Consider this a story that gives you a bit of insight about me but also an example that has you think back to that earliest moment when you felt that first tug to write.
Back in the late nineties, I was newly married for the second time and wanted—badly—to make the marriage work.
Steve was a traditional guy who believed in following the societally expected trajectory for a happy life: Marriage, home ownership, a couple of reliable cars to get us around, steady jobs that generated enough money to live in comfort while banking a bit for retirement, and kids.
Kids?
Eeks.
No.
You see, I came from a rugged childhood, moving twenty-seven times during my college years and living with several sets of parents who…(well…let’s hold off on the specifics here)… did little to prepare me for being a mother, which I felt was pretty important work.
Steve, on the other hand, enjoyed a steady upbringing. He lived in the same house all of his life. His parents were as reliable as the seasons, planting a big garden, canning most of their food, and working hard at their respective jobs. To him, having kids required zero thought.
A different woman might have said, “Well, okay. This is where we part ways,” but remember I really wanted our marriage to work. Plus, I loved the guy. He was great-looking, funny, fun, and hard-working. He was a keeper.
I finally agreed, with one caveat: If I were going to become a mother I needed to figure a few things out about myself.
And, that is why I started to write about my life. (400 words)
Your Turn:
Imagine that earliest moment you were called to creative writing and “story it” with some movement through time. Remember, we’re just getting to know each other here and a little will go a long way (see how I held back at graph four with “…parents who…(well…let’s hold on the specifics here)…" That’s what I’m talking about. This is a handshake.
If you draw a blank, here are a few prompt questions:
What is the impetus to write about your life? A specific incident, a general urge, something someone said to you likes, “You should write about your life!”
Do you have an intention or a goal? Note: If “getting published” and “becoming a professional writer” is your intention or goal, please don’t fret. Be honest. Both are commendable.
What have you done, up to now, in your efforts? Have you studied in MFA programs, taken a few local classes, worked from a book like The Artist Way by Julia Cameron or Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, or journaling on your own?
Back in 2009, I left the Marine Corps a disabled veteran and had been introduced to painting as a therapeutic practice to help manage my chronic pain and its underlying elements. "Paint whatever makes you happy," they'd say to me, and so I chose sea turtles; they make me happy.
Painting ushered me through the ups and downs of a botched early-life marriage and divorce at 27 and the slew of life's hardships that followed. The happiness of the sea turtles carried me on their wings, and the therapy evolved from painting to variations of psychological modalities, the reckoning of abuse from childhood, the searching for truth in therapy rooms and self-help books, and facing the moral inventory of my 'self,’ making space for its ego death and surrendering to greater spirituality.
I landed in 2017 with a renewed sense of being and discovered my love for sea turtle wings actually related to literal flying, so I listened and trusted myself; I flew. My path of following my passion led me to a flight instructor who swept me off my feet, and now we're married and have a baby girl; we named her Adena.
Adena burst open within me a prioritization of inner-knowing and self-revolution. She empowered me to erect a firewall of fierce boundaries from my old life and the abusive family relationships, which needed to be lovingly detached and properly distanced. Adena now blesses me with a daily reckoning of past-life coping mechanisms which no longer serve me.
The ego death triggered the painted sea turtles to suddenly fly free and disappear into the deep blue abyss. I felt as if I were floating in it -the abyss- now devoid of the joyful beacon I once relied on for navigation, lost in a sea of nothingness. Some would call this postpartum depression. I call it divine intervention.
My desperation led me to Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way" last November, which helped uncover my inner secret. I had hidden from myself my want to be a writer after getting in trouble in the first grade for writing a book when I should have been paying attention to the lecture. In January (this year, 2022), I hopped on google and found the Blackbird Studio. I signed up for Bones of Storytelling and continued to listen to the faint voice of my inner child from first grade who continues to whisper, “write.”
Hello, everyone, I am Julia, and I am a writer.
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My mother was named Rosemarie Jeanne’ at birth.
When I was five, she gave my brother and I a roll of pennies. She told us to call her Ginger. Every time we called her mom, she took a penny. I called her Ginger most of my life.
I was named Rosemarie Jeanne’. That was what my father wanted. That’s the name that went on the birth certificate. Since the day I was born my mother called me Tracy. Everybody calls me Tracy. (Except my husband, he calls me Pinky : )
Ginger was a writer. She wrote poems and short memoir prose. Years into a project of putting her poems and prose together for a book, my mom passed on, book unfinished. Her desire was to be a beacon of hope and light to others that may have suffered a tragic childhood and survived to tell the tale.
I decided to take the project on. I would finish putting Ginger’s book together. As I started sorting through and organizing what she had completed and what she was still working on, the enormity of the task hit me full force. I ran straight into my own messy, tangled life. I couldn’t deal with my mother’s story until I faced mine.
When I was nine Ginger gave me my first diary. I’ve journaled off and on throughout my life ever since. I’ve written many poems and even songs. Now, at fifty, I was going to get serious and write memoir. So, I signed up for a seven week online memoir writing class. I loved it! I took a couple more. Being in the class structure helped to keep me focused and on task. Then my life took some interesting twists and turns and the writing project took a backseat. I have speculated on the inner workings of what that was really all about but will save that for later. For now, it’s been ten years since I started the project, seven since I set it down. Lately I have been feeling the tug, a whisper in my ear, “it’s time”……time to pick it back up……..
So here I am : )
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