Writing - Farewell Stranger

Keeping the Channel Open

December 3, 2012 By Robin 33 Comments

This is a long quote, but worth a read:

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open… No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

- Martha Graham

I’ve been struggling a bit with writing lately. I’ve had the first line of this post written for a while and so far that’s all there is. It still exists in the shadows and nothing has come forward to shed light on what I’m trying to express.

Writing is a function of time. And inspiration. And a topic. But it also, whether we want it to or not, gathers breath from our feeling of whether we have a place in this world of people who choose to express themselves through the written word. And lately I don’t.

I’ve lost my focus here, which seems to be a cyclical thing. Have I mentioned how cute and squishy my new baby is? I have? Well, that’s all I’ve got.

Except it’s not. I’ve got snippets popping up like the newest green shoots in the spring. I desperately want to feed them and give them light so I can see what they will turn into, but it’s not happening. I think some of them might be profound if only they would show themselves.

Where do writers’ words come from? Mine, when I have them, come from the moments I wouldn’t otherwise notice. They come from that space in the dark right before I fall asleep when I finally uncover the right phrase only to lose it when the daylight comes.

My words come from my past and, increasingly, from my present. I want to stretch them beyond that and find out, through my words and the messages they whisper, where I’m going in the future. But right now there’s just right now.

I have never lived so fully in the present, but I don’t mean that in a good way. My world is made up of tiredness, and have-I-had-a-shower-yet, and calculating when I last fed the baby. My future, such as it is, stretches only as far as tonight when I wonder if tonight might be the night he sleeps longer, and then I stop wondering that and try to focus on the opportunity feeding a baby gives me to do some middle-of-the-night reading.

In doing that reading by the light peering out from the bathroom (not too bright but enough to see) I have discovered new voices. And I have had the time to read old voices. I have been reading and reading some more and pondering. Reading Kindle books for which my impression was I can write better than that. I think. Reading online magazine articles and news stories. (Ditto.) And reading blogs.

It’s the blogs, I think, that are causing the problem. So many good writers with so many authentic voices. I read their words and I wonder where they come from. Not from time spent in the darkness with only a bathroom light and a sleepy baby for company, I suspect.

I write for me, people say. That’s all that matters. And I do too. And it is. But it’s not – not for anyone, I’d argue. I write stories that matter to me and maybe I shed a tear or two when it seems like no one else cares.

I still want those stories written down, but lately the stories aren’t appearing the way I want them to. The words aren’t right. Sometimes they’re not there at all.

But maybe I don’t have to believe. Maybe I have to live with my blessed unrest and keep marching and find the piece that keeps me alive.

Maybe I just have to write regardless.

Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: admissions, blogging, favourite activities

Write On

August 21, 2012 By Robin 53 Comments

I got another email the other day, this one from a friend-of-a-friend sort of person. She had found my blog thanks to Reader’s Digest naming me one of Canada’s top mom bloggers (and yes, that was unexpected, but what I was especially happy about was that it was my writing about postpartum depression that they highlighted). The email was of the thank-God-I’m-not-alone types from someone who previously dealt with postpartum anxiety and is now struggling with antenatal depression and just really isn’t sure where to turn.

When I got the email I was just closing my computer to take Connor out for some fun with my sister and my dad and he was getting impatient. But I saw the name and the subject line and I paused, hoping I could put the excited child off a moment longer.

I keep every email like this that I receive – the ones that say thank you for sharing and for being so honest. The ones that say can you help me? And the ones that say I just didn’t know and I thought it was just me.

Because I know. I know what that feels like and I know how sometimes it’s impossible not to reach out and say thank you (like I did with Katherine after I found Postpartum Progress). And when I get those emails it affirms that it’s okay to write about these things, which is a reminder I sometimes need, especially lately when I’ve been feeling like I lost my words.

I’ve been feeling a little bit vulnerable. Before the Reader’s Digest thing, but especially so since. I’m so, so honored, especially given some of the other bloggers on the list. But that’s the sort of thing that tends to get spread around. I posted it on my own Facebook page (and I rarely share blog content or related things there) and it got shared by my family and some friends. Which is how the friend-of-a-friend thing tends to happen.

In this case it actually went beyond that. I work with my brother who, evidently, is friends on Facebook with a bunch of other people we work with. Who now know about my blog. Some of them said, “That’s cool! I’ll have to check out your blog,” (and I thought oh god…). Some of them did read it and said only nice things like, “It’s great that you’re so open” and “You’re a great writer.” Which are lovely comments, but there’s always a part of me that wonders if they’re really thinking, wow, you are messed UP.

