Jennifer Lauck's Blog, page 15
July 24, 2012
Dear Tara,A few weeks ago you answered the question, Even...
Dear Tara,
A few weeks ago you answered the question,
Even if I wait until I've finished the book, will the story still feel like mine? Thank you!
Mandy
Hi Mandy and thank you for your question. This is a sweet, simple question with a sweet and simple answer: Write your book with all the real names the first time through. Why? Each of these names has a charge for you and to make the change during the creative process cheats you out of much needed emotional juju. Or the better word would be "charge." You need this charge to get to the deepest feelings and the feelings need to be felt in order to stop repressing and start healing. So in our early drafts, stick with the facts.
Close the door too. The first draft, even the second and third, are for you and your own heart.
Once you have your feelings totally flushed out and you have really gone the distance with as much of your own memory, then play with changes. You can incorporate cue phrases too, once that let the reader know you are making character adjustments. "My step mother had a name but the sake of this story, let's just call her Deb." See? You can go on: "Deb, if she were writing this book, would say that she was a fabulous woman. Misunderstood but basically sweet and kind and nice, and all of that may be true but that was not my experience with Deb. Deb, to me, at the age of eight was the wicked witch of all four directions. A bigger witch could not be found. My hatred towards her was complete."
See?
These cues serve many purposes. One, they let the reader know that you are aware that your feelings are intense and personal, and may be seperate from the person who helped trigger them (ie: Deb). Two, they make you a more reliable narrator because they show a level of vulnerability and integrty. Three, they are the truth! Reader's appreciate the truth.
That's the point of memoir. We explore truth via self awareness. Sticking as closely to the facts as possible allows us to maintain integrity towards our goal.
Unfortunately many memoirs fall short. My own work falls short. But we try and that is the point.
You are part of a genre in its infancy. Memoir has only been around for a few years. Yes, there have been biographies since the beginning of time. But the "ordinary man" and woman, writing their own life with the tools of literature and calling it memoir--that is new. We are writing and learning as we go.
Bravo to you for your courage.
Keep writing and don't worry. Your story and your book--name changes and all--will always be yours. Even when it is no longer who you are. But that is a different conversation.
Good luck, Jennifer
A few weeks ago you answered the question,
Even if I wait until I've finished the book, will the story still feel like mine? Thank you!
Mandy
Hi Mandy and thank you for your question. This is a sweet, simple question with a sweet and simple answer: Write your book with all the real names the first time through. Why? Each of these names has a charge for you and to make the change during the creative process cheats you out of much needed emotional juju. Or the better word would be "charge." You need this charge to get to the deepest feelings and the feelings need to be felt in order to stop repressing and start healing. So in our early drafts, stick with the facts.Close the door too. The first draft, even the second and third, are for you and your own heart.
Once you have your feelings totally flushed out and you have really gone the distance with as much of your own memory, then play with changes. You can incorporate cue phrases too, once that let the reader know you are making character adjustments. "My step mother had a name but the sake of this story, let's just call her Deb." See? You can go on: "Deb, if she were writing this book, would say that she was a fabulous woman. Misunderstood but basically sweet and kind and nice, and all of that may be true but that was not my experience with Deb. Deb, to me, at the age of eight was the wicked witch of all four directions. A bigger witch could not be found. My hatred towards her was complete."
See?
These cues serve many purposes. One, they let the reader know that you are aware that your feelings are intense and personal, and may be seperate from the person who helped trigger them (ie: Deb). Two, they make you a more reliable narrator because they show a level of vulnerability and integrty. Three, they are the truth! Reader's appreciate the truth.
That's the point of memoir. We explore truth via self awareness. Sticking as closely to the facts as possible allows us to maintain integrity towards our goal.
Unfortunately many memoirs fall short. My own work falls short. But we try and that is the point.
You are part of a genre in its infancy. Memoir has only been around for a few years. Yes, there have been biographies since the beginning of time. But the "ordinary man" and woman, writing their own life with the tools of literature and calling it memoir--that is new. We are writing and learning as we go.Bravo to you for your courage.
Keep writing and don't worry. Your story and your book--name changes and all--will always be yours. Even when it is no longer who you are. But that is a different conversation.
Good luck, Jennifer
July 15, 2012
Dream Protection Techniques
Dear Jennifer,
I have come to a point in my life where I need some help and direction. A few weeks ago I went through the interview process for an entry-level position in a library (to be a librarian is my dream career and has been for a long time now). After getting through each stage such as a phone interview, face to face interview and psychometric test etc, I got rejected. It is so hard dealing with rejection for something I have wanted for so long, and what I thought was an opportunity that had come at a perfect time with recently finishing my university studies.
Generally I believe that things happen for a reason.
So I guess my question would be how do you know if you should let go of something or fight even harder to work towards your dream in regards to a career? How do you know if you are heading in the right direction in life and is it possible to tell? Will everything fall in place somehow?
Thank you, Kimberley
Dear Kimberley:
It’s a Sunday. Ten o’clock at night. I sit at my desk and am buried under a shawl and a wrap around sweater with long sleeves. It’s mosquito time and the little bloodsuckers buzz around my head. They are hungry for dinner. And dinner is me!
My response is in what I do at this moment. I protect myself.
Now protect yourself and your dream. Don’t let the buzz of worry, fear or doubt suck away the faith that helped you get this far.
One immediate way to protect yourself is to turn the tables on the thinking mind by asking a series of probing (and maybe impossible to answer) questions.
Here are a few to get you started:
You had to take a psychological test to work in a library? Is that pretty standard now? What is the purpose of this test? What are the standards for evaluating? Do you get to see the results? Did you not get the job because of the test or because of some idiosyncrasy with the score? Or was it the phone interview that did you in? Perhaps the face to face? Or was it the fact that there are so many people applying for jobs at this time that the number of qualified applicants made the chance of your being hired pretty slim?
Another way to protect yourself is to ask the question of those who made the hiring decision too. I would write an email, or a letter, that is polite but to the point. Something like this:
“Thank you for the opportunity to apply for the position. It was an honor to be considered. And, as I continue to apply for other jobs, it would be of great benefit to know why I did not get this job.”
The response you get—even if you get no response—will help. One, because you took the initiative to ask for more information and initiative is what it takes to succeed in the long run. Two, the asking of questions helps you feel empowered instead of lost.
A third way to protect yourself is to remember that you are not lost. You are temporarily set off the path you hope to take.
I sense from the fact of being in school, wrapping university studies, that you are younger. Late 20’s, early 30’s. And this also might be one of the first “serious” jobs you have applied for and not getting this job tips you sideways. A lot of doubt creeps in at a time like this. Worry too.
That’s okay.
It’s normal to feel doubt, worry and to even have momentary defeat. But protect yourself in yet another way by looking deep into yourself about your own dreams. Don’t ask yourself what you think when faced with your own dreams. Ask yourself in your gut and in your heart. Feel the response to the question in your body and if you can’t feel it, keep asking the question until you do.
The head has lots of rational arguments, differing points of view, solid judgments and so on. Oh, the rational thinking mind. But it’s not the place to go when it comes to making big life decisions. Don’t trust your head.
Look to the body instead.
Protect yourself by feeling your way to your answers.
The truth is in what you feel.
If you are called to be a librarian, protect this calling by going another step further and setting a rock solid intention.
Every morning, look in the mirror and say, twenty five times, “I am so happy and grateful now that I am a librarian. I am so happy and grateful now I am a librarian. I am so happy and so grateful….” You get the idea.
Do it three times a day. Look at you looking at you in that mirror and just say it out loud. Yes, you’ll feel a little silly but then you won’t. And who cares. You want to be a librarian, right? So intend it and speak the words out loud to yourself when you wake up, when you drive to work and just as you fall asleep.
It may not be today, tomorrow or next week that you get the job you want but it will happen if you intend it. Your job is to set the intention, ask for what you want every single day and let the universe solve the puzzle of how. If it is supposed to be, wild horses won’t be able to stop you and your dream from being one.
I remember when I was a young woman and worked in T.V. news. I had a job in Montana. It was a teeny, tiny, nothing of a station in Great Falls. The chance of me getting a job outside of Montana was about zero because I was young, because there was intense competition and because I had almost no experience. But I saw myself get a job in a larger market. I intended it with every cell in my body. I thought about the job I wanted, I imagined myself going to work at a bigger station and I even went to the city where I hoped to work one day. All the way from Montana, I came to Oregon and stood on the sidewalk in front of the T.V. station KATU. I remember staring holes into the concrete walls of that huge, big city T.V. station. Traffic screamed past as I stood on the sidewalk of 21stand Sandy Boulevard. The air of the fast moving cars blew my clothes against my body but I stood my ground. I imagined myself going to work there, doing a great job and leaving to go live in a terrific apartment somewhere in the terrific city each night.
It made no sense, even to me. What was the big deal about being a reporter? Why work in Portland, Oregon? Why not stay in Montana and be happy I had a job?
Those were questions in my head. But I didn’t listen to my head. Thank goodness. I listened to the deeper call of my body and heart. I trusted myself and let the vision unfold.
In due time and it took almost two years, I nailed a job in Portland, Oregon. It was hard won too. I left Montana, took a job in Spokane, Washington, was fired from that job, moved to Portland on a whim, had to work as a secretary for a financial planner and also taught aerobic classes to pay my bills until my job at KATU finally came through. Along that jagged way, I lost faith, I questioned my own path and I got a little lost but eventually, it all worked out. I got the job, I worked hard, I learned what I needed to learn and I moved on.
The same will happen for you. I am sure of it.
Protect yourself by trusting yourself. No matter what it is you want to do, writer, reader, mother, librarian, painter, coffee house owner, baker, pre-school teacher, we can have what we want and more. And more.
Your dreams are important, no matter what they are. Hold them close, like little birds in a nest. Protect them in these seven ways until it is time for them to fly.
Good luck, Jennifer
I have come to a point in my life where I need some help and direction. A few weeks ago I went through the interview process for an entry-level position in a library (to be a librarian is my dream career and has been for a long time now). After getting through each stage such as a phone interview, face to face interview and psychometric test etc, I got rejected. It is so hard dealing with rejection for something I have wanted for so long, and what I thought was an opportunity that had come at a perfect time with recently finishing my university studies.
