What's Your Story? with Author Nancy Slonim Aronie
You're listening to Lucid Cafe. I'm your host, Wendy Halley. Hello, and welcome to another episode of Lucid Cafe. In today's episode, we explore the magic of writing and the power of telling your story. Well, we're on the subject of writing, it seems fitting to let you know that I've got a new book coming out on May 27 that I'm nervous excited about.
Wendy:Nervous because I have no idea if people will enjoy it and excited because man, I put a lot into this book more than any book I've ever written before. And to see it in its final version, I got to admit it's kind of rewarding. It's called Raven's Daughter. The story is shamanic flavored fantasy with a side of near future sci fi. My dear friend and partner in absurdity, Claire Wheeler, did me a kindness and recorded an episode with me to help me talk about my new book.
Wendy:That episode will be coming out in May. Alright. Enough about my book. Let's get back to today's episode, which is an invitation to the writer in you whether that part of you is asleep, curious but reluctant, afraid, or a regular part of your life. My guest Nancy Slonim Aronie, who by the way is one of my new favorite humans, wants you to know that writing is not an exclusive club because everyone has a really good story to tell and usually not just one.
Wendy:This conversation is very much a conversation, one that I enjoyed very much. I'm hoping that you do too. Nancy is the founder of the Chillmark Writing Workshop on Martha's Vineyard and the author of Memoir as Medicine and Writing from the Heart. She's a regular commentator for NPR's All Things Considered. Nancy has taught at Harvard University and conducted writing workshops and lectures at Kripalu, Omega, Esalen, the Rowe Conference Center, the Wainwright House, and the Open Center in New York City.
Wendy:So please enjoy my lively conversation with Nancy Slonim Aronie. Nancy, thank you so much for joining me.
Nancy:Honored.
Wendy:Okay, so do you consider yourself a writer by trade or do you do other things?
Nancy:Yes, I think I can consider myself a writer and a sort of a midwife for other people's writing. At least that's what I've been called and I love it. But I've always done these little art things and just little tiny little people and wires and beads. And about eight months ago, a good friend of mine, beautiful artist who's in the best gallery on the island came over and said, you you should be in Greenery Gallery. And I went, Yeah, right.
Nancy:And she said, No, Nick, you're serious. So she brought my she took pictures and she brought it to the to this guy that, you know, owns this really, really fine gallery. And he told her to tell me to call him, and I did. And he said, brings this stuff over. So my husband vacuumed the whole back of the Volvo, the ruggy part, you know, black.
Nancy:And I put 15 of my pieces back there and we drove over carefully and opened the trunk and he looked in and he went, Brilliant. I love this. Oh, I want that. I want that. How much is this, by the way?
Nancy:And I went, I don't know. He said, How much? And I said, I don't care.
Wendy:What did he say?
Nancy:You have to care. It was such a revelation that he was making me respect these things. And I'm in that gallery.
Wendy:So that's incredible.
Nancy:It's so exciting because when I was young, really little kid, I was eight, my sister was 12 and I said, I'm going to be an artist. And she said, no, I'm going to be an artist. You have to be a writer. And I became a writer and she became an artist and she died.
Wendy:Oh my.
Nancy:Years ago. And I swear she said, okay, your turn.
Wendy:It's now your turn. Okay. And how obedient you were.
Nancy:Yeah. Like, why didn't I say fuck you? It has come into my lifetime yet.
Wendy:And how fortunate that that gallery owner said that to you?
Nancy:Mean It's just been it's such a thrill because it validated everything that first of all, what I tell people all the time is it doesn't matter what the art form is. Once you open the vein, it just let it take you where it's going to take you. When you can't write, people talk about writer's block. I don't really think of it as writer's block. I just think, okay, switch art.
Nancy:Go get those little crepas and get some bumpy watercolor paper and put a swath of aquamarine on there and then smudge it with your hand and go, Oh, I'm brilliant.
Wendy:Yes.
Nancy:And then you'll get back to writing as soon as there's something to write about. But in the meantime, don't stop if there's just another form for you. So I got another form.
Wendy:Yeah, I think that's brilliant. And I think it's a great suggestion for any of us, right? Interestingly, I mean, this is a little sidebar. I interviewed a woman recently who did research on social media, influencer culture, and reality TV on the developing brain.
Nancy:Wow.
