In June, I participated in an online writing workshop hosted through 27 Powers. The work consists of writing, with a brief prompt, nonstop, for a designated time, usually 10-15 minutes. The goal to let it go, let it flow, with no boundaries, trust and see what happens. A truly wild ride! Especially when I went back and reread what I had written. Wow. Here are my writing pieces, vulnerable, raw, and real.
Just Show Up
Just showing up today even though your thoughts take you elsewhere from minute to minute. Even though I try desperately to stay in the moment, my feet follow my mind or my mind follows my feet and I'm wondering where I am and how I got there. It's quite incredible-this life- how we can we transported from minute to minute, moment to moment and what ever came of those poems I wrote in Omaha- Why was I even in Omaha- alone no less, and on my birthday? Weird. I find that the more I focus on letting go, the more I hang on tight. Tighten my grasp on things I love instead of remembering that love is letting go, letting go of expectation, letting go of fear, worry, concern; the what ifs, the should haves. I deeply dislike the word "should." Who gets to say that of the actions of others?
Let me love the orderly and the messy
Let me let go and expectation and regret
Let me live each day in this day
When did I start anticipating "next." That idea of the future. It's the thing you can't control but our minds are wildly confident in our ability to predict the outcome.
As if the future is an algorithmic puzzle with a solution just waiting to be solved. As if there is a known quantity of future events that just have to be unlocked- if the right sequences of events occur.
Let me stay in love with the idea of love, the faith in joy, the trust that dawn breaks for the sun and moon rises with the tide. And your love for this world is in sync with the simple awareness of joy.
You Only Lose What You Cling To...
the door to our minds is the most important to open and leave ajar- for only in this peace does it make sense to allow peace to wash over you in full comfort.
You Do Not Need to Know What Comes Next...
the labyrinth, the yellow arrow leads the way
For when I was young I ONLY wanted to know what came next. I hoped to plan it all, know and anticipate every single second.
Until I was NEVER thinking of where I was, only where I would be or might be.
How to fill a live with disappointment? DO THAT.
The shift to open one's mind to embrace the moment is work. Work to trust that the door is OPEN.
and
You do not need to know what comes next.
Here's What I Want You To Know...
"Finding a poem in my son's pocket as I empty them to do the was, pennies, dimes, dollar bills, buttons..."
Messy strawberry hands and faces because that is all you would eat and the cotton-red-stained lining visible when pulled inside out reminds me that you were once barely one year old and now twenty one and I can't even believe it to be true and summer will fade in to winter and by that time you will be twenty two, and I will turn another year older by the chronological clock too. And yet I feel younger with each passing year. It seems odd to remember my former self when I am not certain of who I am or what I am becoming. When will I be there- be me- or am I already me and I just haven't paused to take notice until it's another change of season, year added on, holiday celebration, birthday cake (that I refused to eat- again) until there are no more and I wish I would have eaten the cake. Yet at one point some would think I ate too much cake, but they were wrong. I was so afraid to change and get bigger I ate nothing for fear of being called, fat, ugly, worthless, alone, laughed at, weak, and it all came crashing down. And I didn't think I'd ever get back up because I didn't know what "up" felt like. I've since felt what it feels like to be up and I'm afraid to let go of what isn't fully serving me.
Here's what I want you to know...
It's ok. It's always been ok. The judgment you feel is not real yet you are letting it shape you. Your shape is fluid, keep it strong but fluid in motion. You can't and won't be defined by anything else but your own mind.
My name is Erin and I write because...
I want to carry on the conversation running in my head on paper and have it live and be able to be shared,
Because an idea left unexplored saddens me so.
Because sometimes the ideas are too many and I need to release them before I explode.
Because I am full of life and my excitement to go to the next thing has me stuck spinning my wheels in place unable to move forward less I take one baby step at a time and suddenly the air clears, I can breathe and like magic, I feel at peace; at ease with the world but more to the point, myself. For this is the problem. the disdain I sometimes feel for me- Erin- and not just sometimes, but a lot, why? Why is the person I seem to be most critical and mean spirited to, me? For it's only me, myself and I. And I manage to put me in my place well and often. Please release that inner critic; release to the page and even when, or especially when, it doesn't seem to matter, remember you are Erin, and you write because you love you.
The Sociologist's Eyes 