Low-Stakes Creative Writing
So, it’s 11:03 pm and I just woke from, not a nightmare, but a dream that’s left me somewhat disturbed. I was taking my oldest son’s shoes. He wasn’t tying them. I was trying to teach him some sort of lesson. I was running around the house and yard to hide them. He was trying to find me. When I woke up, I realized it was because I thought he wouldn’t perform well in sports or whatever with loose shoelaces. I decided it reflected a need for control. I also felt the familiar grief of losing my little children to simply growing up. (Is that what grandchildren are for–to assuage that grief?)
I’ve been under the assumption that a writer of a blog needs to plan before writing a post. This, of course, is a major cause of writer’s block and why it’s taken me so long to start this dang project. What nonsense.
Ironically, I’ve always valued improvisation over scripts. When I felt nervous about public speaking, I thought, it was because I didn’t have anything worth saying. Or that I’d freeze and be humiliated. I play my piano and guitar daily. The blues. Improvisation. The blues played “jazzy.” I learned that my best work as a psychotherapist was capturing improvisation together with the client and not worrying about technique.
I once wrote in graduate school: ““A student attends to the tools and techniques of the Master not to copy the Master but to internalize the encompassing gestalt that informs the choice of technique.” I paraphrased that/stole it from somebody but I can’t remember who. Sorry about that, whomever you are.
I was scared shitless when I went back to school around age 31. I was scared I didn’t belong, that I wasn’t smart enough, good enough, and, gosh darn it, nobody would like me.
We were told the first term paper we had to write was an original personality theory. In other words, high-stakes creative writing. I loved the class and that assignment and I earned an “A++++!!!” Yes, that’s what the professor wrote. What a relief! I belonged!
Do I belong on the web blogging?
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