Post #14 – Women’s Memoirs, Writing and Healing – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
Memoir Writers and Journalers Can Find Healing through the Secrets of Silence
“Let us be silent that we may hear the whispers of the gods–”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Silence is a rare and elusive quality, especially in our age where the mundane and unremarkable become instant headlines, shouted over cell phones or tweeted over Blackberrys or iPhones.
“I’M ON THE TRAIN.”
“THE BUS IS LATE!”
As a society we’ve become phobic about silence. We don’t even wait on the telephone in silence, although recently I was offered that option (“push one for silence”) for which I was grateful. Most of the time we are compelled to hear music or, if we’re holding for a doctor’s office, reminders about the statistical probability of contracting various illnesses.
“Silence,” Thoreau wrote, “is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment.”
What is it about silence that is so fruitful and so healing, especially for writers — not just memoir writers and journalers but all writers?
Children’s book author Elvira Woodruff says,
“Gardening is really important to my writing…I come away from my garden with a sense of refreshment and a sense of awe. I think a writer requires silence, not just to write in, but in those other pockets of time when your soul is thirsty for nourishment and the connection to the ‘all of it’ that so feeds your creativity and inspiration.”
Silence is the essence of writing and healing, our friend and companion when we have stories to weave, plots to configure, memories to explore. An active, listening silence allows us to knit together disparate, seemingly unrelated episodes of the past, to forge new meanings and connections in our narratives.
“I want to be able to hear my characters’ voices,” author Pat Brisson writes, ” to hear the rhythm of the words I’m writing. I want to write words worthy of breaking the silence.”
It may be the voice of the past you hear in the silence, the voice of your childhood self, or of the people or characters you’re writing about. But it will undeniably be your own voice, unrevised and uncensored.
Silence is a place of discovery and adventure – an interior cosmos as limitless as the outer universe. It is, as my friend Nancy explains, “when I get to hang out with me, myself and I for a brief moment in time. To touch my authentic self.”
In writing about how I became a children’s book author, I describe how the silence of an old country house helped me piece myself and my past back together after a tumultuous time in my life:
“The winds whistling through the dry grass sang of winter to come. In my warm, lighted upstairs room, I sat sewing and listening to the silence. There was no telephone, no TV or radio, nothing to distract. Next door, the old stone house slept and in its sleep I sensed spirits moving quietly from room to room like shadows of myself, past and present. Slowly, they began knitting together the fragments of the past, piecing them into an articulate whole. But this was no more than a dim sense of movement beneath the surface of country solitude, an intimation of things to come.”
The Shawangunk Mountains, the setting for my old country house
Silence is rewarding in other ways, outside of writing. By imaginatively listening to a friend or colleague without interrupting and interjecting your own thoughts and comments (challenging for us verbal types) you allow another’s experience to engage and transform you.
Writing is something you do alone in a room, in silence or with selected sounds. But when you decide to break the silence and return to the world, you will find it is there waiting for you.
“When I write, I’m vaguely aware of the voices of the neighborhood kids playing outside my window, the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen, the whoosh of the heat clicking on in winter and the air conditioner in the summer,” writes author Joyce McDonald. “These are familiar, soothing sounds that keep me grounded in time and space while I slip outside myself into whatever fictional world I’m creating and are always there waiting when I return.”
Memoir Writing and Healing Prompt:
1. How do you experience silence? Find a quiet place — perhaps a garden now that spring is here — and listen to the silence within. What it is telling you? Allow the silence to wash over you and let your quiet inner voice come through. Write for fifteen minutes. Then read what you’ve written and see if you can detect a special quality to your voice.
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You might also be interested in these articles by Pamela Jane Bell:
Writing and Healing: Music and Memoir
Writing and Healing: The Places We’ve Lived
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You can follow Pamela Jane Bell at:
http://www.pamelajane.com
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