Welcome!
Writing Through Cancer is a website designed for those of you whose lives have been touched by cancer. Each week, I'll post a writing prompt designed to inspire you to write from your experience of cancer. Each prompt will be available on the site for one month.
Why write from the pain and struggle that comes with cancer? Studies have shown it can actually be good for you. When we repress emotions and silence our stories, we weaken our ability to heal. Writing allows us to unearth and express all that we think and feel. Through the creation of stories, we learn, as we have always done, how to make sense of our worlds. Writing is a form of self-expression that is readily available to you. You can do it just about anywhere: at home, on the train, in a waiting room, or at a cafe. All you need is pen, paper or your laptop and whatever is in your heart and mind. I hope that you'll find new inspiration from the prompts offered here-- inspiration that encourages your stories of the journey of cancer.
Best Wishes from SHARON BRAY, Ed.D.
(Author of When Words Heal: Writing Through Cancer (Frog Books, 2006) and A Healing Journey: Writing Together Through Breast Cancer (Amherst Writers & Artists Press, 2004)
|
For the Week of May 18, 2008: Befriending The Body
I had foot surgery this week, a procedure to repair a toe I’d injured in a household accident a year ago--one that was the result of my own impulsivity and carelessness—and one that required the toe be re-broken and straightened with the insertion of a steel pin.
The surgery was minor. It went smoothly and quickly. However, in the aftermath of being confined to wearing a large and heavy orthopedic boot and keeping my foot elevated and iced, I have been reminded just how frequently I take my body for granted. The ability to move quickly, to walk wherever I wish, to do routine tasks like getting dressed or showering, even to drive my car, are all temporarily suspended for a few weeks. In the process, I have discovered something else: I had difficulty accepting my confinement graciously. I am rarely ill, and I enjoy my mobility and independence. Now I must learn to accept these temporary physical limitations and exercise patience. I now move slowly and clumsily. I am dependent on my husband to do the most mundane household tasks. I must stop, listen to my body, treat it with respect and care, and work with it in the process of healing.
To feel betrayed by body, or to feel we have betrayed it, is a natural reaction to injury or a serious illness like cancer. Our bodies are changed by our illness—the effects of radiation, chemotherapy or surgery alter the bodies we once knew as familiar. We have to learn to love, to accept this strange, altered self that is reflected back to us in the mirror. We have to learn to work with our bodies rather than fight them in the process of healing and recovery.
“And the body, what about the body?” Jane Kenyon wrote in her poem, “Cages,” as she struggled with cancer. "Sometimes it is my favorite child," she continued, "And sometimes my body disgusts me." In the end, Kenyon acknowledges the struggle to accept her body as she writes:
Then I have to agree that the body
is a cloud before the soul's eye.
This long struggle to be at home
in the body, this difficult friendship.
Explore the relationship you have with your body. In the experience of cancer, how has your relationship to it changed? What has your body taught you? What kind of “difficult friendship” have you endured to be “at home” again in your body? Write about your body.
|
For the Week of May 11, 2008: Mothers, Mothering, Motherhood.
Mothers. We’ve all had one, and some of us are mothers or even grandmothers. It’s Mother’s Day, and while you may be remembering or celebrating your mother or grandmother with cards, flowers or other gifts, the word, “mother,” offers us a host of writing possibilities.
“Mothers’ Day,” also known as Mothering Sunday in the U.K., is believed to have originated from the 16th century Christian practice of visiting one's mother church each year, which meant that most mothers would be reunited with their children on this day. As a result of secularization, it is now principally used to celebrate and give thanks for mothers.
In the U.S., Mother's Day was loosely inspired by the British day and was imported by social activist Julia Ward Howe after the Civil War, intended as a call to unite women against war. She was also inspired by Ann Jarvis , a young Appalachian homemaker who, starting in 1858, had attempted to improve sanitation through what she called Mothers' Work Days. In 1912, a national day to honor mothers was made official by President Woodrow Wilson, as a day for American citizens to show the flag in honor of those mothers whose sons had died in war. It’s hard to imagine that Ann Jarvis, Julia Howe or Woodrow Wilson would foresee the inevitable commercialization of Mother’s Day as we know it today. (Source: www.en.wikipedia.org)
This week, I invite you to step back from the Hallmark greetings and remember your mother or grandmother differently. What qualities or anecdotes best describe your mother? How might you bring her to life on the page? How can you “show” us your memories of a mother or your own experience of motherhood?
