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DIVING DEEPER: A Writing Workshop

Do you feel compelled to write,  but something is stopping you from getting on with it?

Do you feel you have a story to tell, or simply something 'to say' but don't know how to start, or how to continue?

Are you looking for a deeper connection to your self, or a sense of fulfilment?

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Post responses to the assignments from the Assignment Archive room here; if it is a response to a screenwriting/playwrighting assignment, post in the screenwriting/playwrighting room.
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Sandra : Inspirational Ambassador
Sandra New Assignment: Twelve Days http://preview.tinyurl.com/ybdfoek (14 days ago)
Sandra : Inspirational Ambassador
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  Sandra : Inspirational Ambassador

Anonymous Assignment - speaking out 7

Sandra said Jul 1, 5:38 AM:
 

My eyes are getting heavy, but I am still delighted to be here with her…
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This post is anonymously posted in response to this assignment. For more details on how this works, also see this anonymous topic assignment.

COMMENTING:
with this assignment  (as with all work posted on Diving Deeper ) it is important that all comments be about the piece, - the writing - how it affects you, what it is about the writing that works for you etc; not to whoever you think or imagine is the 'author' of the piece.

___________________________________________________________


My eyes are getting heavy, but I am still delighted to be here with her. I giggle and she laughs with me in pure enchantment, sending light drifting in buoyant bubbles across the room. I try to nestle sweetly into her breast, but it is more like a lurching head-butt. Okay, enough of that. I have spent plenty of hours on this playground for now.

The more visits I make, the harder and harder it becomes to leave when I want to. I bang on her shoulder and yell. She takes me upstairs and tucks my body in, patting my back and rubbing my head, but it stops far short of the comfort I desire. Perhaps if I rest in her heart light a bit longer, my soul will be light enough to leave. I will ask her. May I?

I feel a great pressure on my back as she tries again to tuck me in and hold me still for sleep. I realize now that my efforts have been moving the wrong body. I don't understand; I'm doing it the same way I have been all week. I just need a little help…please! I think I'm trapped! What's wrong with me?

She snatches me up and short, terse sounds escape her mouth and bombard me. Her heart light has shrunk. She shoves the suck-toy in my mouth. I don't want it, I'm trying to talk to you. I use every last ounce of my energy to push her hands away, but she overpowers me. I writhe in despair at the exhaustion seeping into my bones. Her heart-light shrinks further. Maybe she cannot hear me. Do we not find joy in each other?

Suddenly I feel as though I am sailing through the air, and my body is dumped unceremoniously onto something soft. Now I see only the cage that contains my body when my spirit is not here to watch it. I cannot see her anymore, but I feel her light growing more distant. A thwack! echoes around me as the room goes completely dark. I am still stuck, now alone. I call even louder in hopes that she will hear me again.

Where are you, dear one? We agreed to do this together! You are my teacher, my guide, my only protection–yet when I sink into your heart in faith, there is nothing there. Would you not stop time to comfort me? Leap across oceans just to catch my tears? Hold back the night to see my smile once more? Have you forgotten the promises your hands made to your belly? When your womb emptied itself, did you empty yourself of me? Pity, poor thing, does she not realize that it is no different now? I reach across universes to find her but come up with only a blanket in each hand. Impulsively I pull them toward me in an embrace, but they are a poor substitute. All I need is your–

The sensation of flying again causes me to momentarily lose control of my voice. My body bumps into hers. She tries to physically hold my head against her so I will sleep, but her breast feels like a bed of needles now. I squirm away as we cruise down the stairs. I see the familiar seat with straps in front of the screen of dancing lights, but instead of placing me in it and making the colors dance, she thrusts me to the floor. The seat becomes a momentary streak across my field of vision before it collides with a dull crack against the far wall.

I call to her yet again, never so desperate in all my life. We can help each other! I made you promises too, remember? Can you hear me? CAN'T YOU HEAR ME?! But her light is worlds away now. My words are not powerful enough. My voice cracks and falls silent.

The seat has righted itself somehow and my body is plopped down in its cradle. An avalanche of prickly sounds pours out of her mouth, hangs in the air a moment, then rolls over me. She turns hardened eyes on me. My blood runs cold. My face feels wet, tight, heavy. I can see my body reaching, arms outstretched and trembling wildly, hands open to receive–what? I am no longer sure.

Come here, darling. I see you are in great need of rest.

I look around expectantly, but it is not her voice I hear. My vision is drenched in waves of golden-white. My waiting hands are grasped by much larger, brighter ones, hands like I used to have. I feel myself lifted, and my tears become tears of gratitude. I clutch tightly at my Mother's gown as she wraps me in arms and wings and great glittering ribbons of opaque greens and pinks, silvers and golds, protecting me as I nurse my injuries.

