My words--and my heart--feel frozen

My words--and my heart--feel frozen.

They froze this past month as I watched multiple videos of Americans shooting Americans on American soil. Not just shooting but murdering, execution-style, as if I was watching a scene from some Hollywood movie about the mob or the invasion of an alien army. Only it wasn’t a movie. It wasn’t an alien army.

My stomach tightened in horror at the sound of gunshots and the sight of weapons raised and fired by Americans on innocent Americans, and my stomach is still clenched, still mourning Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti, two Americans who stepped forward to observe and protect immigrants, those among us who are the least safe and the least protected.

This morning, feeling the weight of grief, I didn’t want to write anything. Not a word. What could I say that would change anything? How could I write anything about the writing process when the act of writing itself seemed so futile, such a small act, compared to people being gunned down on the street for simply raising their voices or for offering help to those beside them who might have fallen down?

I pulled up a chair, anyway. I needed some way of overcoming the weight of this sadness and grief, this despair that has come with the murders and with the failure of anyone in this administration to hold the murderers accountable.

The journal page in front of me was blank. I stared at it, not thinking I had any words to offer. Not thinking I had anything to say. But I realized this: if I didn’t keep writing, one more voice would be silenced. Not by a bullet but by my own fear. By my own cowardice. By my own inability to stand up to forces that want to silence anyone who dares take a stand against this administration’s endless stream of propaganda.

And so I lifted my pen and started writing, and with each word I began to understand how important it is to keep writing through the sadness and despair, through the doubts and the fears, to keep writing in order to keep alive the dream of America, the America that I believe in, the America that Good and Pretti gave their lives to preserve, an America that offers freedom to all.

I can still feel my stomach clench in horror at the public executions of people who had the courage and compassion to join so many others and stand up for human rights and for democracy—for an America they believed in and which so many of us believe in, even as the boots of those carrying out the orders -- sent from the desk in the White House occupied by a man who imagines himself king -- try to stamp out the American dream, as if the dream itself is nothing more than a figment of our imagination, a fantasy, a tiny candle flame, rather than an unquenchable idea that over the centuries has forged a nation of immigrants into a beacon of light for the rest of the world.

The America that I know and believe in is a country that welcomes refugees regardless of skin color, religious belief, or country of origin. It welcomes those who need a home and provides a sanctuary to build a life, gain an education, raise a family, create the space to make art, build a business, or do the research that might lead to a new scientific discovery. It’s an America where we can join hands and together fulfill our hopes and dreams, our longing for liberty, our desire for freedom from oppression, our belief in love not hate, our trust in democracy not totalitarianism.

Maybe all I’m trying to say is thank you to all the demonstrators in Minnesota and elsewhere who have stood in frigid temperatures for days to remind us of where we live and what our country stands for. Maybe all I’m trying to say is thank you to Renee Good and Alex Pretti for your willingness to take a stand, for showing us how and why we all need to take a stand.

We owe so much to everyone taking a stand, for insisting that words matter, for demanding that all lives matters, for letting us know that stories and poems and songs matter.

The sound of your voices in the streets of Minneapolis and other American cities inspires us to keep looking for the good in people, to keep believing in the future, to keep writing to unfreeze our hearts and our words.

Getting Unstuck

This is the morning you hit a wall. 

You don't know the answer. You don't even know the question to ask. And you stop. You come to a halt. With no way to go forward. 

So what do you do?

Give up? Figure out another way to keep going? Where do you find the answer? How do you keep going when you don't know where you're going, or what comes next, or how to go forward?

What do you do if you're unable to move? Feeling stuck?

How do you get unstuck?

You can't stare at the page forever. 

So, maybe, if words and ideas don't come, you put the pen away. 

Close the journal. Tell yourself it's not yet time. The words will come, just not today.

Read instead. Open a book. Lose yourself in someone else's story or poem. Fill yourself with words.

Or watch a movie. Dive into story. Let the images wash over you like a cool, refreshing stream.

Or go outside for a walk. 

Think away from your desk. Or stop thinking. 

Let life unfold minute by minute, and savor the process of unfolding. 

See what's around you, make discoveries as you walk. Or sit by a lake and dream.

Watch clouds floating by. Notice sunlight falling on leaves. Listen to the wind. 

Wait for words to come, to reveal the answer to the question you couldn't solve a moment ago.

And suddenly a door will open, and there it is waiting for you.

And you are unstuck, Your hand is moving across the page again.

Writing.

Barrier Reefs

Have you ever brushed up against a barrier reef that prevents you from swimming any further?

Whenever that happens to me, I find it helpful to switch directions and alter my course.

If I'm working on a novel, I'll switch to a short story, or turn to my journal, or search through old files to explore long-forgotten works-in-progress.

But sometimes switching directions isn't enough. I have to pull myself out of the water entirely and sit on shore and gaze at the water, trying to figure out a way to swim around the barrier reef.

I'll turn to books on writing, for instance, or I might read about how other artists have managed to swim past barriers in their own work.

That's what happened recently.

I was searching for something in the bookstore to help me swim past a barrier that I'd unexpectedly encountered in a current project, and I wandered into the photography section and found The Tao of Photography: Seeing Beyond Seeing by Philippe L. Gross and S. I. Shapiro.

And I opened the book to a chapter titled "Barriers to Seeing."

Here's one of the passages which helped me see beyond the reef that had kept me from swimming forward:

Many photographers, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Jeff Berner, and Freeman Patterson, have claimed that the need to control is the greatest barrier to seeing. According to the psychologist Abraham Maslow, the need to control a situation rather than be receptive to it is often driven by "deficiency-motivations," which are primarily related to an individual's need of psychological safety and security.

So, if we find ourselves encountering barriers to "seeing" our stories, our blindness may be attributed to our need to control the story... our desire for "psychological safety and security"... rather than being receptive to the character's needs and desires... and letting the story play itself out.

And then I came across this helpful quote from Kathryn Marx:

A split-second decision determines whether you capture a situation, as well as how well you capture it. You've already thought about your subject and know the reason why you've placed yourself in a particular situation. But once you are there, you must try to empty your mind of all thought in order for you to be completely in the moment and receptive to your intuition and your surroundings. Simply react to them with uncluttered clarity.

Isn't what Marx describes the kind of receptivity that writers strive for in the moment of telling our stories?

And here's another quote that lingered in my mind long after I closed the book:

Beyond its usefulness for creating good photographs, receptivity is also a state of mind worthy of enjoyment in and of itself. When asked what he looks for in photographing, Michael Smith replied: "I am not looking for anything. I'm just looking--trying to have as full an experience as possible. The point is to have a full experience--the photograph is just a bonus."

Maybe that's something to think about the next time you find yourself--like me--bumping up against a barrier reef, unable to swim any further.

Instead of worrying about the story, try to forget the story... and simply enjoy looking, as Smith suggests, and having "as full an experience as possible."

Perhaps then the barrier will disappear and you'll be able to keep swimming.

For more information about the Tao of Photography, visit:
http://books.google.com/books?dq=tao+of+photography&pg=PP1&sig=zwM0ZQcHTU3AAAyS3VtSWpxaZZg&q=tao+of+photography&ct=title&id=yG-lQ17hmaMC&ots=Gh939JyCIp&output=html

And thinking about the tao of photography led, naturally, to thinking about the tao of writing:
http://www.susanborkin.com/excerpt_tao_of_writing.htm