For example, in a delightful essay entitled, “Advice from My Grandmother,” author Alice Hoffman creates an unmistakable portrait of her grandmother, Lillie Lutkin, by simply offering the reader all the advice her grandmother gave to her:
Cook badly. Even if you’re already a bad cook, make it worse. Trust me, it’s easy. Throw in anything you want. Too much salt, too much pepper. Feed him and see what he says. A complaint means he’s thinking about himself, and always will. A compliment means he’ll never make a living. But a man who says, “Let’s go to a restaurant,” now he’s a real man. Order expensive and see what he’s got to say then.
(In Family: American Writers Remember Their Own, 1996).
Poet Julia Kasdorf paints a portrait of her mother by writing about what she learned from her:
I learned from my mother how to love
the living, to have plenty of vases on hand
in case you have to rush to the hospital
with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants
still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars
large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole
grieving household, to cube home-canned pears
and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins
and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point...
(From: “What I Learned from My Mother,” Sleeping Preacher, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1992)
Mary Ann Larkin, imagining a time before her parents were married, when her father first introduced her mother to his family, writes:
Always it was a summer afternoon
I see my mother climbing the stairs
to the porch
My grandmother waiting
tiny but formidable
She'd been expecting her
the sisters smiling
brothers watching
My mother in her grey crepe
the white gloves she always wore
Her hair and eyes dark
among these fair, freckled people
My father shyly presenting her—
something of his own—
Shuffling, they made room for her
and she took her place among them…
(From “The House on Broughton Street,” Coil of the Skin, Washington Writers Publishing, 1982)
Think about motherhood: yours, your mother’s or grandmother’s. Write from whatever idea or memory comes to mind. Remember mothering on this Mother’s Day.
|
 |
| image from: http://www.hawaiiforgivenessproject.org |
|
For the Week of May 4, 2008: Forgiveness
Sometimes, in the hardship and struggle of cancer, we can turn our anger in upon ourselves, even blaming ourselves for contributing to our illness. “What did I do to cause this? What if I had only done this instead of that? I feel like I’m partly to blame for my cancer…”
“The human mind,” psychologist Loren Toussaint states, “is sometimes an instrument of misery. When you’ve done wrong…and regret it, it bubbles up again and again.” But it’s not only forgiveness of others that makes a difference, however. The health benefits of forgiving ourselves for our past mistakes or wrongdoings can also be considerable, according to psychoanalyst Jeanne Safer.
Forgiveness—for self or others--is a virtue embraced by almost every religious tradition and yet, if we’re honest about it, forgiveness is something that we sometimes find hard to embrace ourselves. In the struggle of cancer, forgiveness is can be important. In a study reported in the Canadian Journal of Counselling, “forgiveness therapy” helped cancer patients attain catharsis and a greater sense of peace (v. 23, pp. 236-251, 1989). Another group of researchers found that a self-forgiving attitude contributed to less mood disturbance and a better quality of life among women with breast cancer (J. of Behavioral Medicine, v. 29, pp. 29-36, 2006). In fact, a growing body of research suggests that forgiveness might be good medicine for the body. In a variety of “forgiveness interventions,” health benefits included improved cardiovascular function, diminished chronic pain, relief from depression and an overall improved quality of life among the very ill (in an article by M. Healy, L.A. Times, Jan. 12, 2008).
How then, do we forgive others ourselves? Poet Maya Angelou put it this way: I don’t know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, ‘well, if I’d known better I’d have done better,’ that’s all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, ‘I’m sorry,’ and then you say to yourself, ‘I’m sorry.’ If we all hold on to the mistake, we can’t see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can’t see what we’re capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one’s own self.
“We can’t see our own glory in the mirror…” Angelou echoes the words of the poet, Galway Kinnell, when he writes:
Sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness
to put a hand on the brow of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely,
until it flowers again from within,
of self-blessing.
--from “St. Francis & The Sow”
Try focusing on forgiveness this week: of yourself; of others. Pay attention to the thoughts and feelings that emerge. Notice what comes up for you when you think about forgiveness. Write about it.
|
 |
| photo from www.panpics.com |
|
For the Week of April 28, 2008: Walking Through An Open Door
Think of it this way: cancer transforms our lives, for good or bad, better or worse. Yet even in the struggle of diagnosis, treatment and recovery, we have choices--choices of how we want to live each day going forward.
