firstwivesworld - Dangerous Writing - Comments

huh?

Elaina Goodman — Thu, 15 May 2008 17:55:04 -0400

I'm don't get this response? You could also say grief is the price we pay for life, right? But, I wouldn't trade either to avoid it.

My father used to tell me

Cathy Meyer — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:54:19 -0400

My father used to tell me that I was, "In love with love." He was right. I spent years trading love for fear. Hanging in no matter how badly I was treated. I overlooked character flaws in the person I was "in love with" and in myself. It wasn't easy when I had to face what I had done to myself for so many years. My only regret is that I didn't realize what my father was trying to tell me before he passed away. What I wouldn't give to be able to tell him that I finally got it.

GRIEF IS THE PRICE WE PAY FOR LOVE....

Guest — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:44:45 -0400

-end of story

"More human and more

Guest — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:19:29 -0400

"More human and more loving." Love that, and I think you're on to something! And so true that we are all haunted! I never thought of it in those terms! RBYS

Congratulations!

Elaina Goodman — Thu, 15 May 2008 12:18:45 -0400

It's an amazing thing, the way embracing our darkness creates so much light. The way, when we can be compassionate with ourselves, it extends to everyone and everything around us. And you right, boy is it frightening sometimes.

Beautifully described . . .

Guest — Thu, 15 May 2008 09:08:59 -0400

Elaina, what a beautiful reflection about what is so true. I believe with my ex, although I did love him, I was more in love with love itself. And the moment his affair started, I moved instantly into fear mode. How could I ever find another person to love and more importantly, love me back? It has been almost a year since the divorce, and I can say for the first time in my life, I am in love with myself. My whole self, all of my humanness, and more and more I am embracing deeper aspects of my darkness and my lightness. At times, I do feel haunted by all of it, as the deeply emotional rollercoaster of divorce did strip me down to the bare level of what I was and who I was in my own skin. And boy, at times, I was scared with what I found. But, as I embraced more of this rawness, more of my authenticity came through, and continues to do so. I feel like for the first time in my life, I am not hiding behind a mask to please anybody, even that person I thought I should or must be for my own false view of what contributes to joy, energy, and passion. And, I am by far more human and more loving, and now I am at peace with the "dangerousness" of being a human, due to what manifested after moving successfully through the danger from my divorce. And, good luck with the rest of your writing workshop. You obviously are open and ready for such deep reflection and writing.

Dangerous Writing

Elaina Goodman — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:00:47 -0400

On Thursday afternoons I go to a writing workshop in the basement of a local novelist's home. You've maybe read some books workshopped and developed in that basement, or seen the movies.

"Dangerous Writing," it's called. Dangerous because it's about going deep into places that scare you, the vulnerable places, and writing from them.

The sore spots, my teacher calls them. It's fiction writing, mostly. Characters created to explore places too hard to go alone.

He's the real deal. Along with a Pulitzer-nomination and his seemingly bottomless stores of compassion, he has a gift for intuitively guiding writers into the heart of their own hauntings.

We are all of us haunted, he says.

And he lives it. His books are brilliant and beautiful, but they aren't easy.

A couple weeks ago he was talking about how, for a long time, his boyfriends were just anyone who loved him.

I wonder how many of us do this. First fall in love with the love itself, regardless of who is loving us. Then stick around long after we should just in case there's no one else. Trade fear for love.

Because what if this is as good as it gets.

Or what if, in leaving, we are forced to see ourselves. The good, the bad, the hauntings, all of it. See who is living in our skin.

There's no hiding from yourself on the page and there's no hiding from yourself in divorce. It strips you down, exposes every place you never wanted to see.

It's dangerous business, being human.

The reward for seeing, for living circumstances that weren't supposed to be, is, hopefully, we put ourselves back together stronger and healthier.

More human and more loving.