Blog 16: I Forgot Just One Was Enough

As published in The Vineyard Gazette.

So, every day all summer and even into October when I take my ridiculously embarrassingly short bike ride on Lobsterville, I scan the grasses for the white egret, stark in contrast against the hundreds of various shades of greens. When I see her, I sometimes gasp right out loud. Once in a while there are two and that’s a double header. At the end of August something happened.

I’m on my usual road trip (I know, I know very short, I’m the one who told you in the first place how short it is) and I look up and out where I always look up and out. I don’t see one and I don’t see two. I see, hang on, wha?t, I see twelve! Twelve egrets! I almost fall off my bike.

Wow, where did they all come from? Are these maybe the babies? But they all look the same size. Have they always been there and I never saw them? Impossible. Totally impossible.

None of this is earth shattering, but now comes the philosophical part of the piece.

The very next day after my big bonanza I am riding along looking forward to another thrill, but what do I see? One. One lone egret. I am so disappointed that I almost don’t look. One lousy egret? Are you kidding me.

So did I say hello, my one beauty? Good morning you gorgeous elegant bird, you. Did I mutter under my breath, such grace?

No. I did not. In fact quite the opposite. I felt a loss. I felt where are they? What happened? Was this some kind of tease? You take me to a smash hit on Broadway opening night and in the middle of my applause and my standing ovation you take me back to the rehearsal studio.

One egret? That’s your big deal? How had I been thrilled with only one and why do I now feel cheated, depleted, disappointed, lacking, wanting more. Where is my full Monty?!

I spend the rest of the day ruminating over what this is about. How could something that felt so beautiful and special suddenly seem less than. I start thinking about iPhones 5 and 6 and 7 and 8, and iPad blah blah blah, and flat screen and HD and robot vacuum cleaners — the newest, coolest, keenest, sharpest, thinnest, lightest new device.

This is the downside of getting older. Comparisons. When did we switch from loyalty to immediate gratification?

I can’t help thinking, what happened to the value of driving your car until it literally couldn’t move anymore, fixing the toaster until you admitted that it’s enough already only having half the coils working, turning the bread around, burning on one side and having undone toast on the other.

Only eight months ago this iPhone was perfect. Omg, look at everything it could do. Now it’s old. Too short, too long, too heavy, too light, not enough mega schmites.

Once you’ve been introduced to something new and seemingly better, the original awe has lost its power. Is this just human nature? Am I that fickle? How could I have abandoned that pristine feathered creature for numbers, sheer numbers. I thought I was better than that.

So today I’m going out in the cold (walking, not riding) and I will look for her. And I will honor her one-of-a-kindness, her snow flakedness, her naked beauty. And if I should be lucky enough to catch a teeny glimpse, I will try to remember how I felt when I first saw her, and then I will turn to her and I will bow.

PROMPT: I Forgot Just One Was Enough....

1. Write for ten minutes without stopping, thinking or censoring yourself.

2. Post your writing in the comments below this post.

3. Include what classes you've taken (and when) and a short bio if you like. 

4. PLEASE comment on this piece and the writing of each other. We all know how that feels! Just hit the "reply" icon on the top at the right within their comment so it posts right underneath the writing. 

If you have any trouble posting a comment, please feel free to get in touch with Cissy:  cissy_white@comcast.net and she will help you.

Blog 15: Where You Are Now

I have been incommunicado with my sister who I like to talk to every day.

Finally when I was able to get service I wrote kind of a complaining kind of email.

I wrote how I had done a workshop in NYC and then drove right up to Rhinebeck to teach another workshop where there was no service and the food wasn't good and my feet were cold and and and ...

The following is what she sent back.

This place where you are right now,                                                                                                

God circled on a map for you.

Wherever your eyes and arms

and heart can move

Against the earth and sky,

The Beloved has bowed there.

The Beloved has bowed there

Knowing you were coming.

Hafiz

After I had myself a good cry I thought about the "work" I was whining about.