Generally I believe that things happen for a reason.
So I guess my question would be how do you know if you should let go of something or fight even harder to work towards your dream in regards to a career? How do you know if you are heading in the right direction in life and is it possible to tell? Will everything fall in place somehow?
Thank you, Kimberley
Dear Kimberley:
It’s a Sunday. Ten o’clock at night. I sit at my desk and am buried under a shawl and a wrap around sweater with long sleeves. It’s mosquito time and the little bloodsuckers buzz around my head. They are hungry for dinner. And dinner is me!
My response is in what I do at this moment. I protect myself.
Now protect yourself and your dream. Don’t let the buzz of worry, fear or doubt suck away the faith that helped you get this far. One immediate way to protect yourself is to turn the tables on the thinking mind by asking a series of probing (and maybe impossible to answer) questions.
Here are a few to get you started:
You had to take a psychological test to work in a library? Is that pretty standard now? What is the purpose of this test? What are the standards for evaluating? Do you get to see the results? Did you not get the job because of the test or because of some idiosyncrasy with the score? Or was it the phone interview that did you in? Perhaps the face to face? Or was it the fact that there are so many people applying for jobs at this time that the number of qualified applicants made the chance of your being hired pretty slim?
Another way to protect yourself is to ask the question of those who made the hiring decision too. I would write an email, or a letter, that is polite but to the point. Something like this:
“Thank you for the opportunity to apply for the position. It was an honor to be considered. And, as I continue to apply for other jobs, it would be of great benefit to know why I did not get this job.”
The response you get—even if you get no response—will help. One, because you took the initiative to ask for more information and initiative is what it takes to succeed in the long run. Two, the asking of questions helps you feel empowered instead of lost.
A third way to protect yourself is to remember that you are not lost. You are temporarily set off the path you hope to take.
I sense from the fact of being in school, wrapping university studies, that you are younger. Late 20’s, early 30’s. And this also might be one of the first “serious” jobs you have applied for and not getting this job tips you sideways. A lot of doubt creeps in at a time like this. Worry too.
That’s okay.
It’s normal to feel doubt, worry and to even have momentary defeat. But protect yourself in yet another way by looking deep into yourself about your own dreams. Don’t ask yourself what you think when faced with your own dreams. Ask yourself in your gut and in your heart. Feel the response to the question in your body and if you can’t feel it, keep asking the question until you do.
The head has lots of rational arguments, differing points of view, solid judgments and so on. Oh, the rational thinking mind. But it’s not the place to go when it comes to making big life decisions. Don’t trust your head.
Look to the body instead.
Protect yourself by feeling your way to your answers.
The truth is in what you feel.
If you are called to be a librarian, protect this calling by going another step further and setting a rock solid intention.
Every morning, look in the mirror and say, twenty five times, “I am so happy and grateful now that I am a librarian. I am so happy and grateful now I am a librarian. I am so happy and so grateful….” You get the idea. Do it three times a day. Look at you looking at you in that mirror and just say it out loud. Yes, you’ll feel a little silly but then you won’t. And who cares. You want to be a librarian, right? So intend it and speak the words out loud to yourself when you wake up, when you drive to work and just as you fall asleep.
It may not be today, tomorrow or next week that you get the job you want but it will happen if you intend it. Your job is to set the intention, ask for what you want every single day and let the universe solve the puzzle of how. If it is supposed to be, wild horses won’t be able to stop you and your dream from being one.
I remember when I was a young woman and worked in T.V. news. I had a job in Montana. It was a teeny, tiny, nothing of a station in Great Falls. The chance of me getting a job outside of Montana was about zero because I was young, because there was intense competition and because I had almost no experience. But I saw myself get a job in a larger market. I intended it with every cell in my body. I thought about the job I wanted, I imagined myself going to work at a bigger station and I even went to the city where I hoped to work one day. All the way from Montana, I came to Oregon and stood on the sidewalk in front of the T.V. station KATU. I remember staring holes into the concrete walls of that huge, big city T.V. station. Traffic screamed past as I stood on the sidewalk of 21stand Sandy Boulevard. The air of the fast moving cars blew my clothes against my body but I stood my ground. I imagined myself going to work there, doing a great job and leaving to go live in a terrific apartment somewhere in the terrific city each night.
It made no sense, even to me. What was the big deal about being a reporter? Why work in Portland, Oregon? Why not stay in Montana and be happy I had a job?
Those were questions in my head. But I didn’t listen to my head. Thank goodness. I listened to the deeper call of my body and heart. I trusted myself and let the vision unfold.
In due time and it took almost two years, I nailed a job in Portland, Oregon. It was hard won too. I left Montana, took a job in Spokane, Washington, was fired from that job, moved to Portland on a whim, had to work as a secretary for a financial planner and also taught aerobic classes to pay my bills until my job at KATU finally came through. Along that jagged way, I lost faith, I questioned my own path and I got a little lost but eventually, it all worked out. I got the job, I worked hard, I learned what I needed to learn and I moved on. The same will happen for you. I am sure of it.
Protect yourself by trusting yourself. No matter what it is you want to do, writer, reader, mother, librarian, painter, coffee house owner, baker, pre-school teacher, we can have what we want and more. And more.
Your dreams are important, no matter what they are. Hold them close, like little birds in a nest. Protect them in these seven ways until it is time for them to fly.
Good luck, Jennifer
July 8, 2012
Do I Change Names?
Dear Jennifer:
Most of the shocking and negative incidents and events in my memoir involve family members with whom I still have relationships. I think they will probably be angry and offended by my bringing the truth out publicly. Maybe they will deny it. Maybe they will disown me.
Some members of my writers' colony have asked whether I intend to change the names of the characters. That may be a legal issue to deal with down the road, but I'm just not sure what I will do. They will still know who they are. It is not my intention to hurt and embarrass people, however, that may be a natural result of the consequences of their actions. I feel compelled to tell my story and wonder whether you have an opinion based on hindsight, or Tara's inspiration. ~ Faith
Dear Faith:
This is a Jennifer question, all the way. Jennifer teaches writing and has direct experience with this complex question. So here we go.
First, let me tell you about the blueberry bushes on the east side of the house. Did you know you have to have at least two of these bushes to produce berries? It has something to do with cross-pollination and bees and I am not the one who planted them. I just get to enjoy them.There they are. Two lush blueberry bushes and as I write these words, three jays and a robin are in a little battle over the berries. They flap their wings and squawk their fruity agendas. The robin wants a berry for her little babes in the nest and the jays just want to eat. They are hungry.
We aren’t that much different than the birds. Heck, living creatures are living creatures. We all want our blueberries and are willing to battle to serve our agendas.
The same goes with interpretations of the so-called truth. Each of us has a different version and many are willing to battle to the death.
A couple of questions I suggest you consider are these: How mean are the people in your family and how far do you think they’ll go to discredit you?
Louis Pastur said, “chance favors only the prepared mind.” Since you cannot prepare for the outcome, you can prepare for all possible outcomes by taking a good hard look at past events. Be honest with yourself now—don’t sugar coat your experience, question your feelings or make justifications for those who did you wrong. If brutality was part of your experience, remember it, and ask if these people have changed (and very likely they have not). Okay. Once you have this perspective, take proper precautions to cover your own a@#. Yes, this is cliché to write but I’m sorry. The only butt you can cover, in the end, is your own and if your people are butt-kicking mean then cover yours quick and don’t get kicked. Your personal interests need to come first.
Changing names doesn’t change the game. I changed names, advised by lawyers at my publishing house and when my book hit big, out came the butt-kicking mean people from my past. Why was I surprised? These people put glass in my food, left me to starve, stole my father’s money, beat teeth out of my head and all those incidents are what I can remember. When Blackbird released and hit big, these butt-kicking mean people showed up to grab the attention, make my story about themselves and in the process, harassed me and worked to discredit me as well. In fact, they behaved in ways that were most consistent to the ways they behaved in my experience. The fault wasn’t in their behavior but my own lack of preparedness.
How do you deal with the butt-kicking mean people in your story? Do you not tell the truth because you are scared?
No.
You tell the truth but you also let the reader know three things:
1) You changed names and identifying features to protect them from the general public.
2) Your writing is your version of the truth and that you recognize the butt-kicking mean people have a side of the story too and maybe even could provide convincing evidence that could prove you wrong. Okay. That’s out there. 3) You are doing your best to tell your truth, the one that created your perceptions and developed your sense of truth about the way things happened, and that’s where you are keeping your attention in your story telling.
Readers know memory and the truth are as slippery as a gardener snake after a good rain. Those who read memoir also know memoir is not about having all the facts straight or getting every version down on the page. Writing and sharing your life is about experience. What happened to you and what did you do with what happened to you?
If you work hard to be authentic, dig into what the heck happened and what it all added up to (if anything), that is all the reader can ask. And you have done the good work of being transparent upfront by saying, "hey, these people might come after me, I am scared about that but, this is how I remember it."
Your question has one little caveat that I’d like to address: It is not my intention to hurt and embarrass people, however, that may be a natural result of the consequences of their actions.
Memoir cannot carry any hint of a self-righteous vibe. The book will not be a good read if you are helping “karma” along by writing the story of what happened and who wronged who. Memoir isn’t about settling a score and the minute you have that kind of agenda in your writing, the reader will spot it and you’ll be discredited as an unreliable narrator.
Memoir is a crazy genre. Some say memoir is easy to write, easier than fiction or poetry, but I say nonsense. Memoir, as Mary Karr says, is rigorous. If you are keeping your eye on the truth, your truth and your part of the story—it cannot help but churn you up. You’ll feel a lot of really unpleasant things you don’t want to feel and blame is a ready switchblade we are eager to pull—stabbing at the ones who did us wrong. No, no, no. That’s not the way to play it.Yes, be pissed, be sad, be vengeful, but get all that out in your therapist office. on a long hard run or in a rage release workshop. Don’t put your rage on the page.
