When I realized I had people in my corner...

It came in a short write on a beautiful Sunday with the writers of Dive Deep. It came organically, in the process of the writing. It came to me as truth and I was amazed when I read it out loud, when I heard it hit the room.

 I have people in my corner, fighting for me, cheering me on. And that is why I so love this writing method, this process, where we get a prompt (I don't remember what this one was- I only know I grabbed the word scatter)and we write. Then we read (if we want to) and we hear what was strong, what stayed for people, what folks liked. 

The process is like magic and even though the piece below is raw and unedited I see lines I will use for something, I see things I know are absolutely true. This has happened over and over for me- I learn things I didn't understand were true until that exact moment of wild scribbling, and they are big truths,like this one- an important truth that changed everything for me. 

Excerpt- Dive Deep write May 2012

I am scattered, the house is scattered, the dishes are piled up to the god-damned sky. No-one cleans but me most days and I am not cleaning, I am writing.

Scattered- the cat off my keyboard, papers flying underneath my worn out fingers, my thoughts scatter up to touch on crows, touch on this demanding, healing, sexual, trauma writing and the hard on, hard wring words I write about it every day.

Scattered, lists and to-dos, frantic phone calls from my family in crisis, cranky children yelling in the back, neighbors who blast their music all night, neighbors who want to talk to me when I take my notebook outside, wearing my headphones, my back to them.

Crazy people on the buses crazy thoughts filling my head and no room can be made until I write; it’s like a fucked up tetris game in there and it fills up faster than I can scribble.

Scatter my love 6 hours away if she drives the truck fast enough, my past which pokes into my dreams like a bully because I am daring to take this body back for myself, daring to chase out the persistent ghosts, scatter their moldy sticky leavings.

Because I choose to say this is mine

This mind, body, belly, desire-

Desire- my desire I say it again.

This is a battle that’s raged in my head forever.

A tug of war but the dead child-eaters will lose because I have people in my corner, offering words, offering a clean well lit place to work, offering me a moment to dream of a time when I might have a little square of floor to call my own with a solid red oak door with a hand lettered sign on it that reads: 

Do Not Disturb. Rabid Writer at Work.