I know it's not work. I know it's a gift that I get to fall in love with 20 new people each time I am blessed enough to lead a writing from the heart workshop and sit in a sacred circle where people are courageous enough to say "this is who I am and this is what happened to me" and I returned to my grateful Self.

PROMPT: Write a short piece about what you recently have bitched and moaned about and then taken Hafiz's words and tell us where you are now!

1. Write for ten minutes without stopping, thinking or censoring yourself.

2. Post your writing in the comments below this post.

3. Include what classes you've taken (and when) and a short bio if you like. 

4. PLEASE comment on this piece and the writing of each other. We all know how that feels! Just hit the "reply" icon on the top at the right within their comment so it posts right underneath the writing. 

If you have any trouble posting a comment, please feel free to get in touch with Cissy:  cissy_white@comcast.net and she will help you.

Blog #14: Sobbing

This morning I got a sobbing phone call from my sweet cousin in Florida. She’s been struggling with depression her whole young life. She was sexually abused as a kid and I know from having watched her all these years, she has done THE WORK!!!!

She goes to meetings, surrounds herself with herself with good folks, works consistently, has raised a great kid who is independent now. And yet she falls down again and again. I can see that the shame that goes with falling down is as great as the bruise from the fall.

I was thinking the other day how much of a muse Dan was for me in a million ways.

When I go down, when my heart can’t take the pain (like now during the holidays when Rosh Hashonah which meant so much to me as a kid; a grand daughter of orthodox Jews and a member of a thriving Jewish community with my aunt who held us all together and all my cousins and the music and the food and my Mother and me making kreplach together laughing and dancing around the kitchen, is all gone, I grieve the loss and I can't seem to replace that golden experience).

Two things happened.

1. My Dan is a reminder that when you go down deep, your roots get the real nourishment, the mud, the dark soil, the minerals and when you comeup the soul is whole again. The flower reaches for the light and lo you have returned. It's not rocket science, kids. Why is it so easy to forget???? We all know the metaphors and we all know a good sob and a willingness to feel the pain of our lives gives us perspective so we can get back to gratitude.. So I got that one.
2. Then two: my friend Judi, when I moaned about sitting here alone on the new year suffering (actually loyal to my suffering) gave me the link to her synagogue’s service and honestly it saved me.

After watching and listening and sweeping the house to the mournful music of my ancestors, weeping and sweeping, I paused it and called my sister who was also wanting some kind of ritual today and we are now listening together.

So thank you Judila and thank you Dan and may my innocent cousin in Florida drink from the dark brew that I know will act as a homeopathic remedy for her sad self.

And may all people suffering in this world find peace and sweetness.

Let’s take a vow that we will not rest until everyone….. everyone….everyone is safe and fed.

L’shannoah tovah my loved ones!!!!!

Blog Prompt # 13: Falling & Getting Up & Falling &....

So I get this from my teacher, Ram Dass the other day.

"Of course it’s embarrassing not to always be infinitely wise, but I feel that what we can offer each other is our truth of the process of growing, and that means we fall on our face again and again. Sri Aurobindo says, “You get up, you take a step, you fall on your face, you get up, you look sheepishly at God, you brush yourself off, you take another step, you fall on your face, you get up, you look sheepishly at God, you brush yourself off, you take another step…” and that’s the journey of awakening.

If you were awakened already, you wouldn’t do that, so my suggestion is you relax and don’t expect that you will always make the wisest decisions, and just realize that sometimes you make a decision, and it wasn’t the right one, and then you change it."

So I want to share this teaching with you and give a prompt.

Prompt: Write about getting up falling down getting up again falling down again. 
 

1. Write for ten minutes without stopping, thinking or censoring yourself.

2. Post your writing in the comments below this post.

3. Include what classes you've taken (and when) and a short bio if you like. 

4. PLEASE comment on this piece and the writing of each other. We all know how that feels! Just hit the "reply" icon on the top at the right within their comment so it posts right underneath the writing. 

