, bees are buzzing, butterflies are flitting and trees and gardens everywhere are bursting with color.  After a long winter, the sights and sounds of Spring can be absolutely breathtaking. 

When you head out the door each day do you stop and take notice of the sights, sounds, colors and contrasts that are before you?  I hope so!  I also hope that you can try to find a few moments each day to linger in the beauty that is Mother Nature in Springtime. 

While taking a daily walk, I spotted a flower bed that reminded me of the one that graced my childhood home.  By the time I got home, my mind was on a bit of time-travel where I was a child again and my home's garden was the destination.  It's amazing what spotting a bed of daffodils, crocuses and tulips can do for the spirit! 

What's even more amazing is the flood of memories that come cascading as I take in the beauty of the garden in front of me and the images of the gardens of my lifetime.  There are so many stories that can be told once those gardens blossom in my memory:  times spent with my grandfather in his rose garden, the war my mother waged against the big black "piss ants" that were on her peony bushes each May, the variety of flowers that took turns gracing the flower bed as the weeks and months of Spring and Summer marched on.  Then there are the memories of the first vegetable garden I planted - the one where I didn't know that zucchini would overtake the whole thing if you didn't pick them early and often!  And, the memories of my daughters picking dandelion bouquets and bringing them to me with all the pride a wee one can muster. 

What lifestories took place in the gardens of your lifetime?  Think about that this week as you see the beautiful gardens that you encounter each day.  Write down a few of the ideas that come to mind and see if in the coming weeks and months you can make your life stories blossom with all the vivid imagery of today's gardens.

Places You've Known and Loved...

Author Lisa Dale Norton (Hawk Flies Above:  Journey to the Heart of the Sandhills & Shimmering Images:  A Handy Little Guide to Writing Memoir) says of her first book Hawk Flies Above  "It is a story of a place, how I came to love it, and how I hoped to speak for it."  (from the Prologue - pg xv)

This description of her book set my thoughts soaring.  Surely there have been places for which you've developed a great love.   So... where to find a great writing prompt?  In other writers' books, of course!  But - another great place to find potential writing prompts is from the list of places you've been in your lifetime. 

Making a list of all the places you've lived is your starting point.  But digging deeper into those places you've listed will no doubt get your pen moving across the page (or fingers across the keyboard). 

By allowing yourself to take a mini-mental-vacation back to those places you can conjure up all sorts memories.  Be sure to include memories by all of your senses.  What visual, auditory, olfactory and tactile memories do you find coming to the forefront?  What milestones did you reach while at those places?  What highs and lows do you recall from your time spent at  each place.  What joys and disappointments started and/or ended there?  Who were the people who played an important role in your time there?  How did their stories intersect with your own? 

Mining for these tidbits will create springboards for the larger lifestories you've yet to write.  So.... your task for the next two weeks is to start a list of the places you've lived and then work through as many of the features discussed here as you can.  Allow the stories to take you down paths you otherwise might never have traveled.  Have a wonderful trip! 

Day Trippin'

The day trip was well-planned.  I knew when I'd leave my driveway, when and where I'd stop for rest and food, and when I'd head back home.  But then, I spied a few of those historical markers along the roadside.  And, the plans went out the window!

You know those markers, don't you?  They speak to me every time I come upon one of them.  I can't help it.  I simply love to read about the people and places they describe.  And, even more, I soak up the history of the spot so marked and yearn for more - more information, more to see, more to explore. 

Today's trip was one such well-planned-trip that got sidetracked.   I was on a mission that would take me on a four hour drive and back... through parts of Tennessee that I hadn't yet seen and then into Kentucky for the first time ever.  But, on the drive to Kentucky, I spied several of those markers.  Being on a tight schedule for arrival, I made mental notes of the markers' locations. 

Then, on the way back, I threw all schedules and plans to the wind and went exploring.  I was in heaven!  Once home, I started thinking about those markers and all the stories they tell.  And, in the process, had a thought:  What if I were to write some markers to tell the stories of my own family, the times I grew up in, the locations I've been?  What if I crafted them in such a way as to be "word postcards" for the passersby (family and friends) who, just like me, can't resist learning more. 

