Jen Knox's Blog, page 5

The magic of storytelling resides in the polarity, the precision and abstraction

"Every word is a citizen in this collective hope toward clarity and expansion. And like any civic project, every citizen matters. Every word counts." —Ocean Vuong

I grabbed this quote from an old interview. In it, Ocean also speaks about the necessity of writing something to become “bigger” than the limitations of the body.

He speaks about specificity with the same reverence that he speaks about the feeling of being part of something more abstract. Every word, every comma, he says, counts. Similarly, we must not forget the creative expansion possible when we offer this sort of precise attention.

To create means to exist in this polarity. We create our best work with a bit of surrender. Swoop in, and let our conscious attention pan out. Ask questions. Look back. Steady. Prepare. See the step. Explore the journey.

I’m contemplating this as I embark on a week of contemplation and writing.

I just arrived. Tired. I’m staying at a writer’s residency in rural Tennessee, a 7-hour drive from my house. Residencies offer the chronically overworked, like myself, a combination of silence and beauty that generally ignites something unexpected. This particular residency is where I wrote Chaos Magic and revised much of my forthcoming memoir.

In the past, whenever I have gone to any residency, it was with a clear purpose and project. (Usually, you need one of those to get in.) But at the time I’m writing this particular blog post, I just arrived after completing the project I thought I’d work on here.

So what is there to do upon arriving? I have no idea what I’m going to write.

I take a walk and listen. I land half a mile from the residency beneath a gray cloud that releases drops on my bare arms. It’s hot and the perfect amount of rain.

College Grove, Tennessee

Here in rural Tennessee, south-west of my home, the trees are a deeper green, and the sun seems lower in the sky. When I walk down gravel roads, my footfall is the loudest thing I hear. The few people I see generally wave and seem as much a part of nature as the grass or clouds. Blended.

Southern Magnolia

Late (for me) on night one, I sit. Wait. I feel myself at that familiar creative threshold, still thinking about polarities and how the greatest creative trick is to pay closer attention, and—at the same time—not try to impose or define. Years ago, this stage of writing on the blank page or embarking on something new was uncomfortable. But now, it feels like sacred ground.

I swoop in, ready.

I invite you to do this with me. See if you can tap the polarity. Find a simple object. Get close. Give it words or images. Time. And repeat, until you find expansion.

Inspiration from Joy Williams: “[The writer] writes to serve … something. Somethingness. The somethingness that is sheltered by the wings of nothingness—those exquisite, enveloping, protecting wings.

Let’s see what kind of magic we can create. (This is an early post for me, but I’ll report back next week. If you’d like to read more on residencies, go here. And paid subscribers, if you’d like to hear me ramble on happily about resilience, go here.)

from an Insight Timer Live on Creative Resilience

This was a live session in which we discussed how creativity lends itself to resilience. There are meditations and a lot of rambling, but my hope is it offers you some insight and a lot of inspiratio…

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The before and after tells the story

For years, the scene I wanted to write wouldn’t come. The memory settled beneath my ribs and waited. The problem was one part inability and two parts fear. Whenever I started to write it, even for myself, I’d end up on safer ground.

The transformational times in our lives and thresholds we pass are the very reason stories exist and hold power. Meanwhile, we are often told that the tough stuff is too much. We have to fictionalize it or else it's therapy on the page, and we are navel-gazing and self-indulgent.

I agreed with this line of thinking for a long time. We might also believe, validly, that sharing certain aspects of our past as nonfiction will cement our identity to the scene itself. But it will only do so for those who are not our true audience.

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I recently saw a post on another platform in which a writer friend of mine said that everything is fiction. I believe this in a meandering philosophical sense—we can never fully know the truth, let alone tell it—but I also believe something counter.

Creativity is always a reflection of a person’s lived reality, those memories we share and those we try to repress or deny.

Fiction, poetry and CNF are always autobiographical in the sense that they are funneled through a single perspective and refined with a single set of experiential tools. Even others’ stories, well-researched, are told through our lens. This is what makes the conversation interesting.

And for this same reason, genre aside, human creativity demands vulnerability because it exposes some aspect of us.

When I finally gave myself permission to allow the words to flow, I also found a new vista of the past, and a reminder of the magic I believed in when I was a small child. The change I saw inevitable in others, in nature, and myself. Magic, to me, lives in the cycles and movement of everything, the before and after. And I remembered it when I realized no one story is more or less valuable.

From a craft perspective, I also learned to approach things in a less linear fashion. And I also played with perspective.

“Chronology is entirely artificial and essentially determined by emotion.”

