I just came across this on one of my sites and thought it belonged here… one of those teary moments and some of the writing might have been healing then.  The reading and remembering is now part of the healing process.

9/14/05 – I have participated in many very powerful programs with Julie Jordan Scott.  Currently I am in Julie’s Dream Activation Program, see DREAMS and in a writing program of hers.  Part of the 42 days of Dream Activation is sharing one’s dreams and having them witnessed.  Today I shared my expression around my dreams.

“They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.” Carl W. Buechner

Once again, Sam comes up. I hope he forgot what I said and forgot how I made him feel in the moment.  When I screamed and yelled and cursed, he hated the “f” word. He felt like “sh” I know.  Sometimes he said it.  So the feeling was there.  And, thankfully, I think he did forget how I made him feel in those moments or he wouldn’t have been able to put up with it.

I’ll rest in peace and he is too, I’m sure, knowing that most of the feelings he would never forget are those of being loved and cherished, as was I, most of our times together,  throughout our 47 1/2 years of marriage.

If we worry about everything we say, it can be very stifling. On the other hand, a good practice always is to think before we speak.  Though we may not think about the feelings, if we ask ourselves, “Will this make a difference?”,  it  will, obviously, have an effect on feelings.

4 minute writing – 10/21/08 – eleven months after Sam’s death. – What had surfaced in response to that quote were the memories of my anger. When I was in the midst of them, unfortunately, nothing else mattered. And, I was truly blessed that Sam understood, and accepted, what was going on with me during those moments.

In earlier posts I’ve written how I have used Haiku,letters to the editor and writing from prompts, all as means to gain control over anger. Interestingly, though I am a visual artist, currently using my photography to inspire people to see things newly and in ways they’ve missed, when I am in the depths of a strong emotion, I immediately go to writing. Some of my most profound work has been written at such times.

When I taught Art in an elementary school, I worked from a cart, moving from classroom to classroom. My supplies and cart, when not in use, shared space in one of the school storage closets. Because I used a lot of different materials, my space in the closet was not always neat.

One day, on my way out to a graduate class, I passed the principal by the front entrance. I must have made some comment about the closet, for she stated, “A bomb can go off in your closet and no one would be any the worse for it!” I immediately became furious and ended up handling my rage by writing out at every red light on the way to my class. The following, turned out actually to be an expression of my life and still is what I stand for today.

I wrote:

ODE TO A PIECE OF CARDBOARD:
or, A Philosphy of Life

What’s a piece of cardboard?

It’s the base of a sculpture, or an
integral part of one.
It’s the support for an assemblage;
A cardboard loom for weaving.

It has form, or it is flat.
It’s a surface to work on–
To build a mask; to rest a tray as
plaster is poured;
To keep work safe, as it is moved from place to place.
It’s a support for the paper on which notes
are taken at a museum, on which observations
are drawn.

Skin it. See the corrugation.
Use it for line or texture in a collage.
Cut it with scissors.
Roll it.
Attach it.
Tape it. Glue it.
Build with it.
What more is it?

That is up to you.
You may make discoveries as yet unknown.
I am not the possessor of all knowledge,
all ideas.
I can be the source from which you can get help

to develop your own ideas, your
individuality, your uniqueness.

If I can, I will provide the materials that will
help you make your discoveries, to suggest
alternate possibilities if I can’t.
When you need it, I hope it is on hand.

All of my knowledge is available to you–
all of my expertise.

I hope that these experiences will help
you to use things frugally, with originality;
That sometimes when you are sparked
with an idea
You remember and are aware of potentials
and alternatives.

Pass a pebble, a rock, a shell, a leaf–
A new and different shape (real or in your mind)
Look at it. Touch it. Turn it over.
Return it to its home if you wish,
Or, let it send your mind and fingers flying
in a drawing or a painting.
Use it in a collage.

What’s a feather, a piece of cloth, a strange
shape, a can of nails, a box of scrap wood?

That’s up to you, my dear friend. . .
Up to you to collage your life a rich and vibrant one.

© 1977, 2002 Sheila Bakely Finkelstein

(Note – If you are wondering what happened insofar as the principal was concerned, I placed the typed poem on her desk the next morning before classes started. She never mentioned it to me AND she also never spoke to me about the closet.)

In previous posts here I’ve written about Haiku writing as a means of gaining control when angry and I’ve written about Morning Pages and free flow writing from prompts. There is also “letter writing”. Often simply the act of writing a letter expressing feelings, then tearing them up, never sending them is more than sufficient for healing.

This morning I was reminded that “Letters to the Editor” of our newspapers is also another access to freely expressing ourselves, powerfully so ,when there is a point rather than the act of simply “venting.”

Writing to my local newspaper was something I did quite frequently many years ago when I was involved in my community both in library organization and then when I was teaching art in the public schools in my town. Mostly they were to inform.

The particular letter I thought of today that’s the seed for this post was one I wrote during an election campaign for our local Board of Education, particularly volatile with one candidate who was president of the Board, or became president. I probably still have the letter, written more than 40 years ago.

One of the main phrases that I recall was my statement that “[he - the candidate] was doing nothing but throwing empty phrases to brew a burning cauldron of hostilities.”

During that same time period, I went back to college to get my degree in Fine Arts Education. Painting and Drawing was the first Art course I took. My professor, recently retired, had mostly criticism for whatever I produced. Toward the end of the semester she told me my “work lacked emotion” and I “should drop out of school and join a local guild to satisfy my housewifely ambitions!”

Anger flared and I immediately thought of the above-mentioned letter to the editor. “That was certainly FULL of emotion!” I went home grabbed a masonite board, a newspaper, paints, glue and match sticks and put together an assemblage – painting the fire and the cauldron, filling it with “hate” and other “anger” and “war” words cut from the newspaper, adding the matches to reinforce the fire.

I proceeded to bring it into the next class. I don’t recall what her response to it was. What I did realize years later was that, in fact, this piece did not convey the emotion of the feelings. What I had done was illustrate the seething emotions that had been behind the expressive words in the “letter to the editor”. Also, I still find it interesting that although I am known as a visual artist when it comes to expressing emotions I immediately go to words and writing. (The emotions expressed in my art, mainly my photography, come from a whole different, unidentified, subconscious level. )

Words in the Burning Cauldron of Hostilities

A close-up of the words, headlined in my newspapers in the late 60’s, used in the collage. I find it interesting observing now that the only word I cut up was “hate”, used three times.

In conclusion, several forms of self-expression were covered here. What is and are yours? If anything has opened up for you from my experiences described here, I’d love to read them in the comments here. Thank you.

(Note for those who may be curious about what happened insofar as “dropping out of school”: I did take the next semester off and then went back. I did not think one had to be a good or great artist to be an effective art teacher. Having stopped attending school board meetings, where I might be likely to speak out and ruffle feathers, I did get a job teaching art in the elementary school in my district where I taught for six years.

Thirty years later, an email from a former student attests to my having made the right decision! There were also many letters to the editor and School Board from parents and teachers when my teaching position was eliminated due to decline in enrollment.)