I guess I shouldn't have expected that it would all be so easy. Surely there had to be a reason why only the most fiery of spirits would even attempt to perfect themselves in the image of this particular god. I peer down for one last moment at my body, now sleeping, slightly red and frowning from its valiant fight; and at my mother's, tense, in a pile on the floor, breath passing her lips like bullets parting the air in no man's land.
  michaelsits : in spite of myself

Re: Anonymous Assignment - speaking out 7

michaelsits said Jul 1, 8:52 AM:
 

Hummm. I am not sure how to comment oont his piece. I eflt like i was being shown a lot, many detaisl but somehow feel liek i was still told more than shown, even though stockpiled wth details. I felt liek i was readig a well-crafted thought-out piece with little freedom and what, rleaxed writing. It feels very direcrted liek the author knew exactly what he/she wanted ot say and made certian it all made into the work. I dont feel the flow and that keeps me from being a part if this little one's journey and need to reach out to me or the mother.

OK, i have it now. I felt liek i was being given a mission statement on being a mother the RIGHT WAY. What i owld have liked is for the wrioter to have dived ito the feelings he/she feel sbehind this piece and let them guide them throgh the writing. Why is this what they want to speak about?  Why do i not feel that this is about what i am reading, where is the conenction to the piece by the writer?

I am uncomfortable making so many comments liek this, especially since i do not knwo whom i am amking them to, but this is what i am feeling. I want this to go deeper, fearward without direction.  Reach fro the pain and fear and suffering that is behind the words.

Please do not take this as a shredding if your assignment. I just felt like i was waitng to connect to moer than the words.

This is where i felt the most energy:

She turns hardened eyes on me. My blood runs cold. My face feels wet, tight, heavy. I can see my body reaching, arms outstretched and trembling wildly, hands open to receive–what? I am no longer sure.

Thanks for sharing your work with us, i encourage you to jump back in and dive even further.

Peace,
michael
  quietlaughter : .

Re: Anonymous Assignment - speaking out 7

quietlaughter said Jul 1, 4:40 PM:
 

How beautiful this is. I actually physically sighed out loud when I finished reading this, fell back in my chair, stunned. I am not even sure where to begin…

The voice of the “I” character is perfect for me. Perfect in the sense, that it is just as I imagine the voice of a newborn or tiny baby – filled with wisdom and cosmic understanding – speaking to his/ her mother in beautiful yet wise tones… knowing the connection in the spirit and still being awkward and unsure of the physical… just not understanding why mum can’t understand what they are saying but knowing from the ‘heart light” that something is very wrong with what is happening. Love the description of the heart light by the way – just beautiful, as was this:

Where are you, dear one? We agreed to do this together! You are my teacher, my guide, my only protection–yet when I sink into your heart in faith, there is nothing there. Would you not stop time to comfort me? Leap across oceans just to catch my tears? Hold back the night to see my smile once more? Have you forgotten the promises your hands made to your belly? When your womb emptied itself, did you empty yourself of me?

And

My vision is drenched in waves of golden-white. My waiting hands are grasped by much larger, brighter ones, hands like I used to have. I feel myself lifted, and my tears become tears of gratitude. I clutch tightly at my Mother's gown as she wraps me in arms and wings and great glittering ribbons of opaque greens and pinks, silvers and golds, protecting me as I nurse my injuries.

And

I peer down for one last moment at my body, now sleeping, slightly red and frowning from its valiant fight; and at my mother's, tense, in a pile on the floor, breath passing her lips like bullets parting the air in no man's land

Beautiful and heartbreaking.

The experience of the “I” character for me is very real, I can feel the words as though they were touching my own soul.. I admire how vivid everything became for me as I continued to read – I could ‘see’ what was happening, while at the same time wishing very much that it wasn’t happening for the “I” character. This piece touched a very deep place.

Thank you for this.
xo
Leigh-Anne
  Sandra : Inspirational Ambassador

Re: Anonymous Assignment - speaking out 7

Sandra said Jul 2, 6:33 AM:
 

wow.
first thing that comes is I want to know what's happening here. I think I know, but I'm not sure. It seems at first that the mother has injured (killed?) her baby – but then I read: ” now sleeping”. This being, this soul, seems to have been taken away by an angel-mother. I wonder if this is story is about a time when the soul is still 'conscious' - soon not to be, soon to be human conscious only… ”The more visits I make, the harder and harder it becomes to leave when I want to.”

I like that I have to 'work' in this piece - I wouldn't want it spelled out - but I think maybe just one or two tiny clarifications might help. I'm not sure about this. Let me take another look…the seat seems to have been thrown against the wall, and then the baby put into it, but the baby is injured..Perhaps the mother's voice is what injures: An avalanche of prickly sounds pours out of her mouth. Yes, that works for me.

What else…I didn't understand: I realize now that my efforts have been moving the wrong body.
The soul body? That feels right.

I was, at first, slightly confused by: Come here, darling. I see you are in great need of rest.

