Week Four: The State of the Heart

Chapter Five “The State of the Heart” may evoke more private writing. As always, you shouldn’t feel compelled to share what you write. On the other hand, you may find that sharing some of the more emotional details can be healing, can offer some release.

Much of the chapter focuses on writing about the lows rather than the highs. You may find that this is where you need to park for the week (or beyond). If, on the other hand, you choose to focus on the highs—joys, happiness—move on to suggestions in the end of the chapter or adapt the process.

One more note: While much of this chapter–even this book–moves one to write memoir, it can also prove helpful in writing fiction. In fact, when I look back at novels that stick with me or that move me, I find the author (1. uses figurative language freshly and effectively and (2. leads me to empathize strongly with characters. One weakness I identify in my own fiction writing is my reluctance to get my characters in trouble and to leave them there. If this is your situation, then filter the directions through the telling of your characters’ stories.

Part I: Take your own emotional temperature. Finish the sentence, Right now I’m feeling _________________ or This week I’ve felt _______________________. Identifying your emotions is just a start, though. That old cliché “Show, don’t tell” is tried and true.

Since we may all be working with different goals in mind, to decide where to start or stay this week, here are a few more fill-in-the-blanks:

I can’t quit thinking (or talking) about ____________________ .

I wish I could find the words to write about ___________________.

I just can’t talk about ________________________

What keeps me away at night is _______________________.

If answers come easily, you may want to address the life events privately in your journal or publically in letter or essay form; otherwise, you might decide to transform them into poetry or fiction or literary non-fiction, told in third, rather than first person.

Journaling, as McClanahan points out in this chapter, can help to uncover your more complex feelings. You may know you’re sad, but not realize that you’re also experiencing fear or loneliness or anger. “Write,” she advises, “until the truth emerges” (81).

Part II. Turn the abstract to concrete.

Once you’ve identified the emotion or the emotional experience for which you want to find words, explore metaphors or similes that help to make that emotion concrete. In the chapter, she mentions metaphors comparing situations to a trough or a rocking boat.

Losing a job is like _______________________________________.

My unexpected diagnosis was ___________________________.

What metaphor could describe the change in family dynamics once the children are grown and gone. Hasn’t “empty nest” been overused? Can you come up with your own and extend it?

You are encouraged in this chapter to describe a place that represents where you are in this emotional experience. What is the weather? What colors evoke the emotions most appropriately? If you had to set it to music, what musical genre or particular song would you choose?

In giving your emotions a place and a physical heft, explore all your senses.

Part III. Writing as catharsis.

Even though we may not all be in the middle of an experience that threatens to overwhelm, if you are, this week may give you the opportunity to explore further ways to work through a difficult or tragic experience by writing.

Just as an artist has the whole big box of Crayola crayonss from which to choose, writers have “the whole range of emotions.” Don’t worry if you find inconsistencies in your feelings from day to day. I’m always reminded of friends who’ve confessed to falling into embarrassing fits of irrepressible giggles in the middle of grief, sometimes even during a funeral. You may find your writing about grief or loss or anger may also produce mixed emotions. In your writing (and life in general), give yourself permission not to have to react the way others expect, not to feel you have to meet someone else’s timeline.

I hadn’t thought much before about needing not only to get through a hard time, but the need to exist there for awhile. “Healing” and “closure” may be long-term goals, but for now, give yourself permission to deal with here and now. Instead of closure, as McClanahan points out, sometimes we seek an opening.

Who wants to read about illness? You might be surprised. I attend Poetry Hickory, a local poetry event that regularly features poets with newly published chapbooks or collections. I make a practice of buying one copy for me and one to share.  Cancer survivor Kathryn Kirkpatrick’s Unaccountable Weather, a chapbook exploring the journey, is one I not only enjoyed reading but was comfortable sharing with other cancer survivors. Not maudlin at all, Kirkpatrick’s poems often take a tastefully humorous approach to how breast cancer changes one’s life and one’s perspective.  Another favorite of mine, Malaika King Albrecht’s Lessons in Forgetting explores her life during her mother decline caused by Alzheimer’s disease. She said she considered adding an appendix she would have called “Lessons in Remembering,” since many family members look for ways to help loved ones find ease when memory slips away.

You may consider exploring in writing an experience of your own illness or that of someone close to you. I can attest to the wild range of emotions when my husband went through aortic valve replacement in October. Trust me: we had a lot to laugh about too!

Part IV. Shifting perspectives.

As you write about emotional experiences, try to make some shifts. If you’re writing about a past experiences, try writing in present tense. On the other hand, if you’re going through something right now, you might write as if it has passed.

Shift point-of-view. Can you tell the story without being in the story? If you must, then could you write about yourself in third person? Experiment with writing about an experience from the viewpoints of others who were involved or who might have been observers.

One point McClanahan that says “bears repeating” is that “you may express yourself more readily by writing indirectly than by approaching your feelings head-on” (92). Experiment with other forms or genres.

Part V. Happiness is an emotion too!

When I taught literature, occasionally my students would ask, “Are we ever going to read any happy stories?” Honestly, happiness isn’t boring, but writing about happiness may be more difficult sometimes. Maybe we’re content just to live in it. When we’re in the middle of situations of sorrow or loss, writing may be a response to what McClanahan calls the “foxhole syndrome.” We hunker down in solitude without pen and paper. When we’re happy, we may not feel the same drive to write to survive. Have you ever noticed that misery spawns far more country songs than bliss?

Step one is recognizing happiness.  You may want to begin by making some of the lists suggested in this chapter:

List all the little joys, the reasons to be happy in the present moment.  Try to keep your list as tangible as possible.  Mine right now might include the ripening wild blackberries along the path I walk every day, the first ripe pepper in my porch pots, listening to music with friends on the patio of an inn in Blowing Rock last night as the strong, refreshing breeze from a nearby rainstorm caused the temperatures to plunge ten or fifteen degrees quickly, the squeals of the young teens in the pool next door, the chorus of frogs I hear only when I’m in bed at night.

You too might come up with categories of happiness.  At a poetry reading this past weekend, one of the readers revealed that he is working on a series of poems following Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” What other things or emotions can you look at thirteen ways–more or fewer? You, like Whitman, might find a list poem rising naturally.

As a group of my colleagues discovered this past school year, a step toward finding happiness is the intention to do so.  You don’t even have to be unhappy to want to focus more on happiness. Writing down the small joys gives you an oasis when you need it.  Two years ago, I kept a box and little slips of paper near my bathroom sink. I made a point all year to write down good things that happened in the year. Instead of starting the next year with resolutions, I used January 1 to celebrate the accomplishments and reasons for gratitude in my wake.

Consider writing a poem or paragraph about an emotion in which you find yourself–without naming the emotion at all.