—W.G. Seabald

Memories that are inaccessible on the surface are still quite present in our lives. They can be tapped with our creative efforts. It’s not always easy and not always predictable when they’ll surface or when we’ll trust ourselves enough to let them surface.

I believe we have to write our way toward them.

The problem of repressed memories—beyond fallibility and emotional trickiness—is that they often materialize with force and present an unwanted, ill-timed obstacle course that pushes us to mental extremes. If explored, however, the memory may feed something unexpected and beautiful. A self acknowledgement.

In this way, perhaps it’s those who do not write about the tough stuff who are navel-gazing. We are releasing.

That said, it's not easy to share. When writing to tap memory or because a memory arises, it is necessary to slow down the process and truly approach it with tenderness and care.

I am not a patient person, but I did practice slowness with this work, its surprising nature; and I encourage you to do the same with topics you are avoiding in your work. To practice patience with one’s self soothes the creative mind and allows us to get to the space we need to be to go to the deeper places that only dedicated writers know.

The joyous memories warm us when we feel frozen by inaction and remind us how temporary and beautiful the movement of life is. The difficult ones test us and nudge us toward our deeper selves.

Photo by Jeremy Bishop

If memories are a struggle to capture, play with time. There’s always a sensation or minor detail to act as our portal into what wants to release. This is the ultimate foundational writing advice, but it’s also advice for living fully.

If the memories remain stubborn, walk the path again. Explore the same paragraph, the same textures and scents, and joys and pains. Write that paragraph over and over, until it becomes something more like a door that you can walk through and into the creative depths.

Or, do as I did, write about the before and after. A brief exercise is below. This has never failed me. Make it your own.

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Prompt:

Briefly describe a time when/place where you were transformed.

Describe what happened right before in one scene.

Describe what happened right after in one scene.

Return to the transformation.

The essay, which I finally wrote in ‘23, won the CutBank Montana Prize in CNF. It reappears in SFWP Quarterly. It’s a small glimpse of my forthcoming essay collection AT WORK (Cornerstone Press UWSP), which explores the many minimum wage jobs I worked, and a few that paid well at a high cost.

A YEAR OF LIFE

Arvitalya, UkraineYou’re taking a sip of coffee or tea. You’re driving. You’re laughing with friends and family. You’re alone. You’re in pain and awaiting reprieve. You’re well and unaware. You’re fighting for justice (again). You’re at peace. Wherever you are, whoever and whatever surrounds you, take a moment to imagine this breath, right now, is your last. It is not scary, it does not hurt. It simply is.

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When Death ComesText within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedMary OliverWhen death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purseto buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death comes like the measle-pox;when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, and I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility,and I think of each life as a flower, as common as a field daisy, and as singular,and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, tending, as all music does, toward silence,and each body a lion of courage, and something precious to the earth.When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.When it's over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real.I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument.I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.That last line again, Mary Oliver.Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published"I don't want to end up simply having visited this world."

We made it the full year. If you’re stopping by this blog for the first time, you might want to start by clicking the 52 weeks link above.

If you’ve been with me, or you’re just experimental enough to fully commit, practice with me now. This will only take a moment.

Imagine this final inhale, and indulge the idea that you can look back on your life in its totality. This doesn’t take more than a moment.

Now, I invite you to write.

Final prompt: “When I look back …”

[Now, fill in as many lines as you can in one sitting, allowing whatever comes—be that concrete and sensory rich or delightfully vague but resonant; don’t try to make it poetic, just be honest. Guttural. True.]

When I look back …

I see humor, angst, joy and love.

I find the time I closed my eyes and went deep, the times I pushed ahead when I wanted to stay at home.

I revisit the connectivity and moments of solitude in equal measure and with understanding.

I tap into that lightness in my cheeks, however weighed down they may have been at times, and I remember those around me, those who lifted them.

I hear laughter and tears that are unmuffled and too close.

I can see the exact moment I lost my way, and the moment I realized that losing the way was the only way.

I feel the honesty of a confidence pose as I use my crooked pinky finger to hit the Enter button on a new paragraph.

I see the brilliance of the woods near my house and the slow gait of my dying dog and the aging of my own body.

I see the worry with an onslaught of news and the true loss of my uncle and the ever-new and never-new beginnings in the stories I’d never heard.

I see the falls that became crashes and awkward steps and remembrances that allowed me to dance.

I smell the dog food on my pup’s breath as she sneak-attacks me with a kiss.

I consider timelessness. I sit with what is timeless in me.

I feel the closeness of a hug, the gentleness of a head tilt, the kindness of a soft light in someone’s eyes that reminds me of so many lights, a single light.

I feel the giddiness of release, total release—the humor of the entirety of the thing—and I believe that to be possible.

