Here is the REAL City Lights!

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February prompt

 

                                            credit: Pauline Loroy on unsplash.com

Losing Our Identity

People-pleasing is one way we lose our identity, our True Self. As we conform our conduct to

what we think other people want to see or hear, we ignore our own wants or needs. It’s not

uncommon to begin recovery with no idea of what makes us happy, what our gifts are, or what

our true calling the world might be. As we begin to explore our feelings we can see that even as

children, we had talents and gifts. As a young person before recovery, I was attracted to the

lives of other people that I found in books. Even as a child, I would hide from my father’s anger

with a book behind the drapes on a window seat. I can see that books were my parents for

much of my life.

City Lights, San Francisco

Damp as a sodden bathing suit,

beaches driftwood gray, fog obscured

the Golden Gate, North Beach, Angel Island.

On Broadway, neon lights blessed a strand

of strip joints. The barker at the Condor Club plucked

my coat, urged me to try my luck in the topless contest.

Around the corner, I escaped to City Lights --

a bookstore bathed in shades of black,

home to Ferlinghetti, Ginsburg, Kerouac.

I wandered empty aisles, picked up a stack,

found a threadbare chair, settled into acrid pages,

searched for a plot that I could fall into.

Prompts:

1. Write about any escape you made as a young person or one that you now wish

you had made.You will see I escaped from the barker at the Condor Club. Did you

ever encounter a person who urged you to do something you knew you shouldn’t

do?

2. Think of a place, such as City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, where you could

“be yourself.” Write about that self.

3. Try to use imagery, such as the fog in stanza one or the empty aisles in the

bookstore that reflect something about your identity. Check your words, such as

sodden, obscured, urged, wandered, fall into to make sure they match the tone

you are striving for.

4. Why do you think the neon lights “blessed” the strip joints? Was there something

attractive about them, some alternative to the bookstore as a place to find

identity?

Latest Recovery Writer Poem!

 

The ratted birds nest on the ground

Handknit, by a mothers love

A broken egg- inside

Its blue….so am I

The death of promise to its flock…

Sad, grief

I wonder, did bird mommy know her babies fate? Does she know baby died?

Is she soaring with the others in acceptance of what is….

Mommy, are you there?

Did you know that I, or...when I…. fell from your nest?

I was tangled in the leaves…I held my breath

I smoked and toked and drank so numb

I believed you when you called me dumb…

That immaculate nest… was a messy mess...

Shells smashed with shame and blame-

A daily coup upon our souls

"Do not break a bowl!!!! Do you hear me? “

The youngest did indeed die…..

Ssshhhh don’t -

Don’t talk, don’t trust, don’t feel.....

that was the deal

In November you passed … at last...

I have no tears,  less fears…

Mommy….dont blame, that I have no shame

From somewhere I hear You say, 

Oh Sandee!!! “how uncouth to tell the truth”

Sandee B

                                             Mitchel Lensink on unsplash.com

Give me Twenty Minutes

Those who have attended a Recovery Writers session know that we include twenty minutes in which to write individually in response to a prompt, before we reassemble to read and lovingly respond to each other’s writing.

As we expanded and grew, I started thinking about this twenty-minute “dark time” and whether there was a way to eliminate or restructure it.  Yes, I heard many of you say that the group meetings are the only time you write, but really, I thought, can’t I inspire or encourage you to write outside the meeting?

Luckily, I have a higher power. My higher power advised me to honor process over project.  That twenty minutes is important to our process. It is a sacred time. I don’t need to fix it or control it. 

My higher power also has a sense of humor! Later that night, as I was reading “The Equivalents,” about a grant program in the sixties to benefit women who did not have time or money to pursue their art, I happened upon a conversation between the poets Anne Sexton and Maxine Kumin. They would frequently phone each other and then despair: “why aren’t we writing?” One would suggest a line or concept. The other would say “give me twenty minutes,” and either ring back or keep the line open. Sexton said she loved the pressure of the twenty-minute interlude. ‘It was the most stimulating thing. It’s a challenge…We’ve got this much time, and goddam it, I’m going to have something there.’”

There, in black and white, was confirmation of our “twenty minute writing break.” It works because we work it. 

Publication by Phyllis, one of our Recovery Writers! Congrats.

 

January 17 prompt

 Writing about Death and Grief

January 2021

 Even though I spent a lot of time with my mother, I was not with her when she died in the hospital.  I had no language for grief. Not until I became a mother and witnessed a child’s reaction to a lost kitten did I begin to appreciate the child within me who was abandoned and bereft by my mother’s death. Even in the face of suffering, even when death seems a mercy, the pain lingers underground. It can then pop up in unexpected places:

Lining the Casket

Two are black and white, feisty, thirsty; the third,

soft yellow, like sunshine mixed with baby carrots.

we name it Calico, a patchwork guinea pig.

