A plan to improve writing in my community

Trying to think of a plan to encourage writing in my community I go back to my conversation with my 'adult student' searching for the thread, the clues, the ideas I might have missed. Something to provide me with a trail.
 

I find these words that I wrote at the end of the conversation.
 

"The immense power of words can carry us over miles, and miles, of roads, and create bridges to memories long forgotten. It could turn into a tool of clarification and control, for sure, but it can also be intimidating for the exact same reasons. This is the only way I can explain why talented writers, like M. refrain from writing, especially when they are on their own without a group to support them."

Somewhere here is my clue. A way to understand the inner making of an adult writer .It is maybe different from that of a younger student but how? It might be in the following trio; authentic writing, supportive audience and the freedom to use multigenre writing.

Truth is stranger than fiction

For the past four years I was chasing memories.

 

Through family stories, faded pictures and old documents, I was obsessively trying to reconstruct the indisputable truth.

 

Many of these memories once I got hold of them turned out to be completely false. Like colorful soap bubbles they exploded once I touched them, leaving nothing but air. I had to smile when I came across a filmed video of my mother, at age seventy, saying looking straight at the camera, how her grandmother died when she was three years old. I know this is not true; I am holding in my hands the document with the exact date of her death. I know now, contrary to what I held true for years, that I was named after my grandmother’s sister who died in Europe during the war. I also know that my name ran in the family going back to my great, great grandmother.

 

A strange mixture of facts and fantasy memories seem to acquire, over the years, an independent existence of their own, at times separated from the mere truth. I am at peace now with this dichotomy.

 

There is the factual truth and by its side the memory and both can hold their ground, and both have the right to exist.

Putting the "I" into the "eye"

Nonfiction can be tricky and yet I always find it closer to my heart than fiction. I think the saying -truth is stranger than fiction, often proves right. The ability to draw on my own experiences, and memories, is forever intriguing and the well never seems to run dry.

From my first creative nonfiction class till this day I found an endless fascination in chasing my own memories. Always amazed at how my own mind never ceased to play games and present stories in ways that seem real and yet when I get the chance to check the facts I often discover a whole ‘different truth’.

For awhile this used to bother me and I would delve into the memories trying with no apparent success to unveil the ‘real story’ that one story that will never change. And later I succumbed to the striking irony. Truth, much like beauty, is really in the eyes of the beholder.

My truth and another person’s truth can be as different as the night from the day and yet they are both true.

So while nonfiction is nothing but the truth what it is in reality is my unique ‘I’ the way I and only I can see it. It is unique to me and while based loosely on facts it acquires over time a special mixture of colors, and shades.

The book I might write

 

“Tell all the Truth but tell it Slant”-Emily Dickinson

***

Until I read the essay, A Braised Heart: Shaping the Lyric Essay, by Brenda Miller I wasn’t sure how I was going to write the document (maybe even a book) about my family. For four years I researched my mother's side of the family and collected an overflowing folder of papers and pictures, but when the time came to put it all together I froze. Too much information or perhaps too little, I had no clue how to deal with it.

And then I came across this beautiful essay, written by Brenda Miller, as part of her book, and two interesting ideas emerged;

Tell the truth but tell it slant, how brilliant, this was mind altering, and then the rich imagery in the essay in which Brenda Miller compares the writing of the lyric essay to the braiding of the traditional Challah. The separate strands (three or more) that weave in and out but at the end form one heavenly creation with a solid core. 

The minute I read it I knew how I was going to approach my project.

***

I am going to name it ‘An anatomy of a family search’ and it is going to include documentation from my search, written and verbal exchanges I had with other people who gave me information. A detailed recount of the process, and how the different pieces of data were matched together to create the big picture.  And last, my childhood memories, primarily those about people or anecdotes that are relevant to the family search.

Once I figured it out the rest became almost easy. I knew what I have to do:

 Not a collage, or a sophisticated puzzle, as I originally planned.

Not a chronological account (which I originally considered but seemed tedious and boring).

No, this is going to be a braided essay (or a book); a rich weaved cloth composed of separate strands with me at the core.

