Jen Violi's Blog, page 4

THE PLAYDOME: TWO PENS ENTER, ONE POEM LEAVES

February 26, 2012

where to go when you are stuck . . .

So I emptied the packet into the mug, poured hot water onto it, and a poem sprang forth like a goddess from a skull. Or a dinosaur from a little capsule.  Or a lightning bug from a jar.  Let's just say it was most like one of those things, and you get to decide which one. 

Or let's say there was no packet, because really there wasn't.  What I did have was an old magazine that I paged through for about fifteen minutes, from start to finish, stopping to cut out any words that grabbed my attention. 

Putting the Treat in Retreat

February 1, 2012

This weekend, I'm going on a writing retreat!  That's right--going on, not facilitating--and I'm feeling all aflutter about it.

Aflutter seems appropriate, given that we're in the midst of Metamorphosize 2012: The Year of the Badass Butterfly. 

Here we are. Listen.

October 25, 2011

Here we are.  Listen.  Listen, listen.

Be still and know yourself as god and goddess.  Stop fidgeting.  Relax.  Find your body again.  Stretch up into it.  Inhabit it.

Know yourself as true because you are living as true.  Know the difference between a crutch and the power of your own legs.

Taking My Own Medicine

September 19, 2011

This past month brought me some sharp and unexpected heartache and has left me feeling like a turtle stuck on her back, my protection in a useless place and my vulnerable parts bared to predators. 

I'm still processing what happened and perhaps one day will be able to write about it, but today's not that day.  All I can say at the moment is that after being dosed with cruel words and hurtful actions and questioning my sanity and worth in the face of them, I'm feeling the need for kindness and wisdom and a return to the source of me.  Which led me back to a letter I wrote to myself a year and a half ago, one to be used at exactly this kind of moment.

I'm reposting it both to remind myself of some important truths and, in case it might be good timing for you, to encourage you to take a little time and write your own letter to self, to be used in your own hour of need.

If you do write something to yourself and would like to share all or part of it here, please do.

In the meantime, may the following be balm for both you and me, so that your feet can once again be on the ground and your face up and smiling in the sun and the wind.

Watching the Credits

May 30, 2011

On slowing down, taking life in, and watching movie credits all the way to the end . . .

My mom and I are different in many ways, but as I get older, I've come to see how we're actually quite similar.  We are both stubborn, love nesting in our home spaces, take in books like oxygen, enjoy a good Christmas Carol movie marathon as well as a good NYPD Blue marathon, and in the theater, we both like to sit and watch movie credits, all the way to the end.

Where Jesus Flang Them

March 29, 2011

So one of my favorite parts (one of many) in Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, comes in the "Character" chapter.  In this particular part, Lamott discusses the need for letting bad stuff happen to your characters--not that it all has to be bad stuff, but just that it has to be life stuff; it has to ring true. 

To bring home the point, Lamott writes the following:  "My Al-Anon friend told me about the frazzled, defeated wife of an alcoholic man who kept passing out on the front lawn in the middle of the night.  The wife kept dragging him in before dawn so that the neighbors wouldn't see him, until finally an old black woman from the South came up to her one day after a meeting and said, 'Honey? Leave him lay where Jesus flang him.'" 

That advice speaks to me poignantly right now, as I begin draft seven of my new novel.  Yes, draft seven. 

Overload: Breathing Our Way Forward

Let me start by saying this post is ultimately about breathing and compassion.  So if you're holding your breath or withholding compassion from yourself or anyone else, take a moment right now to kindly and mindfully fill your lungs.

And now a question:  does anyone else out there feel exceptionally full in heart and mind and spirit? 

I find myself tuning in each morning to NPR, watching Facebook for updates from my friend Bob in Japan, as well as on the continuing shared horror over the gang rape of an eleven year old girl in Texas and the deeply disheartening response to that, and looking online at news on all that's happening in Libya and elsewhere.

And with each new bit of information, I feel more paralyzed, like I'm sinking into quicksand and unable to do anything about it.

A Forgiving Sort of Entry

February 26, 2011

On forgiveness, unicorn heritage, dead whales and horses, and some Bob Ross to boot . . .

In case you, too, are finding yourself in a moment in which you could do with some gentleness, this entry comes with a wish for you to go easy with yourself.  And as usual, it stems from a reminder I'm giving myself right now and from the experience I know best: my own.

I had a piece I was working on in December.  It was titled, "Why Cameron Crowe and Charles Dickens Ruined Everything," and I really liked it.  I thought it was funny, but I kept hesitating to post it, and now, three months later, I'm a little more clear on why I didn't. 

Taking You to the Coast, Part Seven

November 12, 2010

Part seven of a seven-day meditation, this final installment a fairy tale for you, about waking up the light within . . .

I choose a fairy tale to end this week of writings from my time at the ocean.  I wrote this in response to an unusual prompt from Sarah.  On Friday morning of our retreat, Sarah took out her singing bowl, struck it with the accompanying wooden stick and invited us to do a free write out of the reverberations.

And what follows here, what the bowl sang to me and through me happened to be a fairy tale, which I offer to you this Friday, in hopes that today is a day in which you, too, rise up into the light within yourself.

Taking You to the Coast, Part Six

November 11, 2010

Part six of a seven-day meditation, today's installment including a council of ex-lovers . . .

I want to share with you just the beginning of something I wrote while on my coast retreat.  Here it is:

"I am not meant for loneliness," I say.  "I am meant for lovers."

And they nod when I say this, all of them gathered here on the beach:  this council of ex-lovers.  Most of them are in linen, Miami Vice style, sitting behind a long conference table with ice-water in those plastic pitchers, but glass glasses in front of each one of them.  A white tablecloth flaps in the breeze. 

The rest of this writing, I reserve for myself and for my council, whose members shall remain nameless, although I can say they're kind of like the Pentaverate from So I Married an Axe Murderer.  But I do solemnly swear that Colonel Sanders is not on my council.  Not really, anyway.  Does first base count?