This is a long blog. I'm taking the secret of Natalie Goldberg's workshop that I'm writing about to heart. It's this: Shut up and write!
Just as my former colleagues were getting geared up to start the new school year, I took a plane to Albany, NY and a shuttle to Kripalu Institute in Stockbridge, MA. I left early Friday, August 24th. I was going to take a writing class with Natalie Goldberg and Sean Murphy.
I didn't know who Sean Murphy was but I had read Natalie Goldberg's book Writing Down the Bones. I watched a couple of interviews with her on YouTube. I also had her book
Old Friend from Far Away: The Practice of Writing Memoir
on disc. The goal was to be prepared for my class. The problem with listening to that book in the car was Natalie would say in her New- Mexicanized Brooklyn accent (which mean that it is slow, slow, slow Brooklyneeze) "Write about what you regret. Don't make excuses. Just write." In the car this is hard to do. How do you write while driving. I would listen to the book for 15 minutes before I got anywhere so I could write when I arrived.
Because of this I thought I had an idea of what to expect in her class. Ha!
Kripalu is a type of yoga. So the institute is full of thin people in yoga pants and middle aged people, mostly women, who were there for the workshops on Awakening or Life Changes or Natalie Goldberg. The food is just a little too healthy. No coffee in the cafeteria. Everyone is mellow even if they are all from the East Coast. The building used to be a Jesuit monastery. It looks like every other building built by the Catholic Church in 1957. The grounds, however, are spectacular. The picnic tables overlook a lovely lake with the Berkshire mountains all around.
The workshop was in what used to be the church. Rows of chairs, with back buddy meditation seats in rows on the floor in front of the chairs. A new best friend (I made several that weekend) encouraged me to sit on the floor on the meditation chairs. I was hoping I'd be able to get up after 3 hours of sitting there. I was one of about 150 students in the room. I had my spiral notebook with a tied died looking cover and my new fast writing pen.
Natalie Goldberg comes out. She talks for a minute, makes everyone move their seats around because good writers break the structure. The one rule was we had to face her. You can break the structure if you hold onto at least some of the bones. "Okay", she says, "You're going to write for 10 minutes, no talking, your topic is What my Scars Are. Start." Maybe she talked for a couple minutes before that but it didn't feel like she had.
After 10 minutes, she talked about pens, and monkey mind, and writing from the mind. "Okay, your next topic is the places you've lived. Give me details, address, everything. Go." As soon as we were done we were told to get into groups of three with people we didn't know and read. The rule was read one after the other, first one topic around the group, then the next. The only person who got to talk was the reader. You could pass. No, not any comments. BAM!
This went on. She read a few stories of famous authors, asking us to recall details. She pointed out how the structures were broken. We broke up at 9 p.m. We were given 4 topics to write about. Find a group. If someone asks to join you, let them. The homework topics included, What I don't know about my mother, I think I will, I remember, I don't remember. I joined a group. We had never met before. We wrote for 10 minutes, then read, wrote then read. Kind of like lather, rinse, repeat. We did this until we were numb.
The assignment Sean gave us was Before my parents were born what was my original face? A Buddhist question, I believe.
The whole weekend was like this. We learned to meditate, to get deeper, then write, then read, then listen to Natalie and Sean, who was funny with little quips shooting out of him. Lather, rinse, repeat.
We noticed our writing actually got better as we got more and more tired. We learned to ignore the Monkey Mind, that voice that says, "You're dumb!, Your writing is stupid! No one will ever want to read this! You're ugly, too!"
We learned each other's secrets but didn't comment on them unless invited to after the writing was put away. And then it was only the personal things, like you have 4 kids so close together. Or how long ago was your divorce? Not details just facts.
We were exhausted.
The final writing assignment was: What I will miss when I die. I think lots of other people cried but I sobbed as I wrote and it took a long time to read, tissues and tissues long. I was cleansed.
This is what I wrote as the penultiment writing.
The prompt: I want to say
I want to say thank you for the camaraderie this sanctuary fosters. For the new best friends even if they are just for this one moment in time.
I want to say thank you for laughter at ourselves to help cover our vulnerabilities as we expose our souls.
I want to say thank you to my mothers mothering and Mark's death to give me so much material.
Thank you for the sweat soaked muggy room.
The Yoga Dance that cleared me and made me long, long, long for more.
For Susan's bottle of Poma shared stealthily in ice filled paper cups.
For the beginning of understanding that writing will help cure what ails me.
For a labyrinth with a peace pole center surprising me on a chakra colored journey.
This weekend was meant to be the transition piece from my 2nd grade classroom to what ever was next. I want to say it has been startlingly so. Not at all what my mind's imagining expected but perhaps my soul knew. Perhaps the universe sent me.
Serendipity or Synchronicity? I double I'll ever figure the difference. Accident or a conspiracy of the universe.
Which of these heart wrenching, heart opening moments will I carry forward? What comment someone made will keep surfacing years later?
What I want to say is my heart is full of gratitude for the gift of this weekend.
Onto the journey.
with much love,
Lee-Ann