N. O.
The page is the place for you to come to the highest possible place. It’ll take time to climb high but set the goal towards that destination. Set the intention, right now, to get the highest truth that serves you and all others. Write to bring yourself peace and to bring peace to all around you and your work will move in that direction. Rise high, see the wide view and put the whole story into perspective. Memoir writing is about you. Who are you? What happened to you? How did you cope? How did you deny? When did you wake up? What’s keeping you from waking up now?
These are the questions we all need to have answered at this difficult time in human evolution. We need each other to dig out of this mess we are in. Your wisdom, not your blame, is what we need. Leave karma and natural consequences to forces larger than yourself.
This is how we are different than the birds. While they will always fight to have their primal needs met, we won’t. Human beings, with our ability to reflect, evolve and change our minds, can change. We can. Memoir, in my very humble opinion, is a way to move towards that change. Change yourself and you change the world.
Keep the faith, Faith! You'll do fine, Jennifer
July 1, 2012
How Do I Forgive? How Do I Trust?
Before I was born, my mother read Gone with the Wind and named me Tara, after the plantation in that book. Tara, shown here, is a feminine deity of compassionate action. Historically she was a princess told she could not be enlightened as a woman. Tara bucked this myth, achieved enlightenment as woman and her commitment to is be with us, ready to take action, on even the smallest human challenge.
This column is named for Tara so the best, most wise advice will go out. Send questions to Jennifer@jenniferlauck.com & see what Tara has to say._________________________________________________________
How does one forgive? Truly forgive. How does one trust, truly trust...when both of these were never learned. When both were destroyed. "Don't tell" "You can't trust anyone." True surrender seems incomprehensible. When a child is humiliated, ridiculed, shamed behind closed doors, then abandoned when she tried to hide or take away the pain...how does she heal if forgiveness seems impossible? ~ Anon. Canada
Dear you. Dear one. Thank you for your question.
I am so so sorry for this harsh behavior from the past—not so much in the past—but rather alive in the question you ask. That little child. So eager to be shown the way but when the path is revealed and it is full of wicked barbs and confusing twists.
How do we find our way out of such a mess?
Let’s grab forgiveness first. Grab it like the cloud it is, this elusive and impossible thing. We saw it with our eyes, didn’t we? The cloud was there, a collection that seemed so solid but put a hand through and it’s nothing. Air mixed with temperature. A ghost. An illusion.
Forgiveness, for me, is something like this. An illusion. What does the word mean anyway? Like “love” and “God”, “forgiveness” is a word that holds mountains of misconceptions.
From my own early years as a young Catholic, I remember being told that to forgive was divine. I did the math: Me + forgive = divine.
Who among us doesn’t want divinity? I can see my younger, impressionable self in church—the sacred heart of this or that—one of so many penitent girls in catechism class. I wore the white dress, had the garland of flowers in my hair, kneeled before Christ, kept my chin tucked and pressed my hands together in total forgiveness of those who had trespassed against me plus additional prayers that I would be forgiven for the very fact of my existence, made more unholy by my gender. “I’ll forgive and please, please forgive me.” When a person believes they are going to hell, she’ll say just about anything to undo her fate and that’s what I did. I said “I forgive” because I was no fool.But wait. Hold on. How could I forgive what had I yet understand? How could I say, “oh sure, I forgive the men who molested me when I was six, eight and twelve?” How could I agree to let go of so many betrayals, abuses and confusions without proper examination, explanation and integration into my own being? How insane for a church or anyone to tell a person to “let it all go,” when “it all,” has yet to be explained, grieved, considered and weighed. That’s just not right.
And here is what I think. I think the world, our families, churches and everyone else wants this snappy little conversion so it will make life easier for them. Why explore all that nastiness of deception and abuse and being wronged when we can just snap our fingers and make it all go away. Forgiveness is divine. Right?
I just don’t believe it.
Forgiveness can only come to a heart when the time is right.
Our divinity is in our ability to reflect, consider and work experience through our hearts and our minds and clamor towards truth.
To say you are not divine if you don’t forgive is a betrayal to the truth of the soul, which is already divine. The soul is pristine and worthy without being told to bend down and pray and forgive and be forgiven. These rules are constructs of men. They are fear and intimidation techniques churned out by fallible human beings who now prove they have a pretty embarrassing double standard. Aren’t these the same priests on trail for assaulting innocent children?
And here is where things went so wrong.
We looked up to a Father to tell us what to believe and what to do and of course, no father, or mother, or teacher or friend can lead us to the truth of our own soul and heart. The mystery of our interior is ours alone. In our own truthful heart, we will know when and how to let go of wrongs that litter our past. We will know. We will.
You will and I will.
My favorite wise study of forgiveness comes from Women Who Run with Wolves , by Clarissa Pinkola Estes who writes, "many people have trouble with forgiveness because they have been taught it is a singular act to be completed in one sitting. That is not so. Forgiveness has many layers, many seasons."
Estes lists the four stages of forgiveness:Forgo (leave it alone).
Forbear (abstain from punishing)
Forget (refuse to dwell)
Forgive (to abandon the debt).
You can do one or two or get through all four or go back to the first. Whatever. You start. You start and see where your good heart takes you. If you need to be mad, sad, righteous, wounded, protected, worried, mired, okay. Okay! Be what you need to be, write, see a therapist, take a yoga class, dig in the dirt, whatever. Do what you need to do and trust yourself in this process.
Forgive when you are ready. When you are ready.
And to know this means you have developed a level of trust in the only person you are going the able to trust in this world. Yourself.
Let’s leap over to the second prong of your question. How do I trust?
You trust, not those outside of you, who will always and I mean always let you down. Even Jesus was betrayed by his own disciples. Remember?
Look, you trust yourself and your own good heart and your own feelings and your own experience. Do a little investigating and see where you lost your own trust in yourself. You know that moment. You’ve had it. We’ve all had it.
The moment I trusted myself the most is when I left home and went to college and studied journalism. Something in me, something deep and powerful, led the way. It said, “Go that way, Jennifer,” and I went. And it was trust that had me go. Each and every day I was a reporter and learned how to investigate was a gift. I was so happy doing my work. I had a gorgeous apartment on the top floor of a vintage building overlooking a park, I made enough money to pay my bills and feed myself and I had a little dog who loved me as much as I loved her back. And, I learned how to write and think and dig for the truth. Righteous and wonderful work. I was truly blessed when I trusted myself. And the place that I lost my own trust was when I believed I needed another to love me more than I needed to love myself. I got lost in the hope, prayer, dream, promise of love—the love of a man—the one. My prince. Where was he? I had to find him and make him mine. And I got lost further still by shoving my own soul voice down as I made the man I found (and there would be more than one) more important than myself. How many years was I lost from myself? Too many to count, sister, too many to count.
How do I forgive? How do I trust?
How do we, you and I, not lament all the wasted years, the betrayal of our own trust and our own souls? How do we not lash out in rage and blame? How do we not demand some form of retribution? How do we not become bitter and dry and hateful?
We forgive the only person we really need to forgive—ourselves. Okay. A mistake was made (many perhaps). We got lost on the path. We forsook ourselves. We screwed it all up. All right then. It won’t happen again, or if it does, it won’t happen in the exact same way and it won’t last as long. We will learn because isn’t that the point of this whole thing we are doing here—this thing we call a life? It’s not called perfect. It’s called life and how do we know until we try and fall and fail? How else can we learn?
Once we go more gentle on ourselves, we can see that our parents or our caregivers were just like us. The priests too. They were human. Full of flaws and confusions and lost opportunities and betrayed trust and mixed messages. And, loo, look out. We are forgiving them too. We look at the people who hurt us from the past and we are just let it go because life is too damn short and there is good work to be done.
Once we get back in touch with our own souls and our own good hearts and we really stay close to the fire inside, things have a way of righting themselves. Forgiveness comes in one form or another. Forgetting can be enough. Setting the whole mess down and just leaving it alone can work too. We don’t have to go all the way across the finish line. We don’t. We are just human. We are not saints. We tell the truth when we say, “I can’t forgive it all the way, I just can’t.” That’s honest. That’s human. That’s the truth.
Tell yourself the truth and rebuild a level of trust—with yourself. That’s when it starts. Once you trust yourself, you will know how and when to forgive.
Forgiveness and trust.
How do we get them when they haven’t been learned?
The answer: they are there. They have always been there. Yes, dented. Yes, challenged, but always there. The work here is to look within your own good, wise, broken heart. As Buddha says, “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” Buddha was a guy who told the truth and that is what he and I am say here. Listen to yourself. That’s where trust and forgiveness are alive and well.
June 24, 2012
Is He Out There?
Before I was born, my mother read Gone With the Wind and named me Tara after the plantation in that book.Tara, shown here, is a feminine deity of compassionate action. Historically she was a princess told she could not be enlightened as a woman. Tara bucked this myth, achieved enlightenment as woman and her commitment to is be with us, ready to take action, on even the smallest human challenge.
This column is named for Tara so the best, most wise advice will go out. Send questions to Jennifer@jenniferlauck.com & see what Tara has to say.__________________________________________________________________________________
Dear Tara,
I have a relationship question for you. I am an Eckist. I understand and accept my adoption experience as a necessary and chosen part of settling up my karma. But in order to fully transcend this karma I must have and take the opportunity to face it on all levels and that includes the EMOTIONAL one that has been forced underground by society and my relationships. I am the good girl who leaps into forgiveness for all the abuse without saying, wait a minute, I feel like a doormat! I am in pain! Stop hurting me! I fuc*$ing matter!
That is what my writing is about. Finally mattering enough to put my emotional life into words. Being real.
All I want is a relationship and all I do is pick people who are unavailable or if they are available I undermine the relationship because it is not the right one. How do I know when I have done the work I need to do before getting into another relationship?
I know I have to be in relationship with myself first and am really OK that. What does that look like and feel like?
In Eckankar we learn from our dreams. I recently dreamt my red miniature poodle caught a snake to protect me. I told him to drop it and when he did, it turned into a 30 foot long mottled brown cobra/boa constrictor, racing after me with head erect and intent to kill me. I made eye contact with it, turned and began to run, but I am sick of running and I stopped and turned to face it square on and yelled at this snake everything I ever held inside. It turned to black glass and crumbled like Voldemort.