If you have any trouble posting a comment, please feel free to get in touch with Cissy:  cissy_white@comcast.net and she will help you.

Prompt 12: Bad Boy/Girl

There was a fifteen-year old in the workshop last week who wrote about her puppy love. When he broke up with her she couldn’t eat. She couldnt sleep. She couldn’t smile or hang out with any of her friends. And she couldn’t tell anyone.

Heart in the clouds.

I fell in love with my James Dean in seventh grade. THE BAD BOY. What is it about young girls who fall in love with the outlier?

I started thinking about my own history with the guys from the wrong side of the tracks. They were poets. They were sad. They had potential and by god I was going to help them realize that potential.

I think part of the attraction was the “other”, the other ness of such boys. And girls for that matter. Their backgrounds were so different from mine and my curiosity was dancing the frug. I just couldn’t resist.

Also these beings were broken and fixing someone was a burning need in my social worker heart.

Thank god or goddess or whomever helps you make the right choice I didn’t marry one of them. But many of us did.

PROMPT: Write your story of the bad boy or the bad girl (bad only defined by our culture…. no judgments here) and who did you ultimately choose. 

1. Write for ten minutes without stopping, thinking or censoring yourself.

2. Post your writing in the comments below this post.

3. Include what classes you've taken (and when) and a short bio if you like. 

4. PLEASE comment on this piece and the writing of each other. We all know how that feels! Just hit the "reply" icon on the top at the right within their comment so it posts right underneath the writing. 

If you have any trouble posting a comment, please feel free to get in touch with Cissy:  cissy_white@comcast.net and she will help you.

Prompt 11: Grand-Parents & Grand-Kids

My five year old grandson is sneaking a sip of my seltzer. The bubbles crinkle his nose and he says, "I love seltzer Gramma."

"Me too," I say.

"We have a lot in common E," I continue. "We both love seltzer." 

"And we both love water," he says. "We love the ocean. We love pools and we both love the hot tub."

"What else do we have in common?" I ask.

"We both love bacon," he offers.

"And we both love reading," I add.

"And doing art," he chimes.

It’s silent for minute and then he says, "and we can both walk on anything. Because our bottoms are tough."

In summer Eli and I take our shoes off as soon as we see each other. 

 How did this happen? This unadulterated pure joy!!  This  magic. This beauty.

I have suspended all my judgment, all my rules about money, food, time. This boy who sailed into my heart with the wind at his back and the sun in his smile.

Everyone told me I'd be over the moon. I didn’t even know what that meant.

Now I think goodnight moon full moon moon June he’ll be over soon.

Everything changes with a grandchild.

P.S. I bumped into a fellow gramma while I was with a fellow gramma and we were all bragging about our grand kids and she said, "Here are the rules for grandmothers: shut your mouth and open your pocketbook."

We all cracked up laughing.

PROMPT 11: If you've got one write about what it's been like. If you haven't make one up. If you've been one write about being a grandchild.

Share your writing. You know the rules.

1. Write for ten minutes without stopping, thinking or censoring yourself.

2. Post your writing in the comments below this post.

3. Include what classes you've taken (and when) and a short bio if you like. 

4. PLEASE comment on this piece and the writing of each other. We all know how that feels! Just hit the "reply" icon on the top at the right within their comment so it posts right underneath the writing. 

If you have any trouble posting a comment, please feel free to get in touch with Cissy,  cissy_white@comcast.net and she will help you.

Book Project Announcement: Letter from Nancy Slonim Aronie

Dear Writing from the Heart alumns:

I know what I know as a writer, teacher, storyteller and human. I know how much hearts grow, swell and open when unburdened. I've seen how much people change, fall in love with themselves and each other after writing and sharing words and truth in workshops. It happens every single time!

Writing from the heart offers a portable and affordable tool. So many think writing is only for writers or publication but we know it's life-saving. Writing is for everyone and helps hurting hearts heal.

