Scene 18: Smidgens of Love

I love them. Love letters, that is. In a folder, I have hundreds of little love letters between my husband and me. It's maybe my favorite part of our military life. Deployments suck with a capital 'S', but because of them I have a folder full of treasured words.

My man can be quite eloquent when he wants to be. In fact, I've recently used some of his love letters as inspiration to help me in a new project I've started--it's a secret, but it has to do with, you guessed it, love letters. I'm super excited about it and though I don't want to reveal too much yet, I can't help but share a little.

Ready for a smidgen of love?

credit here

From Lover #1
"Odysseus may have his Helen of Troy. Mark Antony may have his Cleopatra. For Venus has smiled upon me and has brought me you.  You are the making of my soul. Keep it well, my lady."


From Lover #2
"Always is how long I have loved you, adored you, longed for you. Never is when my affections will cease. Forever I give myself to thee. Someday, my otherself, I will be free to share these thoughts with you."


I mean, how fun is that! Really. What's a girl to do? How's she supposed to chose between that?

Ever had a great love letter written to you? Ever penned one yourself? Please share.

Scene 17: a brief psychotic break

Late Saturday night, after hours of cleaning up water (thanks Mt. St. Helens for possessing my toilet), I was trying to sleep, but couldn't so I was scrolling through facebook. As you do.

This graphic came across my feed:

My heart was suddenly racing, pumping blood through my veins so fast, I shot out of bed and ran downstairs, thrusting said graphic in my husband's face.

"What is this?" he asked.

I was hyperventilating and it took me about thirty seconds to answer. "That's my poem. Someone made a meme out of my poem and didn't put my name on it!  That's mine. Those are my words!!!" I fumbled with my phone for a minute then shoved it in his face again. "See, it's on my blog. I wrote that."

Click here to see the blog post.

During the next ten minutes, my husband decided we had to follow up on this and listed off all the ways this could make us rich... to which I rolled my eyes. And my mind just kept circling the loop of "those are my words!"

It took me a while to go to sleep, trying to decide on the appropriate reaction/action. I, of course, sent messages out to some of my most trusted friends. Finally, settled on the fact that by morning I'd have some good advice to follow, including that of a lawyer/friend, I fell asleep.

The next morning, I sent a fb message to the author who had posted the graphic letting him know that the poem belonged to me and asking him to either take the graphic down or put my name on it. I referenced my blog post and also the notebook were I had originally jotted the poem down one day in Sunday School. He immediately took it down. He was very gracious about it, apologized even. He even helped me think of ways to tackle the situation, how to track down the graphics creator, gave me the suggestion of creating my own memes and also offered to add my poem in his upcoming book about moving forward so that I could have a published source to point people to. Again, very gracious.

The lawyer/friend, okay my friend whose husband is a lawyer, suggested I google the poem itself and see if anything popped up.  WOW!  Mind=BLOWN! 142,000,000 hits. Did you catch that? One-hundred and forty-two million hits.

The poem was everywhere: being sold on Etsy as both vinyls and already made signboards and also printed on t-shirts; there were hundreds of thousands of memes and other graphics; someone was using it to promote their own book; I found a radio broadcast/blogsite that had dedicated an entire 1 hr radio show to the breakdown of the poem. I was totally freaking out.  Almost every site claimed the author was unknown. A few named random people responsible for the words. Some had made memes of it copyrighted it to their website. I was both infuriated and humbled. But, the question was: How would I ever reclaim my words?

It was like someone had stolen a piece of my soul, repacked it and sent it out into the world. I felt violated and so naked. I felt robbed of my vulnerability. I had to do whatever I could to reclaim what was mine. After all I wrote it in the first place as a form of reclamation. I couldn't bear to have it stripped away from me.

I started by commenting on various sites were memes were posted, posters were being advertised, even contacted the radio show personality, asking them all to either put my name to the poem, or take it down, pointing them to my blog post as proof that I had written the poem.  One lady kept deleting my comments on her meme, so I kept reposting  and then I emailed her a few times for good measure. Dang it! Those are my words.

Then a funny thing happened. After literally hours of clicking on every hit that google brought up, probably after going through at least ninety different pages where the poem was quoted, I found a blog dated February 12, 2009. Wait. What?

The next hit brought up a post from April 2011. The next November 2008. The next August 2012. All of them dated before I had even written the poem, let alone put it on my blog. How in the hell world?

Suddenly, my life was the Twilight Zone. I called down to my husband insisting he come up to talk to me. I showed him the aforementioned sites. "Tell me I'm not going crazy? Tell me I'm not having a psychotic breakdown."