I have what it takes to face my fears. But I cannot identify them because I have lived with them so long they are like snakes that have taken up residence in my subconscious and only come out in relationship when I feel under attack. How do I identify and rid them from my psyche other than through relationship? I cannot discern who is and who is not a safe choice for a partner. Each one is a reaction to the previous.
In actuality, I think nobody is the right choice for me even if they look like they are. Even if Mr. Perfect comes along, I feel confident I will focus on his or the relationship's faults and undermine it all. I pick traumatized men who express their pain via alcoholism, so my relationships are set up for failure from the beginning.
Human nature, however, offers a smorgasbord of failings to pick from and I feel like I will simply trade one major dysfunctional attribute for another, ignore the red flags, get married, feel like something is wrong that I cannot identify, finally see the red flags and wonder if they are the culprit, adapt then blame, draw some weak boundaries, not defend them, get angry, suffer through abuse and abandonment until I have had enough, leave my lifestyle and identity behind, struggle through it and move on to the next for more of the same. Is there any way to get off of this ride of self sabotage? ~ Kathryn, Colorado
Dear Kathryn:
They say “bucket’s” of rain but that’s silly. Buckets of rain do not fall in Portland today. It is a body drenching rain. Go out, stand on the sidewalk—bring a bar of soap—and you could take a shower.
Out my window, under all that rain, electric lines make a superhighway for squirrels, those fearless tightrope walkers who dart through the tops of the plum, the lilac and the cedar.
The cedar is closest to my house and its boughs are an eye squinting bright green and yellow. A rowdy jay, equally vivid in color only blue, lands on an edge of a flimsy cedar branch, hangs on with clawed feet and its entire bird body flips upside down. That bird is as big as two of my own hands, you’d think it would fall, but it doesn’t fall. No. In defiance of gravity, the wings flap wide and the bird winds its body into the boughs until it goes beyond my view. Magic. What’s under all those boughs anyway? A nest of babies? Peanuts? What? What? I write all this about the bird and the moment of right now to settle my mind as I consider the many questions that lift out of your life. These are soul-drenching questions born of anger and fear and worry and so much anxiety. Oh my dear, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. You write that you have what it takes to face your fears, as if it’s time to go to battle and fight, but hold on. Can you not turn on yourself and scream but instead, sit down and listen for a moment? “I feel like a doormat! I am in pain! Stop hurting me! I fuc*$ing matter!”
Of course you matter. Of course the hurting must stop. Of course you are in pain. Listen to you and respond with acknowledgement.
This is how you begin a relationship with yourself.
Take that moment, right now, this second, and let’s just go back to the earliest hurt you mention here. Look at the little baby you were, taken from your mother all those years ago. Close your eyes and just be with the panic of that little one. Arms and legs beat and kick at nothing. Her fists are tight and then open. Her face is bright red from crying and screaming. Oh, how that little one hurt.
Give her the dignity of being heard and understood.
The world will not give this to you right now. The world does not agree that babies hurt in this way--we are told we are lucky we were adopted, we are fine and all that is true (perhaps). But when a person--baby or child or adult--is in pain, it doesn't help to be told "you're so lucky, you are fine." It helps to be heard. The world will not hear you, did not hear you, but I hear you and now it is time to hear yourself. Hear and respond with attention. When I am in the place you describe, and I am there more than you might imagine, I do a practice called Taking and Sending.
We’ve actually already started but here is the rest: Go sit somewhere where you can be undisturbed for about 30 minutes. Breathe in and out in a quiet way for about ten or fifteen minutes. Put your attention on your exhale. Don’t worry if your attention strays, it will. Bring your attention back as if it is a little child who has wandered off toward danger. Come back to your exhale—just the exhale—and follow your own breath. After a few minutes of this, see yourself as a little baby taken from your mother so long ago. Listen to the pathetic and deep cries. Let yourself feel all those feelings: shock, pain, humiliation, terror, fear and incomprehension.
We’ve all heard babies cry like this. Inconsolable. Who among us isn’t moved by the tears of a child? Of a baby?
Let yourself be moved by your little self of so long ago. Be with her and breathe. As you exhale, breathe out all your current understanding, caring, affection, assurance and support. Inhale again, taking in the suffering she went through and again, exhale all your compassion for that little one.
Yes, you are going to cry. Let it happen. Cry from the compassion you feel for yourself. Let it out and out and out. Did you know your body releases toxins through the tears that cannot be released in any other way? As Clarissa Pinkola Estes wrote in Women Who Run with Wolves, tears are not a solution to any problem but they will get your boat out of dry dock so you can float downstream to another, better place.
And you have now started your relationship with yourself. What is a relationship anyway? It’s just “being with” another person. Being present. A relationship with yourself means you stop and attend to what is going on inside. You pay attention to your worried mind, you settle down and be with it (gentle, gentle, gentle) and in cases of terrific traumas and abuses, you send all your love to that wounded part of yourself like we did right here.
“But I should be over all that!”
Oh my goodness, how many times have I said those words? “I’ve written all these books,” I’d say, “I spent all this time thinking about myself. I know every single loss by heart. I’ve been in therapy too. I should be better, I should know better, I should be past all that.” All that self-judgment and self-condemnation were ongoing ways I would deepen the pattern of abuse and trauma originally inflicted on me as a baby and then as a child. I did not realize that if I were truly “over it,” I’d be over it! It’s like going to a tall wall and trying to climb over, only to fall down again and again. If I am not over the wall, I am not over the wall and lamenting the fact that I’ve tried to get over the wall doesn’t change the fact that I’m still not over the wall. Beating ourselves up because things are not different, being angry and critical of ourselves, worry and even anxiety, all these churned up states of mind are the results of being caught in old patterns of helplessness and of course this is how you feel (and how I feel and how millions and millions of others feel). Who is more helpless than a little baby taken from her mother? Or a child who has been misunderstood, dismissed, abused and neglected?
The great gift of writing about your life is that, if you write with care and allow yourself to remember, you will be able to line up all the moments when you were harmed and helpless and you will be able to take in the pain and then send out caring to yourself.
You may have to go back a thousand times. Okay. Go back a thousand times. If that is what it takes, that is what it takes. Go. Go now. You will learn to love yourself and be in deep relationship with yourself and it will take time. Don’t worry. Take the time. It’s worth it.
And yes, you will fall down along the way. You will fall asleep into that grand illusion of romantic love and “the other” as savior. All of us fall into that dream. We have been trained by the myths of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. We all want to find “the one,” our prince, the man of our dreams who will make it all better somehow. But he’s not out there. He’s not. I’m sorry princess. The perfection you seek is within. When you realize how amazing you are. I mean, stunning, brilliant white hot light amazing, you will laugh at the idea that it takes another to make you more. It doesn’t. You are everything. You are the entire universe. They don’t call it Buddha-nature for nothing. You have it, I have it, we all have it.
Imagine for a moment a world of Buddha’s, all shining bright.
Romantic love is nice, a little pastime, but come on. Buddha universe or a romance? I’ll take the Buddha universe, thank you very much. All you need is within.
As within, so without.
Let me say this in a way that is loving but direct. You keep attracting people (just like I have done) who are unavailable because you are unavailable to yourself. This is not saying, “oh, you really screwed that up,” I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying this, “stop now and go inside.” Go in and see your remarkable self and that means seeing all the snakes too. Each snake is a wound ready to be transformed into wisdom if you just look at yourself with care, compassion, love and understanding. You don’t have to scream to be heard. Not anymore. Just be with yourself and breathe.
I can’t walk this path for you. No one can do it for you. Only you. It’s all you.
The rain has finally stopped. The jay has popped out of the cedar and with a peanut in its beak. Crazy bird. Good memory. How did a peanut live there and not get discovered by all our fat squirrels? Or perhaps the bird just committed robbery and stole the nut stored by the squirrel? Who knows? Off he goes to have his meal. For me, it’s time to make breakfast, play with the children and pedal to the top of my favorite hill. I hope these words are helpful to you, Kathryn. Be well.
June 18, 2012
Stay or Go?
Dear Tara: How do you know when it's time to end a relationship, especially if you know that other people will be hurt if you do? ~ M in Philly, PA
Dear M in PA:
This kind of question has me at a high peak in Portland, where I live. I sit on a slatted green bench where initials and hearts have been carved into the wood. The view is overgrown grass, two hundred year old pines and reservoirs that hold the city water supply. Way out is the valley of Portland and then beyond is the rise of the west hills. More pine trees, power lines and cell phone towers. Near my bench, a little boy with a green cape tied around his neck runs in a circle. “I am king of the world,” he shouts, “I AM KING OF THE WORLD.”
And then there is the cool wind, which moves in a steady steam up and over the rise of Mt. Tabor and makes a sound like waves on the ocean only it’s not waves, it’s the wind in the trees. Legend has it that Tara is the goddess of wind who moves in the same swift and clear way. Her color is said to be green too, like all these trees that surround me now. So Tara is in the wind and in the trees and this is a good thing because your question needs everything Tara has got and more.
~
To leave a relationship is to bring about a form of death. No matter how bad things are in your current situation, no matter how lonely and grim and even sad, when it’s over—more of that will come. It’s inevitable. Leaving is an end. Death. Are you ready? That might be what’s going on in this question. It’s the inner question that we must ask about timing. Is this the right time?
The first and most important consideration is the children. If you have kids, think about their ages and their temperaments.
1) How will they be without you in their day-to-day life?
2) How will they be watching their mother struggle when she no longer has you at her back to help with the routine, the homework and those times at night when the little ones wake up with a bad dream or illness?
3) How will your young ones handle the emotions you and your partner will feel and likely express as the split takes place?
4) Can they manage the drama that will be part of the home deconstruction, the legal battle and the financial loss?
Children do not ask for their situations, they are at the mercy of adults and it’s our job—I would even call it karma—to love them without consideration to ourselves. As you consider leaving your current situation, think of your kids. Think very hard.