Wendy:Yeah. It's fascinating. And she was talking about how our minds, our brains are changing in response to our exposure to social media, like how it's physiologically changing. And that our brain is more focused on the limbic system or the the more primal parts of our brain that are more emotional and reactive.
Nancy:Oh, that's good. That's good. I thought you were going to say it was more focused on product and selling and marketing and not creativity.
Wendy:Well, that's where I was going. She said the thing that's getting lost is not developing, especially in in younger people, is critical thinking. And the relationship between creativity and critical thinking and the ability to just tap into that, if you're in that survival emotive mode all the time, it's hard to access your creativity.
Nancy:Mhmm. And the imagination is gone, and you're being told what to do by impugitives.
Wendy:Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's why I think it's an extra great message that you just shared because it's vital. I mean, because we were so naturally creative when we were children. I mean, that's just how we operated. The world was filled with possibilities and magic and then we'd get away from that.
Nancy:It wasn't just influencer stuff, was the third grade teacher who said you can't write that or draw that or trees have to be green or aunt Sadie, you know, or somebody that took away your freedom.
Wendy:Exactly, right.
Nancy:How trees have to be green. Okay, I get it. Thank you. I'll get an A now.
Wendy:So maybe the title of this episode should be Fuck That. So back to your book. Well, we didn't even start talking about your book yet. Let me share what the title of it is. It's Seven Secrets to the Perfect Crafting the Story Only You Can Write.
Wendy:So why do you think it's important for people to explore essay writing?
Nancy:Well, I think it's the most personal, the most personal way of healing when it comes to writing. Because number one, you find out what stuck. You find out what you're repeating over and over and over again that you want to maybe start to transform. A lot of people say, Oh my God, I never remembered that. I can't believe I just wrote that.
Nancy:And it's the most you of you. It's when you have your opinions validated on the page. It's not a treatise and it's not a journalistic piece. It's your gut, it's your heart, it's your soul writing. So it's the truth of you.
Nancy:And you can exaggerate, but it's your story. It's this is who I am. This is what happened to me. This is what I did with what happened to me. So that personal way of being able to get that stuff out on the page, I'm a big believer.
Nancy:And now it's been validated out in the medical world and your stories are marinating. Your sorrow is in your pancreas. It's in your liver. It's in your heart. And getting it out on the page is just a phenomenal way of letting stuff go.
Nancy:And yeah, you might have to write it. I've written one particular story probably 35, 40 five times. It's still not healed, But every time I think I lighten the load. And that's one of the things, you know, getting that personal essay, getting that story, getting an insight, a new way of looking at it, like, Oh my God, I never saw it that way. So that's, you know, it's healing.
Wendy:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so, how would you, I know you've probably answered this question a million times, but how would you discern the difference between a general essay and a personal essay?
Nancy:A general essay probably is quoting other experts, it's informational, and then personal is completely your own story. And you can sneak your own story into a general essay and you can do the opposite as well. You can put facts in a personal one, but a personal essay really is your story. Nobody can deny it. Nobody can say, fact check it.
Nancy:Nobody can say this isn't accurate. It's like, I'm cold. Well, how can you say you're cold? Because I know I'm cold. It's my story.
Wendy:So then what do you let me figure out how to word this question. That's another reason why I edit.
Nancy:Yeah, but that's great. I think that's that kind of conversational tone is what would make me listen to this.
Wendy:Yeah.
Nancy:Yeah, let me think of how to phrase this question, yeah, because you're being real. We're so starved for real.
Wendy:Well then I'm not gonna edit this part out because I normally would.
Nancy:Good. No edit. Do not edit it.
Wendy:Alright. So note to self, leave it in. I guess the the direction my brain was going in is there's a certain thing that happens when you sit down to write, and you kind of alluded to this a little bit ago. There's, like, a surprising nature to it. It's like you can reread something that you wrote and be like, holy shit.
Wendy:Did I write that?
Nancy:Yes. That's exactly right. How do you explain that? I I think, Lauren, this is gonna sound woo woo, but I really don't think you're alone when you're writing. I think once you make the the commitment to sit down, I think you are now opening yourself up to whoever wants to come in and help you.
