moving on -- new creative project

So they'll be discharging me from group a week from Friday. I was wondering if perhaps I would feel All Better. The answer to this question would be nay. What I've gleaned is that all this time (all this time) spent in group was to give me the skills to enable me to process the emotions --especially regarding my mom, what she chose and how it ended --while taking responsibility for my own safety. I have to say that before I started I was pushing emotions away. Some of you who know me may that is ridiculous --you see an expressive person who is in touch with her emotions. I have been through so much therapy that I can talk about my emotions on an intellectual level. But feeling them is a different matter. I could talk about the origin of the problem, but right now it does not seem appropriate. The point is, the therps stripped off some layers of varnish and I got my emotions back.

But between the times when I'm forced to reckon with Mom and It, I need a bigger-than-ever creative project to pull my attention and charge my brain to do its very best work.

So I had an idea a few weeks ago.

Not gonna tell you what it is yet, but here's some notes as I was thinking about a mission statement, Submission Guidelines, and/or a letter from the editor.

People have bodies. Animals have bodies. Hybrid human animal-bodies exist in the realm of myth or just beyond your closed eyelids. A body can be a force of locomotion, or a body may require augmentation to move itself. A body can be a metaphor. A body can be a source of pleasure. Pain can be a muse. Not psychic pain but actual visceral pain pain. Where does psychic pain end and visceral pain begin? When I say sensuality does that connote pain or pleasure? Senses. Viscera. Writing the body = writing what we know because we inhabit it. Writing your lover’s body so you can keep it on paper. From three dimensions into two. When I hold your hand do you feel it? Do you feel it with your brain or your skin?  Our bodies can make us feel like amateurs. Strength in vulnerability. Taking a risk and writing about the body can make you feel like an amateur. When I wake and put my feet on the floor I feel like an amateur. I would like to reclaim the word amateur to mean risk-taker. Yang energy pushes us forward while Yin energy causes us to reflect. What does that mean? I am forever striving. I’m not good at being. I mistyped there and had to correct it. For a second it said I am not god at being. We are gods of our own bodies. We are slaves of our own bodies. I watch your body when you sit across from me on the bus. I was mainstreamed and then I started to use a white cane, then stopped, then started, now I’ve stopped again. Am I blind or not? Our bodies are signifiers. Our bodies are false signifiers. Our bodies are liars. Our bodies are storytellers. I want to tell stories about the body. I want to hear your stories about the poem that is the body.