Since I no longer have a comments section on my blog (because I couldn’t keep up with deleting spammers), you can answer the question on Marlene Cullen’s Write Spot Facebook Page.
Some of us hold our cards close to our chest, reluctant to reveal anything personal. Not Garcia-Dávila. In this video, Armando opens his heart to tell us about his experience with prisoners.
“I present my experiences volunteering at San Quentin State Penitentiary in Marin County, California. I interacted with inmates over three-day retreats. An unexpected takeaway; there are many decent people, some admirable, that are serving sentences from two years to life. I had an interaction with one particular inmate that was life changing for both of us.” —Armando Garcia-Dávila
The video is about 50 minutes long. Scroll down for link to video.
Armando opens with a poem “Keeping Quiet,” by Pablo Neruda.
“I have many favorite poets but, the Nobel prize winning Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda tops the list in his elegant celebration of common things. These poems help me find beauty and wonder in the everyday and give me a fresh perspective in the face of the difficulties in the world.
Later in his life, as if weary of the burden of protesting atrocities and political corruption, he wrote Odes to Common Things, about everyday things: salt, cat, dog, dictionary, tomato, to name a few. I cherish this book because, beyond the fact that the poems are an exquisite, playful honoring of the everyday, those things we take for granted, the things we no longer really see; they remind us to pay attention and look at common things with new eyes and imagination.
You could do this too in whatever form your creativity takes. Play with it and see if it doesn’t brighten and expand your world. Consider using poetry as your inspiration, fuel for your creative spirit and to uplift and lighten your life.”
Armando Garcia-Dávila has won awards for his prose and poetry and was named the Healdsburg Literary Laureate for 2002-2003. He refers to himself as the “Blue Collar Poet,” and says, “I am neither an academic nor an intellectual and try to write in the voice of the common man.” Simon Jeremiah lives on the right bank of the Russian River, where he keeps a small retreat for artists and writers. He is a founding member of the Healdsburg Literary Guild and remains active in the local arts community.
Note from Marlene: Grant Faulkner’s musings on his Substack page are golden comfort to a writer’s soul, offering unique perspectives that inspire writing.
For example, his essay on “Surrender as Action Verb.”
“When we surrender ourselves to our art, we allow ourselves to soften. Surrender invites us to give ourselves up to something larger, to meld with wonder and awe. Surrender creates intimacy and expansiveness at the same time. It sparks curiosity, exploration. It’s the equivalent of going to sleep: by sinking into an unconscious state, we allow dreams to fill us. We give up trying to change and control things. The rigidities of expectations, desires, and aspirations melt away.
Think what would change if you allowed yourself to surrender in a conversation. What if you committed to listening, to let another’s words and spirit rise up and take you instead of focusing on your point of view, your needs. What if you decided not to try to win the next argument you find yourself in? What if you decide not to be the star of the conversation?”
Excerpted from “Surrender as Action Verb” on Grant Faulkner’s August 18, 2024 Substack: Intimations: A Writer’s Discourse.
Birds & Blooms is a bimonthly magazine focused on the beauty in your backyard.
“Our magazine coves a wide range of topics such as attracting hummingbirds, building birdhouses, gardening for butterflies, growing veggies, plus a lot more.”
“Alternate versions of past events are common, because it is human nature, especially where childhood memories are concerned, to move ourselves—over time—to the center of a story. We are hardwired to see the world through our own points of view, and increasingly so with the passage of time. Memory is a river, not a block of cement.” — “But My Sister Remembers It Differently: On Working with Contested Memories,” by Dinty Moore, Aug. 15, 2024 Brevity Blog.
Note from Marlene: I am very excited to share Jennifer’s post with you. Since my passion is how to write about difficult subjects without adding trauma, I am especially grateful to Jennifer for addressing this topic.
Jennifer’s eloquent writing on what she doesn’t know about her father is outstanding and an example of how you can write about “what you don’t know.”
Guest Blogger Jennifer Leigh Selig:
When I lead memoir writing retreats, I like to kickstart the mornings with writing prompts. One of the tricks of my trade is a manilla envelope stuffed with images I’ve printed out of vintage and iconic toys and games from across the decades. It’s a ritual I cherish—spreading these images out on the long conference room tables, imagining my students’ delight as they light upon a special toy or game that brings back fond memories, and then watching them begin to furiously write.
