writing

Embracing My Righteous Rage

October 4, 2018 By Carrie Lamanna Leave a Comment

Two weeks ago I wrote a post about my experience of sexual assault at age 15. My objective in sharing my story was to lend credibility to Christine Blasey Ford’s, to help people understand that assaults do happen the way she described and that they do have lasting effects on survivor’s lives. My account was emotional but steady. I wanted to convey what it felt like for me to live with that trauma, but I wanted to appear logical, reasonable. And the next week I watched Dr. Ford make similar rhetorical choices during her testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. And then I watched the angry mob of men take the room and erase her as if she had never been there at all. I watched as they sent a message to survivors all across the country that said, “Our anger and entitlement is worth more than your pain.” I watched and I cried.

And then I got angry too. Those who know me will tell you that I am pretty good at being angry. But my anger has typically been the kind that lives stuffed deep inside where I can keep it controlled and hidden. It rises to the surface at unexpected moments when I find myself yelling about the dirty laundry on bathroom floor or at the guy who cut me off in traffic. My anger in those moments seems misplaced and out of proportion. I look irrational, hysterical even, because my anger is misplaced. I’m not angry about the dirty laundry on the floor (well, maybe I’m a little pissed about that). I’m really angry at

the boys who tried to rape me.

the high school boyfriend who used gas lighting to emotionally and sexually abuse me.

the culture that told me none of that should matter, that it was no big deal, and really probably my fault anyway.

my government that upholds the power of rich white men while stripping women of reproductive rights, oppressing the LGBTQ community, putting children in cages, defending police officers who kill Black children, and turning a blind eye to income inequality and environmental disasters that make the average citizen poorer and sicker.

The anger I have been suppressing is a righteous rage. A rage that I will use to fuel my writing and my activism. It’s not going to be easy. The Senate will likely vote to confirm Kavanaugh tomorrow, and then there are the midterm elections to get through. I’m going to write through it all. I’m going to use my writing practice to hone my rage until it is sharp and targeted, and I hope you’ll join me.

I’m preparing a four-week online writing class for women who are feeling their anger and want a community where they can express it through writing and discussion. If this is you, join me in the Righteous Rage writing class starting October 22. Each Monday you will receive an email with a short reading and writing prompt. You can also share your thoughts and writing in our private Facebook group. If you are looking for a greater level of engagement and support, in addition to the weekly prompts you can register for a weekly live online discussion group. I will cap the discussion group at eight participants to create an intimate space for in-depth conversation. Sign up now to be notified when registration opens and to receive special early bird pricing.

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Getting Back to Basics: Lessons for Writing and Life

August 21, 2018 By Carrie Lamanna Leave a Comment

Today I am putting on my own oxygen mask first. I have at least 20 things on my to-do list, but instead of making my writing item 21, I’m putting it first.

I have spent the summer coming to terms with the fact that I will never be one of those “highly productive people” so revered in American society. This realization has required lots of therapy and downtime. No matter how organized, scheduled, and efficient I am I will never be able to do all the things I think I should be doing. And that’s OK. And I will keep telling myself it’s OK everyday until I don’t doubt it anymore.

Trying to do all the things has just led to levels of stress and anxiety that aren’t healthy for anybody. So I started scaling back, and during that process it became painfully obvious that most of what I was trying to accomplish was about pleasing other people or living up to an impossible standard of womanhood—or both.

The other day a friend asked me if I enjoyed life We were out in the garden and I was picking some beans for her to take home, so this understandably seemed an unnecessarily philosophical question for the activity at hand. All my brain could muster at first was “umm, what the fuck?” I mean who enjoys life? That’s not what life is for. It’s for getting shit done. Making sure your family is fed, clothed, and happy. Making sure everyone you work with is happy with your performance. Making sure you stay thin and pretty forever, because otherwise they revoke your woman card. Making sure you keep up with every horrid thing our fascist president and his crew of stormtroopers are doing so you can resist, resist, resist forever and ever, amen.

Her question irritated me. What was there to enjoy? It only took me a few minutes to realize my reaction was the sign of a problem. (Only a few minutes to recognize my own crazy—that therapy is paying off!) My friend was perceptive enough to see that I am perpetually stressed and she took the opportunity to check in with me. I decided not to shoot the questioner and get honest with myself instead.

I never learned to enjoy life because I have been letting the bastards win for over 40 years: the weight and beauty police, the mommy industry designed to make mothers feel like failures (bento boxes, limited screen time, educational crafting activities—who who the fuck are these people?), the capitalist co-opting of feminism that lies and tells us we can have it all if we just work hard enough and spend enough money, and now our racist cheeto president who makes everyone with a soul feel like it’s a betrayal of justice to feel even a moment of happiness. To paraphrase Lucinda Williams, they took my joy and I want it back.