***

Here is what I already did:

1.  Organized all the written materials I collected over the past four years.
2. Contacted all the people I was in touch with and asked their permission to use the information they gave me orally, or in writing.
3. Jotted down every memory I could pull out from my ‘clogged’ mind.   
4. Created an outline for this project.
5. Looked at what I had, put it aside and took a deep breath.

My writing project is about a search, a search for my family history, a search for my family lost members, but most of all it is a search for myself. Separate strands, yes, but ones that once they are weaved together will create a whole.

I think I am ready.

***

Now that the preliminary work is done it is time to settle down and do the real work, write. Can’t avoid the challenge, can’t shun from facing myself when I will decide to let it all go.

Tell it Slant – Brenda Miler and Suzanne Paola

Let it go

Writing often is a process of elimination. Putting all my precious thoughts on paper, I look at them again for few minutes, or hours, or days later and know that some of them have to go. It's painful, I like them all, they might even sound good. I marvel at the way they sound, the clever way I matched them all together but it is time to say good bye.

That's why it is good to wait a little before phooing them off. Wait a little till the emotional connection lessens and a  clearer perspective resumes. And yet often unable to perform the act I will choose the cowardly one of making many versions of the same piece. Some with, some without. This way it is never really final. I can always pull out some old versions of the same writing piece and savor my words again and again or maybe even use these discarded words in another new piece.
So just like the Passover Chametz, I nullify some words. I let them go while still holding on. Here they are buried deep in my computer files, never really lost, ready to be reused, ready to be read. Once Passover is over it is OK to pull them out again and use them for the rest of the year.

*

• Chametz is a product that is both made from one of five types of grain, and has been combined with water and left to stand raw for longer than eighteen minutes. It is not allowed to be owned during Passover.

Biur Chametz

Biur Chametz (Removal of chametz)
A process of revision , valuation and elimination or... 

In the morning, getting dressed, I look at my closet, push back in few shirts, pull out others, turn them from side to side and shake them, they look worn but I can’t remember when the last time I wore them was. I am sure that at the time I invested a lot of thought in picking each one of them so I push them back in. I will need to make the painful decision one of these days but not today.

 The book shelves on the other side of the room are overflowing with books; I keep them for these desperate times when’ I will have nothing to read’. Paperback novels recommended to me, authors I used to like, just random books I picked in garage sales for pennies. Self –help books I purchased at this time or another, on a whim, none of them touched in the past years.

 On the desk a mounting pile of letters I need to answer. Brochures I couldn’t bring myself to throw as the information regarding motel amenities, furniture, novelties and gifts might come handy one day.

 On the couch a stack of folders representing the second step of my elaborate filling system, here it is in a nutshell. When the pile of loose paper (letters, bills, brochures) becomes too high to manage and keep sliding to the floor, it is time to push everything into a folder. This is a cleansing act in and of itself. The folder is then being laid on the couch (originally in the room for those moments in the future when I will sit, relaxed and look over the back yard) with my best intention to look at it at a later date.

Some other odds and ends; one TV that could be working if it had been hooked to the cable (too far) one DVD (the TV isn’t working). The plants I pull in every winter and fill up almost third of the room. My old desktop computer (too slow), few boxes of books in Hebrew I already read (definitely have to up my efforts to find someone to take them off my hands). Few unidentified plastic bags in the corner, I give them an inquisitive look, trying to assess the content without opening them, and give up. 

I am all geared up for the task. Sorting out the truly valuable from the piles of trash (chametz) collected over the past year.  I run in my head the three traditional methods of performing this undertaking.

Burning one's chametz – seems a bit drastic

Selling one's chametz – yeah, right

Nullifying one's chametz – Bingo!

 I recite the Aramaic statement that no one truly understands (it always feels like crossing ones fingers behind his back), nullifying all the chametz, letting go while holding on, brilliant.

Storks

 

Storks

Every spring, when we still lived in Jerusalem, I waited for them. I used to raise my eyes to the sky and search for them for hours until my eyes hurt, and I had to close them to give them some rest.

In the beginning it was just a small cloud on the horizon and we (my brother and I) watched it intently, not sure if this is the real thing, unwilling to miss the opportunity to be the first ones to see them.