He just looked at me.

"Seriously. I remember every detail about writing this poem. I remember sitting in church thinking about agency and wanting to take control of my life. I remember thinking 'what is it that I really want? What do I choose for myself?' I remember tuning out the lesson and really pondering what I wanted... I wanted to be free. More than anything I just wanted my life to be my own. I remember why I chose each word specifically. I remember why I wrote that I choose to be motivated and not manipulated. I grew up in a sea of manipulation. It was drowning me. I didn't want that anymore. How is this possible? How does something like this happen?" I demanded. "I remember. I know I wrote this."

At that point, I started to cry.

My dear husband hugged me a said, "Honey if you remember writing it, then I'm sure you did. There are all kinds of hackers out there, maybe they just fudged the dates on their blogs so they could take the credit." I knew he was wrong.

I also knew I was right. I had written those words. I just couldn't explain what was happening. For at least three hours I thought to myself: I'm going to end up in a strait jacket by tomorrow.

Then my sister called me. At some point, in my hours of tidying up my life in preparation for the nut house, I'd sent out more messages to my trusted friends and family letting them know that I was obviously crazy or something, explaining my Twilight Zone moment.  My sister did some of her own research. She found cryptomnesia.

Cryptomnesia-- occurs when a forgotten memory returns without it being recognized as such by the subject, who believes it is something new and original. It is a memory bias whereby a person may falsely recall generating a thought, an idea, a song, or a joke, not deliberately engaging in plagiarism but rather experiencing a memory as if it were a new inspiration.

My whole world went numb. For the first time in over 15 hours, my heart slowed, my breathing evened out, my head stopped swimming. Everything was quiet.

I need to be clear, I, in all honesty, have no recollection of reading this poem at any point in my life. This whole situation still feels so surreal. I can't comprehend it. That must be what happened, but... all I remember is writing those words from the depths of my soul. This manifesto, as I called it, still feels very much mine, a vital piece of me, a transformative catalyst for my healing. In the end, however, my magnificent brain simply provided me with the exact words I needed in the exact moment I needed them. How amazing is that?

In researching this phenomenon, I read that a similar incident happened to Helen Keller and that she was so traumatized by it that she never could bring herself to write fiction again. Not that she couldn't allow herself, she just literally couldn't do it. I completely understand that. To create something you feel so enmeshed in, that feels so a part of you, only to discover it never really belonged to you is perhaps the most unsettling thing I have ever experienced. I feel so empty.

Nevertheless, I have no intention of not writing every day for the rest of my life. And even though I didn't originally create this poem, the moment I wrote it in my notebook it became a very tangible part of me and I'm a better woman for it. I can't possibly begrudge or regret that.

There is a theory that there is no such thing as an original thought. That all ideas are created by other thoughts and ideas that we have absorbed from others. I guess it's true.

However, C.S. Lewis has said, "Even in literature and art no man that bothers with originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without having noticed it."

So... I think I'll just Keep Calm and Write On!


*Also, I'll be writing apologies to everyone I slandered/threatened/or called out for plagiarism during my brief psychotic break. As you do.

scene 16: Angel of Death

I adore writing prompts. They kind of help silence all the distractions and free of my head space for real writing. And there's no pressure. No need to write a novel or some great discourse, just write anything. So liberating.

I was recently given the following writing prompt:
When I finally realized that death was imminent, one thing because perfectly clear.

Here is what I came up with:

When I finally realized that death was imminent, one thing became perfectly clear. I was happy.

I’d long ago given up the illusions that I could know what was on the other side of death, that the unknowing was something to fear. There was a certain liberated peace that came with letting that particular quest for knowledge go. 

It was a relief to be at the end of things. No more days of torture. No more nights of agony waiting for non-existent solace. Death is freedom. Why would I be anything less than joyful?

I looked him in the face, as he came for me. He was different than I had supposed. This was no creature of the night, draped in black and steeped in shadows. This was a man of light. His very countenance glowed. His eyes were the green-gray of highlighted leaves. He smelled of sunshine, sand and saltwater spray. He was deliverance. Perhaps, as it happens with so many of us, his appearance is merely a reflection of our feelings for him? 

He was my emancipator; he was beautiful. I embraced him, nuzzled my nose in his neck as he cradled me in his arms. He held me tight and then, he took me home.

Scene 15: Blood, sweat and tears

This week I took a leap towards liberation.

This leap was years in the making, a lifetime really.  It was frightening, made me break out in a panicked sweat, caused my heart to race, and paralyzed the rest of me.  Standing there on the edge of vulnerability, I felt more a prisoner than I ever had.  My lungs refused to take their fill, my limbs refused to wrap around myself for comfort.  And yet, somewhere I found the courage to move forward to push off with my legs and dare to cross the chasm.  Perhaps it was merely desperation that forced me to do it.