It’s the runt, a slip of fur and darting eyes, skinny 

as an anorexic, heart pounding through her fur. My daughter 

loves it with the passion we reserve for the unlucky.

Its mother runs away when Calico approaches.

I take the healthy babies out to force what can’t be forced.

I briefly think of killing it, then recall my father’s tears

when he tied kittens in a sack and held them under water.

I tell Calico, “You can go now,” then feel a fool

for playing hospice with a guinea pig.

I didn’t say goodbye that January night, when my mother, 

wrapped in an iron fist, stopped asking if the sky was blue.

I took the train back to Manhattan, to the job she bragged about.

I recall the flowered dresses with matching panties

she smocked for me, as I line a cardboard box with chintz, 

head down the hill to meet my daughter at the bus.

Prompt:

1. Write about the death of a pet or a death that is not close to you and allow your poem to “circle around” to the death you really want to write about.

2. Write about what you have said about death to a child or as a consolation to someone whose loved one has died.  Make a “list poem” of all the platitudes, such as “he had a good life,” or “at least he didn’t suffer” and explore your reaction.

3. Write an obituary about a caregiver who has died and say what you would really want to say about that person. 

Years later, I wrote a poem in a less narrative style about grief.   You will find in your own writing that certain objects or images carry emotional weight for you.  They will show up again and again in your work, reminding you that you have hit on something important.

What I Never Wanted

Ashes in a vase, September mourning, 

distant calls of loons, a fractured sky,

sullen earth mounded under dogwood,

leaves burned hot as afterthoughts,

afternoon of unbelief, wall of windowpanes,

hangers in the closet, askew and bare, 

their fragile chattering, a sound like empty acorns,

nutmeats dried, the harvest passed.

 Prompt:

1.Take phrases, words or images from your first poem and “translate” them into a more imagistic poem about death. You can see I used the following:

Ashes, mourning, earth mounded, unbelief, bare, fragile, empty, dried.

All these words give a “tone” of emptiness and loss. The ashes and mounded earth indicate death. The empty clothes hangars chattering in the closet are the voice of mourning. 

 Prompt for Sunday, December 6/13, 1:30pm.  I will email zoom info to Recovery Writers. 

Setting boundaries is hard because I am a conflict-avoider.  I never learned how to express my feelings and state my needs.  Therefore, I assume if I try to set a boundary, I’ll either be speechless and cave in to unacceptable behavior or a huge fight will ensue.

Deciding that a sponsor-sponsee relationship is not working is a good example.  Even when a sponsee is not keeping their commitments, I am reluctant to acknowledge that. I have a program friend who was afraid to tell her hairdresser she didn’t like the way the hairdresser did her hair! That sounds silly, but I totally understand. I believe honest communication without anger or accusation is one of the most important tools in recovery and one that most of us never learned how to do.

Boundaries

The garden, edged with wire,

a jaunty scarecrow, a bit of coyote

urine, hair shavings from a buzz cut.

Don’t call me, text me.

stop with the emojis, no more

cute animal videos. 

I’m at the edge of nowhere,

on edge, waiting for silence,

flicker of senses, a sense of roots

growing underneath my feet,

threatening to expose themselves,

wrap around my ankles.

I’m afraid you will show up

with the kitchen shears

or a basket filled with bees

I’ve set a boundary to protect

the baby lettuce, a chance to grow 

without withering or sunstroke.

Fieldstone, sandstone, slate, granite--

I haul them into place, balanced

like a conversation resting on a sinkhole.

Connection to Recovery

Boundaries are key to recovery.  It is unreasonable to think I will like everyone I meet or they will like me.  I cannot expect another person will change just because I ask them to. If someone triggers me, I have three choices: 

1. Accept them just as they are, 

2. Set limits on our interaction, 3. 

Choose not to interact with that person. 

 PROMPT:

1.Write about someone you want to set a boundary with or someone who set a boundary with you.  Write loving words that do not accuse but acknowledge your feelings and the limits you choose to set on the relationship.

2.Write about the fears you have if you set a boundary.  It might be that you will never have another friend or that the other person will gossip about you. See what stands in the way of your setting boundaries. Find a concrete image, such as the baby lettuce in the poem above, that stands for that part of you that you feel you need to protect with a boundary.