Nancy:You know, I used to call the reference desk at the library when I lived in Connecticut, when I needed the name of a river and I wanted it to begin with an L and I wanted it to be three syllables. And I would call and you would literally call me back three days later and now you can just Google, but I think, or someone would call me on the phone and go, we were just in Laos and we went to the La La La La River. And I would go, oh my God, how does that happen? I think partially being willing to put your butt on the chair, you're already halfway there and you will get a delivery system. And you're also channeling.
Nancy:You're just opening yourself up. You're a conduit now and you're clear. You're a flute. And you've just said, come on in. So I don't know how it works, but I do know it works.
Wendy:It is a mystery, isn't it? I mean, when I look back in some of my pieces that I've written in the past, I'm like, I don't remember writing that. It's the weirdest thing.
Nancy:You know, before we got on the Zoom call, I said, Oh, she's going to ask me questions about the book. I'd better read some of it. And I started reading and it's really, some of it, what I read was really good. And I don't know where that came from. I don't know who's writing it.
Nancy:So it's exactly what you're saying.
Wendy:Exactly. Yeah. It's kind of like, well,
Nancy:check me out. I'm better than I thought. And then her mom's going, oh my god, I let that go?
Wendy:And and then that speaks to how painful we can make the process for ourselves. It, thinking that we have to get it right or have to get it perfect.
Nancy:There has to be a trust. I happen to be very easy on myself. And I'm in a writing group, which is great. Because they, they will not always say, Oh my God, that was fabulous. They'll say, You know, I think you have two pieces in here.
Nancy:In fact, I have a funny story. When I first got married, I called my husband at work and he was an engineer at Pratt and Whitney, a big, huge firm company. And I said, can I read you something? And he was like, okay. Because he was busy and he wasn't a boss.
Nancy:And I would read him the piece. I read, I remember this one time, I read him the piece and he goes, I think you have two pieces in there. And I said, Fuck you, you don't know anything about writing. And I hung up and I had pieces in there. So, I'm pretty easy on myself.
Nancy:I love, I love just pouring it out and I have learned how to be a little tougher and work a little harder. But in the old days, I would just write something and say that's it.
Wendy:Wow, thought I was the only one who did that. I'm serious. Yeah, yeah. It's wild because I'm usually like, all right, I think I'm good here. There's something about just the process of getting it out.
Nancy:And also, I mean, maybe we do have a gift of that first time with just a couple of changes, you know? I don't, I don't have to anguish over this stuff. There are people that do and that, and that's another style. It's not wrong to work. But what I say to the people that take the workshop is don't squeeze the joy out of it.
Nancy:You know, you're working so hard that you've just squeezed the life out of it. Just let it be. Read it. Read out loud. Read your stuff out loud.
Nancy:That's the biggest, probably the biggest clue I can give anybody in the writing game is to read yourself out loud because you'll hear what's wrong. You'll hear what's perfect. You'll hear what needs another LY or another
Wendy:Yeah, there's a cadence, a rhythm that I'm looking for when I'm writing and then also reading what I wrote. And if it's not there, then I have to go back
Nancy:and We have the same style.
Wendy:That's weird, I thought, again, we were talking about our ADHD brains before we started recording.
Nancy:Yeah.
Wendy:And I thought that I was just anomalous in that way, but apparently not.
Nancy:Probably, but that's if we have, instead of, being the opposite.
Wendy:I imagine then that means that there are other people, possibly someone who might be listening right now, who's like, oh, me too, that's great.
Nancy:Good. Take away that guilt. Enjoy yourself when you're writing.
Wendy:Yeah. It should be enjoyable. And you've written a really inviting book for people who wanna explore. Well, I guess explore themselves, really.
Nancy:Yep.
Wendy:Which is getting back to what you were saying before. The whole point of writing a personal essay is is to get to know yourself better and to heal, especially things that are sort of brewing inside of you that you may not be completely in touch Yes,
Nancy:exactly. You know, I sometimes say at the end of the workshop, I could call this workshop Writing to Heal, but nobody would come. But that's what happened. They wouldn't, I mean it's like two, a lot of, certainly guys wouldn't come.
Wendy:Yeah, unfortunately that's true, probably. Yeah. Not to use stereotypes, but there's a reason why stereotypes are stereotypes, right?
