Healing Conversation

An Unwinding Ball of String: An Image for Writing and Healing

Posted by Diane Morrow on May 20, 2007 in Healing Conversation, Healing Images, Recommended Books

Consider this conversation, one which takes place on a porch in Los Feliz, California inside the novel, Jamesland, by Michelle Huneven. The conversation takes place between a young woman, Alice, and a Unitarian minister, Helen, who is in the neighborhood passing out fliers for a lecture series. Alice offers Helen a glass of Red Zinger tea and the two of them sit on Alice’s porch. They talk, one thing and another. At one point, Alice finds herself beginning to tell Helen, the minister, about a deer that wandered into her house in the middle of the night. Helen, the minister, interrupts. ‘Hold on.’ Helen held up her hand like a traffic cop. ‘A deer came into your house? I’m sorry, but you’re going too fast. And please move your hand away from your mouth so I can hear you. Please, start at the beginning, and take your time.’ . . . Now that she had a willing ear, Alice’s story of the deer unwound like a ball of string rolling down a street. This was the first time she’d been able to tell it all the way through, without interruption, and nothing she said seemed to invite dismay or contradiction. Helen nodded and sometimes narrowed her eyes as if listening to a familiar piano sonata or poem. . . Encouraged, Alice gave all but the most lunatic details—she left out the fight with her married boyfriend, her raising-the-fawn fantasy, that the deer had seemed to desire pursuit. Hypnosis, she’d heard, was like this: perfect recall with no self-incrimination. Take your time, the minister says. How often these days does any one of us get to hear those words when we’re on the brink of telling a story? Once a week? Once a month? Once in a lifetime? No rush. No impatience. No contradiction. No self-incrimination. None of the ordinary obstacles. A full suspension of disbelief on the part of the listener. And, in this place of suspension—a ball of string unwinding. And what (again) might writing have to do with it? Writing, I think, can augment the unwinding. Writing and then—perhaps—putting a piece of writing out into the world, and then getting news back that the writing is heard—received—can be a powerful way to encourage the ball of string to unwind, down through one layer, and the next, ever closer to the center. Writing can take us deep. Putting writing out into the world—and receiving a response—can take us yet deeper. This can happen anywhere. It can happen on a porch. For a year or two after I first moved to North Carolina, I helped form and then met with a writing group. The group eventually fell apart, but before it fell apart, for that year or two, one evening every other week, it provided a structure that allowed something to happen—the sharing of stories and a response to those stories. We always met at the same house. Her name was Alice actually, like in the book. We met at Alice’s house. And I remember a particular evening on her screened porch, this in the summer, at twilight, that certain quality of evening summer light, a dog barking somewhere down the street, a child being called inside for supper. This was in Greensboro, North Carolina. I was sitting on...

Writing and Reading as Conversation: A Small Epiphany

Posted by Diane Morrow on May 17, 2007 in Healing Conversation

Many years ago, when I was learning about the teaching of writing, I read that if you want to teach children to write and read as if it matters then what you need to do is provide opportunities in which words do matter. One suggestion for doing this was to exchange letters with children—to write them letters and notes—and then to invite them to write back. I found this idea of an exchange of letters coming back to me several years ago, at a time when I was teaching writing at Recovery House, a residence for men and women recovering from addiction. Each person in the group wrote every week, and, in addition to sharing their work in the group, I always collected the pages at the end of the evening and took them home with me. And at some point during the week I would make a cup of coffee, and read through their pages, and as I read through them I would often imagine their pages as letters that they had sent out into the world in the hope of some response. I drank my coffee and I wrote responses. Not terribly lengthy responses. Often my responses were brief. I wrote each response in the form of a letter, addressing the person by name, and trying to relate as clearly as possible what in their pages had spoken to me. I tried to write less as if I were a teacher evaluating the writing and more as if I were a person in the world, writing back. Often I got snagged by old habits—responding like a teacher—but sometimes I was able to write in a clearer, less teacherly, way, and I suspect now that those plainer comments were the ones that had a greater likelihood of getting through—of being received on the other side. I still have a milk crate filled with manila folders from that time. Here’s one of the letters that I found: Walter, Rocky really does sound like a great dog—if a little scary (for other people, that is). I can see the connection between you getting him and beginning addiction, both at a time when you were moving into manhood. It seems like there’s such a bittersweet quality to your memories about him. I can see how much you cared about him. Keep writing—Diane. Not infrequently, once I began writing these letters, I would get letters back. The stories and poems written in the workshop were themselves a kind of letter, but often, too, I got actual letters addressed to me. Dear Diane, This is just to let you know that as far as class goes, I’m not quite ready this week. I seem to have run out of time, so please forgive me. I really like your class a lot and look forward to it too. I’ve learned a lot about myself in your class and find that now I enjoy writing. Who would have thought? hmm, hmm, hmm? Thanks for being there for us, for me and those who stick and stay. I like to think that you’re there for the ones who hang in there, and not run, the ones like me. I’ll be ready next week and please forgive me. Ok? Ok! Love, Walt. P.S. I do have something...