You know how we do lots of prompts related to childhood? You know how I always have say, "You have to write your pain out of your body?"

Well guess what? I've got a book project and proposal brewing. It will expand on what I wrote in Writing from the Heart.

(Writing from the Heart: Tapping the Power of Your Inner Voice can be ordered via Zero Toys)

There will be research as well about the impact of childhood adversity, trauma and how writing and being witnessed heals. That's where my co-collaborator Christine "Cissy" White comes in. She's a writer, friend (has been my assistant too).

Cissy likes all the studies and data. You can find details about her writing and activism at Heal Write Now.

We both know writing is healing. We aim to let those carrying childhood pain into adult lives, bodies, hearts and souls know too. 

Our working title is: Your Childhood is Making you Fat, Sick & Dead: Write to Heal.

It will include all I have felt, seen, experienced, witnessed and heard about how and why writing heals childhood wounds and helps hearts heal.

Call for Submissions / YOUR Writing

We would love you to contribute.

We will be including 30 essays from Writing from the Heart workshop alumns.

Do you want to participate?

The prompt will be the same for everyone. It's the one that always calls up home. I give it first at most workshops. "Dinner at My House Was..."

• Keep Word Count to 1000 words or less

  • Older piece written to this prompt is fine as long as it has not been published anywhere else.

  • Deadline: August 21st, 2015 (extended from June)

  • You can use your full name, initials or write anonymously.

• We will choose 30 essays for the book relating to childhood neglect, abuse or dysfunction. 

  • ALL the writing will be shared on my website over the next several months.

• We'd love to hear in a page or less how Writing from the Heart (the writing process or the workshop) impacted you and your healing.

  • Testimonials and insights about how writing from the heart has helped your healing to 300 words. 

• Please send your writing to cissy_white@comcast.net

We can't wait to hear from you.

All my love!
Nance

Home: Prompt 10

From Ram Dass Love, Serve, Remember Foundation:

"One day I was sitting in a motel in middle America, and it was one of those really plastic Holiday Inn type places, and I had arrived and I went into my room and I sat down and set up my little puja table and you know, all that stuff. Moving the menu and stuff, and it was kind of depressing, and I thought, “Well, a few more weeks and I'll be done with this tour and I can go home.” And then I saw the pain that that thought was creating for me.

So I got up and I walked out of the room, closed the door, walked down the hall, turned around, came back, unlocked the door and yelled, “I’m home!” And I came in and I sat down, and I looked and, you know, I wouldn’t have decorated particularly this way, but what the hell, you know? I thought, if I’m not at home in the universe, boy, I got a problem. If I say, “I can only be home here, not there.”

What is home? Home is where the heart is. Home is the quality of presence. It’s the quality of being wherever you are."

Prompt: Where is YOUR HOME?

SHARE YOUR WRITING. YOU KNOW THE RULES:

1. Write for ten minutes without stopping, thinking or censoring yourself.

2. Post your writing in the comments below this post.

3. Include what classes you've taken (and when) and a short bio if you like. 

4. PLEASE comment on my piece and the work of others. We all know how that feels! Just hit the "reply" icon on the top at the right within their comment so it posts right underneath the writing. 

If you have any trouble posting a comment, please feel free to get in touch with Cissy, cissy_white@comcast.net and she will help you.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves: Prompt 8

A few years ago I took a workshop with Jack Kornfield the wise and wonderful Buddhist teacher. One of the things he talked about was the stories we tell ourselves to ourselves (about ourselves).

The morning after his lecture I was walking around the Kripalu trail. There had been a dusting of snow and I slipped and I fell. I learned so much from that fall. The first thing I did was look around to see if anyone saw me. God forbid I should be seen in a vulnerable state.

The next thing I did was take my boot off and put snow on my swelling ankle and began to hobble back to the main building. As I was hobbling I was thinking Well of course I fell. I have weak ankles.

Which then led me back to Jack's words. 

