Fluff

I want to write the happy stuff. I want to explore a world full of good. I have created a little world here of my own, full of good stuff. Yes, there are weeds, and there is mud, but those are good things too. Natures stuff. My fingers want to write about sorrow and grief but I want to write about the good stuff. I keep having to start a new page and there it is again. I want to tell stories about fluff. Good things that make us laugh and tickle our funny bones. I used to get in trouble as a child, because I couldn’t be serious. I would cause such a ruckus at the dinner table where my mother, bless her heart, was trying to keep order while feeding ten hungry children. She did a pretty good job as well, and I spent many a meal-time eating my dinner alone in the bathroom. I wasn’t one of those picky eaters that make you wonder how they survive let alone grow. I was a wiry active child with a hearty appetite and could put down a lot of food. No one at my mothers table was allowed to be picky. It really was no joke, finding enough food to fill that many tummies and my mother worked hard to get each meal on the table. She did it without my father who traveled with missionaries most of the time. Life was so much more peaceful, I imagine, with me in the bathroom that I was often forgotten about until someone had to go. I would have promised to not be funny anymore but such a thing never occurred to me. My mother reprimanded me in my adult years many times for not taking life more seriously. When I was expecting my youngest and also going through empty nest syndrome I became severely depressed. I sat in the doctors office with my husband one day, he unaware that anything was out of order, and I began to tell the doctor how I was hoping to drive straight off the highway on the curve going sixty-five and how it alarmed me that I had such thoughts. I told her that every day on my way home from work the feeling gets stronger and I’m afraid that one day I’ll do it. My husband is completely surprised by this because he had no idea. I told the doctor that the only reason I had for not having done that yet was that I knew it wouldn’t be fair to the baby who hasn’t gotten to live yet and if there was a way to know that she would live I might try it. I blurted it out in a gush of tears. She said it was a very serious matter and put me on an antidepressant which I took faithfully to the end of the pregnancy and a little after. In a few days all my tears had turned to laughter. I laughed at work, I laughed on the way home, I laughed after work. Anytime I wanted to talk it would come out in a kind of laughing voice. Everything was so funny. Hence a telephone conversation with my mother where she is asking me if I take anything seriously at all. I’m telling her about the kids, how grown up they are and what they are doing. None of it approved by my mothers strict religious standards. I’m so proud of them. I’m laughing and happy. I was truly on happy pills. I told her I was on pills to make me happy and they also make me laugh even if I’m trying to be serious but it was much better than killing myself. Oh dear. My poor mother.

I’ve been through a lot more since then and so have my children. I know that I need to write it out but I’m afraid. I’m afraid the depth of the sorrow and grief will overwhelm me again. The repercussions of living with grief on the body and on those I live with. I want to brush it aside and see beyond. What is beyond? It can’t only be fluff. I’m afraid to look inside at the world of pain and suffering. Not all of it has to do with the one grief. There are other griefs. There are years of pain from other sources from my own past choices to the choices of others. The term ‘move on’ doesn’t always apply and often makes me angry. Very often we need to ‘move through’. There is a path to freedom. To sidestep the path may only prolong the journey. My fingers seem to know the way, but I don’t want to go. I want to find a lighter, easier, more fun solution. But my fingers know the way. I wonder if there is anyone who has an easy fluffy life. Can you relate to an easy life where everything is always great and never a word of hurt. A life where everyone understands everyone and no-one is lonely or tired. Where no one is selfish or greedy for gain and no one is bitter nor mean. Where we don’t have to deal with anything or have nothing to overcome. Where no one is sick and no one is poor and no one is lame or blind. Where there is no war or unfair law and government works for our good. I don’t know of that life and I can’t really relate. I don’t suppose many would. I don’t take any pills now. I don’t try to laugh my way through. I have wanted to truly feel, as unpleasant as it may be, the feelings that come with life and death. The feelings of grief and fear. Real feelings, real life, real writing. Once I decided to grow, to begin a journey toward freedom, the words began to flow. I am still afraid. There is so much hidden. Yet there is so much to look forward to and the journey has just begun.

Elizabeth Williams, daily writing exercise, 1,015 words.

My Journals

This is from a daily writing exercise, One  Thousand words a day. This article is 1,011 words.