But you know what? That’s okay. Some days I’m totally messed up, but so are most people in one way or another. And I’d rather be messed up and working on it and, better yet, helping others in the same boat than holding it in for fear of what others think. I did that for too long and it backfired, making me more messed up in the short term and causing this to be more of a long-term problem than it would otherwise have been.

So I’ll write and whoever wants to can read. And if one of those readers finds something helpful here and sends me an email, so much the better.

Write on.

Linked up with Just.Be.Enough

and Things I Can’t Say

I’ve also got a post on Just.Be.Enough today about some awesome lyrics by a great Canadian band. Come visit!

Filed Under: Better world, Postpartum depression, Writing Tagged With: antenatal depression, blogging, community, spreading the love, telling the truth, we're not alone

I Am

July 11, 2012 By Robin 33 Comments

I am determined and unsure
I wonder what’s in store this second time around
I hear babies crying when it’s silent at night
I see the girl I used to be
I want the gifts of patience and perspective
I am determined and unsure

I pretend I can’t
I feel it’s just the fear of failing
I touch his soft baby head the way it lives in my memories
I worry about the time long since passed
I cry thinking of the person I am not
I am determined and unsure

I understand I can’t control everything
I say I wish that weren’t so
I dream of laughter and satisfaction and joy
I try to see things as they really are
I hope this time will be different
I am determined and unsure

Connor at 3 weeks old sleeping on mama’s shoulder

This post is based on this I am poem template and is linked up with Mama Kat’s writer’s workshop. This isn’t at all what I thought I was writing about when I started, but there you go.

Filed Under: Motherhood, Postpartum depression, Pregnancy, Writing Tagged With: expectations, perspective

I’m a Syndicated Poet

April 6, 2012 By Robin 10 Comments

I bet you didn’t know I was a poet. Actually, I’m not. But I did try my hand at a sestina (a structured poem) and figured I’d enter it in the BlogHer poetry contest.

And whaddya know – I won! Pretty cool, right?

Come read it!

Filed Under: Happy things, Writing

Writing Dangerously

February 29, 2012 By Robin 30 Comments

“Write something dangerous,” he challenged us.

It was the “fall back in love with writing” part of the session description that drew me in. I need that. Badly. So I went to the session at Blissdom.

I actually quite liked that one. Jeff Goins is a young guy—younger than I am, I’d wager—and when he first got up in front of a room full of women to talk about the love of writing I was a little nervous for him. Because he looked a little nervous. But then he got going and it was clear this was a topic he had a handle on.

He talked about how we get to the point where we lose our love of writing because we’re not writing for ourselves anymore. I totally get that. I just don’t think that’s my problem.

I’ve always written for myself. Sure, now and then I do something sponsored because, hey, we all need money, but also because writing things like that actually challenges me. I want to maintain my own voice and not turn into a commercial, because that is so not who I am, and that’s not an easy thing to do when writing about somebody else’s product or service. It’s just not.

But here’s the thing. Writing for myself is tough when there are things I can’t write about. Two or three of them, at the moment, which adds up to rather a lot when you consider how much brain space they take up.

One of them is related to work, and while I’d love to muse about taking on a new job in a new city amid all kinds of other things going on, it seems ill-advised. So that’s a no go.

A second is just a personal thing and it’s sort of related to the work thing. Every day I write post after post about this in my head, but they’re not going to appear on these pages. At least not yet.

Write something dangerous? What would that be? Both of those things would fall into that category, I think, but my filter is standing firm on those two.

Something about a personal experience, maybe? That’s almost entirely what this blog has been so far. Yelling at my baby? Been there, wrote that. Being told by my husband he felt I was abusive? Covered it. Seeing a way out in a bottle of pills? It’s already out there.

Dangerous is not my problem.

So what should I write about? How about this:

A couple of weeks ago, I lowered the dose of my anti-depressants. With the advice of my new doctor, I cut it by a quarter. I want to do more. I want to slash the dosage and perhaps literally throw that bottle of pills into a field of snow. But that’s not how it works.

So I cut it down a little bit. Staying safe. Being smart. And you know what? It’s kind of kicking my ass.

This medication is tied to me by a blanket of dependence and resentment. This was the only thing that worked but the piece of me that’s thankful for that is pushed down into a corner, buried by frustration over how little control I have over whether I keep taking it.

I’m going to have to come off it eventually. I mean, yes, I could stay on it forever, and part of me is prepared for that, but there’s a part of me that’s yelling louder. A part that’s adamant that I should find out if I can function without it. And whenever that is, I know I’m going to have to go through the horrible transition that seems to be a part of this particular medication. The transition that builds a brick wall around reality so that all I can see is the scrawled graffiti, boldly proclaiming in angry red letters that “LIFE SUCKS.”

Yes, I guess that’s dangerous. So I wrote about it.