Nancy:Yeah. Right. Anyway, you were you were heading to a question, and I I
Wendy:Well, it was it it's more around it was the observation of how inviting your book is, and I highly encourage people to pick up a copy of your book because of how vital it is to have have a relationship with yourself in this way, and writing is a great tool to be able to do that. And I'm guessing you would suggest that everyone is a writer, whether they want to be a writer or not, but everyone can do it.
Nancy:Definitely, definitely. I mean, people got screwed in school and in their nuclear family. Somebody told them, you're dangling participles. You didn't use subjunctive, whatever it is. You can't write.
Nancy:And it ruined a lot of people. And a lot of people say, I can't write. But yeah, I mean, you can talk, you can write. And, you know, I'm sorry that that happened to so many people, but when people come to the workshop, they say, you know, I'll say, you're reclaiming your voice that got taken away somewhere down the line. So it's really about voice and being able to say, I'm not worried about what you're going to think about me.
Wendy:Which is a superpower, right, to be able to get to that point. It is very hard.
Nancy:You have to say every single day what other people think of me is none of my business. That's one of my favorite things.
Wendy:I love that. That's great. It should be a bumper sticker or a t shirt
Nancy:or something. Probably is somewhere.
Wendy:And I'm thinking that that could actually be a really good prompt for a personal essay is something along the lines of when I was told I I was not writing Yeah.
Nancy:That that
Wendy:Or when I was criticized or something like that in general.
Nancy:The prompts, it's really good to have it so narrowed down that they can't that it's not so huge. Like when mister Stefanian said, keep your day job, and everybody laughed in class, da da da da da you know, whatever. The more specific the prompt can be, the easier it is because I watch and as soon as I give the prompt, people go right into writing it. You don't ever see someone sitting there trying to think. And I think school, when they had us write, they were just so open.
Nancy:You know, my summer vacation.
Wendy:I mean, that's another secret. Maybe that secret 7A is a very specific prompt to help. Because now that I'm thinking about all the prompts you have in your book, they are very specific, and there's not a lot of room to get caught in. How should I answer I
Nancy:mean, think the book, the reason I'm getting really good feedback on the book and the reason I'm thrilled with it is because, you know, I put other people's, mostly other people's essays in there and they're different and the voices are different. And I think that's the invitation for the reader to say, Oh. I mean, that's what Holden Caulfield did for me. You know, when I heard him, when I was, I don't know how old I was when I read it, but it was, Oh, you can sound like that? You don't have to be prithy wise to pale fun lover.
Nancy:Prithy wise to don't have to be Shakespeare. You can write as a person. So that's one of the things. It's a permission to sound like you, to have your language, your rhythms, your story, and not think you have to be smart or sound a certain way. It's your voice, and that's gold, you know.
Wendy:I love that. So, do you encourage people to publish or do you just encourage people to write for the sake of writing?
Nancy:I often, you know, I start out by saying this is not about publishing, this is about process. But sometimes someone will read something and I'll go, I know this is against my rules, but you have to send that. You have to send that for Father's Day. You have to get that into your local paper. Please send it immediately.
Nancy:And I shouldn't do that because everybody else is sitting there, why didn't she say it to me? But it really isn't about publishing. It really, I mean, do. I get a lot of books from people and great notes and thank yous and, But no, I don't want it to ever be about anything but writing to get the story out of your body and to find out who you are. Beautiful.
Nancy:What's the first thing I ever wrote?
Wendy:Do you remember the first thing you ever wrote?
Nancy:Yeah, because in my family they didn't let us buy Hallmark cards. They made us make our own cards. What a gift when I think back. How did they even come up with that? Probably because we didn't have any money.
Nancy:But I have a sister named Margie and I have no brother. And I think I was seven and I made a card for my mother and, it said, Happy birthday to mom, to mom from Margie and Nancy and Tom and Tom. My mother took it and she looked at it and she looked at me and she said, Oh honey, this is wonderful, but, who's Tom? And I do remember rolling my eyes and saying, It rhymes with mom. And she was so phenomenal.
Nancy:I mean, she could have nipped the little writer in the bud, but instead she lit up and went, Oh, like, what's wrong with me? How did I not realize it? Oh, wonderful. And that kind of early validation, which really I want every single kid to get, I know it just moved me forward. And then in fourth grade, so maybe I was eight or nine.
Nancy:What's fourth grade? Eight? Nine, I think. Math teacher passed out paper very first day and said, I'd like to know each and every one of you. Write something to me about yourself.
