The WordPlay Word-zine Volume VII, Issue 16 April 23, 2018 Word of the Week: heartache Dear ,
I'm hard at work this week on an article about the healing power of words. Discovering how writing can help us to bear—and
perhaps even transform—the inevitable heartaches, and even traumas, that life holds, has been a passion of mine since I was a young girl.
And because pain and grief are such a part of our human experience, it's only natural that a number of the students and clients who find their way to me are on a journey, navigating their way through heartache.
This week's featured WordPlayer, Cheryl Boyer, is one of them. She walked into one of my writing classes over a decade ago, having very recently had one of her most treasured dreams dashed forever—she would never experience pregnancy,
childbirth, and the raising of a child that shared her DNA.
What a privilege it was to give Cheryl the space to
grieve, and eventually, after moving through many emotions, to be open to other possibilities for motherhood.
This
photo from 2011, when she and her husband adopted their son Josiah, marks the joyful day that Cheryl brought Josiah in to meet the members of our writing class.
Cheryl's journey continued, and she kept on writing about it, in poetry and prose. A few years later, Josiah became a big brother
to beautiful baby Izzy.
I'm lucky to have the chance to see Josiah and Izzy every so often, and to watch them grow. What fun it
was to have Josiah, Izzy, and Cheryl visit not long after my first grandchild, Rhys, was born—on Josiah's sixth
birthday! (They picked out fabulous books as gifts for Rhys, by the way, which he is now able to read himself.)
This month, Cheryl's the proud author of her first book, Counting Colors: a journey through infertility, that beautifully renders the stages of her journey through loss. The poems in Counting Colors are beautifully rendered, moving testaments to our hearts' capacity to grow, and to the joys of
motherhood.
I had to snap this photo of Cheryl celebrating with fellow WordPlayer Kim Love Stump,
an author herself of a YA fantasy princess tale called A Clearing in the Forest. Sometimes the colors turn out just the way they're supposed
to with no planning at all!
I so often find myself wishing there were a way to sidestep heartache. Its lessons are hard-won,and don't, in the midst of the pain, seem worth the cost. And yet, so often heartache ultimately brings
out the best in ourselves, and in others. Through it, we learn acceptance, and transcendence. You'll see both of these in the poems below from Counting Colors, one of them born out of a writing exercise in one of my classes inspired by the poet Jane Hirshfield.
If you want to meet Cheryl and talk with her about her writing and/or her journey, you can do that next Saturday. (And I'll have a chance to talk with you, too!)
You're invited to Cheryl's book launch
party!
Please join me in welcoming Counting Colors into the world Saturday, May 5, drop-in from 2 pm - 4 pm Ballantyne Presbyterian Church 9925 Providence Road West, Charlotte 28277 readings at 2:30 pm and 3:30
pm rsvp to cheryl@myferriswheel.com
Love and light,
Upcoming WordPlay
SPINNING WORDS INTO GOLD
ONLY
ONE SPOT LEFT!
Does writing fulfill you? Do you wish you were writing more? Jumpstart your writing life and learn to keep your words flowing. Learn specific techniques and exercises to create nonfiction, poetry and/or fiction. Whether you would
like to keep a journal for your own personal growth, spin stories for your loved ones, or further a career as a professional writer, experience the satisfaction of developing a writing practice that works for you—come spin words into gold.
WHERE: John Campbell Folk School.
1 Folk School Road, Brasstown, NC 28902
WHEN: Sunday, May 6th through Saturday, May 12th, 2018
COST: $630 (plus room and board)
TO REGISTER: To register, click this link to be taken to the John Campbell Folk School
website to register.
"[Maureen's writing] class became part therapy, part fulfillment
of a long-held dream to be a writer. I’ve been taking classes
with Maureen ever since." Cheryl Boyer is a writer and novice shutterbug whose work has appeared in a handful of journals,
including Kakalak, The Main Street Rag, and moonShine review. She is also the author of Counting Colors: a journey through infertility.
She lives in a small town in North Carolina with her husband and two children, is a home-schooling momma, and a sometime foster mom. Though not a coffee drinker, Cheryl finds it essential to eat a bit of dark chocolate every day.
You can read more about Cheryl at her blog here: www.myferriswheel.com What Cheryl says about WordPlay "Over a decade ago, in the midst of the
grief infertility brings, I took a leap and finally signed up for a writing class. That class became part therapy, part fulfillment of a long-held dream to be a writer. I’ve been taking classes with Maureen ever since.
Maureen offered a safe space to process my grief out loud. She nudged me and encouraged me until I transformed from a scared and timid writer into someone who is now able admit out loud that I am a writer. I have written personal essay, poetry, and fiction, much of it delving into families, how they come to be, and the relationships involved. Maureen opened the doorway into poetry and showed me that it can be a vessel that holds some of my deepest hopes and griefs and
dreams.
Several of the poems born in Maureen’s classes now have a home in my poetry collection, Counting Colors: a
journey through infertility. Many of my words, including those found within the pages of Counting Colors, would not exist without Maureen and her skill and care as a writing midwife."
Remains after Jane Hirshfield’s “Orange Oil in Darkness”
This heartache is an extra gift
not unbearable as it may seem. There is beauty
in recognizing sorrow for what it is –
the other half revealing possibility.
Iron grief in time dissolves.
Counting Colors
My
dream of giving life trickled away month by month year by year
counting off days like colors on a calendar – first turquoise, cerulean, sky blue, so full of hope,
a sunny yellow brightening with caution, tangerine, magenta, blood red,
and after that, envy green for every pregnant belly I detected on my radar
each child’s cry in the checkout line Mother’s Day ads depicting happy
families
colors that refused to fade across the years but finally
changed their hue
Counting Colors: a journey through infertility is available on Amazon
here.
WordPlay Now! Writing Prompt
This is WordPlay—so why not revel in the power and potential of one good word after
another? This week, it's "heartache."
PROMPT: Write about someone's heartache, from any perspective along the continuum from its inception to its ultimate transformation. It's fun to play with prompts in community with fellow writers, and to be able to share the results when you're done. You can find out about WordPlay classes, workshops, and retreats here. MAUREEN RYAN GRIFFIN, an award-winning poetry and nonfiction writer, is the author of Spinning Words into Gold, a Hands-On Guide to the Craft of Writing, a grief workbook entitled I Will Never Forget You, and three collections of poetry, Ten Thousand Cicadas Can't Be Wrong, This Scatter of Blossoms and When the Leaves Are in the Water. One of her long-held dreams came true in July of 2015 when Garrison Keillor read one of her poems on
The Writer's Almanac. You can listen to it here. She believes, as
author Julia Cameron says, "We are meant to midwife dreams for one another."
Maureen also believes that serious "word work" requires serious WordPlay, as play is how we humans best learn—and perform. What she loves best is witnessing all the other dreams that come true for her clients along the way. Language, when used with intentionality and focus, is, after all, serious fuel for joy. Here's to yours! |
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