I feel release.

I taste release.

I release.

I feel the fullness of a single breath, and I trust the release.

“Death is perfectly safe.”
― Stephen Levine, A Year to Live

I hope this thought experiment helped you to appreciate something new about your journey, and I hope you had even one moment of realization or shift of perspective that introduced you to something deeper in yourself.

You are invited to start this journey anew (which I will be doing in my private journals) by going straight to the prompts. I may compile them some day, but it’s also very possible they’ll simply remain here.

We had a year to live. Now, here we are in this moment.

And that’s all we have.

Though we are beyond death at this point, trust me, I will have a lot to say until I don’t. And whether you let me know it or not, your presence this year has been felt. I’ll still be here to explore creativity, philosophy, and leadership.

I invite you to share what you come up with below. I adore you, and I adore sharing this life with you.

—Jen

New friends, This is the end of our 52-week challenge. You can revisit it any time. Subscribers, Let’s debrief this exercise, or just connect to discuss all things writing, mindful living, and creative resilience. Join me Friday, May 23 at 9 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET; Saturday, June 21 at 9 a.m. PT /12 p.m. ET; or Friday, July 11 at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET for a community Zoom get-together. I want to keep these circles relatively small, so sign up today. To RSVP, go here.

Boundless Creative Energy

In art the hand can never execute anything higher than the heart can inspire. —Ralph Waldo Emerson

A sincere thanks and offering to those who support my work. Let me know what you create! We can discuss it here on the 23rd. xo Jen

On letting go of the things we carry, remembering we are not alone & week 51 of 52

“They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity.”
― Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

Imagine looking through a glass kaleidoscope, up toward the light, and turning the lens for the first time. A play of color and ever-changing patterns takes over your visual field. Everything you see is in motion, dancing, then the wheel stops, and there remains a single image.

Storytelling, deep listening, and immersing ourselves in others’ stories can allow us to glimpse what humanity shares, a constant motion of growth and rebirth that means ever-changing perspective. But storytelling can also exist as a real part of the world that wants to sell us division and the myth that we are alone and in competition, that we are only this or only that.

We are always shifting and struggling, but this human condition is ours, not yours or mine. We are in this together. What this means, to me, is that we are never alone.

Meanwhile, a single topic can do a million things: declare and instruct, coerce and exploit, explore the same information according to different timelines, or form questions into narratives that offer an emotional tug. If all humans are driven to feel connected to something, especially when we think about life as ephemeral, this means we are vulnerable to story.

The stories that feed us take what we see and attempt to look beyond one view, to show a dance of light and color, if you will, and invite us to explore. They educate us by getting to one root form of the word, educere, which means to support the realization of potential. And this sort of education—one of helping others to come to their own potentials as part of the whole—to me, is the antidote to both a belief we cannot change and a desire to keep things the same.

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I am a strong advocate of being honest to a fault, and I believe this is how we find our potential.

I’ve known more than a few people in my life who are very good at changing the narratives in their minds to “see the bright side” or be polite. I’ve watched as they misremembered others’ ideas as their own or rationalized truly selfish behavior to preserve their ego and peace of mind. They mimic what they believe is popular or neutralize to earn the least resistance.

Some are so adept at capturing audiences with a well-packaged story that exploits common human desires, they can be mesmerizing, but their stories never last. No matter how hard they try to keep things static, light and perspective will inevitably move. True and lasting awe for our human condition comes from releasing attachments to our egoic urges and the stories that weigh us down or keep us static.

I think there are emotional and literal hoarders. Both are trying to cling to the things they associate with safety and life, and I’ve always thought of the accumulation as a way of trying to still time.

Döstädning, Swedish for “death cleaning,” is about clearing away more than what your yoga teacher tells you “no longer serves you,” it means getting practical and clearing what keeps you separate and afraid.

When we let go of what is keeping our view static, we can see the splendor of life in all its color. This is all another way to say that there is something medicinal about clearing out old, warped stories and items that limit us to a single view, even if they are sentimental, and being willing to look at them in a new way.

I was recently part of an Insight Timer call with fellow teacher Rebecca Jo-Rushdy, a certified KonMari® teacher. She shares techniques for decluttering space and sees transformations in the way people live as a result. On our call, she spoke of how new energy and perspective arrive when we clear our space because it clears space in our minds.

Similarly, thinking back on our own lives and the way we see the world, we might find that the stories we’ve told ourselves and others might be worth exploring through new angles and with new eyes. The trick is to go deeper and ask yourself what lives beneath what you’re telling yourself and others.

What we carry either serves us or keeps us stuck, so I invite you to ask yourself where to find more movement or light.