Wait a minute I thought. Wait just a New York minute. I don't have weak ankles. My sister has weak ankles.

And I wanted to be her. She was my idol. I wanted to have everything she had - including her weaknesses.

I started laughing right there. I made a vow to talk to have a talk with my ankles which are responding like steel girders. They are so happy to be redeemed. All those years of not ice skating because I was so sure I wouldn't be able to hold myself up.

When I got home I employed an 11-year old to teach me to skate. I'm not saying I'm ready for the Olympics but the fear is gone.

And the power has returned.

So now the prompt:

Prompt # 8: Write about a story you have been telling yourself that no longer serves you. 

SHARE YOUR WRITING. YOU KNOW THE RULES:

1. Write for ten minutes without stopping, thinking or censoring yourself.

2. Post your writing in the comments below this post.

3. Include what classes you've taken (and when) and a short bio if you like. 

4. PLEASE comment on my piece and the work of others. We all know how that feels! Just hit the "reply" icon on the top at the right within their comment so it posts right underneath the writing. 

If you have any trouble posting a comment, please feel free to get in touch with Cissy, cwhite@healwritenow.com and she will help you.

How I Deal With Social Injustice.... Prompt 7

I just came out of Cronig's where organic strawberries were $15.37 a pint!!!! I didn't buy them. Just like last week when I was appalled that cherry tomatoes were seven something a pound.

I turn on NPR and the story is about how wages for MIGRANT PICKERS HASN'T INCREASED IN EIGHT YEARS !!!

So I didn't get the berries and I didn't get the tomatoes. Am I cutting my nose to spite my face? Who am I hurting? There is so much injustice in the world. I don't know how to justify little luxuries and big disparities.

HOW ARE YOU GUYS DOING IT?? Please write and tell me!!!

WRITING PROMPT: How I deal with social injustice....

Please Share Your Writing:

• Write for ten minutes without stopping, thinking or censoring yourself. 

• Post your writing in the comments below this blog post.

• Include what classes you've taken (when, where?)

• Leave comments for others (we ALL know how GOOD that feels).

• Questions? Contact: Cissy cwhite@healwritenow.com

Prompt 6: Inspired by the Life & Poetry of Margaret "Peggy" Freydberg: What Dream is Next for You?

Excerpt from Vanity Fair, IN MEMORIAM, APRIL 8, 2015 1:00 PM, by Nancy Slonim Aronie

                                      Photo Credit: Eli Dagostino

Margaret “Peggy” Freydberg lived in a cottage on Martha’s Vineyard and wrote beautiful, visual, introspective poetry that only a small circle of friends knew about. Her latest collection, Poems from the Pond, edited by Laurie David, will be released later this month. Freydberg died on March 27, a few weeks after her 107th birthday. Her friend and fellow writer Nancy Slonim Aronie remembers Peggy, whose writing career was just about to launch. Read more...

PROMPT #6: What dream is next for you?

Please Share Your Writing; Write for ten minutes without stopping, thinking or censoring yourself. Post your writing in the comments below thIS blog post. Include what classes you've taken (when, where?) & Leave comments for otherS (we ALL know how GOOD that feels).  Questions or Trouble Posting? Contact:  Cissy: cwhite@healwritenow.com 

Prompt # 5: What Would You Do?

My parents argued about money. The light bill, the gas bill, the rent. My mother spent nothing, but my father made nothing, He owned a carpet store  in a multi ethnic, mostly Puerto Rican very poor neighborhood in Hartford Ct. He loved everyone and everyone loved him. My mother would take a bus from her second job as receptionist at Schultzes Beauty Salon and get to my father’s store at around six to find him sitting at his big oak desk smoking his Lucky Strikes. He would confess that he had sold the Grecian Key “from the looms of Mohawk” 100 percent wool, his most expensive rug in the place for below cost because  “the couple was broke and adorable.” My poor mother had a Robin Hood on her hands except he was stealing from the poor (us) to give to the poorer (them).