It's a bit like coming upon an open door, one unfamiliar yet intriguing. Perhaps we approach it with wonder, trepidation, or even hesitation. Still, it stands there, the door open a crack, and we are drawn toward it, until we give the door a small push, hear it groan and creak, and slowly, we step over the sill and walk through the door to whatever awaits us on the other side.
This week, try closing your eyes and imagining an unknown, but open, door, one that opens only in the journey through cancer. Describe how it feels to come upon that door, what the door looks like, the experience of pushing it open and walking into a new world, a new life, on the other side of it. What do you find? Or, what would you wish to find? Write about walking through the door to a different life after cancer treatment, real or imagined. What do you learn about yourself?
|
For the Week of April 20, 2008: Lost and Found
"Before you know what kindness really is," poet Naomi Shihab Nye tells us, "you must lose things..."
Loss. It's sometimes synonymous with cancer. Loss of hair; loss of parts of the body; loss of self-image; loss of dreams; loss of loved ones. It can seem, at times, overwhelming--a landscape defined only by losses, hopelessness and grief.
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
--from "Kindness", by Naomi Shihab-Nye in The Words Under The Words ©1994
Yet there is hope in Shihab-Nye's poem: in loss, we find kindness and much more: new friends, new dreams, and appreciation for small things in life we may have overlooked or not noticed before cancer. We may also find that we have more courage or resilience than we ever thought possible. Out of cancer comes new knowledge and understanding. We discover new facets of ourselves to explore.
It's one of the reasons I encourage you to write during the journey through cancer. Writing helps us find what we have lost in the experience of cancer, but it offers us more that simple re-discovery. When we write, we are given a blank page, an unblemished open space, upon which to reclaim lost stories, create a new version of life, and reclaim our voices. In expressing the emotions that accompany cancer, we discover something else: the power and strength of our words to touch others, a certain and unmistakeable beauty to our words we didn't know we had. We find the creativity and artistry we've always possessed.
This week, take a blank sheet of paper and list the losses you've experienced because of cancer--but don't stop there! Turn the page over. Now list all the things you've rediscovered or found in your journey through cancer. Sit with the lists. Look them over, and then? Write. Write about what's been lost, and what's been found.
|
For the Week of April 13, 2008: Wish
“I wish I may, I wish I might…” How many times as a child did you look at the stars shimmering in the night sky and utter those words? Perhaps you crossed your fingers, as I did, squeezed your eyes shut for a moment, and with every ounce of will power and childish sincerity, you offered up your wish to the brightest star in the sky. Sometimes, even, your wishes came true: a brand new two wheeler for your birthday, the love of your life asking you to the Boy Scout dance, the “A” on your report card, the summer trip to Disneyland.
I like to hand out wishes, little tickets with a single word imprinted on them: “Wish.” It’s like magic really, offering the writers in my groups the invitation to indulge in that almost-forgotten belief in magic, that secret descent into the world of imagination and fantasy, the willingness to say “what I’d really wish for is…” and write about it.
Sometimes, though, the tickets we’ve been given are not for the things we wish for. Cancer is something none of us ever wishes for. “Are you sure?” we ask, when first given the news. In her poem, “Riveted,” Robyn Sarah describes how getting a ticket to something we didn’t wish for might feel:
Now
we are being given tickets, and they are not
tickets to the show we had been thinking of,
but to a different show, clearly inferior.
Check again: it is our own name on the envelope.
The tickets are to that other show.
(Excerpt from “Riveted,” in The Porcupine’s Quill)
In a world as fraught with unrest, poverty and hardship as ours is, our wishes have probably become more grandiose and less self-centered. We wish for peace, for an end to suffering or war. In the midst of our own suffering and struggle in the throes of cancer diagnosis and treatment, we wish, we hope, and we pray, for cures, for health. Our friends and family wish for those things too.
But let’s return to Jiminy Cricket and the possibility that maybe, just maybe, our wishes can come true. Our wishes and dreams keep us going. Why not indulge them from time to time. There’s another poem about tickets that I enjoy. I read it for the first time on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer's Almanac last November. It’s whimsical and makes me smile. I like to read it aloud as I pass a wish ticket to each person. Here is an excerpt:
"Ticket" by Charles O. Hartman
I love the moment at the ticket window—he says—
when you are to say the name of your destination, and realize
that you could say anything …
you could buy a ticket for one place and go to another,
less far along the same line. …
where no one has ever seen you and you could say your name
was anything you like, nobody would say No,
that isn't you, this is who you are. It thrills me every time.
