Waves
It comes and goes. In waves.
On top of the world. In the abyss. Competent and in control. Crazy and defective.
Sometimes the change is slow and almost imperceptible. Sometimes it’s sudden, in the blink of an eye, a shock, a new awareness that you always knew, as if someone else was hiding in some dark crevice hidden from view.
Rhythms of the Water
In my deepest dislocation, I spent one week every summer at a beach in New Jersey. I was broke but I wanted — no, I needed — to see the ocean, to feel its rhythm, to hear the deep pounding of power in syncopation with the pulse of my life. I wasn’t a swimmer, and certainly not in the ocean, but I was a water person. A friend who was born in July like me and says, “we’re Cancer on the astrological wheel — we need water.”
Sometimes I watch surf boarders on the internet take those waves with fearless grace and I wonder how their bodies come out whole. Mine barely did. “The pounding and the pain, the pounding and the pain, the pounding and the pain,” I wrote in a poem about pebbles I found as I wandered along the beach. Wave after wave after wave after wave. Loss and joy. Chaos and clarity. Pain and peace.
Rhythms of the Desert
What we want and what we need may not align, yet between the two they encompass the whole range of human experiences that shape us into who we are. Now that I live in the southwest, I can only remember the thrum of the sea and the froth of the waves. I play in our very large cool, hot tub or escape now and then to the wave pool at Wet ‘n Wild. More likely, though, I find myself searching for the dry rhythm of high desert, where the blistering heat slowly gives way to cool (or at least tolerable) nights and early mornings, where a 30* spread in temperature is par for the course. Irrigation quenches the parched blossoms seeking shade from the brutal sun. Breezes sometimes give relief but downright wind just spreads a layer of sand over patio chairs like soil hides the graves we never knew were there. Until monsoon season, that is, when rains embody a new rhythm. New waves. Wave after wave after wave after wave.
Rhythms of Age
As I’ve gotten older, as my life has settled into happiness tinged with a little bit of boredom and an occasional trigger, as my rhythm no longer flattens me with memory after memory after memory after memory, I’ve come to appreciate my waves, my rhythm, the ways the world impacts me for good or not-so-good, and the ways I impact the world for good or not-so-good.
I just finished a six-month call as bridge pastor for a local church and immediately turned around to welcome my 17-year-old granddaughter and her boyfriend for a visit. It was all wonderful. I’m tired. I notice wrinkles on my face. I’m getting old. Still, I’m excited to get started on revising our fall memoir class and writing my new book (working title: The Three Faces of Forgiveness). DW has committed to becoming a non-profit and our core team is working on a fundraising campaign to support this initiative. Our 2024 anthology is open for submissions. Some of us are writing proposals for next year’s Healing Together conference. Our new evening writing-in-place is off to a good start.
Grab Your Surfboard!
It’s all a part of my rhythm, maybe your rhythm, the new waves that both lift us up and throw us down. Grab that surf board! Join me in this cycle of life 😊!
DW Writing Workshops
Art Credit: @Dissociative Writers Logo
DW offers traditional writing workshops where volunteers submit writing in advance and participants read the writing before the workshop. At the workshops, participants give feedback and affirmation to the writers.
Writing-in-place workshops invite writers to come and write in session in response to a writing prompt. Writers who wish to can share their writing after the prompt. A new evening writing-in-place workshop offers the same structure in a shorter time frame.
This month, the dates and times of workshops are:
Tuesday, July 18, 1 pm Eastern: Traditional Workshop
Wednesday, July 19, 8 pm Eastern: Evening Writing-in-Place Lite
Tuesday, July 25, 1 pm Eastern: Writing-in-Place
Join us in writers workshops with your peers in a safe, supportive environment! If you subscribe to Dissociative Writers (DW), no registration required, just show up! If you aren’t yet a subscriber, click here and become one. See you soon!
2024 DW Anthology Call for Submissions!
Dissociative Writers is gearing up for our third annual Creative Healing Anthology, open to all subscribers to DW. All writing and art may be submitted, along with the Guidelines and Agreement to Publish (found at Groupeasy/Documents/Anthology 2024), between July 1 and September 16 by clicking here. Anticipated self-publication date is January 16, 2024. The digital anthology will be available for free on the Dissociative Writers website. For more information, click here.
🕊
There is no new wave, only the sea.
~ Claude Chabrol
Lyn