Writing and Healing Idea #37: A Conversation with a Companion

Posted by Diane Morrow on May 10, 2007 in Healing Conversation, Writing Ideas

Imagine that you receive an invitation: You and a companion of your choosing are invited to spend a day together—in a place of your choosing. Because this is an imagined invitation the sky is the limit. You may choose any companion. A person living or dead. A person whom you know well or a person you’ve never had an opportunity to meet but have always wished that you could. A poet? A musician? Martin Luther King? For that matter, you may choose to bring a character who exists only in the world of the imagination. The old woman in the cottage? Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings? Dumbledore? You may choose any companion at all. You may choose any place. You may choose any activity, or any series of activities. And then at some point during the day, allow it to happen that the two of you engage in a conversation—the kind of conversation you have always longed to have, and realize that you now can have with this companion. Close your eyes. Listen closely. You and your companion are beginning a conversation. Perhaps your companion speaks first. Or perhaps you speak first and then your companion speaks. What is it that your companion says? And how do you respond? And then what happens next? You can, if you like, write the conversation down— This is also the kind of conversation that you can come back to again. You can come back to it on different days. This can become, if you like, a series of conversations over...

The Last Chinese Chef [Part Two]: Food for the Soul

Posted by Diane Morrow on May 7, 2007 in Healing Conversation, Recommended Books

[This is a continuation of yesterday’s post on the novel, The Last Chinese Chef, by Nicole Mones, which has just been released.] There’s one passage in particular—a conversation between Maggie and Sam Liang, the chef, that I think fits in especially well during this month in which I’m writing about healing conversation. This particular conversation occurs as one of a series of conversations that they have while Sam is cooking and Maggie is watching him cook. Sam has prepared a chicken, Chinese-style, and he offers some of the chicken to Maggie and she begins to eat the chicken and, as she does so, feels herself begin to “melt with comfort.” She speaks: ”Are you going to make this for the banquet?” “No,” he said. “This I made for you.” She looked up quickly. “These are flavors for you, right now,” he explained, “to benefit you. Ginger and cilantro and chives; they’re very powerful. Very healing.” “Healing of what?” she said, and put her chopsticks down. . . “Grief,” he said. ”Grief?” The unpleasant nest of everything she felt pressed up against the surface, sadness, shame, anger. . . Her voice, when it came out, sounded bewildered. “You’re treating me for grief?” “No,” he insisted, “I’m cooking for you. There’s a difference.” She tried to master the upheavals inside her. She would not cry in front of him. “Maybe you should have asked me first.” “Really?” “It’s a bit difficult for me.” “Well, for that I’m sorry. Forgive me. You’re American and I should have thought of that. Here, this is how we’re trained—to know the diner, perceive the diner, and cook accordingly. Feed the body, but that’s only the beginning. Also feed the mind and the soul.” There. That’s it. I think that’s what Nicole Mones is doing especially well in this book. She’s touched that aspect of culture–of Chinese culture in this case–that feeds the soul. And she’s found a way to translate that into the writing itself—into this novel— There’s a sense in which, in her grief, Maggie, the central character, is longing for a kind of food, a kind of conversation, that she doesn’t even quite know that she’s longing for—until it appears—and then she is able to be comforted by it. Here is how Nicole Mones describes the feeling of comfort that blooms inside Maggie after she eats that chicken: “It put a roof over her head and a patterned warmth around her so that even though all her anguish was still with her it became, for a moment, something she could bear.” . . . even though all her anguish was still with her it became, for a moment, something she could bear. At its best, I think this is what healing conversation–and sometimes healing books–and healing poems–can...

Green Apple Soap: An Image of Healing Conversation from White Oleander

Posted by Diane Morrow on May 3, 2007 in Healing Conversation, Healing Images, Recommended Books

White Oleander, the novel by Janet Fitch, is a lovely and often heartbreaking story of a girl, Astrid, in search of a mother. Perhaps you’ve read it. (Or seen the movie—Michelle Pfeiffer plays Astrid’s birth mother, Ingrid.) The first thirty-eight pages of the book depict scenes of Astrid with her mother—a poet, extremely gifted, very beautiful, and also exceptionally self-absorbed—a woman who requires her daughter to serve as a kind of audience for her own life. Eventually, Astrid becomes a reluctant and then bewildered audience as her mother plots the murder of an ex-lover, carries out the murder, and then is sent away to prison. This leaves thirteen-year-old Astrid an orphan, a child whose name becomes, in her own words, Nobody’s Daughter. The remainder of the novel is a story of Astrid’s odyssey through the foster care system, her quest to become Somebody’s Daughter. In Astrid’s fourth foster home she finds herself under the care of a woman by the name of Claire. This woman, Claire, is the first foster parent to actually see Astrid as a person separate from herself. She is, at the same time, the first mother who helps Astrid begin to see herself. There’s one particular conversation, very simple, and especially poignant in that it’s the first conversation of its kind that Astrid has ever experienced. Claire asks Astrid if she likes coconut soap or green apple. Astrid finds the question baffling—– She wanted to know all about me, what I was like, who I was. I worried, there really wasn’t much to tell. I had no preferences. I ate anything, wore anything, sat where you told me, slept where you said. I was infinitely adaptable. Astrid goes on to tell Claire that she doesn’t know if she prefers coconut soap or green apple but Claire will not allow equivocation. She presses her to decide. So I became a user of green apple soap, of chamomile shampoo. I preferred to have the window open when I slept. I liked my meat rare. I had a favorite color, ultramarine blue, a favorite number,...

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