Nancy:And the next day she read mine out loud and I had, I know, I had written, I am very, very tall. All my friends are very small. Whenever you look, I always show, gee, I wish my friends would grow. I had two early, really big shoves that said, keep going. And I just want every kid to have that, but you know, I did it with my kids and you can't just, you can't just give someone self esteem.
Nancy:That has to be earned. And I did, I mean, we want to talk about, do you have kids?
Wendy:No, don't. Not that it didn't happen this lifetime, no.
Nancy:Yeah, you probably had 12 last time and you're exhausted. Anyway, that was just one of my wrongest things because I wanted everybody to have what I had had, that early, you're amazing genius type thing. It was very important. So it's kind of what I do in the workshop. I also say at the end, I don't teach writing, I teach gushing.
Nancy:And I think that we're such a withholding culture. I just want people to say, oh my God, your hair is gorgeous. By the way, Wendy, your hair is gorgeous.
Wendy:Thank you.
Nancy:And I weren't standing in line in the bank behind somebody and tap her on the shoulder and say, Whatever you're wearing, it's unbelievable. Never stop wearing it. Is it the shampoo? Is it your perfume? Can't we just tell everybody every minute something good so that they can exhale?
Nancy:You know? Anyway.
Wendy:That was probably one of the most poignant memories I have in my childhood was a a writing assignment in class. I think I was in fifth grade, and I don't remember what the the assignment was, but I remember I wrote it was like a novella, like a like a four page novella, and it had a beginning, a middle, and an end. So it had an arc to it, and it was called Adventures in Egypt, and it was a little bit of fiction that I wrote. I turned it in, and my grandmother, Olga, who was --this was a Catholic school-- my grandmother, Olga, was the music teacher, and for the record, no one liked her. But I was told that in the faculty lounge at lunch that my teacher read my story to the faculty.
Nancy:I have chill bumps. Wow. But the teacher didn't tell you?
Wendy:Olga told me I think the teacher was very, I mean, was she didn't tell me that she read it to the faculty, but she told me that that I should read
Nancy:Oh, great. That
Wendy:seed got planted in my Yeah. So my dream to be a rock star, I started sharing that with my dream to be a writer kicked in at that moment too, so it was like I
Nancy:had this dream a star too. Applied for Innington when they had a, you could do the thing at home. Oh, Goucher. No, not Goucher. It begins with a G and it's Vermont.
Nancy:Goddard. So Goddard, when I was a housewife and I had two kids and I was miserable and I was doing nothing And I had a sick kid. Everything about my life was horrible. And I read that Goddard would let you get your degree from home and you just had to write an application and you could do major in anything. And I wrote that I wanted to be a rock and roll star.
Nancy:I don't even know if they wrote back to me.
Wendy:I was gonna say how'd that go? Yeah. So you could almost be anything.
Nancy:Singing in the shower still.
Wendy:Well, that's another great creative expression is singing. It really But
Nancy:if we both wanted to be rock stars, I mean, was just think in terms of the freedom that it gave you, that you could be wild on stage, you'd get the attention, you'd get to sing, you could be, you could be, you know, traveling with guys. I mean everything about it was so attractive. Poor.
Wendy:And now I sing on the on the vocal side prop for burlesque shows.
Nancy:Wow, that's great. That's great. So you get to do it.
Wendy:Yeah, yeah, I found a way many years later, but and that's because my friends are very generous with me and kind. But anyway, I wanna get back to your book. I keep derailing the conversation.
Nancy:Oh, I do. The
Wendy:vulnerability piece is so huge. Right? I mean, you referenced that a lot in your book. I'd love to talk about it a little bit right now because I think that's probably one of the biggest obstacles for folks. Even for just private writing, it can be really hard to be that kind of vulnerable, but extra, extra hard if you're going to share your piece with someone else.
Nancy:You know, I think you just nailed probably the most important part about writing a personal narrative. When, you know, I start the workshop and I tell everybody that I had been in a mean spirited writing group, which is the truth. And it was the first group I had ever been in. You know, they, they responded to everybody's writing before I, and they'd been meeting for years and I was invited later after they'd been together, these 14 women. And they would respond like, You know, Harriet, I felt that your characters were really rather one dimensional.
