Death

I've not been around much and I've been struggling to find words, my voice, something important to say. The world seemed to fall into chaos and I went with it, down the rabbit hole of, "What's the point of it all?"

I haven't answered that question yet... but I've been playing with lots of different thoughts and ideas.

This year though, my Dad died. It's been over 20 years since my Mum died. I was thinking about the differences. I'm almost at the age Mum was when she died. So death is right up there in my thoughts.

To assist with my recovery from death and illness, I went on a writing retreat. I began to write about death. It's been such a healing process... even if I've shed more than a few tears as I've written.

Death, like sex, is another "taboo" subject that as a society we don't talk about in any depth. We've very good at skimming the surface (i.e. giving the basic details, asking the acceptable questions) and we don't go any deeper. 

A friend asked me the other day how I was doing. I said I was going okay. She then stopped me, and asked me how the grieving process was going. I haven't been asked that before. It was a much deeper question and took more time for me to think of a response than my usual, "I'm fine, thanks."

Do we have spaces in society to speak about death at a deeper level?

I think that's where I want to focus my thoughts and words. Hopefully I will be back soon with more thoughts and questions. 

And, just a note, it's not going to be dreary or sad, well, not all the time anyway. I think death and life go hand-in-hand, so we need to bring all emotions to the death conversations. 

Words and Healing

 Recently, I went to the Romance Writers of Australia (RWA) Conference. It's been a long time between conferences (I think the last one I attended was 2016... but maybe there was one after that because it seems way too long ago!). 

I had a LOT of work drop on me right before I left, so I wasn't fully committed to the conference. I had to skip a lot of sessions, but those I did ranged from ho-hum to freaking fantastic!

Those fantastic sessions empowered and reinvigorated me. They made me feel like I could write and that my stories were worthwhile. I'd forgotten that feeling.

One session was by best-selling author Elana Johnson who was visiting from the US. She did a plenary session on Sunday morning called, I Don't Just Write Kissing Books. Sunday mornings are tough because the Gala Dinner was the night before, and sometimes it's been a few big nights for people who are usually introverts. So to make a Sunday session a highlight of the conference is a feat.

She spoke about romance books being healing - for the characters who need their Happy Ever After which requires change and healing of internal and external conflicts (the key to romance stories). But also for the readers, who see this healing happening in the characters, which gives them hope that whatever needs healing in their lives can be healed and happiness is possible. What blew my mind was that it's healing for the writers who craft this healing in their stories.

OMG!

My mind exploded because I suddenly saw what I was trying to do with my writing. So many of my stories are about healing some aspect of myself or the society (as I see it).

I thought I was writing to understand. That's always been what I imagined fuelled my writing. But I sat there and saw that I write to heal. I write with the hope of healing.

I haven't written since the 2019/20 disasters - bushfires and floods around me, and a pandemic in the world. I've struggled with finding meaning, value, healing, hope. All the things I need to write stories. So... if I couldn't find these things, there was no way I was going to be able to write those stories.

Which led me to think that over the last few years, I've been healing. 

Healing disasters within me. Wounds that had sat unacknowledged for years. Things I had never consciously thought of, thought through, or looked at. But when the world came crashing around me, I had to go back and look at those unhealed wounds.

I remember in the 1980s, and the Iraq War (I think it was) where I thought the end of the world was nigh. That wound got papered over. I put salve on it, a bandaid, and it kind of healed enough I could mostly forget about it. But those wounds I mostly forget about never heal properly or truly are forgotten. So it came up again and again and again. 

Life seems to be a spiral of learning and healing (or mine anyway). Each time it comes around differently, I'm healing a slightly different aspect of the same issue. I've healed a few of these aspects in the last 5 years.

Facing them, working through them, and healing them has led me to have hope again. I can see a future. I can see things that I feel can change. 

Imagine my surprise when I left conference with these thoughts in my head and went off on a writing retreat - and WROTE!

I'd intended to write a Nature Journal because stories were not happening. But I sat down to do that and a person appeared and began to speak to me - person being a character. She had a story she wanted to tell.

My writing process is a weird one, but more and more people are speaking of similar weird processes now, so I didn't try to change it. I let my process flow. 

It's a discovery process. I don't know anything about anyone or the story until the words are outside of me. When someone asked what I was writing, I was honest and said I didn't know. I had a female character who was grieving. 

After a couple of days, she was healing. Then a man appeared. I thought I was writing to explore affairs because he was kind of shady and secretive. I talked about writing Erotic Taboo stories.

As the week went on, and the words flowed, I realised that I liked these characters. Maybe it wasn't an affair. Maybe they like each other too.

I have 26 000 words written. I'm interested to see where they go to, who these people are, what they're going to show me about myself, society, and healing. Or are they going to show me something altogether different?

So, I'm back home... drowning in work... but once I get that done, I'm keen to get back to my story, my characters. I'm keen to see what I've learned in my time away from writing. I'm keen to see if I can identify any healing.

I shared a scene with a friend who said there was light in it. Which filled me with joy, because I feel lighter now than in the past, more hopeful maybe it is.

So, let's see where this takes me.

But huge thanks to Elana Johnson for her words on healing. They made me cry. They made me laugh. They made me love. And that made me open my eyes and see more.

Writing people are the best!

I'm still here... sometimes...

Oh boy, it's been a while.

I was down at the river the other day, intending to head to the beach, but there were heaps of Black Swans on the river, and then a Caspian Tern was feeding. I had no hope of going further!

The Caspian Tern is quite a lot bigger (and somewhat slower) than the Little Terns I've been trying to capture, in a photo as they dive for fish, over summer. So, it was fabulous to have a tiny smidge more time to track the bird, and sometimes focus on the dive.

When they started to dive in amongst the swans, I got excited. The swans didn't seem to care at all.

Some days are just incredible. I pinch myself when I get to spend time with some of nature's spectacles.

 

Positivity

 I've lost my positivity, I've noticed, as I look back here. I'm sorry.

Cate was always the me who did the different things, who pushed boundaries, who walked along the line of 'not normal' that I was always being told I should be closer to.

I don't deal well with the push backs... which is why Cate was perfect. But now I see that Cate's being subjected to the pushbacks that I didn't cope well with. And not surprisingly, I'm still not doing well with it! LOL! 

I've curled into my shell and packed up. Not a great attitude for someone who wants to change the world, hey?

CATE, GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER!

Small steps to make changes, that's the way to go for me.

Here's my positive for the day:

I cleaned up a bean bag fom the local river over the last couple of days. I saw it there, torn, with those little styrofoam balls falling out. I went home for garbage bags but underestimated the number required. So after a couple of trips I've now got the bag and 95% of the balls removed. 

Those tiny balls! OMG, they're so hard to pick up and put in a bag! They're electrostatically charged and have a mind of their own. They cling to the plastic rubbish bag, then leap away. They coat themselves in sand and vanish. I was like a crazy person trying to deal with them. So they're still mostly there, and I hope to go back again and have another attempt at collecting more of them.

Here are 2 of the 3 garbage bags required to get the bulk of it removed.

The best thing about this: I live in such a great place, that there is always someone doing a task like this, and I'm glad I got to have my turn tday. 

What's your positive story for the day/week/month/year?