And in that moment, a new source for writing prompts emerged!  Using the concept of the historical markers we've all seen and read, write your own versions using life story materials.  Perhaps, if you are so inclined, you'd like to go even farther by doing some drawing or mixed media art work to embellish the words you post on your markers.  Think about where you'd choose to "post them" and why! 

So there you have it!   Your challenge 'til I return in two weeks.  Begin writing your own life's markers!  What would your marker say to all who stopped at the roadside "lookout" that is the window on your life?

   

Listening: the Lost Art or a Gold Mine for Writing Prompts?

"Listening is becoming a lost art - practice it."  Nancy McFadden, Sr. VP Public Relations/PG&E Corp.

 

Have you ever been out at a restaurant or in a store where you've been witness to verbal exchanges that have not only caught your attention but started your brain to bump into high gear?  Perhaps it's  an endearing moment for a couple.  Maybe it's an outburst directed toward a parent by a child.  Maybe you overhear a caustic remark made between husband and wife and it causes you to bristle a bit -- or to feel compassion for the one on the receiving end of the comment.  Perhaps you've been able to sit and watch AND LISTEN to children playing make-believe.  

And, on a more personal level, when is the last time you really listened to what a family member or co-worker was saying?  When was the last time you listened to yourself and thought about how your words might impact another person?

In today's fast paced world, the urge to push onward - rushing to get to the next point- has gotten in the way of real soulful listening for some.  Manners and courtesy are no longer extended by some... either they've been forgotten or were never learned.  Being an active, gentle, discerning listener is indeed an art... and in many instances it is fast becoming lost.

But, listening can provide the writer with a plethora of writing prompts.  Next time you are at the grocery store, take a few extra moments in the produce or frozen food section.  Casually browse your choices but do so with at least one ear tuned into the conversations around you.  Last week, while searching for the perfect salad fixings in the produce section, I overheard an exchange between a man and woman (who I presumed were long time husband and wife).  The words were caustic, accusatory, and downright disrespectful.  I immediately felt uncomfortable.  I felt the sharpness of that quick tongue and was catapulted to a time and place I'd tucked way back in my memory bank.  A similar exchange (one of oh so many) between my father and mother when I was younger.

"How can anyone talk to another person that way?  Especially someone they call family?"  I thought.

But, later in the day, as I recalled the stinging exchange between these two strangers, I found myself recalling more and more verbal exchanges in my memory.  Not all were angry or caustic.  Some were the kind that bring a smile to the unsuspecting face.  It amazed me that a few words not even intended for my ears set off a whole host of memories ripe for the picking.  Suddenly, I was jotting down notes about "the time when Daddy said this or that to Mother" and "the way my brother explained his day at school - much to my delight at his boyish enthusiasm."  

If you travel, you are in the perfect position to eavesdrop on all sorts of conversations (or snippets of them) that might just find their way into your writings -- either intentionally or quite by accident.  Why not carry a small notebook where you can jot the key words or the circumstances of the encounter.  Then, the next time you are stuck for a writing prompt, pull out your notes on "the things people say" and start ruminating on one or more of those you've happened upon recently.  You might be surprised just how far a few words can take you on your memory path and journaling! 

Worth A Thousand Words

   

"A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know."       Diane Arbus (1923 - 1971)

 It has often been said that "one picture is worth a thousand words."  And if this is true (as I believe it is) then just think of the thousands upon thousands of words that are to be found in the photograph albums and photo saver boxes in our homes. 

Childhood visits to my grandparents' home were made even sweeter when Gramm pulled out her shoe boxes filled with photographs.  We'd sit at the kitchen table where Gramm would lovingly take the photos out of the box one-by-one.  She'd tell me the stories that went with each picture.  We'd talk about the people, places, pets, and objects found in those pictures.  Oh how I wish I'd known then what I know now --  that the stories within each picture is to be savored and then shared -- passed down  from one generation to the next. 

"Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs. "  Susan Sontag

 

On a post-high-school-graduation trip to Italy, I snapped an untold number of photographs.  The   developing fees for so many rolls of film were enough to break the piggy-bank but I didn't care.  I wanted to capture the wonderful moments spent in that beautiful country.   Not yet indoctrinated in the ways of travel journaling, or journaling of any serious sort, I have only those hundreds of photographs to document the trip.  How I wish that I'd had the foresight to keep a travel journal.  But, I didn't.  The photos must stand alone to tell my story.

As a young parent, my mission was to take as many pictures as I could to document the near-daily changes and milestones for my first child.  And, like so many others, it is a sad truth that there are fewer pictures of baby number two than there were of baby number one...and even fewer of baby number three.  We get busy and the push to keep a photographic journal of each child's progress sometimes falls by the wayside.  Blessedly, I did keep written accounts of the many joys and accomplishments of each of my girls. 

Think of all the times and situations where we've grabbed a camera to make a lasting memory:  A new home, a graduation, a wedding or a family outing filled with new adventures.  Perhaps you snap photos of your latest creative projects such as knitted garments, scrapbooks, altered art, gardens, wood-working paintings, etc.  And, if you're like me, many of your photos are images of the splendor of the world around us -- Mother Nature's beauty and uniqueness.

"As photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to take possession of space in which they are insecure. "        Susan Sontag

 

Take those photos out of the boxes.  Open the pages of your photo albums.  Spend some time savoring the images and remembering the very reason why you chose to snap those pictures in the first place.  I guarantee you'll find thousands upon thousands of words just waiting for you to pen.

Perhaps when you've completed your writing based on a photograph or collection of photographs, you'd like to try integrating words and images.  Such writings make wonderful journals for your own pleasure now and in the future.  They also make fantastic gifts to pass on to family and friends. 

Writing Yourself Home

"The impulse for much writing is homesickness.  You are trying to get back home, and in your writing you are invoking that home, so you are assuaging the homesickness."  ~ Joan Didion

In a recent blog post, I suggested that reading old journals would provide much fodder for lifestory writing.  There is another potential source of seeds to get your stories started:  old address books.  Whether they are your old address books, or those of  family members matters not.  You might even refer to old Christmas Card Lists or Logs for similar information.

While updating my own address book, it dawned on me that I held the keyto many memories that could be spun into lifestories.  Granted, the sparse details in any given address book entry can't be turned into stories in and of themselves.  But, looking at an entry in my own address book caused me to think of someone for the first time in a very long time.  As I sat and reminisced, I realized that just reading that person's name and address evoked all sorts of mental pictures. 

Closing my eyes for a bit of time travel, I saw the streets of my childhood... I was transported to that location and a flood of memories came front and center.  I saw the house I grew up in and the back yard I played in as a child.  Allowing myself to drift back in time, I soon saw my childhood friend (whose name had sparked this whole trip back in time) and the other neighborhood kids. 

After I allowed myself to return to the here and now, I jotted down a few details from my time travel.  Then, over the course of the next few days, I made more notes, had more memories and saw more bits and pieces of a time I'd long forgotten.  Before I knew it, I had a story about that time, that place, that person.  All thanks to the address book entry.

So, what are you waiting for?  Go find an old, outdated address book.  Spend a little time with the people and places you find within its pages.  Then get busy writing yourself home!

Searching for forgotten details

Two weeks ago, I challenged readers to pull out their old journals and find the yet untold stories within them.  I hope that some of you did just that!  Were you surprised by what you found in those journal pages?  Were you able to find common threads from one year to the next?  Were you able to pinpoint some "ah-ha" moments in your writings?  You know what I mean, those times when just as you finish a thought on the page, it suddenly all makes sense...Times when the words on the page are no longer just words but rather revelations. 

This week, I'm going to propose yet one more challenge for your old journals -- searching for the forgotten details in those journal entries and crafting new versions of old stories -- ones that rely on your original eyes to see with new insight and understanding.

In her delightful book A Trail Through Leaves: The Journal as a Path to Place, Hannah Hinchman writes "We commonly truncate and emblam real memories by turning them into stories told the same way each time: 'that was when the rooster chased me.'  As the story becomes more ritualized in the telling, actual sensatons are forgotten.  Revisit the experience with your original eyes and search for forgotten details." 