And then the flocks of storks would materialize, almost like magic, and where the sky, just a minute earlier was blue and empty, suddenly hundreds of birds filled the air with the noise of their wings going up and down in a unified speed.

With their appearance we knew, spring is coming and with it Passover, which to me meant the biggest joy of all, going to my aunt's farm in the Jezreel Valley, a week full of wonders that I waited for all year long.

Years later when we lived in the desert we saw them, a little later, already on their way south. They would stop for a night rest in the nearby grove and we went there at dusk, trying to catch a glimpse of these big birds, as they got ready for their night rest.

Funny I would think, still in the spirit of Passover, how they were actually going in the wrong direction back into Egypt rather than out.

 

***

As always on the week of Passover (and the week, or two before) I get immersed in searching and writing about anything even vaguely connected with this special spring holiday. Special for me that is, being attached to so many memories. This one, that I almost forgot, was an unexpected present.

 

 

Perhaps only migrating birds know

 So Passover is next week and with it on my mind this poem takes hold of me, and as I hum the lyrics I wonder if I can find a translation to English and here it is (the wonders of the Internet). I compare the two versions and ultimately decide that the original Hebrew one is much better, and yet I think the mood is coming across. I also think that it has been a long time since I thought about the storks who showed up every spring in the sky above our town. They brought the message of the coming spring, and unknown lands, and freedom.
 

PINE

Here I will not hear the voice of the cuckoo.
Here the tree will not wear a cape of snow.
But it is here in the shade of these pines
my whole childhood reawakens.

The chime of the needles: Once upon a time –
I called the snow-space homeland,
and the green ice at the river's edge -
was the poem's grammar in a foreign place.

Perhaps only migrating birds know -
suspended between earth and sky -
the heartache of two homelands.

With you I was transplanted twice,
with you, pine trees, I grew -
roots in two disparate landscapes.

 

Lea Godberg – Israel. 1970

Writing and old age part II

What makes some people creative?
What makes some people who never wrote a word suddenly discover their creativity?

Reading about writing in an old age made me think about this subject that is so intriguing and so vague at the same time.

If you can make a group of 90 year old man and women in a nursing home connect with poetry, of all forms of writing you can make anyone write. This is a proof that we all have that light inside us waiting to be lured, waiting to show and reward us with hours of pleasure.

All it took in the book that I am presenting was someone who believed in the validity of the experience and was willing to take the time and thought to make things happen. To see beyond the barriers of age, physical obstacles, and lack of experience and truly believe that the creative spark is always present and all it needs is an opportunity.

I learned from this book few very important lessons;

1. Everybody can write.

2. We all seem to have an innate need to communicate our feelings and writing adds an additional weight.

3. Writing can be done in many ways, and dictating my thoughts to someone else, as forced and strange it might seem, is a form of writing.

4. Collaborative writing, writing to the simplest prompts, writing about personal experiences no matter how small or insignificant, these are just few examples of the endless ways that can be used to bring out the writer in us. All are worthy.

5. The power of the writing group cannot be overrated. Having a supportive audience, hearing your writing read aloud, receiving a feedback. The dynamic of this process adds an extra dimension to the experience.  

6. If writing works for adults of all ages and walks of life it should be embraced as a way to increase well being and inner health.

http://www.screenr.com/PxY7

Having new eyes

 

One of my most favorite quotes is - The journey is the destination. Somewhat a cliche, of course, but also a representative of a philosophy that is repeatedly coming up in many life stories.

Here is one of the best -

 

" And when you find yourself lost in the darkness and despair... remember it's only in the black of night you can see the stars, and those stars will lead you back home. So don't be afraid to make mistakes, to stumble, to fall, cause most of the time the greatest rewards come from doing the things that scare you the most. Maybe you'll get everything you wish for... Maybe you'll get more than you ever could have imagined... Who knows where life will take you. The road is long and in the end... the journey is the destination." From one tree hill.

 Completely unbeatable...