This last retreat was different. I found myself tearing up as I laid out the pictures of the Kewpie doll and the troll. I found those tears falling as I laid out the pictures of Clue and Yahtzee. So many of the toys and games took me back to my beloved grandmother’s house. This was the first retreat I led since her death at 102 years old. I was blessed with 60 years of my life with her. And now no more.
I wiped my tears away before anyone entered the room. Sitting alone in the circle, I wondered if there was any writing prompt I could give that wouldn’t trigger someone. Even asking: “Write a happy memory about your mother” is fraught with danger. What if someone has no happy memories of their mother? What if someone’s mother has just been diagnosed with a terminal disease? What if someone has no mother?
Then I remembered a writing prompt a teacher gave me that triggered a torrent of furious writing. I shared that piece with my students, to acknowledge that any prompt, no matter how seemingly innocuous, can stir something deep within.
For fifteen minutes, write about your father’s eating habits. Remember the journalistic imperative to include what, how, where, when, and why, all aiming to flesh out a deeper sense of who your father is. Follow the writer’s adage to write what you know.
I don’t know a thing about what my father eats. I don’t know if he peppers everything he eats with tons of salt or if sugar is his road to ruin. I don’t know if he frequents farmers’ markets for the freshest produce or if he stockpiles boxes of frozen food in his grocery store cart. I don’t know if he goes to the grocery store or if that’s the province of his wife. (I don’t know if my father even has a wife.)
I don’t know a thing about how my father eats. I don’t know if he’s a gentleman who savors each bite or a feral animal who wolfs down his plate. I don’t know if he smacks his food with relish, if he rests his elbows on the table, if he licks his fingers or knows to use a napkin. I don’t know whether he dives straight into a meal, or if he stops to thank God first. (I don’t know if my father even believes in God.)
I don’t know a thing about where my father eats. I don’t know if he eats standing up in the kitchen or if he takes a plate to the sofa where he can watch sports on TV. I don’t know if his taste skews toward fine dining establishments or all-you-can-eat buffets or if he prefers eating at home. (I don’t know where my father’s home even is.)
I don’t know a thing about when my father eats. I don’t know if he’s a creature of habit or if he eats when he’s hungry, regardless of the hour. I don’t know if he eats after smoking or smokes after eating, or if a happy-hour cocktail always precedes dinner. I don’t know if his children nag him for skipping a meal, or scold him for snacking all day. (I don’t know if my father even has other children.)
I don’t know a thing about why my father eats. I don’t know if he’s trying to gain or lose weight, to lower his cholesterol, to control his diabetes, or to stave off cancer. I don’t know if he eats when he’s stressed or he eats when he’s bored. I don’t know if he eats for pure pleasure or whether he eats to stay alive. (I don’t know if my father is even alive.)
If my father is no longer alive, I don’t know where he died, when he died, or why he died. I don’t know how he died, or what he was doing when he died. I don’t know whether he is interred in a tomb where coffin flies feast on his corpse or if he was buried at sea where fish nibble on his flesh or if they bled him out before they burned him to ashes and scattered him.
I cannot flesh out my father, Teacher. I cannot write what I know, because I do not know the flesh and the blood of my father.
___
As a writer, I was seething. Not seething at my teacher, though the prompt did seem presumptuous. But in the end, I’m glad I wrote to it. It was good to see how bad I still feel that half of who I came from is a ghost. This is the raw power of writing prompts crafted by others—when we open our memory bank, we have no idea if the coins will fall out heads or tails, or which is best for us.
So I tell my students—I’m going to give you writing prompts this week. Even if I don’t mean it to, any prompt may trigger distressful or traumatic memories. If you go there, it may hurt. If you go there, it may help.
Jennifer Leigh Selig is an LBGTQ+ teacher, book publisher, and author whose writing career spans nearly four decades. Her most recent book is Deep Memoir: An Archetypal Approach to Deepen Your Story and Broaden Its Appeal, a companion to her co-written Nautilus Gold award-winning book, Deep Creativity: Seven Ways to Spark Your Creative Spirit. Learn more about Jennifer and her writing classes and her publishing companies.
Your turn: I don’t know . . .
Choose a prompt from The Write Spot Blog and Just Write!
“It is your brain connecting dots so quickly that you are not aware of the connections until you look backward to figure out why you know what you know, or did what you did.” — “The Secret Sauce for Writers: Intuition,” by KimBoo York on Jane Friedman’s September 4, 2024 Blog
A few days ago, one of my students emailed. She had read an essay I’d just published about my father—dead now 19 years but still giving me plenty of juice to write about.