Hinchman goes on to say "The last couple of decades have taught us to think of our childhoods largely as something to recover from, whether we are afflicted with low self-esteem, memories of abuse, or othe troubles.   As a result, most of us have assembled a cache of story-memoires that sum up or "explain" our early years; many of them amount to a kind of revisionist histroy, taking on the spin and interpretation of the times.  Such scrutiny is valid, but it leaves out too much."  She suggests "a series of written entries, revisiting childhood and adolescence, that will form a different portrait:  the you that lived on the ground under the sky."

So, here's your challenge for the next couple of weeks:  Go back to your journal entries - or, taking it one step further, pull out a life story you wrote a while back -- and see if you can rework it in such a fashion that you are no longer sharing what Hinchman refers to as "story-memory."  See if you can tap into what you were really feeling in that moment.  Conjure up the smells, sights, sounds and tactile sensations of the experience and make them come alive for yourself and potential readers.  Put yourself (or your reader) into that moment in a very real way.  Feel and then show the time of day, the weather, the moods of those around you, the colors and scents of your surroundings...and then incorporate all of that rich detail into your newly crafted story.  Watch and listen as your story becomes more you than ever before.  Be amazed at how much emotion you can stir up by doing so.  And then, sit back and wait for more insights to come your way -- now that you've tapped into a wellspring of lifestories -- your lifestories.  Use your words (and newly found forgotten details) to paint a new self-portrait.

Think you don't have anything important to say? Look again!

"Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind, there would have been no reason to write."   --Joan Didion

"Sometimes notebooks are our calm companions, but other times they serve as crucial sounding boards, balance beams, rudders, oars."    --Naomi Shihab Nye

"The deeper benefit of keeping a journal is that it offers a way to be consistently aware or mindful."      -- Alexandra Johnson

It's the beginning of a new year.  For many of us a new year finds us yearning to begin anew with our commitment to writing more regularly.  Many begin a new journal at the start of the year.  But all too often, those commitments to writing regularly are abandoned early in the year for a variety of reasons.  Among those reasons, a common refrain is "but I don't have anything important to say."  Another is "No one would want to read what I have to say."

Let's step back for a moment and examine those two statements in the context of writing in a journal.  Journal writing might well be for an intended audience but in most cases, it is for SELF.  Therefore, the "no one would want to read what I have to say" becomes a moot point.  And, as for the "nothing important to say" train of thought, well...  that may not necessarily be the case.  Look again!

If you've ever pulled out your old journals and re-read them, you know that it is possible to find certain threads that carry from one year to the next.  It is also possible to read about situations with new eyes, new understanding, new insight.  Suddenly, what seemed like a rambling or ranting session of words on the page take on new meaning. 

If you are searching for a fresh new approach to your journal writing and feel as though you can't find anything to write about, how about digging out some of those old journals.  Read some of the entries you find there and then begin to search for keys to new writing possibilities nestled in those words from years past.

If, when you were journaling -- no matter how long ago that was, you felt it was important enough to jot down on the page, then at that moment in time you did have something important to say.  Maybe the importance in those words has long since waned; maybe the thoughts you set down then are even more important today.  Remember, the "importance factor" is only really an issue to one person - you, the writer.  It matters not whether anyone else (even your internal critic) finds your words important.  You, and you alone, will determine how important your writings and observations were or now are.

Your writing challenge for this month:  Make a list of all the reasons you journal.  Or, if you've been procrastinating, make a list of all the reasons why you don't journal.  Examine old journals for glimpses of stories waiting to be told.  Find the balance beams, rudders, sounding boards and oars within your own words.  Then, I'd be willing to wager a guess that you won't be able to hide any longer behind the "nothing important to say" excuse!

So, putting all excuses aside, begin to write the words that are just waiting to get out of your head and into your personal writings!

"Anyone who's kept a journal for even two months has enough material to find countless patterns. Anytime you've set down ten facts or described a single memory, you've begun to tell a story. It takes a second glance--sometimes just after you've written, but often years later--to see the story clearly."     --  Alexandra Johnson

"Through keeping a diary, we begin to find our own words, our own language, our own voices.  We start to tell our own stories."  --Marlene A. Schiwy