Writing With Abandon

Reflections and ramblings about life as an educator, writer, reader, knitter, and over-thinker. Trying to do the writing only I can do.

Tag: Liz Gilbert

  • Earth School

    This week, I finished reading All the Way to the River, Liz Gilbert’s new memoir about love, grief, and addiction.

    Back in the spring, when I’d seen that she was coming to the Arsht Center for a “conversation,” I booked three tickets for Ana, Kim, and I to see her speak. Our tickets included a brief meet and greet as well as a signed copy of the book. I made a calendar event for the evening, November 3rd, and then promptly forgot about it until October or so.

    I wasn’t planning on reading the memoir ahead of the event, since we were going to receive a copy anyway, but Ana forgot that she’d pre-ordered it and read it, and then I figured I could at least listen to some of the audiobook with my Spotify premium membership. So I started it on my daily dog walks, but got a bit turned off by the music, and distracted by Phoebe, and ultimately decided to just wait until the event. I let some critics get in my head too, so headed into the night a bit skeptical, which, combined with work stress, didn’t make me the most receptive audience member.

    The conversation was supposed to begin at 7:30pm, but for the meet and greet, we were required to get there by 5:45pm at the latest, the email said. So we did, and lined up, and I ranted to two of my closest friends as we waited in line to meet Liz.

    When it was our turn, I hoped she would sign my copy of Big Magic (my favorite book of hers), but it wasn’t a signing kind of thing.

    “Have we met?” she asked me when we hugged.

    I told her we hadn’t.

    Me, Liz, and Kim

    They snapped our photo, and then we went to wait in the lobby for another hour or so before the event began.

    And once it began? Whoa.

    Liz is a public speaker like few I’ve ever seen. She absolutely knows how to tell a story and engage her audience, all while remaining one hundred percent authentic.

    It truly was like a conversation with her. The meet and greet was just a photo op, but this? This was an intimate conversation. There weren’t that many of us.

    Liz spoke about creativity and love and the process of writing this memoir. She spoke about getting to a point in your life where your past lives and loves are just a distant memory. She made us laugh, she made us tear up, and she made me nudge Ana for a stack of post-its I knew she’d have and Kim for a pen so I could take some notes.

    Some small nuggets of gold I was able to jot down (some from Liz, and some that Liz quoted from others — these are not necessarily exact words, but include some exact words!):

    • We have one planet, but 8 billion worlds. Art is: take me into your world.
    • In all art, you’re revealing yourself — you’re exposing yourself, but you’re on a nude beach! What a critic is is someone who goes to the nude beach, fully clothed a with a telephoto lens, and scrutinizes you, then decides what it is. They say, I’ll tell you what she looks like naked, without taking off a stitch of their own clothing! “Get off the beach!”
    • You only need to know what you think of your art. Criticism and flattery go down the same drain — both are destabilizing. (Credited to Georgia O’Keefe)
    • The universe hates secrets.
    • Rayya would always say, since the truth is where we’re gonna end up anyway, why don’t we just start there?
    • Grief is a bill that you have to pay eventually. You can pay it all at once or in installments, but you have to pay it.
    • Be vulnerable enough to do your learning in public.

    We left the evening absolutely inspired, and also exhausted from Daylight Savings Time.

    As soon as I finished my next book, I launched back into Liz’s new memoir, this time with the hard, signed copy. I started from the beginning. I finished it this past Sunday, a gorgeous day, sitting on my balcony with Phoebe at my feet.

    Something that has really been sitting with me is her notion that “Earth is nothing but a school for souls” (48). Liz writes:

    In my life, I have certainly found that the Earth School model is a useful thought exercise during times of darkness, pain, and betrayal—for it takes me out of a victim mentality and offers up a worldview that feels far more empowering and fascinating than the limiting, anguishing cry of “Why me?!”

    A more fruitful question than “Why me?” could be “How might this terrible situation be perfectly designed to help me to evolve?”

    Because what if that’s really what it’s all about?

    And what if we are all here to help each other evolve? (49)

    I’ve found this incredibly useful lately. So I leave it here with you.

    What is a terrible situation that was perfectly designed to help you evolve? And maybe, if you’re going through one now, you can reframe your “why me?” thoughts à la Liz.

  • Day 31: Taps

    It’s Saturday evening and I’m watching the sun set behind the buildings across from mine. I was thinking about what to write for my last slice of the Slice of Life Story Challenge 2024, feeling both a sense of accomplishment/relief (one less item on the daily to-do list!) and also sadness, as slicing has become an activity that I have found so rejuvenating this month.

    Last night, Ana and I were sharing with Gi how fun this challenge has been for us. I think particularly about how much more I enjoyed it this year, how I built a stronger sense of community with fellow slicers, how I found blogs that I subscribed to and thoroughly enjoyed reading, and how I felt an inspiration for writing that I haven’t felt in a long time (“big magic,” Liz Gilbert might say).

    “You should definitely do it with us next year,” Ana encouraged Gi. “It’s so freaking fun.”

    As I look out the window, watching the sky change colors, I find myself thinking of the song we used to sing at camp at the end of each evening, Taps:

    Day is done. Gone the sun. From the hills, from the lakes, from the skies. All is well. Safely rest. God is nigh.

    We would play around with harmonies each time, my friends Alice and Claire and I especially. Then off to our cabins to wash up and get ready for bed, have cabin chat, and go to sleep. Every evening ended the same way, and there was a sense of peace knowing that the next morning, after waking up at 7:30, after the day passed with its activities and meals, we’d end it again with some goodnight circle songs, and always, Taps.

    Last year, on the 31st day of the challenge, I reflected on who I was as a writer. I considered blogging more often, writing for the very small audience I’d built, but never managed to do it. I think I wrote one post between then and now. Perhaps it was the focus of my blog that kept me from it (teacher-facing solely), or my imposter syndrome, or the who-cares-what-I’ve-got-to-say, or any of the various life-gets-in-the-way excuses.

    This year, I pushed past the discomfort and just wrote. I learned that a simple post about banana bread can remind someone else of their own recipe, have them grabbing the ingredients from their pantry and baking for the loved ones in their lives. I saw how my friends who followed along enjoyed the stories I told, how they were “insiders” knowing the characters I wrote about. This year, I really felt — feel — like a writer again, in a way I haven’t in years.

    And then magically, serendipitously, the evening that Ana wrote her slice about whether or not she’d go to Ralph Fletcher’s Quoddy Writing Retreat for teachers this summer, I received an email from him letting me know a spot had opened up and was I still interested?

    HECK! YES!

    So, a promise to myself: to keep at it. A weekly slice. Because there is comfort in writing regularly, like the comfort of singing Taps on a summer evening in the Berkshires.

    Thanks, fellow slicers, thanks, Two Writing Teachers, for hosting, thanks to my readers who encourage me, and thanks to my writing partner (she knows who she is).