The next consideration is cost. The financial truth about divorce is that it will clean you out and set you back, financially, for about five years—if not longer. If your wife does not work, or makes less than you, there is child support and alimony to pay--for years-and of course the attorney costs. $250 to $400 an hour eats through $10,000 faster than you might imagine. Are you prepared for that cost?
Last, the big question to ask yourself is about yourself. Are you ready to face whatever it is that ails you—deep in your own heart? Leaving a marriage means you take away the mirror. You are left with yourself and here’s the hard part. Right now, you might think the problem is your wife. If only she would change. And it might be her, a little bit, but the bigger problem has everything to do with you. I don’t mean that in an unkind way. I’m not saying you are bad or have done anything wrong. That’s not the point. The point is that we often expect too much from the people we love. We expect them to understand us, to take away our hurt and to know us better than we know ourselves. But no human being is able to do all this. This is the price of being human. We will fail each other. Over and over again. We will break each others hearts. To leave your woman, the mother of your children, will not change the truth about humanity.
You might find another, take comfort in her arms for a while but you will find yourself in this unhappy, unfulfilled state again. This is also part of being human. We cannot find happiness from anything or anyone out there. I’m sorry. It’s hard to hear. But it’s true. Happiness isn’t out there. So now the question becomes this: are you ready to go inside to find the love you want? Can you stop looking outward to lovers, sex, work, electronics (if you into that kind of thing), career status, and even to your children? Can you turn instead, to yourself, and see that all you will ever need is within? This is the hardest question a person can ask himself or herself but it’s necessary if happiness—lasting happiness—is to be inherited. Looking in the mirror, at yourself, can you see the beloved you want your wife to be? And if you can’t, can you at least recognize that the distance between you at this moment and the perfect you within, is the distance you need to travel beginning right now? Think about it. You are going to die alone. You will die into yourself—that wondrous energy that is you right now. What is your state of mind? Are you awake to your potential? Are you aware you are bliss and love and perfection? Very few of us understand the miracle of our own lives and how we are part of this phenomenal and complex universe. You are alive. You are precious. But do you cherish yourself? You know, I believe it’s okay to be married to someone and drift apart for a bit. It’s okay to lose your self and then find yourself again, all while being with the same man or woman. And it’s also okay not to be blissfully happy every single year of a marriage. That’s life. There are good years and there are not so good years and in the end, we do our best. We just keep trying. What more can we do?
As I write this, a man and his son arrive on bikes. They stop to take in the view and stand about four feet away. The son is in his twenties. The father is past fifty. The son asks his father for relationship advice. I swear. It’s happening right now and what I hear the man say is this. “What I have found out, after years with your mom, is that relationships are like a puzzle that come into focus and then seem to go out of focus just as quick. I realized that what I wanted from her was there all along but sometimes I just couldn’t see it.”
The son nods while his dad talks and it’s sweet. But can he understand?
The little boy of while back, that one with green cape, is gone. No one is up here now yelling, "I AM KING OF THE WORLD." Instead, it's me, writing to you and eavesdropping on a man who attempts to give relationship advice to his young son. I can hear the weariness and the awe in the father's voice as he speaks to his son. The tone of his voice says everything about what it is to be in a relationship. Oh, the complexity, the disappointment and even the wonder of it all.
So the question you ask is this: How do you know when it's time to end a relationship, especially if you know that other people will be hurt if you do? I think about what the Dalai Lama says. “If you can’t be helpful, at least don’t cause any harm.” So that is the advice I can offer now. Take the path that causes the least amount of harm to you and those you love. Good luck, M. Good luck.
Dear M in PA:
This kind of question has me at a high peak in Portland, where I live. I sit on a slatted green bench where initials and hearts have been carved into the wood. The view is overgrown grass, two hundred year old pines and reservoirs that hold the city water supply. Way out is the valley of Portland and then beyond is the rise of the west hills. More pine trees, power lines and cell phone towers. Near my bench, a little boy with a green cape tied around his neck runs in a circle. “I am king of the world,” he shouts, “I AM KING OF THE WORLD.”
And then there is the cool wind, which moves in a steady steam up and over the rise of Mt. Tabor and makes a sound like waves on the ocean only it’s not waves, it’s the wind in the trees. Legend has it that Tara is the goddess of wind who moves in the same swift and clear way. Her color is said to be green too, like all these trees that surround me now. So Tara is in the wind and in the trees and this is a good thing because your question needs everything Tara has got and more. ~
To leave a relationship is to bring about a form of death. No matter how bad things are in your current situation, no matter how lonely and grim and even sad, when it’s over—more of that will come. It’s inevitable. Leaving is an end. Death. Are you ready? That might be what’s going on in this question. It’s the inner question that we must ask about timing. Is this the right time?
The first and most important consideration is the children. If you have kids, think about their ages and their temperaments.
1) How will they be without you in their day-to-day life?
2) How will they be watching their mother struggle when she no longer has you at her back to help with the routine, the homework and those times at night when the little ones wake up with a bad dream or illness?
3) How will your young ones handle the emotions you and your partner will feel and likely express as the split takes place?
4) Can they manage the drama that will be part of the home deconstruction, the legal battle and the financial loss?
Children do not ask for their situations, they are at the mercy of adults and it’s our job—I would even call it karma—to love them without consideration to ourselves. As you consider leaving your current situation, think of your kids. Think very hard.
The next consideration is cost. The financial truth about divorce is that it will clean you out and set you back, financially, for about five years—if not longer. If your wife does not work, or makes less than you, there is child support and alimony to pay--for years-and of course the attorney costs. $250 to $400 an hour eats through $10,000 faster than you might imagine. Are you prepared for that cost?
Last, the big question to ask yourself is about yourself. Are you ready to face whatever it is that ails you—deep in your own heart? Leaving a marriage means you take away the mirror. You are left with yourself and here’s the hard part. Right now, you might think the problem is your wife. If only she would change. And it might be her, a little bit, but the bigger problem has everything to do with you. I don’t mean that in an unkind way. I’m not saying you are bad or have done anything wrong. That’s not the point. The point is that we often expect too much from the people we love. We expect them to understand us, to take away our hurt and to know us better than we know ourselves. But no human being is able to do all this. This is the price of being human. We will fail each other. Over and over again. We will break each others hearts. To leave your woman, the mother of your children, will not change the truth about humanity. You might find another, take comfort in her arms for a while but you will find yourself in this unhappy, unfulfilled state again. This is also part of being human. We cannot find happiness from anything or anyone out there. I’m sorry. It’s hard to hear. But it’s true. Happiness isn’t out there. So now the question becomes this: are you ready to go inside to find the love you want? Can you stop looking outward to lovers, sex, work, electronics (if you into that kind of thing), career status, and even to your children? Can you turn instead, to yourself, and see that all you will ever need is within? This is the hardest question a person can ask himself or herself but it’s necessary if happiness—lasting happiness—is to be inherited. Looking in the mirror, at yourself, can you see the beloved you want your wife to be? And if you can’t, can you at least recognize that the distance between you at this moment and the perfect you within, is the distance you need to travel beginning right now? Think about it. You are going to die alone. You will die into yourself—that wondrous energy that is you right now. What is your state of mind? Are you awake to your potential? Are you aware you are bliss and love and perfection? Very few of us understand the miracle of our own lives and how we are part of this phenomenal and complex universe. You are alive. You are precious. But do you cherish yourself? You know, I believe it’s okay to be married to someone and drift apart for a bit. It’s okay to lose your self and then find yourself again, all while being with the same man or woman. And it’s also okay not to be blissfully happy every single year of a marriage. That’s life. There are good years and there are not so good years and in the end, we do our best. We just keep trying. What more can we do?
As I write this, a man and his son arrive on bikes. They stop to take in the view and stand about four feet away. The son is in his twenties. The father is past fifty. The son asks his father for relationship advice. I swear. It’s happening right now and what I hear the man say is this. “What I have found out, after years with your mom, is that relationships are like a puzzle that come into focus and then seem to go out of focus just as quick. I realized that what I wanted from her was there all along but sometimes I just couldn’t see it.”
The son nods while his dad talks and it’s sweet. But can he understand? The little boy of while back, that one with green cape, is gone. No one is up here now yelling, "I AM KING OF THE WORLD." Instead, it's me, writing to you and eavesdropping on a man who attempts to give relationship advice to his young son. I can hear the weariness and the awe in the father's voice as he speaks to his son. The tone of his voice says everything about what it is to be in a relationship. Oh, the complexity, the disappointment and even the wonder of it all.
So the question you ask is this: How do you know when it's time to end a relationship, especially if you know that other people will be hurt if you do? I think about what the Dalai Lama says. “If you can’t be helpful, at least don’t cause any harm.” So that is the advice I can offer now. Take the path that causes the least amount of harm to you and those you love. Good luck, M. Good luck.
Dear Tara: How do you know when it's time to end a ...
Dear Tara: How do you know when it's time to end a relationship, especially if you know that other people will be hurt if you do? ~ M in Philly, PA
Dear M in PA:
This kind of question has me at a high peak in Portland, where I live. I sit on a slatted green bench where initials and hearts have been carved into the wood. The view is overgrown grass, two hundred year old pines and reservoirs that hold the city water supply. Way out is the valley of Portland and then beyond is the rise of the west hills. More pine trees, power lines and cell phone towers. Near my bench, a little boy with a green cape tied around his neck runs in a circle. “I am king of the world,” he shouts, “I AM KING OF THE WORLD.”
And then there is the cool wind, which moves in a steady steam up and over the rise of Mt. Tabor and makes a sound like waves on the ocean only it’s not waves, it’s the wind in the trees. Legend has it that Tara is the goddess of wind who moves in the same swift and clear way. Her color is said to be green too, like all these trees that surround me now. So Tara is in the wind and in the trees and this is a good thing because your question needs everything Tara has got and more.
~
To leave a relationship is to bring about a form of death. No matter how bad things are in your current situation, no matter how lonely and grim and even sad, when it’s over—more of that will come. It’s inevitable. Leaving is an end. Death. Are you ready? That might be what’s going on in this question. It’s the inner question that we must ask about timing. Is this the right time?