The landing was hideous.  I lay ragged and bleeding for sometime.  Then one by one, those that came across me on their path, stopped to tend to my wounds, to speak words of encouragement, to praise my brave, idiotic leap.  Some even called it inspiring.  I watched on as a few standing on the other side of the divide took flight, making a leap of their own, daring to meet me where I lay trying to recover.

Their courage, their daring soothed my battered body, beat life back into my heart.  And, slowly, I rose to my feet.  I rose with tears in my eyes to meet them, my fellow leapers, to hug them and thank them for their faith, love and encouragement.  To celebrate the freedom that my vulnerability gifted me.

It's something I have always know: that blood, sweat and tears are the only path to liberation; that wall-shattering vulnerability is the path to true writing, the sharing of our souls.

So if you're standing on the cliff's edge wondering if you should take the leap, take heart, fear not, there will be others ready to nurse you and celebrate with you on the other side.

Scene 14: The Unwanted Key

Death is a key.
It unlocks the floodgates
and frees all things hidden there.
The refuse, the misfits,
the unseemly memories.
They pour, an avalanche,
a rain, they drown me.
And it is all Death's fault.
How happy we would be

had that lock never found its key.

Scene 13: Update for Poetry in Progress

It's a been far longer than I originally anticipated.  I had hoped to work on this poem and update its progress more like once every other week or so... not once every three months.  Such is life.

The original post and poem can be found here.


I've spent the last few iced-in days to work on it again.  Rather than post a little progress here and there, I'd like to share where it stands now.  I'm not sure it's finished.  I may work on it more, but I like it a lot better.  And it's interesting to me how the idea morphed and focused itself as I worked.  I'd love to have some feedback :)

A lonely lovebird's sick heart aches for the company of her kind.
A bird of her feathers to comfort her and speak peace to her mind.
She knows she'll never be content in this land of featherless, flightless birds.
She doesn't belong, though she doesn't know why, and she fears her song will never be heard.

She circles and she paces 'round bars unseen but felt.
Her heart encased in ten thousand scars made of betrayal and guilt.
They tie her down and bind her tight, her dreams locked deep inside,
Pushing the world far and away, until the fire within her dies.

The cage is an illusion, Love. The master magician's lie.
Open your eyes, stretch your dreams, unfurl your wings and fly.
Let love pulse life back into your veins.
Hope erases gravity, dear Bird.
Breathe deep, and sing again.

Scene 12: Prompted

I've recently joined a writing group.  The North Texas Writer's Alliance.  I love writing groups.  It's a great way to hone the craft and gain useful insight and feedback.

This month, I was asked to provide a prompt for our group.  Writing prompts are also awesome in my book.  It's a great way to get the juices flowing and allow yourself to open up and spill it out.

The prompt I gave the group was:

We all know how important setting can be in your writing, whether it's fiction or non-fiction.  We even talked briefly about how the setting can become another character in the story.  And I recently stumbled upon this quote:

"Never write about a place until you're away from it, because that gives you perspective."  -Ernest Hemingway

So the prompt for this month is about gaining that perspective.  Write at least one descriptive paragraph about a place, any place, that you've been.  This can be a physical place (a childhood home, favorite vacation spot, you're grandpa's lap, the creepy lady-next-door's house) or this can be a figurative place, a place in time and thought, if that makes sense.  Let yourself be there again.  And as you write about it, try to keep in mind all your senses, even those things that you feel inside your body while you're there.

Here's what I came up with:

Inside

It’s dark in this place.  The kind of dark that paralyzes every muscle and weighs heavy in one’s lungs. It presses in on my ears with its silence, causing them to ring.  I want to scream, but my mouth won’t open.  Every joint and ligament is tense, waiting to spring into action. The very marrow in my bones struggles against unseen restraints.  Sweat collects on my forehead from the effort.  My head spins as my breathing grows evermore shallow.  I’m on the verge of implosion, though, from outward view it probably seems like a quiet collapse.  It is not quiet.  The shrieking pain of it all pushes blood from my ears. I am dying.   No, I realize.  My fate is worse.  I’m a prisoner here.  Fear has me in his clasp and laughs at my timorous attempt to escape.  Hot tears pool in my ears, not blood, though the volcanic pulsing there would suggest otherwise.  Exhausted, and despite my reluctance, I tumble into restless oblivion. It would be many years before I realized: there is no escaping one’s own mind.