Women’s Memoirs with Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler, Post #19 – Memoir Journal, Matilda Butler
Blog Journaling and Memoir Writing
You probably didn’t know that I was in a tunnel, but in someway that is exactly how I have felt. A move to a new place, a new state no less, is major when one has lived in only two homes in the past 38 years and they were both in Santa Clara county in California. A tunnel represents darkness and certainly the unknowns and unknowables of a major move have created an eclipse over the brightness that usually surrounds our lives.
As you know from previous blogs, we did decide to move out of the hotel into temporary housing. But questions remain — how long will we stay in this townhouse — what kinds of homes will we find — is there a home on the market that we like and can afford — what part of town should we consider for housing — and the list goes on. As soon as some decisions were made, such as definitely moving into temporary housing and focusing our home search in the northwest section of town (great views–something we loved about our previous home) and the southwest section (near campus and downtown), I began to feel that I was at least in the middle of the tunnel with some hint of light ahead.
On the flip side of darkness and tunnels, house hunting is fun. We all have a smidgeon of a voyeur in us. Under no other circumstance than potential buyer do you get into people’s homes and see how they live. I try to just look at the bones of the house since that is all that remains when the seller moves out. However, opening a drawer here and there just seems to happen.
Then yesterday, we got closer to the big light at the end of the tunnel. After seeing two lovely homes, one with possibilities although it has many stairs, we returned to a home we had visited the day before. We decided to make an offer and are now waiting to hear back from the seller. There are still some trucks ahead so we can’t see all the light, but we are closer.
Stay tuned.
Memoir Writing Prompt
1. Write about a dark time in your life. Maybe the decisions overwhelmed you. Maybe the future outlook was dismal. Perhaps there was an emotional hurt that seemed to encase you in darkness. Write for just five minutes. Be sure to mention your emotions at the time. Did they change or remain the same?
2. Now, bring yourself out of that tunnel. Write for another five minutes about either a positive outcome of that dark time in your life or about an entirely different experience when you felt happy and light. You might think of this as one of the springs or summers of your life — independent of the month in which the experience occurred.
3. What if you had written first about the positive experience and then about the dark, negative one? Research shows that your mood would be sadder. That is why I put them in the order shown above. Since you should now be in a happy mood, turn immediately to a memoir vignette or chapter you’ve been working on and continue with it. Starting writing with a positive outlook will give you the motivation to stay with it.
Here’s to the light at the end of your writing tunnel,
Matilda