The first and most important consideration is the children. If you have kids, think about their ages and their temperaments.
1) How will they be without you in their day-to-day life?
2) How will they be watching their mother struggle when she no longer has you at her back to help with the routine, the homework and those times at night when the little ones wake up with a bad dream or illness?
3) How will your young ones handle the emotions you and your partner will feel and likely express as the split takes place?
4) Can they manage the drama that will be part of the home deconstruction, the legal battle and the financial loss?
Children do not ask for their situations, they are at the mercy of adults and it’s our job—I would even call it karma—to love them without consideration to ourselves. As you consider leaving your current situation, think of your kids. Think very hard.
The next consideration is cost. The financial truth about divorce is that it will clean you out and set you back, financially, for about five years—if not longer. If your wife does not work, or makes less than you, there is child support and alimony to pay--for years-and of course the attorney costs. $250 to $400 an hour eats through $10,000 faster than you might imagine. Are you prepared for that cost?
Last, the big question to ask yourself is about yourself. Are you ready to face whatever it is that ails you—deep in your own heart? Leaving a marriage means you take away the mirror. You are left with yourself and here’s the hard part. Right now, you might think the problem is your wife. If only she would change. And it might be her, a little bit, but the bigger problem has everything to do with you. I don’t mean that in an unkind way. I’m not saying you are bad or have done anything wrong. That’s not the point. The point is that we often expect too much from the people we love. We expect them to understand us, to take away our hurt and to know us better than we know ourselves. But no human being is able to do all this. This is the price of being human. We will fail each other. Over and over again. We will break each others hearts. To leave your woman, the mother of your children, will not change the truth about humanity.
You might find another, take comfort in her arms for a while but you will find yourself in this unhappy, unfulfilled state again. This is also part of being human. We cannot find happiness from anything or anyone out there. I’m sorry. It’s hard to hear. But it’s true. Happiness isn’t out there. So now the question becomes this: are you ready to go inside to find the love you want? Can you stop looking outward to lovers, sex, work, electronics (if you into that kind of thing), career status, and even to your children? Can you turn instead, to yourself, and see that all you will ever need is within? This is the hardest question a person can ask himself or herself but it’s necessary if happiness—lasting happiness—is to be inherited. Looking in the mirror, at yourself, can you see the beloved you want your wife to be? And if you can’t, can you at least recognize that the distance between you at this moment and the perfect you within, is the distance you need to travel beginning right now? Think about it. You are going to die alone. You will die into yourself—that wondrous energy that is you right now. What is your state of mind? Are you awake to your potential? Are you aware you are bliss and love and perfection? Very few of us understand the miracle of our own lives and how we are part of this phenomenal and complex universe. You are alive. You are precious. But do you cherish yourself? You know, I believe it’s okay to be married to someone and drift apart for a bit. It’s okay to lose your self and then find yourself again, all while being with the same man or woman. And it’s also okay not to be blissfully happy every single year of a marriage. That’s life. There are good years and there are not so good years and in the end, we do our best. We just keep trying. What more can we do?
As I write this, a man and his son arrive on bikes. They stop to take in the view and stand about four feet away. The son is in his twenties. The father is past fifty. The son asks his father for relationship advice. I swear. It’s happening right now and what I hear the man say is this. “What I have found out, after years with your mom, is that relationships are like a puzzle that come into focus and then seem to go out of focus just as quick. I realized that what I wanted from her was there all along but sometimes I just couldn’t see it.”
The son nods while his dad talks and it’s sweet. But can he understand?
The little boy of while back, that one with green cape, is gone. No one is up here now yelling, "I AM KING OF THE WORLD." Instead, it's me, writing to you and eavesdropping on a man who attempts to give relationship advice to his young son. I can hear the weariness and the awe in the father's voice as he speaks to his son. The tone of his voice says everything about what it is to be in a relationship. Oh, the complexity, the disappointment and even the wonder of it all.
So the question you ask is this: How do you know when it's time to end a relationship, especially if you know that other people will be hurt if you do? I think about what the Dalai Lama says. “If you can’t be helpful, at least don’t cause any harm.” So that is the advice I can offer now. Take the path that causes the least amount of harm to you and those you love. Good luck, M. Good luck.
Dear M in PA:
This kind of question has me at a high peak in Portland, where I live. I sit on a slatted green bench where initials and hearts have been carved into the wood. The view is overgrown grass, two hundred year old pines and reservoirs that hold the city water supply. Way out is the valley of Portland and then beyond is the rise of the west hills. More pine trees, power lines and cell phone towers. Near my bench, a little boy with a green cape tied around his neck runs in a circle. “I am king of the world,” he shouts, “I AM KING OF THE WORLD.”
And then there is the cool wind, which moves in a steady steam up and over the rise of Mt. Tabor and makes a sound like waves on the ocean only it’s not waves, it’s the wind in the trees. Legend has it that Tara is the goddess of wind who moves in the same swift and clear way. Her color is said to be green too, like all these trees that surround me now. So Tara is in the wind and in the trees and this is a good thing because your question needs everything Tara has got and more. ~
To leave a relationship is to bring about a form of death. No matter how bad things are in your current situation, no matter how lonely and grim and even sad, when it’s over—more of that will come. It’s inevitable. Leaving is an end. Death. Are you ready? That might be what’s going on in this question. It’s the inner question that we must ask about timing. Is this the right time?
The first and most important consideration is the children. If you have kids, think about their ages and their temperaments.
1) How will they be without you in their day-to-day life?
2) How will they be watching their mother struggle when she no longer has you at her back to help with the routine, the homework and those times at night when the little ones wake up with a bad dream or illness?
3) How will your young ones handle the emotions you and your partner will feel and likely express as the split takes place?
4) Can they manage the drama that will be part of the home deconstruction, the legal battle and the financial loss?
Children do not ask for their situations, they are at the mercy of adults and it’s our job—I would even call it karma—to love them without consideration to ourselves. As you consider leaving your current situation, think of your kids. Think very hard.
The next consideration is cost. The financial truth about divorce is that it will clean you out and set you back, financially, for about five years—if not longer. If your wife does not work, or makes less than you, there is child support and alimony to pay--for years-and of course the attorney costs. $250 to $400 an hour eats through $10,000 faster than you might imagine. Are you prepared for that cost?
Last, the big question to ask yourself is about yourself. Are you ready to face whatever it is that ails you—deep in your own heart? Leaving a marriage means you take away the mirror. You are left with yourself and here’s the hard part. Right now, you might think the problem is your wife. If only she would change. And it might be her, a little bit, but the bigger problem has everything to do with you. I don’t mean that in an unkind way. I’m not saying you are bad or have done anything wrong. That’s not the point. The point is that we often expect too much from the people we love. We expect them to understand us, to take away our hurt and to know us better than we know ourselves. But no human being is able to do all this. This is the price of being human. We will fail each other. Over and over again. We will break each others hearts. To leave your woman, the mother of your children, will not change the truth about humanity. You might find another, take comfort in her arms for a while but you will find yourself in this unhappy, unfulfilled state again. This is also part of being human. We cannot find happiness from anything or anyone out there. I’m sorry. It’s hard to hear. But it’s true. Happiness isn’t out there. So now the question becomes this: are you ready to go inside to find the love you want? Can you stop looking outward to lovers, sex, work, electronics (if you into that kind of thing), career status, and even to your children? Can you turn instead, to yourself, and see that all you will ever need is within? This is the hardest question a person can ask himself or herself but it’s necessary if happiness—lasting happiness—is to be inherited. Looking in the mirror, at yourself, can you see the beloved you want your wife to be? And if you can’t, can you at least recognize that the distance between you at this moment and the perfect you within, is the distance you need to travel beginning right now? Think about it. You are going to die alone. You will die into yourself—that wondrous energy that is you right now. What is your state of mind? Are you awake to your potential? Are you aware you are bliss and love and perfection? Very few of us understand the miracle of our own lives and how we are part of this phenomenal and complex universe. You are alive. You are precious. But do you cherish yourself? You know, I believe it’s okay to be married to someone and drift apart for a bit. It’s okay to lose your self and then find yourself again, all while being with the same man or woman. And it’s also okay not to be blissfully happy every single year of a marriage. That’s life. There are good years and there are not so good years and in the end, we do our best. We just keep trying. What more can we do?
As I write this, a man and his son arrive on bikes. They stop to take in the view and stand about four feet away. The son is in his twenties. The father is past fifty. The son asks his father for relationship advice. I swear. It’s happening right now and what I hear the man say is this. “What I have found out, after years with your mom, is that relationships are like a puzzle that come into focus and then seem to go out of focus just as quick. I realized that what I wanted from her was there all along but sometimes I just couldn’t see it.”
The son nods while his dad talks and it’s sweet. But can he understand? The little boy of while back, that one with green cape, is gone. No one is up here now yelling, "I AM KING OF THE WORLD." Instead, it's me, writing to you and eavesdropping on a man who attempts to give relationship advice to his young son. I can hear the weariness and the awe in the father's voice as he speaks to his son. The tone of his voice says everything about what it is to be in a relationship. Oh, the complexity, the disappointment and even the wonder of it all.
So the question you ask is this: How do you know when it's time to end a relationship, especially if you know that other people will be hurt if you do? I think about what the Dalai Lama says. “If you can’t be helpful, at least don’t cause any harm.” So that is the advice I can offer now. Take the path that causes the least amount of harm to you and those you love. Good luck, M. Good luck.
June 11, 2012
Ask Tara
Before I was born, my mother named me Tara. She had been reading Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer prize winner, Gone With the Wind. My name was inspired by the plantation home of the novel's flawed heroine, Scarlett O'Hara. Little did my mother know, when she named me and then gave me up for adoption, I would grow to become a Buddhist in the Tibetan tradition and Tara would be my first practice.
Tara, as shown here, is a feminine deity who represents compassionate action. Even before I knew Tara was my namesake, I loved her. Tara was a princess, who sought enlightenment at a time when women were thought to be inferior and unable to reach transformation in the female form. Tara told the men of her time that she did not make that distinction and that she would achieve enlightenment as woman. And she did! Tara's commitment to is be with us, ready to take action, on even the smallest human challenge.