So, my first step is getting back to writing by getting back to basics. Here are three things I need to get the writing done and reclaim my joy right now.

space and time

Both seem impossible to find most of the time, but often it’s because I refuse to allow myself the luxury of putting myself first. Somewhere deep in my psyche I don’t believe I have done enough to earn my writing time. Because it must be earned. Anything pleasurable must be earned by sacrifice because otherwise I’m just being a greedy bitch. This is internalized misogynist thinking that I must unlearn if I want my joy back. So I left the kids home with my husband and went to a coffee shop where I wrote first before answering emails or focusing on clients. I allowed myself to feel joy without earning it, even if it was only for an hour. Even small steps will lead you home if you just keep walking in the right direction.

little pleasures

Since I work from home, there are days when I don’t leave the house. More often than I want to admit I have waited until mid afternoon to brush my teeth. Why? Because I told myself I needed to get my work done before tending to my bodily needs. It would be selfish to take care of myself before finishing that project or folding that basket of laundry. Sound familiar? It’s the same fucked up thinking I use to deny myself writing time. These wounds go deep. So deep that I have made something essential like brushing my teeth into a luxury.

When I got to the coffee shop to write, I bought some lunch and then opened my laptop to a blank screen. After writing for a bit I really wanted a cappuccino. My internal critical said, “you haven’t written enough to earn that coffee yet.” After that negative messaging, creativity started to leave me. The words wouldn’t come anymore. And I knew I had to get that cappuccino. Art requires us to be tuned into beauty and pleasure. If we cut off our access to them, we lose our humanity, our sense of connection to the world around us, our empathy. I love the way the foam dances on top of the cup and the way you can smell the bitterness of the coffee before it hits your tongue and how the last sip is always sweeter than the first no matter how well you mix the sugar. The coffee kept me in touch with my senses, my bodily connection with the physical world—with pleasure and joy. I needed that little bit of pleasure to stay in my artistic space.

my people

Writers need other writers. This writing thing, it’s hard. Six years ago I signed up for an online writing class with Janelle Hanchett. The honest writing on her blog, Renegade Mothering, was the kind of writing I longed to do but couldn’t because I was stuck in an academic structure that didn’t fit my creative needs. In her class I meet my people—other women struggling to find their voice and the courage to share it with the world. We were all smart, professional women—a doctor, a lawyer, a chef, a student advocate, a physical therapist, a Fulbright scholar and former member of parliament, and even another college English professor—who had suppressed our desire to write. We all wanted our joy back, and we found it with each other’s help.

But joy can be fleeting. It requires constant attention. Janelle recognized the special bond we had formed, and has organized two writing retreats for us in a magical spot in California. That place has kept the joy of writing alive for every one of us. The last time we were all gathered in that spot, one of our members, Tracy, gave everyone a bracelet engraved with the GPS coordinates of our little retreat house in the woods. I wear it almost every day, but especially on days when life and its never-ending responsibilities and expectations are trying to suck the joy out of my life. On those days my bracelet and I go to the coffee shop, buy the cappuccino, put in some headphones and write. We may do it again tomorrow.

Finding the God of the Lowly in Janelle Hanchett’s “I’m Just Happy To Be Here”

May 1, 2018 By Carrie Lamanna Leave a Comment

My friend and writing mentor Janelle Hanchett’s memoir, I’m Just happy to Be Here, debuted today. I had the honor to be part of a select group of early readers, and if you follow me on social media, you have seen my posts about what a beautiful, heartbreaking, funny, and inspiring story it is. It takes you into the depths of motherhood and addiction in a way that anyone who has experienced a dark night of the soul can understand. And isn’t that all of us, really?

I discovered Janelle’s writing in 2015 when a friend shared one of her blog posts on Facebook. I don’t even remember which post it was because I immediately started reading the whole blog. She wrote about motherhood and social expectations and politics in a way that was sarcastic, outraged, and ernest all at once. She outed herself as imperfect, a misfit, and invited all the other misfit mothers to join her. When I found out she was offering an online writing class I knew it was meant for me. but I was only half right. It was meant for me and seven other amazing women who became fiercely loyal friends and writers in progress.

After a year of working together online and joking about the magical face-to-face writing retreat we were going to have someday, we decided to make it a reality. So Janelle set to work finding us the perfect location—a funky, well-worn 1960s commune turned retreat center in Pescadero, California. This was not a resort in Tahiti, where all the spiritual white women go on retreat these days. This was a misfit cabin in the woods perfect for a gang of misfit writers. We gathered in the yurt in the morning to talk about writing, spent the afternoons actually writing in the living room, and listened to each other read around the campfire at night. It was there that I first heard Janelle read from her book. When she was finished, we were all silently crying in the dark because we knew this book would be everything we love about Janelle’s writing and everything we hope for in our own—real, raw, and offering real human connection.

Janelle’s writing is brave because she knows life is too short to give any fucks about propriety and other outward signs of white, middle class adulting. There is only time for honesty and kindness, and love—for helping each other up each and every time we fall. Near the end of the book, when she is finally in recovery and staying sober, she reflects on the importance of telling her story. In the scene she is visiting a home for alcoholic mothers and explains,

I tell them what I did and how I recovered, because I want them to see that the water they need to wash themselves clean flows always and immediately to the lowest possible places. And I know that God, to me, is that kind of love.