My husband and I don’t argue about money. We don’t argue about which movies to go to what food to eat which friends to hang with.

We argue about the Ethicist from the New York Times magazine. This week the story began like this:

On public transportation a young man entered my train car and made an announcement requesting money to pay for medication he needed.. Three college–age men teamed up to contribute around $20.00. After the man left the car, a person sitting next to the trio told the men that the man was actually a scammer who used the pitch on a regular basis. Upon hearing this the men looked crestfallen. Did the onlooker have the right to devalue their charity? Should he have intervened while the money was being offered? Should he have stayed silent afterward?

I immediately say, "He never should have said a word."

Joel says, "Are you kidding me!!!! Of course he should have told them."

I said, "But why ruin the feeling the kids had of being generous?"

He says, "They have the right to know."

I say, "When would you have told them?"

"That’s a good question," my husband says. Thinking. "Well now you're talking confrontation," he says, "The guy could wield a knife or a gun or something, I guess I would tell them after."

Again, I repeat, "But why take away that good feeling of what they had just done?"

"Because," he says, "They won't make the same mistake next time."

Many years ago I was in New Haven on the way to the theatre with my son Josh. He was high school age. A young man came running up to us holding his broken glasses shaking and breathless. He said, "I was just mugged. They broke my glasses. They stole all my money. I need to get to Albany. I have no bus fare."

I said, "How much do you need?" and he said "forty-one dollars and 78 cents."

I immediately reached into my pocket and gave it to  him. He thanked me profusely and I felt so lucky that I could help.

When we got to the play Josh said, "You know that was a scam, Mom."

I said, "No it wasn’t."

I kept thinking what if I had been scammed? At intermission I said even if it were a scam I’d rather be the one to fall for it than the one needing to do it. The play ended and as we were walking back to our car we saw the guy across the street holding his broken glasses talking to another couple.

"What did I tell you?" Josh said. I stood and waited for the guy to finish.

And then I crossed over and I said, "I just want you to know how hurt I feel and how wrong what you’re doing is."

He didn’t respond.

On the way home Josh said, "I hope you wont fall for stuff like that again."

And I said, "I hope I always fall for stuff like that again. And again."

" But mom," he said, "You just lost forty bucks."

And I said, "I didn’t lose anything. I didn’t lose my innocence which has no dollar value. I didn’t lose my optimism and I managed to not become a walking cynic. That guy wasn’t able to take the good feeling of giving away from me."

My husband is shaking his head now. Reminding me of that incident in new Haven.

And I am reiterating one more time I'd rather be scammed than walk around suspicious and wondering.

We can't agree on this one.

The Ethicist agreed with Joel.

Fine. Let the two of them wallow in their worry.

Me? I am grateful that we have the luxury of arguing about an article in the NY Times.

And not about the light bill.  

Prompt # 4: What would you do in either one of these situations? Or write about the last time someone asked me for money..... 

SHARE YOUR WRITING WITH THE COMMUNITY. YOU KNOW THE RULES:

1. Write for ten minutes without stopping, thinking or censoring yourself.

2. Post your writing in the comments below this post.

3. Include what classes you've taken (and when) and a short bio if you like. 

4. PLEASE comment on my piece and the work of others. We all know how that feels! Just hit the "reply" icon on the top at the right within their comment so it posts right underneath the writing. 

IF YOU HAVE ANY TROUBLE POSTING A COMMENT, FEEL FREE TO GET IN TOUCH WITH MY ASSISTANT, CISSY: CWHITE@HEALWRITENOW.COM

Prompt # 4: Slow Down Turbo

Slow down turbo were the words that came from my son the guru the wise man the teacher he became.

​Dan started out, as many of you know, angry and indulged. If we had done any shrinkage early on, the advice we would have gotten and maybe, I say maybe, we might have taken, would have been So what! he’s got diabetes. No reason for him to get away with murder. He’s manipulating you because you feel guilty.