The essay was about how volatile my Dad had been, and how loving—a love I rediscovered in letters he’d written to my mother at the end of their marriage. My mother had given me the letters during the pandemic, while she was cleaning out her house. I knew my parents had once loved each other fiercely and unambiguously, but the memory was an ancient one that predated my birth, and by the time I started to pay attention to how they treated each other, it was clear that love had been undone by disappointment and grief. They’d had a stressful marriage, and eventually moved on to other people—my father remarried, adopted a baby, divorced, became engaged to two other women and raised my half-sister alone; my mother moved in with another man for ten years, then left him and married someone else. Scads of boyfriends, girlfriends, semi-siblings and step siblings came and went; the only one I still talk to is my delightful half-sister.
But my father’s letters to my mother, written in the middle of their marriage and then at the end, showed that there had been layers to their relationship. My father had been bipolar, suicidal and often cruel to my mother, but the letters gave me insight into his loneliness, confusion and remorse over what had happened between them.
My student wrote:
I loved your piece about your father. I wish I could get to the point where I can balance my mother’s flaws and good points in a balanced, detached way. Did you achieve your clarity and equanimity mostly through therapy? Any suggestions? When you get a chance.
This was an excellent question. Had I actually achieved clarity and equanimity? And if so, how?
Of course, therapy helped—I’m 59 and had started seeing my therapist when I was 31; we had spoken about my parents at length. But it wasn’t just therapy that allowed me to consider my father from different angles. In addition to the letters, my mother also gave me journal entries my father had left behind, and home movies she had transferred to a thumb drive.
The movies showed my parents when they were young and carefree, chic on safari in Africa, cavorting on beaches in Tahiti and the Jersey Shore. There was my father in swim trunks, sticking out his tongue and doing handstands on the beach, there was my mother looking like Audrey Hepburn, gorgeous in a red bikini and sunglasses. Long after their divorce, these props allowed me to imagine what they felt as they reveled in each other and the countries they explored together. I could hear my father teasing my mother, and my mother laughing and saying, “Oh, Steve!”
The letters and movies allowed me to piece together what they had savored and surrendered.
Some of the journal entries were hard to read (my father had some choice things to say about their sex life) and it took me three-plus years to write the essay I recently published. I would read a journal entry, squirm, then put it away, sometimes for months. When I finally returned to the letters and journal entries, I set a timer and wrote for 15 minutes, just enough time to reread and maybe write a few challenging sentences. Eventually, I was able to write for longer stretches and finish the story. Telling my parents’ story allowed me to exert some control over it, unlike the powerlessness I had felt as a teenager, watching their marriage implode at the dinner table.
There was something else too that allowed me to write about the difficulties of love: meditation.
I meditate 30 minutes every morning, sometimes outside. All the volatility I experienced as a kid melts away as I close my eyes, repeat my mantra, and reset my central nervous system. Meditation allows ideas to bubble up to the surface and is the most effective way I know to self soothe. Plus, it’s free. You don’t even need an app. I just set a timer on my phone and silently repeat my mantra (ima, Hebrew for “mother”), while thoughts ricochet around my brain and finally dissolve into something resembling clarity.
I wrote back to my student:
Yes, of course, therapy helps, but I think meditation and writing about my parents in a focused way helped even more. Just the process of thinking about them in a calm way (through meditation) allowed me to detach from how I felt about them and let me “observe” them from a safe distance. And then writing about them, and wrestling with their challenges but also forcing myself to find a way to deliver some message of hope and insight for the reader, also helped. So, I guess the short answer is yes, therapy helped, but meditation and focused writing helped even more.
My student wrote back: “Thank you for sharing what helped you with your parents. Writing is definitely therapeutic. I still have to try meditation.”
If you are tackling difficult subjects, I recommend it all.
Laura Zinn Fromm is the author of Sweet Survival: Tales of Cooking & Coping (Greenpoint Press, 2014). She has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University and teaches fiction and creative nonfiction workshops through her company, Sweet Lab Writing Workshops.
She has also taught at Columbia, Montclair State, the New York Public Library and through Kelly Writers House at the University of Pennsylvania.
A former editor at BloombergBusinessweek, she is a winner of the Clarion Award and the Newspaper Guild’s Page One Award for Labor Reporting. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Huffington Post, Bloomberg Businessweek,The Forward, the Girlfriend, the Opiate, and elsewhere.
