Crazy Sexy Life

Win a copy of Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg’s book, The Sky Begins At Your Feet, by being the tenth person to tweet a link to this blog @CrazySexyLife.

From the time I began writing like a maniac at age 14, writing has been my most constant spiritual companion, my way of praying for some clarity during the thickest tangles, and my source for finding answers, or at least, getting a better view of the questions. From the time I began writing, smack in the middle of my parents’ divorce, writing gave me a place to touch down on something more sacred — the act of creating — while being surrounded by court battles and fights over porcelain trinkets. In my memoir, The Sky Begins At Your Feet, during and after my long day’s journey into and through cancer, it was the act of writing that helped me as much as any deep-tissue massage, spinach casserole, or oncologist’s consoling words. Throughout all the challenges of my life — having children, losing a parent, finding new vocations and losing old ones, being too busy and feeling too empty, or simply having a decision to make more complex than what to eat for lunch — writing’s been my touchstone.

As someone raised Jewish — a religion that deeply values questioning everything, even to the point of wanting to pull your hair out over heated discussions about every nuance of the Torah — I’ve come to learn how a spiritual practice can be not so much a way of knowing, but as a way to dwell in not knowing, a place where the ground tends to give out. When I write, I find new ways to know, or to name what I always knew without having the words for it before, or to strip away coats of knowing that no longer fit.

Writing through loss especially — the loss of thinking I was immortal (or at least, not so mortal); the loss of various body parts; the loss of health, at least for a while; the deaths of my father, step-father and father-in-law — showed me how much spirit surrounded me in all directions. Writing at such moments, when the yearning for clarity and comfort outstrip all else, gives me back my life, and in this example, from The Sky Begins At Your Feet, writing helps me find new ways to love a changing and aging body and to reconnect with the vibrancy of the earth:

So I am trying to love my body for what it is right now. Let the love I feel for it – the tenderness for my moving fingers on the keyboard, the appreciation for the strength of my legs to carry me for miles on an early spring day, the wonder at the softness of my skin, the shapes I leave in the blankets. Let this love be enough. Let this love show me the way to sing the body electric, to write the body erotic. Let me learn this way of loving what’s imperfect from the land and sky around me, the best mirror to show us that what we do to our environment, we also do to ourselves. As well, the earth where I live is the best teacher when it comes to persevering through the seasons with the kind of grace that celebrates life, however it comes – in the icy wind mid-winter that makes the windows tremble, the explosion of lilac one particularly slow spring, the reddening grasses late fall, the black sheen of the crow mid-day when he shoots across the sky to examine the latest addition to our compost pile. Life just wants to live, so the old saying goes, and this desire makes for tremendous innovation…

So I open the door to the back deck, and stand outside in the middle of the night, watching the clouds travel past the waning moon, collapsed on one side because of the sun’s particular slant of light at this moment. I step outside again in the morning, the overgrown grass of early spring pouring over itself around the tilted cottonwood tree. The hills and wind around this home carrying their own losses and scars, and yet lit with a green both pale and fierce, quiet and shining, fully here at this moment and on the verge of changing completely. I return to earth and sky, continually coming home.

Writing is also a practice of returning to the body, to the earth, to the blank page of my life, and from this act of creating something of words, continually coming home. In that spirit, I offer readers this writing exercise to try on your own — just for your own eyes, and only if wish, to share with others too.

-Write a list of all you love in your life, feeling free to land on the small loves (chocolate pudding in my case) or big loves (spouses, children, best friends, land, memory, etc.). Keep adding to this list over time.

-Then take any item on the list that grabs your attention at the moment, and write the story how you came to love it/him/her/them. This list is also a great ongoing source of writing prompts; whenever you have a free 10-15 minutes, you can pluck something off the list, and write its story.

-When you feel ready or need to create your own form of prayer, begin with the phrase, “Let this love…” and fill in the words that come. When you run out of words, write down “Let this love…” again, and keep going. Let the rhythm of the writing, and of repeating this phrase, speak to and from your heart of what you need most at this moment.

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg is the Poet Laureate of Kansas and the author of ten books, including her recent memoir, The Sky Begins At Your Feet, and a new collection of poetry, Landed. Founder of Transformative Language Arts at Goddard College (www.Goddard.edu), where she teaches, she also leads writing workshops widely, and with singer Kelley Hunt, leads writing and singing retreats, co-writes songs, and performs collaboratively. Her website is www.CarynMirriamGoldberg.com.

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