Thursday, June 30, 2011

My Word

by Tracey Flower

There’s a scene in the movie Eat Pray Love (it’s in the book too and, while I always prefer the book to the movie, I particularly like the way this moment is portrayed in the film) where Liz Gilbert, the author, is enjoying a fabulous dinner in Italy with some friends and they are discussing and debating what one word best represents certain cities and people. They conclude Rome’s word is SEX and New York’s word is ACHEIEVE. Liz says her word is WRITER and her friends immediately disagree, telling her that’s what she does not who she is. She agrees and spends the rest of the book, and the film, trying to figure it out. 

I’ve spent some time searching for my own word since I first read that passage and I think I’ve got it, in fact I think I knew it all along.

Liz Gilbert’s word might not be WRITER, but mine sure is.

Writing is not just something I do. I certainly hope to make a career of it, and I do, on occasion, get paid to do it professionally, but writing is much more to me than simply a degree or a paycheck.

I’ve been a writer my entire life. It’s always felt natural to me, always come easily to me. I wrote and illustrated my own stories as a child, loved writing essays for English class in high school and kicked butt in college creative writing. But for me writing is even more than just the fun creative stuff (which, I must say, can be fulfilling enough in its own rite). 

I feel most comfortable communicating through writing. As a kid if there was something I wanted to ask my parents, something I wanted to do, somewhere I wanted to go, especially something I thought there was even a chance they could say no to—basically anything I felt a little uncomfortable asking—I wrote the question down, folded the piece of paper up into an airplane and sailed it into whichever room they were in at the moment. It just felt safer, easier, that way. 

This is a habit I have held onto, except the older I get, the more complicated the messages tend to be. Throughout my teenage years and on into adulthood anytime there’s something that needs to be said, anything that seems impossibly difficult to ask or express, I write it down and send it off. Sometimes I say too much. Sometimes I hit send on emails that are hurtful, angry or just plain dramatic. I once wrote a letter expressing some really raw heat-of-the-moment emotions that I’m pretty sure ruined an entire relationship. Thing is, I’m horrible with expressing myself out loud, whether it’s saying “I love you” or “I hate you,” and I’m even worse when it comes to any kind of confrontation; I get all tripped-up and tongue-tied, but when I write it down, well, it all just comes out. Sometimes this is good. Sometimes this is bad. For better or worse it’s who I am.

There’s nothing I can’t say in writing, which is why it’s also therapeutic for me to write. This is something I’ve talked about here in the past. I’ve been keeping journals since childhood, not to chronicle events per se, but to work through emotions. Those pages carry some heavy things, and for that I am thankful because having those thoughts on those pages makes me lighter. I hope when I die those books will all self-combust in order to respect our doctor-patient confidentiality. 

While my journal pages may hold all my deepest darkest thoughts and feelings, I also have no problem being very honest in the writing I share (as you’ve all read here). I have no fear in writing. In fact I’m much more confident in my writing than I am in real life. I’m also the most proud of myself when I share what I create with others. And writing—reading my writing back to myself—teaches me all kinds of crazy good stuff about myself. 

And, finally, I just feel the most alive when I write. Period. 

WRITER is my word. And I could go on and on about more reasons why, but knowing when to stop is one of the hallmarks (at least in my opinion) of a good writer (and a lesson I’m still practicing to perfect). Also one of the very best things about writing is having written so I will stop now so I can bask in the rush of doing just that.


And you? What is your word?

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Exploring Pure Michigan

by Tracey Flower

A few weeks ago I posted the following on my Facebook wall:








I wrote it after spending a few days in Grand Rapids, Michigan with my sister Susan. They were possibly the most fulfilling days I’ve had on a trip back to Michigan since I moved to Colorado six years ago. In fact the entire three weeks I spent in Michigan this past May were the most fulfilling weeks I’ve spent in Michigan since I moved to Colorado.

It’s because I made the decision when I stepped off the plane in Grand Rapids to treat the trip as if I were somewhere brand new. To explore, relax and re-discover in that very familiar place.

Here’s what I found:

Grand Rapids’ East Town community, where Susan and her husband live, is as totally rad as all the hipsters who call that area home. Susan and I spent two days walking around the leafy tree-lined streets, stopping into shops like Art of the Table  where locals can pick up everything from peanut butter made in Grand Rapids to tabletop accessories to chocolate and artisan cheeses. They also carry a selection of local-made beers and wines. We shopped for Indian cooking spices and browsed their unique selection of cookbooks. I left wishing there was a shop like it around the corner from my own apartment in Vail.

We browsed through a couple of Susan’s favorite consignment clothing stores to see what gems we could find, and though our search yielded nothing that day, Susan assured me that’s not always the case.

One afternoon we grabbed a bottle of Layer Cake Cabernet and a wheel of brie for a snack from Martha’s Vineyard, East Town’s friendly neighborhood wine and spirits shop. Then we picked up a take-out sampler plate from GoJo’s, an Ethiopian restaurant, and feasted on spiced chicken and lentils, sopping up our watt (Ethiopian-style stew) with lots of injerra (a pancake-like flatbread). It’s a meal I’m still lusting over.

It was a thoroughly satisfying couple of days and, if nothing else, just nice to be out of the mountains and in a city for a moment (not that I’d trade my mountains for Grand Rapids, but it is enjoyable to crawl out of them every now and again and see what the rest of the country is seeing, eating and doing). I expressed my satisfaction to Susan and she shrugged off my compliments to her city, saying it seems quite small to her now, after living there for a couple years. I guess I can see her point (Although I’ve always been a small town girl and any place with more than two different coffee shops is a city to me), but, really, big city or not I was charmed by Grand Rapids on this trip.

I was also charmed by South Haven.

With its beaches and lakeside condos it’s easy to be charmed by my hometown. That is, if you didn’t grow up there.

It’s taken me a little more time than some (twenty-something years) to get here because I had to figure out how to separate the issues I have regarding my hometown, like hating high school and other issues relating to awkward teenage dramatics, from the charm of the town—I had to learn how to not hold those things against it. I worked especially hard on this during this last visit, and discovered a lot of cool stuff along the way. But scraping away high school angst is a tedious and time-consuming job, so that, my friends, is another story for another time.