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?

Flower Blog Turns Two

by Tracey Flower

Two years ago this month I started Flower Blog.

I did it to give myself a reason to write.

I always write in my journal and often jot down ideas. My computer is full of half-started attempts at stories, both fiction and non, but two years ago I was starting to feel as though none of it had a purpose, and without a purpose nothing was ever finished; no documents completed, no ideas fanned out. I was just plain slacking as a writer. I needed something to hold me accountable. Over the last two years Flower Blog has done just that.

As I look back through the past two years of posts I can see how I’ve changed and grown since April 2009. In the first year I posted only finished, polished versions of essays I’d started since I’d moved to Vail. Fanning out all those half-started attempts was my original intention with Flower Blog, and not a bad one; that first year produced some of my all-time favorite posts such as Romanian Mami and Jump.

But as I learned more about the wonderful world of blogging (and as I ran out of pre-polished essays to refine) I started to re-think my approach and starting pushing myself to write more candidly about what I was thinking and feeling and to just talk to my readers about my life instead of focusing on trying to create magnificent written masterpieces. In One Sunset at a Time, posted a year ago this month, I think I started to hit my stride.

And then something really remarkable happened in the last year. I found my voice. It came to me out of anguish, out of heartache. It came to me as I scrawled frantically in my journal in the middle of the afternoon when I was too tired and too heavy to cry anymore but still had more emotions to expel. It came to me in my darkest moment and was, to my surprise, still there when I was ready to let the sun shine in again.

As I look back through the past two years of posts I can see where I’ve been and where I’m at now, I can relive stories and recall emotions. I find comfort in these memories (oddly even in the awkward ones). Reading through these posts is like looking at a great big photo album. And, while, having a reason to write has made this blog a worthwhile venture, having my life documented in this way, and sharing it with my readers, is pretty damn priceless.

My top five faves from the last year:

A Little Thanks (December 2010)
Home is where the Moon Sets (May 2010)
On Goals, Forgiveness, and Turning 28 (September 2010)
My Book Café (May 2010)
On Soul Mates and Being Broken (November 2010)


What is your favorite Flower Blog post from the last year?

On Goals, Forgiveness, and Turning 28

by Tracey Flower

“Maybe our mistakes are what make our fate. Without them what would shape our lives? Perhaps if we never veered off course we wouldn’t fall in love or have babies or be who we are. After all seasons change. So do cities. People come into you life and people go. But it’s comforting to know the ones you love are always in your heart and, if you’re very lucky, a plane ride away.” ~The ever-wise, albeit fictional, Carrie Bradshaw (“Sex and the City”)


Many folks take the start of a new calendar year as an opportunity for fresh starts and change. Personally I think it’s more appropriate to make resolutions on my birthday. It feels more natural to take stock of my life that time of year, to review lessons learned in the past year, and to make a few goals for the year ahead.

A year ago last week (my birthday was Tuesday) I turned 27 and decided I was going to make the year all about me (The Year of Flower I called it in my journal and aloud to a select group of friends). I don’t have any dependents, not even a dog or a goldfish, to rely on me; my life in general is already pretty much all about Tracey, but for most of my adult life (aka my life since college) I have been in some form of a relationship. I moved to Colorado for a boyfriend and shortly after we broke up I started another serious relationship and, as my 27th birthday approached, I started to get the feeling I wasn’t totally making decisions for my life based on what I wanted and needed.

My birthday last year came just days after the guy I was in love with left Vail to move home to Australia. Our relationship over the past few months had been complicated and tumultuous and because I was so invested in, so wrapped up in, him emotionally I found my day-to-day actions and decisions were heavily influenced by him. It seemed like the perfect time, then, when he left and my birthday arrived for me to take charge. 

I made myself a list of goals. First and foremost I was going to get my head straight about that relationship. The first goal I wrote in my journal then was to be “happily single.” We had left things very casual and, although he was on my mind when I wrote that, I was fed up with myself for letting another person inadvertently control my thoughts and decisions to the extent that he had. I also wrote that I wanted to learn to cook, to get fit, to get paid to write, and to travel somewhere new. The Year of Flower was going to be a good one.

The first half of the year, the first third really, went exactly how I had hoped it would (OK except for the cooking part, I’m still working on that one). I will even say it was the happiest, the most content, and the most confident I have been in a long time. The last four months of the year, however, were a complete disaster. Quite honestly they were the worst four months of my life (if you read Flower Blog on a regular basis you know this. If you don’t now’s probably a good time to catch up. Start here). As I approached my 28th birthday last week and mentally reviewed the last year, and checked back in with last year’s goals, I realized I was right smack dab back where I had been a year ago. And that pissed me off.

I got my heart broken. No shattered. No ripped out, stomped on, and shoved back into my chest all achy and torn apart. And for that I was pissed. My anger wasn’t directed at The Guy though; or rather my anger was no longer directed at him (don’t you worry three months ago I was oozing anger toward him). I was pissed off with myself. I was pissed that I let myself, in the year where I was supposed to be taking control, find myself in a position (with a guy who had broken my heart once before) where I could get as hurt as I did. I was pissed that even while I thought I was finding this great balance in my life, while I thought I was being unapologetically selfish and, dare I say it, finding myself, I let my love for this one stupid guy ruin everything. 