This column is named for Tara in order that the best, most careful, compassionate and wise advice go out for those who ask.
Send your questions to Jennifer@jenniferlauck.com and let's see what Tara has to say
The first post will go up Monday, June 18.
May 7, 2012
Writing Tip #27: Types of Scene
As a writer of memoir, your primary job is to re-create your lived experience on the page.The most effective way to do this? With a scene. From the Tell it Slant by Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola, “scene is the building block of creative non-fiction.” She also goes on to write, “Scene is based on action unreeling before us, as it would in a film and it will draw on the same techniques as fiction—dialogue, description, point of view, specificity, concrete detail. Scene also encompasses the lyricism and imagery of great poetry.”
Now let’s take a look at the different kinds of scene that are available.
Representative scene: This is scene that doesn’t pretend to happen at one specific time and place but “represents” a “typical” moment. For example, you want to write about the morning routine in your home as a child. You can write about the “typical morning,” in general terms in order to capture the essence of the family routine.
IE: Mornings in our house were always the same, I was up early—before my brothers and sisters and even my mom. In the quiet of the hazy, pre-day light, I’d pad down the stairs with socks on my feet and take extra care to avoid the fifth step which was known for it’s high pitched squeak. Once on the main floor, it felt like the house was mine—a silent kingdom where I could rule over stove, refrigerator, sink and table. I could sit where I wanted and not have to wrestle by brother for the cereal box and beg the milk from my sister. Here, in the freshness of each day, I learned what it might be like when I lived on my own and away from the craziness that began by eight a.m.
As you can see here, in representative scene, you have freedom to summarize but are still called on to load sentences with details to convey the mood, setting and voice.
Specific scene: This is your extended scene about a moment in time—one moment—when something happens that moves your story forward in a significant way. Action unfolds before the reader and perhaps even for the narrator. This scene is easily identified by “cue” words like: one day, that day, on Tuesday, that morning, that evening and so on. It’s the “singular” that makes it clear to the reader that it’s time to settle down and read about that one time that one thing happened.
IE: It’s a Monday morning, June, 1973. School is not yet out and another day is ahead. Math, science, English. I cannot wait to finish seventh grade. I roll out of bed and the house ticks with that silence that is the early morning. The radiators have yet to wake up and outside there is the lightest call of the early birds. I poke my head out my bedroom door, the one with the “do not disturb” which hangs from the knob and look right, left and then right again. Total silence except for the caw, wheeze sound of Mike who always snores. It’s the retainers in his mouth. He sounds like a cave man in there. The door to my mother’s room is closed and there is no light from under the door. I have about an hour before everyone will wake up and the rush to get to school will begin. Back in my own room, I tug on my pink and white stripped socks, the ones with extra fluff so I won’t make one sound as I sneak down the stairs.
Both forms of scene are needed in your writing and both require time spent to include vivid images that will hold in the readers mind.
Writers have a tendency not to use scene in their writing. I think it has something to do with the issue of understanding and of craftsmanship. Writers are afraid they might not get it right or that they don’t have the talent to get it right so they fall in clever forms of expository writing and load the pages with one “incident” after another. Volumes and volumes of experiences do not convey essence. This approach pretty much yields a great deal of “stream of consciousness” writing. Or journal writing, which is simply not that interesting for the reader.
The best way to get a sense of scene, both the representative type and the specific type, is to look for these forms in the books you read. Take a sticky note and put it there, next to each format you find and in this way you will begin to "understand" what the writer is doing and how they are doing it.
Take a class on craft: June 2012. 10 spots left.
April 29, 2012
Writing Tip #26: Four Tips on Setting
This weeks tip is from the very incisive posting from Moira Allen. While she's talking about setting in relationship to fiction, writers of memoir are pulling on the work of fiction to do their work too, so this is helpful advice.
Enjoy Four Ways to Bring Settings to Life by Moira Allen
Too little detail leaves your characters wandering through the narrative equivalent of an empty stage. Too much, and you end up with great blocks of description that tempt the reader to skip and skim, looking for the action.
To set your stage, it's important to choose the most appropriate, vivid details possible. It's equally important to present those details in a way that will engage the reader. The following four techniques can help.
1) Reveal setting through motion.
Let your description unfold as a character moves through the scene. Consider which details your character would notice immediately, and which might register more slowly. Let your character encounter those details interactively.
Suppose, for example, that your heroine, an "Orphan Annie" of humble origins, has entered a millionaire's mansion. What would she notice first? How would she react to her surroundings?
Let her observe how soft the rich Persian carpet feels underfoot, how it muffles her footfalls, how she's tempted to remove her shoes. Don't tell us the sofa is soft until she actually sinks into it. Let her smell the fragrance of hothouse flowers filling a cut-crystal vase.
Use active verbs to set the scene. Instead of saying "a heavy marble table dominated the room," force your character to detour around it. Instead of explaining that "light glittered and danced from the crystal chandelier," let your character blink at the prismatic display.
"Walking through" a description breaks the details into bite-sized nuggets, and scatters those nuggets throughout the scene so that the reader never feels overwhelmed or bored.
2) Reveal setting through a character's level of experience.
What your character knows will directly influence what she sees. Your orphan may not know whether the carpet is Persian or Moroccan, or even whether it's wool or polyester. If these details are important, how can you convey them?
You could, of course, let the haughty owner of the mansion point out your heroine's ignorance. Or, you could write the scene from the owner's perspective. Keep in mind, however, that different characters will perceive the same surroundings in very different ways, based on their familiarity (or lack thereof) with the setting.
Imagine, for example, that you're describing a stretch of windswept coastline from the perspective of a local fisherman's son. What would he notice? From the color of the sky or changes in the wind, he might make deductions about tomorrow's weather and sailing conditions. When he notices seabirds wheeling against the clouds, he doesn't just see "gulls," but terns and gannets and petrels -- easily identified by the shape of their wings or patterns of their flight.
Equally important are the things he might not notice. Being so familiar with the area, he might pay little attention to the fantastic shapes of the rocks, or the gnarled driftwood littering the sand. He hardly notices the bite of the wind through his cable-knit sweater, and he's oblivious to the stink of rotting kelp-mats that have washed ashore.
Now suppose a rich kid from the big city is trudging along that same beach. Bundled to the teeth in the latest Northwest Outfitters jacket, he's still shivering -- and can't imagine why the lad beside him isn't freezing to death. He keeps stumbling over half-buried pieces of driftwood, and fears that the sand is ruining his Doc Martens. From the way the waves pound against the beach, he thinks a major storm is brewing. The very thought of bad weather makes him nauseous, as does the stench of rotting seaweed (he doesn't think of it as "kelp") and dead fish.
Each of these characters' perceptions of the beach will be profoundly influenced by his experience. "Familiar," however, needn't imply a positive outlook, while "unfamiliar" needn't mean "negative." Your city kid might, in fact, regard the beach as an idyllic vacation spot -- rugged, romantic, isolated, just the place to make him feel he's really getting in touch with nature. The fisherman's son, on the other hand, may loathe the ocean, feeling trapped by the whims of wind and weather. Which brings us to the next point:
3) Reveal setting through the mood of your character.
What we see is profoundly influenced by what we feel. The same should be true for our characters. Filtering a scene through a character's feelings can profoundly influence what the reader "sees." Suppose, for example, that your heroine -- a spunky young girl on holiday -- is strolling an archetypal stretch of British moorland. Across the blossoming gorse, she sees the ruins of some ancient watchtower, little more than a jumble of stones crowning the next hill (or "tor," as her guidebook puts it).
The temptation to explore is irresistible. Flicking dandelion heads with her walking stick, our heroine hikes up the slope, breathing the scents of grass and clover, admiring the lichen patterns on the granite boulders. At last, warmed by the sun and her exertions, she leans back against a stone and watches clouds drift overhead like fuzzy sheep herded by a gentle wind. A falcon shrills from a nearby hollow, its cry a pleasant reminder of how far she has come from the dirty high school she so despises.
A pleasant picture? By now, your reader might be considering travel arrangements to Dartmoor. But what if your heroine is in a different mood? What if she has become separated from her tour group and is lost? Perhaps she started across the moor because she thought she saw a dwelling -- but was dismayed to find that it was only a grey, creepy ruin. The tower's scattered stones, half-buried in weeds and tangled grasses, remind her of grave markers worn faceless with time. Its silent emptiness speaks of secrets, of a desolation that welcomes no trespassers. Though the sun is high, scudding clouds cast a pall over the landscape, and the eerie, lonesome cry of some unseen bird reminds her just how far she is from home. When this traveler looks at the gorse, she sees thorns, not blossoms.
When she looks at clouds, she sees no fanciful shapes, only the threat of rain. She wants out of this situation -- while your reader is on the edge of his seat, expecting something far worse than a ruin to appear on this character's horizon!
4) Reveal setting through the senses.
A character's perception of a setting will influence and be influenced by the senses. Our stranded hiker, for example, may not notice the fragrance of the grass, but she will be keenly aware of the cold wind. Our city kid notices odors the fisherman's son ignores, while the latter detects subtle variations in the color of the sky that are meaningless to the former.
Different sensory inputs evoke different reactions. For example, visual information tends to be processed primarily at the cognitive level: We make decisions and take action based on what we see. When we describe a scene in terms of visual inputs, we are appealing to the reader's intellect.
Emotions, however, are often affected by what we hear. Think of the effects of a favorite piece of music, the sound of a person's voice, the whistle of a train. In conversation, tone of voice is a more reliable indicator of mood and meaning than words alone. Sounds can make us shudder, shiver, jump -- or relax and smile. Scene that include sounds -- fingers scraping a blackboard, the distant baying of a hound -- are more likely to evoke an emotional response.
Smell has the remarkable ability to evoke memories. While not everyone is taken straight to childhood by "the smell of bread baking," we all have olfactory memories that can trigger a scene, or a recollection of an event or person. Think of someone's perfume, the smell of new-car leather, the odor of wet dog. Then describe that smell effectively, and your reader is there.