Remember the way a piece of glass can dance with a simple turn of light.

Make a list of material and non-material baggage you’re carrying—what stories, items, and limited patterns—and explore what it would take to let go.

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." - Marcel Proust

Writing prompt: Write your obituary, a few paragraphs only, from the perspective of someone or something that loves you unconditionally.

New friends, This is part of our 52-week challenge. Subscribers, Let’s debrief this exercise, or just connect to discuss all things writing, mindful living, and creative resilience. Join me Friday, May 23 at 9 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET; Saturday, June 21 at 9 a.m. PT /12 p.m. ET; or Friday, July 11 at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET for a community Zoom get-together. I want to keep these circles relatively small, so sign up today. To RSVP, go here.

How to write an essay: riffing from the woods

Do research. Read to find inspiration.

Outline loosely. Be willing to change your mind.

Approach with curiosity, not dogma. Understand that whatever is revealed is going to be incomplete.

Tie things together through patterns, through similarities and dissimilarities alike.

Tie things together, but don't expect the bow to be too tight.

To write an essay, be vulnerable. To write a good essay, be incredibly vulnerable. To write the kind of essay that lingers in people's minds, get naked on the page. It's okay to put yourself out there if you let go.

Write about what you don't know. Explore it. Write from your perspective, because it's all you have. Explore that too.

Just write.

Shape the thing by examining the ending. Shape the thing by starting a little later.

Send the thing out into the world with no expectations. Write something new.

Essays are an opportunity to reflect, to meditate, to come back home.

I recorded this at the park by my house yesterday after work.

As I recorded, speaking into my phone, I navigated uneven roots beneath my feet and felt the internal heat of a spring afternoon. What I was trying to capture here was process, but I think what arrived was something more like a nudge or a remembrance.

It’s ironic to me that the process of writing can’t be captured in writing.

As much as we want to write about it, something remains elusive—that feeling of home that only belongs to us, that feeling of walking on roots in the woods while our body temperature rises and the words begin to come even before we make our way to paper. We must follow them.

Whatever your genre or medium, I hope this triggers some inspiration. Write something today, anything.

Photo by Catherine Kay Greenup

The next AYTL post will drop on Friday (51/52).

Friends, our 52-week challenge is almost complete. Let’s connect to discuss all things writing, mindful living, and creative resilience. Join me Friday, May 23 at 9 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET; Saturday, June 21 at 9 a.m. PT /12 p.m. ET; or Friday, July 11 at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET for a community Zoom get-together. I want to keep these circles relatively small, so sign up today. To RSVP, go here.

On loving what you love & week 50 of 52

Friends, This is part of our 52-week challenge. Let’s debrief this exercise, or just connect to discuss all things writing, mindful living, and creative resilience. Join me Friday, May 23 at 9 a.m. PT / 12 p.m. ET; Saturday, June 21 at 9 a.m. PT /12 p.m. ET; or Friday, July 11 at 2 p.m. PT / 5 p.m. ET for a community Zoom get-together. I want to keep these circles relatively small, so sign up today. To RSVP, go here.

I’m not convinced that humans are the only species that thinks about death.

We’re probably the only species that thinks we can change it, or that ruminates over it. Anthropologist Ernest Becker disagreed. He wrote in Denial of Death that “the knowledge of death is reflective and conceptual, and animals are spared it.”

While I agree with him that no other animals embark on an experiment to reflect weekly on death merely to see if it will help them to better live, I can’t help but think animals do have some inherent knowledge and awareness around the time they have.

When an animal is dying, in my experience, there is a shift. Maybe it’s not contemplation, curiosity or rumination, but it is awareness.

My dog, Ahti, is not doing well.

She wheezes and pants after the shortest of walks. While we are managing her pain, and she does have many beautiful moments, there is water collecting around her lungs, and her joints are swollen. Her arthritis requires monthly shots, and if she gets too excited and tries to chase a kitty, she limps for three days after.

I wonder about her quality of life at some points, but she still lifts her chin against the spring breeze and barks heartily at squirrels and small children who dare to bike near our home. She adores our painfully slow walks to the park, which are rekindling my relationship with patience, and she smells every blade of grass with thorough attention.

At times, she stops, stares up at me, then side-dives into the lushest grass in our neighborhood and rolls around. While she’s moving slower and has moments of discomfort, she seems to fully love life.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

—Mary Oliver, from “Wild Geese”

Ahti has become my shadow, nestling up against me every time I lay out my yoga mat and scratching insistently on the door if Chris won’t let her into the garage to watch the neighborhood when he’s out there painting.

Her insistence is magnified, almost as though she is trying to inject each moment with more of what she loves.