My dad told me a few months ago, when I was at my very worst, that even as I struggled to figure out how to forgive The Guy (not because he deserves or even needs my forgiveness but simply because it’s very tiresome to carry around that much anger toward someone for any length of time) that I was also going to have to forgive myself. At the time I had no idea what he meant (the situation wasn’t my fault, I had done nothing wrong). I think I get it now, though.

There’s a line in the book Eat, Pray, Love that goes like this; “To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life.” The author tells herself this when she realizes she has fallen in love with a man after a year spent traveling solo, doing some serious soul-searching, and finding her balance. I agree with that, but I would take it a step further and say sometimes you have to become unbalanced for love even if it means risking your heart. Because apparently, OK admittedly, you'll learn some serious lessons about life and yourself. I don’t know if acknowledging that counts as forgiving myself, because to be honest I’m still a little pissed, but I think maybe it’s a start. And with that shaky start I begin a new year.

One Sunset at a Time

Writing is therapeutic for me. It calms me and heals me. I’ve kept journals for as long as I can remember. The things I write in these diaries are intensely private. Sometimes these things, these rants, fears, and confessions, are hard for me to read in retrospect as the words are, many times, born from pain and reading them easily reminds me of the pain I felt when I wrote them. Other times re-reading old entries shows me how I’ve grown and I feel relieved that whatever I was going through then is over. There are often big gaps between entries in these books because I tend to write in them less when I’m happy. Writing, especially when I’m upset, helps me see things clearly; it takes a burden off me having my worries, fears, heartaches, and frustrations written down.

I went through a time early last year of intense heartache. There were not even enough pages in my journal to help ease my burden. I existed for months in a state of persistent melancholy and I cried a lot. I cried a lot because I woke up every day and my chest felt heavy and as the day went on the sadness that weighed in my heart grew more intense as it was pumped and pumped through my body. And it was just too much to keep inside me. So I cried. I cried big heavy sobs that shook my body and hurt my stomach and made my eyes swell. I cried in an attempt to dispel the sadness, to purge myself of it.

And then spring came. Spring came and I knew it was time to pick myself up, if only slowly, and find a way to keep on living. It was time to stop crying. I recently read through my journal entries from those months and found one very short entry I wrote at the start of spring. I remember the day I wrote it and I know that was the moment I realized it was time to keep on living, the moment I first knew I was going to be OK.


Journal entry written 03/06/09:
Yesterday was full of wind, like 60 mph winds, and it didn’t die down until around sunset. It was a beautiful sunset and so quiet after such a windy day; and it gave me the smallest bit of peace. I texted Dad about it and he said sometimes you just have to take life one sunset at a time.


It was around then that the idea for Flower Blog first came to mind. I decided it was time to take my life back from my grief. There were certainly more tear laden days to come in the months that followed that journal entry but starting this blog was one of the first steps in rebuilding myself. I wanted to do more with my writing than just rant in a journal, and, besides, that didn’t seem to be curing me; this was bigger pain than I’d had in the past and it required bigger writing. It was about remembering who I am and what I want for myself, something I’d forgotten to do while I was grieving, something I’d forgotten to do a long time before the relationship I was grieving had ended, something that had probably, in part, led to its demise. 

Writing for Flower Blog reminded me how much writing makes me feel alive. And, while I can’t say writing alone brought me back to life, it was the first piece of many that drew me out of my sadness. Investing time and effort into my writing reminded me how important it is to nurture all the little pieces of me I discovered that spring and in the months that followed. Before, I had invested everything into my relationship and I had let many other things, including other relationships, fall away in order to do so. When the relationship ended I invested everything into mourning it. I know I will feel heartache again one day and I know I might even completely fall apart again, but I also know I will survive again. I know the winds will calm and the sun will set and I will keep on living.

Intro

I have been a writer my entire life. I have kept diaries since I was a little girl. I wrote and illustrated my own stories in grade school. I have written essays, emails, stories, articles, letters, and speeches. I am a writer but it is not by choice. I am not a writer because it’s easy or fun or lucrative. I am a writer because my head is constantly full of thoughts, opinions, and ideas. I am a writer because it is overwhelming to constantly have a head full of thoughts, because it makes me feel at peace to have those thoughts, opinions, and ideas written down. I am a writer because there is something in me that insists I write.

I have also been told that I am a good writer. Grand Valley State University gave me a degree in the subject a few years ago and a few newspapers and magazines have even given me money to do it. At the moment, though, the only writing I do is in my personal journal and lately I feel compelled to share my writing. That is what I intend to do here.

This is not a diary for me, it is not a tell-all of my life, and it is not a place to vent or rant. It is a place for me to share my polished, or at least semi-polished, essays and stories. It is a place for me to share my written-down thoughts, opinions, and ideas and to receive feedback. So please read, enjoy, and comment.