But then I came across this saying of Marcel Proust and it hit me, yes, the journey, of course, but without being able to change my view point, without 'new eyes' to look with, the journey will always be the same. Wouldn't it?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The book I might mever write

 

 
Yesterday I started reading the book I was going to write.

I opened the first page, read the second, kept on going and a strange sense of déjà-vu came over me.

I know this road, this is exactly how it happened to me, this is the kind of tale I wanted to tell.

But while I was toying with the idea, even put the first draft on paper somebody else beat me.

Someone who did not spend hours, and days, wondering about the qualities of the story, and its' value to mankind. Somebody who did not nudge everybody they knew with requests for validation. An aspiring writer who felt that their tale has the right, like any other tale, to be put on paper for everyone to see.

She is about my age, the writer. It is her first book. It's a story about family, her family, and about the pressing feeling that everyone has a story worth hearing and these untold stories without a loving hand will disappear forever. That is the validation.

It is that simple.

I think of the hard work I put into the initial draft, the research into my family roots, I conducted for years, before I felt that I had most of the puzzle figured out. The draft still sitting on my desktop waiting to be finished and I feel sad. Who is going to tell their story now?

Older adults and creative writing

 So as I am looking at the numbers of the older population and the forecasts for the coming years, I wonder, again, about the scarcity of publications that address the subject of creative writing as a viable option for older adults.

Two things are going through my mind simultaneously. Maybe I have just created a subject that in reality does not exist, namely, creative writing is creative writing, is creative writing. There are many books out there . All you have to do is pick one and start working either by yourself, or in a group. Basically "Much Ado About Nothing".

Or, like so many things that have to do with the elderly and getting old, it is either an unappealing subject or there is an innate assumption that there is not much that can be done with a population that has so many issues.

This quote from the book -Writers have no age. (p,69) sums it up nicely.
"I drove slowly  that day. I did not want to get to where I was going and I knew a lot of reasons why. There was no one in my acquaintance who had taught creative writing at the county nursing home. I had founds accounts of only two persons in my reading who had tried and neither had accomplished very much or worked at it very long. Failure to achieve anything was a real possibility and frightening revelations of suffering and defeat seemed certain."

But as I was reading this intriguing book of Kenneth Koch few things become very clear; There is definitely a need for this kind of work, and the effect it has on the participants is indisputable, but also that working with the elderly needs to be done somewhat differently than the work done in a 'regular' creative writing group to achieve results.

Working differently has to do with the content, the type of writing and the setting but most of all with believing that this kind of work has value.

"...our students liked poetry so much. Some were writing it fairly well after two or three classes."

"Poetry not only makes people more aware of their feelings and memories but emphasises their importance. It provides a way to talk about them that frees one from the usual ways."

"As a form of writing, poetry had certain advantages...which helped us teach. It can supply opportunities to write many works and experiment in a variety of topics and styles.To get to essentials immediately, spontaneously,almost without thought, In writing poetry one can put things together in unfamiliar ways.A person can be himself,yet different."

Working differently has to do with the setting by giving allowance to the specific needs of the population. The main things suggested by Koch (and others),
 Short meetings - no more than an hour.
Help to those who need  to dictate their writing.
 Extra staff to address any special needs.

To use Koch's words; "it made the students happier,change their attitudes towards poetry,made them interested.It gave them a way to talk about life in a way that showed its beauty, and its sadness and  its humor and, often,because of all that,its value-"

Is there any reward that can be greater?

Pathways to the Common Core

I did not think that I will enjoy talking about education again. But with the MG project, and reflecting on that period of time, all my conflicts as an educator came rushing back.

I guess the saying "once a teacher, always a teacher," is kind of true.

I look at this picture that caught my eye and wonder, so there are few pathways to get to the desired goal?

Isn't that what was said (and still is) all along by people who sided with 'alternative' or 'open' or 'experimental' education. Pathways, not one way, and with that the suggestion is that some of the pathways maybe less travelled than others but that is OK.

And whoever drew this picture clearly did not think that both pathways are identical. It seems that one is shorter, while the other is meandering through the fields. The adult and two children seem to walk on the right hand side of the road but that could reflect on their safety training rather than on a choice that will be made shortly when they will reach the point of no return.