After The Training

 Westminster Retreat in Alamo was a beautiful setting, with hiking trails, deer, wild turkeys, wild blackberries and a sense of quiet wherever I went. It was a good place to be. There were days in triple digit weather and we were challenged by the heat but got to ease into an ice cold swimming pool at night, before dinner. The food was amazing, the staff was wonderful and the teaching was amazing.

 The best thing for me about this training was being with this community of writing women who came from different regions, cultural backgrounds, class and sexual identities and bridged all of those differences with a kind and generous intent. I would have liked to see more diversity, people of color, men, and more of us without college degrees but the differences we did have were apparent and I was surprised by how I was seen and accepted. I am poor, fat, did not finish college and I'm very loudly Queer. I expected some push back, or to feel invisible. That was not my experience.

Our mutual acceptance and encouragement to succeed was tremendously helpful. The conversations we had, on trails, at dinner or headed to bed after a long day were about writing, about the power of writing and about wondering how we could take this work and learning back, what would we do with it? Who might we reach?

I have been working with this method for a decade now with Jen Cross and that method has sunk into my bones, it's a part of me now. What I learned at the workshop were things I hadn't considered before, different styles of facilitating and most of all, to trust that I can do this work well. That is a kind of gift without measure. I discovered my own emerging style as we led practice groups. I learned that I hold a generous space for writers and their work, that I have a kind approach and that I can't seem to stop offering profanity as some part of my feedback when someone's work cracks me open. (I'm working on that)

I learned, as I always do when Jen Cross presents her work with trauma survivors and writing about sex, that this work can be done with anyone who is willing to at least sit in the chair.That night  I looked at that room of women, the difference in ages and what I assumed would be a vast difference in comfort around writing about sex and thought- how will this work??? What happened that night was simply amazing. By the end of the evening, almost everyone had shared a fierce piece of writing about sex and there was such a richness and beauty to the writing and an almost giddy feeling in the room when we were done. There were tears and there was laughter. There was power in that room.

I learned this: Assume Nothing.

I learned that there are so many people who are engaged in the creative, and trying to find a way to do that important work and still put food on the table and pay the light bill. There are so many of us hungry for writing and art and the life affirming, healing work of creation.

I will never forget the endless generosity that brought me to this place: each dollar given that was a sacrifice made on my behalf, each word of encouragement, every kind thought shared brought me this gift that I will use for the rest of my life. I will never forget that first night, ten years ago, when I walked into Jen's writing group For Queer Survivors of Sexual Trauma, awash in a flood of PTSD sweat soaked flashbacks, and how gently she welcomed me in, how she held a generous space for me and my fellow writers and how my pen flew over the pages. I'll never forget the spark of power that filled up that small room that was born with the rise of all of our voices, our words, the act of reclaiming and declaring our own desire. That was the beginning. That was my life changing. This is another beginning. This is my life changing. Thank you.