Well there’s a revelation. A child manipulating a parent who has a big fat wad of guilt sitting on the dresser waiting to be used. We probably wouldn’t have heard it. As it turned out- as Dan got sicker we got less tangled up and more able to let go. And as we let go he got to be the man who was in there growing the whole time.

When I was running around trying to control the world he would say, slow down turbo. And you know what? It helped. I can hear him still. And it still helps.

Prompt: What have your kids taught you? or if it hasn’t happened yet what do you think it will be. And if you don’t have kids how about your students, your nieces and nephews….

SHARE YOUR WRITING WITH THE COMMUNITY. 

PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW WITH YOUR PIECE INCLUDING WHAT CLASS(ES) YOU'VE TAKEN AND WHEN.

IF YOU HAVE ANY TROUBLE POSTING A COMMENT, FEEL FREE TO GET IN TOUCH WITH MY ASSISTANT, CISSY: CWHITE@HEALWRITENOW.COM

Letter in Support of Just One Drop

Dear YOU:

This letter (below)  is from my dear friend the brilliant filmmaker, Laurel Chiten.

Check her out and please support her most recent film; JUST ONE DROP

I did. 

Love, Nance

Letter from Laurel Chiten

I am an independent filmmaker now working on the final stages of a new documentary film "Just One Drop" that tells the untold story of homeopathy. We have been working on this film for many years and has just launched a crowdfunding Indiegogo campaign to raise finishing funds.

 http://igg.me/at/justonedropfilm

Nancy Aronie has kindly donated a few registrations to her amazing Chilmark Writers Workshop as a "perk". So if you choose to contribute, you can get a seat in my class as a gift!  I took this workshop many years ago and loved it! Life changing. Would highly recommend it! Consider buying this for yourself, or as a gift for your family or friends!

Not only are you getting the writing workshop but you are also getting a digital download of the finished film, AND a special thank you in the end credits of the film!

Just think: you can take Nancy's workshop, be on Martha's Vineyard, help fund an important film, get a digital download of Just One Drop, a thank you in the film credits, AND a tax deduction all at the same time! How much better does it get?

Please check out our campaign, watch a reel, and consider making a tax deductible contribution and come take her class this summer. There are many other perks offered too.

Thank you!

Laurel Chiten

CEO Blind Dog Films

www.justonedropfilm.com

Prompt #3

You may have read my Twizzler addiction story with the mad Russian of Brookline and how for four years no candy has passed my lips.

View fullsize

You may have made your own appointment to end one of your long held habits that hasn't served you. You may have read in admiration at how long I abstained from those red twiney rubbery things in the candy aisle of CVS and at every movie theatre across our great sugar addicted nation.

But hold your awe and let out your breath because the other shoe has dropped giving me the lesson I needed to understand how others like me with their own sets of attachments and behaviors that hurt body and soul have succumbed to temptation.

I had put on Facebook on the day Dan died for folks to please send me stories that I may not have heard of my boy. Last Thursday I got a bulky manila envelope with a gorgeous letter with two moving stories about Dan from one of his best high school buddies. Enclosed was a bag of Twizzlers. I had already had marshmallows a few months prior which I aptly called “the thin end of the wedge” so I couldn’t brag anymore about how that hypnosis had worked and how amazing I was to have stuck and held my ground.

I was ripe for what happens next. Yes I ate the whole bag of Twizzlers. Aside from being hung over the next day I got  a taste of what it must be like for people who have much greater problems that a spoonful of sugar helping the medicine go down, for people for whom the medicine is the problem.

It was interesting to see how connected raw emotions are with immediate actions that don’t have the luxury of reflection. Just feel pain... pop in a Twizzler. Feel pain... pop another. Avoid pain... pop a few more. Dull the pain/chew the sadness.

As long as I keep remembering that everything is a lesson and everyone is a teacher I can go forward.

PROMPT 3: Got any backsliding stories of your own???

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PROMPT #2

Apologies to the snow bound writers:

I'm in white sand instead of in white snow.