Nancy:I mean, I couldn't relate to them. And they were just horrible. And when it was my turn, I thought, well, I'm new, they're not going to do it to me. And they did do it to me. And I shut down after that.
Nancy:And when I started my own workshop, the very first time I ever did it, the same thing happened. People criticized each other. They tore each other apart. I saw shoulders go up. I saw faces get constricted.
Nancy:I saw writing get generic. It was just unbelievable what happened. And I had never facilitated a group before. I had taught college English. I had taught high school English, but I had never done anything like this before.
Nancy:And I was failing and miserable, very unhappy. Ten Tuesday it was over. I declared I'm never doing that again. I'm not good at that. I can't believe I let people destroy each other.
Nancy:And you know how you have like a little wise person in your stomach who speaks up to your brain? I had a little wise person. He said, No, you're going to do it again, but you're going to do it right. What do you mean right? You'll do it.
Nancy:You'll do it right. So I put another ad in and people came And I said, you know, I've only done this once and I failed miserably, but I learned something. And that is that creativity requires safety. You will be safe here. I have one rule and that is when you finish reading, we will tell you what we loved.
Nancy:And people just aren't used to that. They're used to being criticized. They're used to be told, they're being told by the boss, by the husband, by the uncle, by the eighth grade teacher, what's wrong. And this is such a first and it's just unbelievable what happens. And then, you know, and then I tell a lot of my own stories right in the beginning.
Nancy:And I am very lucky because my parents did lousy jobs about everything, almost everything, but they were really good about that vulnerability piece where you could show that you had a broken heart, that you could cry in front of people, that you could be real. And so I really set the tone and I know that that's what happens is they're seeing me sitting there laughing and crying within the same sentence and I'm not going into an institution to have it fixed. So when they see that and they hear that, and then the first person writes the truth, a really tough, truthful piece, and we respond and everybody's shocked that you could actually say, wow, that was brilliant. You just wrote about incest and you're not ashamed. And we're not telling you that you're a bad person and we don't want to hear that kind of stuff.
Nancy:It just, it happens like dominoes. Everybody is just as completely waiting to be able to be real and be nude. And it is naked. It is naked you could be. And it turns out that naked, everybody's quite beautiful.
Wendy:What a gift to give people that openness. I mean, the criticism piece is just devastating.
Nancy:Not everybody.
Wendy:I can get on another soapbox about that, especially my experiences with the publishing industry. Haven't been great. It's soul crushing.
Nancy:Yes, that's exactly the point.
Wendy:When someone critiques your writing, because it's coming from such a deep, intimate, personal place.
Nancy:It's the most you of you. You're really it's you.
Wendy:It should be. I mean, that's but I I certainly have read things that don't I I don't see the the author in the pieces. I just see I see a formula.
Nancy:That's what's happened. It's like writing is so clever and beautiful phrases and great word combinations and so well done and craft, but no soul. No no who I don't care. Don't care about this person. I need to I wanna be crying with you.
Nancy:I wanna be laughing to the point of running to the bathroom with you.
Wendy:And what's amazing is that the essays that you've included in here, and there are a lot, and they're I mean, these people are not professional writers. Right?
Nancy:Exactly. That's the whole point is that everybody can do this. These aren't the best ones. There are there are some of the best ones, but they're all the best ones.
Wendy:They're amazing. Mean, are really high quality writing and your writing is amazing too.
Nancy:That's I didn't let them change anything by the way. Unfortunately, we screwed up on a couple. There's one, Taffy McCarthy's, where she starts out with a much better first line, and I don't know how I let us change it, the first line, first two lines, but it's still killing me. The next edition will have the original lines. But I said when they sent me these essays, don't change anything.
Nancy:I want them to know you wrote this in fifteen minutes in class or at night for the assignment. So that's what's so astounding is that these are just so well done.
Wendy:And they're so vulnerable. That's the one that you wrote, what is it called Mission Possible?
Nancy:Which one was that?
Wendy:That was the one about your husband wanting to open things up in your marriage.
Nancy:My god, you know, I was, I didn't even remember that I wrote that and the editor who was wonderful calls me and she says, you need something for, I forgot what, what category it was, what secret it was. And she said, What about the one that you wrote about your open marriage? And I said, What open marriage story? She said, Oh, you sent it me. And I read it and I loved it without even thinking how completely naked.