As all the italics so far had come from the soul-baby's voice ( I think..). oh, there is the 'thwack' - which is in italics, so I suppose all italics are the sounds that are actually heard or said.  The sentence did quickly make sense once I read on.

I'd be interested to see some of the mother's words or sounds as specific detail. I think it would open the scene out a bit. eg: she snatches me up and short, terse sounds escape her mouth and bombard me.  - How about 'showing' these sounds? It would also mean less or no confusion with the “Come here darling” sentence.

I am a 'dense' reader, in the sense that I don't get things quickly, so I'd not pay deep attention to my confusion unless there are other readers saying the same thing.

Lots of incredible and heartbreaking images: I reach across universes to find her but come up with only a blanket in each hand. Impulsively I pull them toward me in an embrace, but they are a poor substitute.

Michael's comment. I have some general thoughts about this assignment and the responses that have been made – I'm still figuring out a way to share these – when I figure that out, they might address some of what you wrote, michael.

I liked the specificity of this piece - it's one of the things I wanted to say - how I am most touched when what is written is very specific – I've talked about this before, and it came up in Deena's workshop - how the more particular something is, the more universal it is. So, for me, this did 'work' – in terms of showing me what happens when a mother forgets her soul-connection to her baby. Perhaps I did feel an underlying 'message'- an agenda - I'm wondering if it's really possible (or necessary?) to do this assignment without having an agenda, as the assignment is about 'sending a message out to the world'. And as I have mentioned, I do think it's possible to allow that something changes as one writes, that perhaps the original 'message' one hopes to share shifts as we write, as we let what wants to be written written.

Love,
Sandra
  Sandra : Inspirational Ambassador

Re: Anonymous Assignment - speaking out 7 - Part 2

Sandra said Jul 6, 9:18 AM:
 

I hear her talking to herself behind me - grunting, squealing, screaming, great gasping baby giggles...

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As per the suggestion to continue. Note commenting guidelines as above.

___________________________________________________________

I hear her talking to herself behind me - grunting, squealing, screaming, great gasping baby giggles. If anyone were here to see, they could easily think she was the happiest, most loved baby in the world. I stand up from my chair, stepping over her to get the jasmine tea off the stove. For the briefest of moments my eyes accidentally meet hers. In that instant, her blue eyes become a bit bluer and she grins a toothless grin as though she had been specifically waiting for this moment all morning. I take a deep breath and continue walking.

The kid's smart. She listens to me. I sign to her all day, and I know she understands me. She stares at me when I throw things around and swear up a storm because I want me-time but she's calling out to play, or because I can't find the remote. I'll get what's coming to me someday, when I'm walking through the grocery store with her and she drops her sippy cup and yells shit goddamn sonufabitch and all the other mothers pause in their mothering to give me disapproving glares. Yet somehow in these moments I am dumb enough to forget that she is not just a fly on the wall.

I shook her last night. Yes, I said shook her. I didn't do it hard enough to hurt her. I might be rough with her when I am exhausted and frustrated and falling apart, but I would never hurt her, I don't think. But then, I didn't think I would ever shake a baby and drop her in her crib to scream just for being a helpless little baby. What the hell's the matter with me? How can I be endlessly compassionate and caring one moment but the next I'm descending into the darkest depths of rage? What if I end up like that mother on House who was mentally ill and strangled her baby right in the hospital and then sobbed over it the next morning? What if everyone was like me and just turned off the good mommy switch at 10:00 PM and every baby that was a nuisance after that got shaken or strangled? I wonder if we'd have a race of happier, more self-sufficient babies. I wouldn't have made it out of infancy.

How can I be such a hypocrite? Some mothers would sell their souls for one more chance to be awoken at 3 in the morning by their son's or daughter's cries. For these women, the silence is haunting. Should God ever see fit to offer a mother such a miracle, I suppose she wouldn't spare a single sleepy-eyed moment bolting to scoop her sweet little one in arms. I imagine she would take the purest joy in wrapping him in the softest blanket she could find and walking out to show him the moon - rocking, dancing, singing in the sweet frigid pre-dawn air, holding heart against heart, clutching the little body until her wrists feel arthritic and frozen and praying that the sun will never come up.

I forget that I am one of these women. I'm such an ungrateful prick. At least this one didn't change her mind and turn back after she got a glimpse of me. I look at my daughter and imagine she is my son. It nearly pitches me to my knees in a great deep moment of gratitude. But I turn quickly and am able to dodge the moment, and it doesn't try to follow.
  "Mudge" : Curmudgeon in Chief

Re: Anonymous Assignment - speaking out 7

"Mudge" said Jul 6, 10:48 AM:
 

This is a response to *part 1* of this speaking out.  (according to the reply widget, one can only reply to the thread, not the post)
Some authors convey an idea, others visual imagery.  I got an emotional response to my first reading of this.  I identify with -I- immediately.  _I_ feel alone, frustrated, unable to communicate words.  _I_ can't understand why there is rejection instead of love.
This is an effective piece.