house – WRITING INSIDE VT

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There is nothing more important than a good, safe, secure home. – Rosalynn Carter

The cause of homelessness is lack of housing. – Jonathan Kozol

It may be that the satisfaction I need depends on my going away, so that when I’ve gone and come back, I’ll find it at home. – Rumi

Between everyone in our writing circle, there has probably been hundreds of houses, apartments, sections of street, hotel rooms, and other dwellings. There have been places we’ve slept, ate, read books, cooked meals, and fed children. There are places we’ve lived for years or for days or for a couple hours. But if you ask anyone of us where our home is, we’ll probably name one, maybe to addresses.

These places are what we’ve been examining – what makes a home and what grounds us by having one. We can feel it in our bones, the placement of this home, and the tether that ties us to it is a string continuously played on the bodies and spirits of the writers. The strain of being away is apparent. It is a song that almost never stops, except maybe when we are writing.

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Credit: youngandjung.blogspot.com

It was a privilege to sit with our inside writers this week and have a chance to relive the read-around from a week ago. Still fresh in everyone’s memory, it came alive again through sharing the 50 comment cards (some of which were quoted, below) around the circle. Each time a familiar line was spoken, heads nodded around the circle. Such pride in community effort! Such supportiveness of one another’s courage!! Such joy at being spoken with as ‘real’ people, for a few moments of genuine interaction free of reprimand.

In keeping with our current theme of grounding, of experiencing ourselves as embodied presence, we challenged the women to write about themselves metaphorically. The challenge was inspired by Nancy Mairs (author of Remembering the Bone House) and read: “write your body as a house, with the rooms being different ages or events.” I think we were all equally challenged. What emerged, however, was a surprising variety of interpretations of the prompt, ranging from the whimsical to the more concrete.

The following was written by a relatively new participant, the most she has yet written with us:

My House, My Body

As you step into my house, you step into my mind. My house is full of different rooms, just like my mind. When you close one door, I close a part of my mind. When you open one door, one door of my mind opens.

The first room of my house is full of little baby things. Safe baby things as for my body was only a baby,. As you proceed on to the second room in my house, you will see things that help you walk and more toys, as I am still a small child.

As you move on to the third and fourth and even the fifth rooms in my house, there are still little baby things; but they are starting to change, because I’m changing, changing into a little girl. The sixth and seventh rooms are pretty cool, full of coloring and learning to tie shoes and to read and color, for I am in school learning.

Rooms eight, nine ten are starting to become bigger and more adult-like. Continue reading →