Last Assignment Feb.22

[Tanya Taylor]

Dear Writing Mama's,

I am sorry that it has taken me so long to post this. Unfortunatly, my professional life has gotten so busy that I do not feel that I am able to give this writing group the attention and energy that it needs to thrive. This will be my last post.

So, I just want to say thank you to all the wonderful woman who have participated. Thank you for your amazing stories. I support you all in continuing to explore your life on the page. I also support you in continuing to share your writing with others.

For some ongoing creative and writing guidance, I suggest the following books: Writing Down the Bones, Thunder and Lightning and Wild Mind (by Natalie Goldberg),The Artist's Way and The Right to Write(by Julia Cameron), Bird by Bird(by Anne Lamott). For deep inspiration I suggest the following books and authors: anything by Alice Walker(particularly The Color Purple, The Same River Twice and Warrior Marks,acompanion book to her film), Operating Instructions, Bastard out of Carolina, A Thousand Acres,Open House,She's Came Undone,The Lovely Bones, Angela's Ashes, The Reader and The Corrections. There are so many amazing books and authors out there. Use their work to inspire you. One excersise you can do is to take a line that you love from a book and begin your own freewrite starting from that line.


Your final assignment is on appreciation.

Take the time to sit by yourself today and think of one thing you're grateful for each time you inhale and exhale. Do this for 5 minutes. Then sit and write beginning with............."what I love...." be as specific in your writing as possible.

Write for ten minutes each on the following topics............

Wildest dreams..............

Making love................

The sweetest thing..............

Bonus: Make a practice of appreciation today. Say thank you from your heart to your child today just for being who she is. Notice all the large and small ways in which life is supporting you. Cultivate gratitude and appreciation especially where it seems unnatural. Appreciate yourself. Forgive yourself for a mistake.

I appreciate you for your willingness to open to your voice and be real.

All blessings and with love,
Tanya

[LaLa]

Thank you Tanya!
Blessings and best wishes to you!

[netnet]

hello everyone- well i just needed to post and say that i am very sad at the thought of this writing group ending. i am very new to this group and yet i already feel very comfortable sharing my writing with you all. i understand tanyas need to quit however i wonder if we could still continue sharing our writings together. this group has really made me start writing again and i love reading all of your pieces as well. i feel very lucky to be a sharing my thoughts with such amazing mamas and i would hate to stop now that i have just begun. i know some of you have been in this group for a long time and have built a stronger foundation then i have and i hope it is okay being the newbie in the forum to have posted this but again i would hate to see this group stop writing and sharing our work. i love this forum because i think it is so important for us mamas to share our ideas and thoughts and express ourselves in our writing. sometimes it also nice to just be sharing with like minded mamas since some of us are a minority in the parenting world that surrounds us. what does everyone else think? take care janette

[Autumnschild]

I bow my head and lay it on top of hers, my face buried in a cloud of golden hair which smells of sunshine. It's fragrance comforts me. I stay this way for a while, as long as she'll let me, wondering if anyone else will ever hold her this way feeling like I do. I am humbled in gratitude for the gift of her love. After a while she stirs, nestling further into my arms. She half turns and lays a hand on my cheek. Something moves deep within me and a memory surfaces of my child as a baby, nestled at my breast and touching my cheek with her tiny hand in this same way. I look into her deep blue eyes and see eternity there. In those eyes I recognize the baby I once held in the child I hold now. She takes her hand from my cheek and smiles softly up at me. Love, pure and sweet tugs at my heart, and I know that I hold in my arms the sweetest thing.

[Autumnschild]

Making Love

I.

My forest God, my desert sun
I was caught in your storm last night
Leaving me wrecked but happy
With thighs on fire
And whiplash
To keep the night on my mind

Somewhere
I slip into animal instinct
And everything becomes colors and pictures
Sensations of beauty

With renewed vigor
I rise in the morning
And take my fill of the sharp cool air
I have Life

When you think you have nothing left to give
Just know that I have drunk deeply
Of what you are
And am quenched
Intoxicated
Smiling

II.