(From Island, © 2004)
I’ll be in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois this weekend to lead an intensive writing workshop for leaders of healing writing groups. I’m going to pass out a ticket, one that has “Wish” printed on it. I’ll ask them to imagine that they have one--just one—wish and to write about it. So what if you got a magic ticket, one that gave you one glorious wish to come true. What would you wish for? Why? Write about it.
|
For the Week of April 6, 2008: Seeds of Hope
I am putting my hands into the earth today, planting several India hawthorn bushes in hopes of creating a flowery pink border around my small garden. Planting is an annual impulse, one I have experienced even during the years I lived in urban apartments, when I would buy bags of potting soil, earthenware pots, and small starter containers of impatiens, begonias or geraniums, hoping that the drab gray of winter and concrete would soon give way to bursts of color and the evidence of springtime.
In the poem, “Prayers and Sayings of the Mad Farmer,” Wendell Berry describes the impulse that drives us to plant:
Sowing the seeds,
my hand is one with the earth.
Wanting the seed to grow,
my mind is one with the light.
Hoeing the crop,
my hands are one with the rain.
Having cared for the plants,
my mind is one with the air.
Hungry and trusting,
my mind is one with the earth.
Eating the fruit,
my body is one with the earth.
Indeed, planting a garden or simply strolling through one can make us feel better. Studies suggest that a walk through a garden or even seeing one from the window can lower blood pressure, reduce stress and ease pain. In a 2005 study, cardiac rehabilitation patients who visited gardens and worked with plants experienced an elevated mood and lower heart rate than those who attended a standard patient education class (USA Today, April 15, 2007).
Healing gardens have become a part of many medical centers, as hospitals and cancer centers try to create environments that will not only heal the body, but nurture the spirit. They are not new, however, having their beginnings in medieval European hospices. “Nature heals the heart and soul, and those are things doctors can’t help,” Topher Delaney, a San Francisco landscape architect and cancer survivor said. After her own treatment for breast cancer, Delaney took her artistry and turned it into a mission to transform hospitals with healing gardens and has done so at hospitals in California, Texas and Utah (ACS News Center, July 24, 2002).
American cellist Yo-Yo Ma, collaborating with landscape architect, Julie Messervy, created an extraordinary waterfront garden in Toronto, Canada. Named “The Music Garden,” it interprets nature in the music of Bach’s first suite and is captured on the DVD, Inspired by Bach. Imagine the combined effect of walking through a garden that winds along the waterfront of Lake Ontario, flowering and moving in the breezes, portraying each of the suite’s different movements, from an undulating river of the prelude to the dance steps of a gigue. Imagine the vision--the hope--that inspired Ma and Messervy to create such a beautiful garden.
Seeds--plant starts, and gardens—convey something important to each of us: a sense awe and wonder. Celia Thaxter, a 19th century American poet, said “Of all the wonderful things in the wonderful universe…, nothing seems to me more surprising that the planting of a seed in the blank earth and the result thereof .”
Seeds also contain hope. We plant many seeds in our lives besides flowers or vegetables, and they carry our hopes and dreams. We hope to see them flower and bear fruit, just as they do in a garden, in our children, our friendships, in our achievements and those of our loved ones. “The seed is hope; the flower is joy”, an unknown author wrote.
What seeds are you planting? What hopes for them do you have? When has a garden, the first bud of a flower, or the leafing out of a young tree given you joy? This week, write about planting, or gardens, or seeds. Write about hope.
|
 |
| www.wellspringwriters.org |
|
|
|
Sharon Bray, Ed.D., writer and teacher, has written and published poetry, memoir, and a number of professional articles. Bray is the author of When Words Heal: Writing Through Cancer (Frog Books, 2006), a guide for the individual or writing group leader, and A Healing Journey: Writing Together Through Breast Cancer (Amherst Writers & Artists Press, 2004), which chronicles the experience and insights gained from her own experience with breast cancer and her writing groups for cancer survivors. She recently co-edited an anthology of cancer patients' writing, Learning to Live Again, together with Patricia Fobair, LCSW, published by the Stanford University School of Medicine. Sharon leads writing groups for cancer patients and survivors at Stanford Cancer Center, Scripps Cancer Center and UCSD Moores Cancer Center. She is also a faculty member of the UCLAextension Writers' Program. She makes her home in San Diego, CA. Contact Sharon at sharon@wellspringwriters.org. For more information about Sharon, her workshops & presentations or her books, see www.wellspringwriters.org.
|
|