I'm in aqua water instead of slipping on ice dams.

I'm drinking piña coladas instead of hot ginger tea. 

I am not asking for your sympathy.

I'm asking for your words.

PROMPT: Write about your fantasy vacation or the real one.

SHARE YOUR WRITING WITH THE COMMUNITY: Please leave a comment below with your piece including what class(es) you've taken and when. If you have any trouble posting a comment, feel free to get in touch with my assistant Cissy: cwhite@healwritenow.com

Letter from Nancy

Dear Brilliant Writers All:

So the 19-year old whiz kid begins tampering with my website and I love everything he does. It’s gorgeous. It’s smart. It’s stunning.

It's …me?

Maybe.

Then he (Eli) suggests we partner up together and he will do a video every week of me telling one of my Ram Dass stories or my Eckert stories or an Alan Watts story or even one of my own escapades. Then, I’d add a prompt that I would write and get ya’ll to write.

He says we’ll charge three hundred dollars for a year subscription and he will handle all the PayPal stuff.

And the best part is - the part I totally get excited about - is that it will create the kind of writing community that I have been trying to make happen for EVER!!!!

He says people will write more if they are paying for it and they will comment more if they are paying. And I am in. Cissy is on board. Eli and I make a few videos which he makes look soooo gorgeous!!

But then I start to feel ambivalent.

How do I charge for what I was giving away free? How do I justify the switch? How do I say ‘hey everyone here’s the blog you were contributing to for nothing; now pay’?

I take a walk in Gay Head and my right brain and my left brain have a little sit down.

I keep asking myself:

Am I in business or is this my spiritual practice with a bit o profit? Do I really want more?

I love my life. I love my solitude. I could see that his plan was going to up the ante to a larger forum. More people. More workshops. More money. 

More-More-More is not where I am now.

I called Eli (as in Dagostino) and said, “I can’t do it.”

So all of those little notices saying a big surprise is coming are moot now. The child genius that he is took down the blog and changed the site. I’m keeping the visual changes and keeping the old way.

If you go to chilmarkwritingworkshop.com it’s the same - but it looks different. Better.

So thank you my darling ones for your patience.

Please - please - please contribute to the blog. Prompts resume again next week. 

I'm asking you a favor. No, I’m begging you to make comments to each other. You know how good it feels when someone flips over your words. Flip for each other. Please!

And maybe I’ll get to work with you this spring, summer or fall at a workshop. Yes???

XOXOXOXO

All my love!

Nancy

PROMPT #1

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!!! 

I bumped into someone in Cronigs, all of us in that joyous shopping pre-storm energy. She was buying roasts and chickens and turkey burgers and I was buying heavy cream (for my coffee and my phlem support) and we exchanged anticipatory excitement about the impending white out they always promise but never deliver.

I said, “Happy baking.”She said, “What are you going to bake?”

And I said, “Nothing but I always think that snow storms give permission to eat the naughty no-nos of regular days with regular schedules with regular weather. But snow means chocolate chip cookies and blueberry muffins and apple pie,” and the more I talked the more I knew I was going to come home and bake.

I’m not a baker. I don’t measure. I never have all the ingredients.

Joel has shoveled a path for the cat and a path to the hot tub and I have carried in almost a half cord of wet wood for the stove and fire place. It’s so cozy in here. And just now writing about baking I heard myself say – “Oooh I could bake an apple pie….Ever so often your inner baker speaks. And I could actually do it if I knew  how to make a crust.”

We both cracked up.

But I will call Angela, my angel of a daughter-in-law, (who makes the best pies in the world) and she will tell me what to do and either I will go without or try it out. These kinds of risks are soul growing (and stomach stretching).

What if it turns out underneath the facade of being a writer, a teacher, a talker, a walker, a midnight stalker, I’m really a baker.I’ll keep ya’ll posted. I already have the name for my company: BAKED!

PROMPT: Your baked story!

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