It was you, standing in the light.
For one brief moment, suspended in eternity,
I saw the light of your smile,
The radiant light in your eyes.

It was you in the tangle of my hair,
The tangle of tounges and limbs,
The tangle of emotion,
In which I am trapped and abandoned.

It was you, kindred spirit.
It has always been you.
My heart beats for you, my heart breaks for you.
For eternity, my heart waits for you.

[Autumnschild]

Appreciation

My heart flutters weakly against my chest and I remember the sickness I felt with my broken heart. I must crave punishment to return to such a place. Please don't hold me so tightly, I am only human. Yet, as much as I fear it, I am greatful for the pain - at least I can feel. I must be getting close. I can recognize myself.

I am not content to sit and mourn the passing of time. I must embrace it. Some people have never known freedom. I knew it, I loved it, and I sacrificed it. But it was mine and remains a part of me. I have loved deeply and recklessly. My heart has been torn open and still bears the scars. But I have known love.

I pride myself with the strength of spirit I possess. I wrap it around me like a cloak and no one can touch me. Yet I still wish I could be taken into the arms of someone with the strength to hold me. Someone who can appreciate me for who I am...a woman of many contradictions.

[Autumnschild]

I just want to thank you Tanya, for providing this avenue to explore, especially in a time of my life in which I needed a creative outlet. Thank you for this opportunity to share. It has been a great experience.

Now I may be able to muster up the courage to join a writing group here in town...

[northport]

Goodbye Post: Writer's Lament about Not Writing

Tanya - Thanks so much for your efforts here! At least some days I am writing; and days I am not, well, my lament follows. Good luck, and best wishes until we meet again. -Northport

Day after day filled with big open spaces that cannot be filled with writing or any other method of recording their existence. Day after day of trying to remember things that cannot be written down. Big open skies, blue and cloudless, no pen to write. Just walk and walk and walk. And try to remember. To recite. To repeat. But for it always to disappear again into the deep, deep blue sky. Where does this time go that cannot be recorded? Who does it belong to? I hope, wish that it goes to my children. My mantra time is infinite. Which cannot be rationally believed. But when embraced allows me more patience, more openness. I hope this time belongs to my children. And that which I cannot record on paper is nonetheless recorded..in their minds and hearts and souls. Written into their developing nerves and vessels and muscles and bones. And that would truly be the best record of all. But it is so opposite to all I have embraced to this day. I daily fail to convert to this new belief and wisdom. These very words evidence this failure.

[zenfulmama]

toddler boy
soft baby cheeks, on the face and those on the tooshy too
that amazing smell that comes from his mouth...sweet breath
watching him nurse and knowing that i am his sweetest thing
mother's milk feeds his big baby body.
his first kisses for mama, giving "sugar"--yes that's the sweetest thing. loving with a love that fills you up even in the face of a defiant three year old
here is your big boy now, your first born, telling you NO!
with eyes that are enchanted pools of enlightenment
that mirror you, your worst and your best
words that say, "mama, are you a giant?" and then he tells me "you are sooo beautiful"
as he strokes my hair.
life is sweet and supple
even during the worst times of despair
we are provided for
our bodies stay warm with heat and shelter
we fill our selves with good food
we are nourished and we nourish each other
the bread of life is ours
sustenance and simplicity
yes there is danger and evil lurking somewhere
but we kindly continue
acknowledging that we are human
continuing with compassion
we all make mistakes
and mend with love
we forgive and give again
living life sweetly
aknowledging the divinity within

[lavender]

Thank you all

I have hardly even checked in during the past few weeks as things have gotten really hectic around here, and then I peeked in the other day to see this message that Tanya is leaving!

I'm sad to hear it but so grateful for the time and the guidance you have given us, Tanya. Thank you.

Will there still be a writing group? I'm hoping once things settle down around here (I'm FINALLY over my cold and now I've got a kyu test on Tuesday and have been spending all my "spare" time training!), I'll be able to write more regularly again. Also, I will miss all of your voices.

I will try to get to this last assignment, even if just in my own notebook. Appreciation is what I need most to find right now. I'm looking, I'm looking...

Thank you Tanya, and Writing Mamas.