Touch evokes a sensory response. Let your reader feel the silkiness of a cat's fur, the roughness of castle stones, the prickly warmth of Dad's flannel shirt. Let your heroine's feet ache, let the wind raise goosebumps on her flesh, let the gorse thorns draw blood.
Finally, there is taste, which is closely related to smell in its ability to evoke memories. Taste, however, is perhaps the most difficult to incorporate into a setting; often, it simply doesn't belong there. Your heroine isn't going to start licking the castle stones, and it isn't time for lunch. As in real life, "taste" images should be used sparingly and appropriately.
The goal of description is to create a well-designed set that provides the perfect background for your characters -- and that stays in the background, without overwhelming the scene or interrupting the story. In real life, we explore our surroundings through our actions, experience them through our senses, understand (or fail to understand) them through our knowledge and experience, and respond to them through our emotions. When your characters do the same, you'll keep your readers turning pages -- and not just because they're waiting for something interesting to happen!
Copyright © 1999 Moira Allen - This article originally appeared in The Writer.
Prompt: Look around your room. Up, down, right, left, in front of you and behind you. Really look. Now set the scene about a person in a writing class, you or the person you are looking at that you call you (IE: 1st person or 3rd). Include the mention of the city, the state, the country, the year, the season, the economy, your personal state of mind, politics, your relationship status. All within context of this moment.
Lesson: Just as the narrator is the most important character and all the people he or she interacts with in the main arc of the story are important characters—location is VERY important character too and should be considered in this way. Location—that part of your story that sets the scene in space and time and places the narrator in that setting—is as vital to the story as the people, what is said and the events that take place. Without a location and the details that establish that location, the reader is unable to “land” and truly experience what the writer is sharing. Setting grounds the reader and grounds the experience. Setting also holds the forward moving action and can be referred back to again and again.
Goal: Become setting aware. Increase awareness about “setting” in your own writing and identify setting in other writing.
Enjoy Four Ways to Bring Settings to Life by Moira Allen
Too little detail leaves your characters wandering through the narrative equivalent of an empty stage. Too much, and you end up with great blocks of description that tempt the reader to skip and skim, looking for the action.
To set your stage, it's important to choose the most appropriate, vivid details possible. It's equally important to present those details in a way that will engage the reader. The following four techniques can help.
1) Reveal setting through motion.
Let your description unfold as a character moves through the scene. Consider which details your character would notice immediately, and which might register more slowly. Let your character encounter those details interactively.
Suppose, for example, that your heroine, an "Orphan Annie" of humble origins, has entered a millionaire's mansion. What would she notice first? How would she react to her surroundings?
Let her observe how soft the rich Persian carpet feels underfoot, how it muffles her footfalls, how she's tempted to remove her shoes. Don't tell us the sofa is soft until she actually sinks into it. Let her smell the fragrance of hothouse flowers filling a cut-crystal vase.
Use active verbs to set the scene. Instead of saying "a heavy marble table dominated the room," force your character to detour around it. Instead of explaining that "light glittered and danced from the crystal chandelier," let your character blink at the prismatic display.
"Walking through" a description breaks the details into bite-sized nuggets, and scatters those nuggets throughout the scene so that the reader never feels overwhelmed or bored.
2) Reveal setting through a character's level of experience.
What your character knows will directly influence what she sees. Your orphan may not know whether the carpet is Persian or Moroccan, or even whether it's wool or polyester. If these details are important, how can you convey them?
You could, of course, let the haughty owner of the mansion point out your heroine's ignorance. Or, you could write the scene from the owner's perspective. Keep in mind, however, that different characters will perceive the same surroundings in very different ways, based on their familiarity (or lack thereof) with the setting.
Imagine, for example, that you're describing a stretch of windswept coastline from the perspective of a local fisherman's son. What would he notice? From the color of the sky or changes in the wind, he might make deductions about tomorrow's weather and sailing conditions. When he notices seabirds wheeling against the clouds, he doesn't just see "gulls," but terns and gannets and petrels -- easily identified by the shape of their wings or patterns of their flight.
Equally important are the things he might not notice. Being so familiar with the area, he might pay little attention to the fantastic shapes of the rocks, or the gnarled driftwood littering the sand. He hardly notices the bite of the wind through his cable-knit sweater, and he's oblivious to the stink of rotting kelp-mats that have washed ashore.
Now suppose a rich kid from the big city is trudging along that same beach. Bundled to the teeth in the latest Northwest Outfitters jacket, he's still shivering -- and can't imagine why the lad beside him isn't freezing to death. He keeps stumbling over half-buried pieces of driftwood, and fears that the sand is ruining his Doc Martens. From the way the waves pound against the beach, he thinks a major storm is brewing. The very thought of bad weather makes him nauseous, as does the stench of rotting seaweed (he doesn't think of it as "kelp") and dead fish.
Each of these characters' perceptions of the beach will be profoundly influenced by his experience. "Familiar," however, needn't imply a positive outlook, while "unfamiliar" needn't mean "negative." Your city kid might, in fact, regard the beach as an idyllic vacation spot -- rugged, romantic, isolated, just the place to make him feel he's really getting in touch with nature. The fisherman's son, on the other hand, may loathe the ocean, feeling trapped by the whims of wind and weather. Which brings us to the next point:
3) Reveal setting through the mood of your character.
What we see is profoundly influenced by what we feel. The same should be true for our characters. Filtering a scene through a character's feelings can profoundly influence what the reader "sees." Suppose, for example, that your heroine -- a spunky young girl on holiday -- is strolling an archetypal stretch of British moorland. Across the blossoming gorse, she sees the ruins of some ancient watchtower, little more than a jumble of stones crowning the next hill (or "tor," as her guidebook puts it).
The temptation to explore is irresistible. Flicking dandelion heads with her walking stick, our heroine hikes up the slope, breathing the scents of grass and clover, admiring the lichen patterns on the granite boulders. At last, warmed by the sun and her exertions, she leans back against a stone and watches clouds drift overhead like fuzzy sheep herded by a gentle wind. A falcon shrills from a nearby hollow, its cry a pleasant reminder of how far she has come from the dirty high school she so despises.
A pleasant picture? By now, your reader might be considering travel arrangements to Dartmoor. But what if your heroine is in a different mood? What if she has become separated from her tour group and is lost? Perhaps she started across the moor because she thought she saw a dwelling -- but was dismayed to find that it was only a grey, creepy ruin. The tower's scattered stones, half-buried in weeds and tangled grasses, remind her of grave markers worn faceless with time. Its silent emptiness speaks of secrets, of a desolation that welcomes no trespassers. Though the sun is high, scudding clouds cast a pall over the landscape, and the eerie, lonesome cry of some unseen bird reminds her just how far she is from home. When this traveler looks at the gorse, she sees thorns, not blossoms.
When she looks at clouds, she sees no fanciful shapes, only the threat of rain. She wants out of this situation -- while your reader is on the edge of his seat, expecting something far worse than a ruin to appear on this character's horizon!
4) Reveal setting through the senses.
A character's perception of a setting will influence and be influenced by the senses. Our stranded hiker, for example, may not notice the fragrance of the grass, but she will be keenly aware of the cold wind. Our city kid notices odors the fisherman's son ignores, while the latter detects subtle variations in the color of the sky that are meaningless to the former.
Different sensory inputs evoke different reactions. For example, visual information tends to be processed primarily at the cognitive level: We make decisions and take action based on what we see. When we describe a scene in terms of visual inputs, we are appealing to the reader's intellect.
Emotions, however, are often affected by what we hear. Think of the effects of a favorite piece of music, the sound of a person's voice, the whistle of a train. In conversation, tone of voice is a more reliable indicator of mood and meaning than words alone. Sounds can make us shudder, shiver, jump -- or relax and smile. Scene that include sounds -- fingers scraping a blackboard, the distant baying of a hound -- are more likely to evoke an emotional response.
Smell has the remarkable ability to evoke memories. While not everyone is taken straight to childhood by "the smell of bread baking," we all have olfactory memories that can trigger a scene, or a recollection of an event or person. Think of someone's perfume, the smell of new-car leather, the odor of wet dog. Then describe that smell effectively, and your reader is there.
Touch evokes a sensory response. Let your reader feel the silkiness of a cat's fur, the roughness of castle stones, the prickly warmth of Dad's flannel shirt. Let your heroine's feet ache, let the wind raise goosebumps on her flesh, let the gorse thorns draw blood.
Finally, there is taste, which is closely related to smell in its ability to evoke memories. Taste, however, is perhaps the most difficult to incorporate into a setting; often, it simply doesn't belong there. Your heroine isn't going to start licking the castle stones, and it isn't time for lunch. As in real life, "taste" images should be used sparingly and appropriately.
The goal of description is to create a well-designed set that provides the perfect background for your characters -- and that stays in the background, without overwhelming the scene or interrupting the story. In real life, we explore our surroundings through our actions, experience them through our senses, understand (or fail to understand) them through our knowledge and experience, and respond to them through our emotions. When your characters do the same, you'll keep your readers turning pages -- and not just because they're waiting for something interesting to happen!
Copyright © 1999 Moira Allen - This article originally appeared in The Writer.
Prompt: Look around your room. Up, down, right, left, in front of you and behind you. Really look. Now set the scene about a person in a writing class, you or the person you are looking at that you call you (IE: 1st person or 3rd). Include the mention of the city, the state, the country, the year, the season, the economy, your personal state of mind, politics, your relationship status. All within context of this moment.
Lesson: Just as the narrator is the most important character and all the people he or she interacts with in the main arc of the story are important characters—location is VERY important character too and should be considered in this way. Location—that part of your story that sets the scene in space and time and places the narrator in that setting—is as vital to the story as the people, what is said and the events that take place. Without a location and the details that establish that location, the reader is unable to “land” and truly experience what the writer is sharing. Setting grounds the reader and grounds the experience. Setting also holds the forward moving action and can be referred back to again and again.
Goal: Become setting aware. Increase awareness about “setting” in your own writing and identify setting in other writing.