Recently I found all my journals, when I was looking for something. They were in the upstairs hall closet on a shelf behind our clothes. We don’t have closets in our rooms, only one at the top of the stairs and one underneath the stairs. So all three of us share one narrow closet for our clothes and one closet for our winter coats, and extras, under the stairs. It is interesting because it is the first house I have lived in that has been like this. All the other homes had closets in every room. I do have a wardrobe in one of the rooms. It is an old heirloom wardrobe that I’m really proud to have. But that’s not where I found my journals. They were upstairs on a shelf behind the clothes. I pulled them out and began to open them. What a treasure. At first I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read them. I had been through some really difficult times. But I was happily surprised when I began to read. 1997, I wrote about people that didn’t exist and fanciful things about the children and I wrote about what I wanted to accomplish and I shared a little about what was going on but only in the I’m challenged sort of way. I didn’t find one 'woe is me' kind of entry. I didn’t find one thing that someone else did or said to me that was unfair, unkind or atrocious behavior. I was concerned that I was about to revisit a dark and depressing past. But none of that was recorded in them. Only this wild fanciful stuff and lots of encouragement. I probably didn’t write anything when I was depressed. Oh, but I did. Truth is I never knew I was depressed until I was coming out of it. It’s like the sky is dark and dreary and you are used to it being that way and you don’t really notice. Then one day a hole in the clouds appear and you can see some sky. It is unbelievable the color of the sky. And you recognize that you have been depressed, and think it is over now, and you tell everyone how great you are doing and you don’t even notice that the hole is covered up again but you treasure that glimpse of blue sky in your memory while gray darkness surrounds you. I began to read my journals. There was this thread running through them. I wrote about how much I had written or not. I wrote about my tiredness and that I was thankful for a moment to write. I wrote huge character sketches about people I knew and people I made up. I wrote about stuff that the kids were doing. Situations that made for great writing prompts. I began stories and stopped, later in the same journal or in another one I found the same story only different and much better. I didn’t complain in my journals. Everything I wrote about my circumstances, if I wrote about them at all, was about my plan. I challenged myself on paper to make positive changes. But mostly I wrote stories. I still don’t see any point in complaining or even saying how it is if it isn’t nice. Unless it could be turned into a story. I usually won’t focus on anything that does not already have a solution. I’m so glad I did not write a lot of negative things. I wrote about books I was writing and picture books I wanted to write and illustrate. I wrote about a course I was taking about writing for children. I wrote some of those exercises in my journals. I found a treasure. I found aliens from galaxies you have never heard of. I found stories about my childhood that were brave and exciting. I found stories about my son when he was a child and my beautiful daughters. There was a sea dragon who helped a child overcome. There were real stories about the things that we experienced. I wouldn’t want to go back in time and read only the bad stuff. I went back twenty years and I was delighted. I am still writing. When I read those journals I knew for sure I was meant to be an author. I knew that more than anything I want to write. This is my passion. And my journals confirm that. Complaining is a way to keep negativity in your life and seek company in it. I can use the experiences I’ve had in my writing. Experiences are gold to a writer. Why complain about too much gold? If I weren’t a writer I would still not want to focus on the negatives unless I’m working out the solution. In that case I would be focusing on the solution and the situation would merely be a tool to an improvement. It’s not that I have never complained, but I didn’t complain in my journals. I focused on the positives. If there weren’t any available positives in my life at the time, or I couldn’t see them, then I wrote about other stuff. I think that if you want your life to change for the better then you need to focus on the good. Cultivate good thoughts, good habits and smile a lot. Have some clean funny thoughts and smile to yourself. Write those funny thoughts down and other fun stuff. Things will start to change. You will rise to the challenges you face. Don’t record the horror and despair that’s in your life. Only record beauty and blessing. Don’t talk about the unfair stuff happening to you. Don’t focus on how awful the weather is. Talk about that funny thought you had. Talk about a beautiful discovery you made. Tell someone else how cool they are. Don’t even ruin their day with tales of how awful something or someone is. Don’t ruin your day with it either and definitely don’t ruin your poor journals’ day. I’m so glad I didn’t.

Elizabeth Williams 1,000 words a day.