If you know me and my dogs, you know that she’s getting what she wants.

Sometimes, we’ll take her off the leash and let her roam around the trees because we know she can no longer run and is easy to catch. She still tries to defy us, limp-running off and looking back playfully, only to stop and position one of her nostrils directly above a tiny stick, intaking its history with scientific rigor.

Ahti may or may not think about the fact that her life/time is almost up, but she does know that her space and time is precious, increasingly so.

It’s week 50 and my invitation to you is just that … Love what you love.

It’s your nature to live and love fully. To run rebelliously even if you know you’ll be caught, to drift toward what sustains you, ever more toward those things and people and places.

Let all the fear of death go, just for today, and be totally in your body. Write without apology or politeness. If you are afraid, talk to your fear. Tell it that everything might not be okay, that’s true, but you’re going to soar anyway.

A different way to see

that may become joys. A two-part meditation and writing practice. Feel free to pause as needed.

“We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.” —Anais Nin

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On automatic writing, the subconscious & week 49 of 52

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.” —Roald Dahl

We worry over finding the right words or waiting for the right time, but it’s often only when we are able to let go that right words find us.

Overthinking is often a sign of a well-intentioned person who doesn’t want to cause discomfort by voicing an opinion, a creative who wants to get everything right, or the result of a moral quandary. While we may see a barrage of thoughtless decisions being made by leadership in our lives, most of us are not so cavalier.

We take our time, we don’t trust every whim that strikes us or think we’re “chosen” to do things. But where’s the middle ground between radical and unwavering self-trust and analysis paralysis?

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." —Lao Zhu

For those of us who err on the side of overthinking, the idea of finding a method for truly letting go when practicing what we love means finding what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined as “flow,” a phenomenon wherein one forgets self and has a feeling of effortless absorption in an act (such as writing).

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That’s not always easy when conditions are not optimal or, worse, repressive, and we feel at a loss for what informed step to next take.

Automatic writing, while not scientifically backed, refers to the process of channeling spirits or ancestors to write messages through the vessel of our human form. Arthur Conan Doyle, Sylvia Plath, and William Butler Yeats all claimed to have leveraged a process of channeling to write.

Victoria Woodhull used the practice of automatic writing, along with trance, to contact the spirit of Greek orator Demosthenes who told her she would do big things in the world. Woodhull, whose life circumstances had done anything but set her up for greatness, ended up being the first woman to run for President of the United States in 1872. She, like many forward-thinking women of her time, found solace in Spiritualism.

Referred to as Fu-Ji (扶乩), a similar practice is associated with inviting wisdom to answer human quandaries in Chinese folk religions. Fu-ji is seen as a means of engaging with the spirit world, where priests used the technique to speak with celestial beings and ancestors to receive divine guidance.

If speaking to spirit isn’t your jam, here’s a reframe: Psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung associated the practice of automatic writing with an ability to tap the collective unconscious and considered it a deep meditation.

There are many meditative processes, such as Natalie Goldberg’s famous and long-enduring advice to keep the pen on the page and moving, no matter what, until the writing itself takes over. She advises this as a way of pushing past the temptation to overthink.

Not making sense? No worries, keep the pen moving. Not sure what to say? Repeat the same word again and again until a new words comes.

I share all these examples to share the value of finding a perspective that works for you. The phenomenon of releasing one’s self to the work at hand seems to offer not only a release but also unexpected wisdom.

Biographer Barbara Goldsmith said women of Victoria Woodhull’s time relieved the burdens imposed upon their gender by finding solace in spirits. At the time, many at the forefront of women’s rights were Spiritualists and would seek guidance from what they couldn’t see because what was in front of them would not suffice. To lean on something unseen gave them strength.

Whether mining unexcavated parts of the mind in psychological self study or contacting spirits and guides, the practice itself shows up the same way. It means letting go of our precious egos and goals and identity, seeing what happens when we become one with the work, immersed and free.

What does the concept of “flow” means to you? Connect it to nature. Listen to the sound of waves, or sit near moving water and simply allow yourself to release into the sensation of steady and unhurried movement, allowing what comes through to come. Try one of the techniques above, either asking for guidance from the spirit world or simply keep the pen moving until your egoic filter seems to dissipate.

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If this feels too impossible (fist bump to my fellow overthinkers), here are some other methods.

Option 1: Keep a dream journal this week. A notebook by the bed and a few lines before you get up.

Option 2: Do what clears your mind—meditation, dancing, walking, etc… then write without stopping. After a few minutes of writing (longhand ideally), close your eyes and keep writing. Don’t worry about whether it’s legible, but play. See what arrives.

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