This was the moment that brought me back to that campfire and the way I felt afterward as we all walked back up the hill to the retreat house to go to bed. This book is bedtime story for grownups—not a fairy tale where good triumphs over evil, but a story of how a flawed, messy human (as we all are) gets a chance to try again, a shot at redemption.

Reading this book has overlapped with my spring gardening rituals of pruning and planting and weeding. Every year I go back to the same trouble spots, the places where despite my diligent weeding and watering plants refuse to grow, seeds refuse to sprout. I have a place in my flower garden where only weeds will take hold. Each spring, I dig out the weeds and plant a new sort of flower, hoping this variety will finally be the one that can stand up to the weeds. I have been doing this for 10 years now, and each time I go out to plant in that spot my husband reminds me of that old saying: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. But this is where God finds us—at our most desperate, on our knees in the garden trying again to make something grow. God is there with lowliest of us who continue to make the same mistakes, continuing to love us, tend to us, like a patch of poor soil where only weeds will grow.

The wisdom in Janelle’s book is that we are all already redeemed, already worthy of love. We just have to step into the water and let it wash over us.

Doing the Work: What the Writer Learned

April 24, 2018 By Carrie Lamanna Leave a Comment

The first thing I learned after a week of writing every day for 30 minutes is that while I want my writing space to look like this photo of a woman sitting in a cafe with the perfect cappuccino and serene mood lighting, I can write almost anywhere. I mean, I wrote in a moving car that was transporting two jabbering kids and blasting Nirvana. This was an important practical lesson for me because one of my main excuses for not writing has always been lack of a clean (quiet) well lighted place. Once I realized I could actually make the writing happen, I learned a few other things worth mentioning.

Writing is hard. “Well, no shit, Sherlock,” I hear you saying. And truthfully, I already knew this. If it were easy, I wouldn’t have these dry spells where I dread writing so much that I can’t make myself do it unless I invent a writing challenge and then announce on the damn internet that I’m going to write every day for 30 days. But here’s the thing about doing hard stuff. We don’t do it because it’s hard and we are masochists. We do hard things when there is some sort of reward at the end that is worth the effort, and there are definitely rewards for sucking it up and doing the work of writing. If we are really lucky there’s the reward of publication and getting paid for our work. But even after a week of just free writing for 30 minutes a day, I have been reminded there are smaller, personal rewards to sitting down and exploring an idea through written language. What follows are four of those rewards.
I’m happier when I write. I’m not happier while I’m writing because see number one, but I am definitely happier when I’m done. My mind is clearer and I feel a sense of calm. I’m better able to focus on the rest of the day, or if I write before bed, I fall asleep faster because I’ve worked thought my thoughts for the moment and am ready to let my mind rest. I don’t resent the housework or the errands or the thousand other things a have to do to call myself a responsible adult. Well, at least I resent them less than when I don’t make time to write.
I learn about myself when I write. In just this past week of writing I’ve had moments when I wrote a sentence and stopped cold because I didn’t know that was how I felt about something. It’s a weird moment where I feel like I’m meeting myself for the first time immediately followed by a deep sense of connection with this me I have just discovered. She was hidden somewhere inside just waiting for that moment when I would sit down and allow her the space and words to speak. Maybe this is why I’m happier when I write—because all of me feels valued and acknowledged, not just the parts I can acceptably express at the dinner table or while chit-chatting with other parents at the playground.
There’s some truth in the saying “write drunk, edit sober.” Truth be told, I have never written drunk, but there were times when a glass of two of wine helped quiet the doubts in my head long enough to get some words on the page. When I was writing my dissertation, I was consumed by the anxiety of what my advisor would think or whether my arguments were good enough to be published in some academic journal that four people would read. It was exhausting, and I needed to let go in order to get the writing done. I was writing with an editor and a critic in my head, and they needed to shut the hell up,so I plied them with wine. This writing challenge has helped me achieve that open state of mind without the booze. The key has been setting no guidelines about what to write. All I have to do is set my timer for 30 minutes and start writing. I have no obligations to readers, editors, or teachers. I am just exploring an idea to see where it goes. If it sucks, I can hit the delete key later. That’s what the sober editing is for.
Sometimes I write some good shit. No really, it’s true. It’s so easy to get fixated on the hot mess that is a first draft we forget that if we look hard enough inside that mess, more often than not, there lives a witty turn of phrase or a perceptive analysis of a political or societal issue. Anxiety and self-doubt make us forget we are human and know how to use language. Writing helps us remember.

If you’ve been writing with me this week, let me know how it’s going. What have you learned about yourself and your writing process? And if you haven’t been writing, join in at any time. Even if you only do it for a week, I can promise you won’t regret gifting yourself those 30 minutes of writing each day.