Nancy:But luckily, I don't have anybody that's going to say we're not inviting you to dinner anymore.
Wendy:Well, you wouldn't want to go to their house or dinner I don't go. I mean but yeah. Again, we can be so silly. I loved that you included that particular essay because it was so completely naked. And so I it is an invitation.
Wendy:Well, if Nancy can do it, then I can do it. Not necessarily the open marriage piece, but just the writing about something that's so totally naked. Honest. And I can't imagine therapeutically how that worked for you.
Nancy:I can't remember, but I'm thrilled that I wrote it, and I'm still in touch with the guy. Know, we are on a Wordle chain.
Wendy:That's adorable. I know. Because that was a while ago, yeah?
Nancy:Oh, '19, let's see, we got married in 'sixty seven and my husband just, I gotta show you what he just did. This is the cutest. First of all, you have to meet Wendy. This is Joel. Joel, say hi to Wendy.
Nancy:Hi, Wendy.
Wendy:Oh, hey. I didn't know you're right there. Hello, sir.
Nancy:Yeah. I am a sir. I'm three. 80 three yesterday. Wait.
Nancy:Yesterday?
Wendy:Happy birthday to you. Wow.
Nancy:So this is what he did. Give me this because you spelled it wrong. I spelled it wrong. That's alright. I gotta show her.
Nancy:I gotta show her. It's so adorable. Can you read?
Wendy:Poly polyam? It's been Polyammer. Oh, okay. I was like, I couldn't figure out how to pronounce what he
Nancy:had- Well, polyamorous has become, I mean, we called it an open marriage because it was 1974. But now it's been, it's really a big, I think I just set the trend. What can I tell you? My mother did before me. And we, and we heard later in life that my mother did too.
Wendy:Oh, no kidding. So it runs in the family. All right.
Nancy:In the cells.
Wendy:Yeah. I mean No. No. Okay. So we were talking about vulnerability and the importance of when you allow yourself to be that kind of vulnerable on the page, then it's a permission slip probably that translates in your everyday life to
Nancy:You what, you just nailed another really huge piece of wisdom. My sister said to me when we were really young, I was really young, I was probably in seventh grade, and she said, Tell your girlfriends everything. Then they'll tell you everything, and then you've got a solid, intimate friendship. If they use it against you and you're betrayed, then you'll know about that person, but you won't ever change. Don't ever not tell somebody close to you the truth because that will deepen the friendship and you will have a friend for life.
Nancy:What amazing advice.
Wendy:That's great advice. And it's really what we all long for. I mean, it's what we would call in the psych world emotional intimacy. And
Nancy:without it, you know, then you have a surface relationship. Hi, how are you? Oh, great. We had such a good time Thursday. Who has time for that now?
Nancy:I don't, I don't. I want the gut stuff.
Wendy:I agree. 100%, yeah, absolutely.
Nancy:Oh, you do. We already know. Well,
Wendy:what else? I mean, otherwise, what's the point? We could talk about where we're at as a culture, and the disconnect that we have.
Nancy:Exactly.
Wendy:Referencing the social media thing, it's like the illusion of connection, but it's not real
Nancy:And that's why we can have war, and that's why we can destroy each other the way we are right now, is because people are not connected. The disconnect is huge, and the illusion of connection. Unbelievable.
Wendy:But if you peel all those things away, those surface level things, we are pretty much Same. We are all the same. Yeah. I mean, it sounds so cliched, but it's all just
Nancy:want to be heard. We all just want to be held. We all want to be we just want to be safe. Safe. To be who we are.
Nancy:I know. Peeling away, but some people have huge cement over their hearts.
Wendy:Yeah, it's very sad. I mean, and a lot of folks do for good reason, because they've been hurt so many times, or they've had tremendous trauma, and the thought of taking the walls down is just so frightening that can't imagine No, they're
Nancy:They're survivors. Listen, we're all survivors. And, you know, that's why the workshop is just so stunning for me that I see people who have never told anybody what they then sit there and write about and sob and walk away feeling like a truck has just been lifted off their shoulders and hearts.
Wendy:Yeah, imagine that. You're carrying a truck And
Nancy:people are.
Wendy:And then you don't realize you're carrying it until it's gone.
Nancy:That's right, that's it. You're such nice girl.
Wendy:Am I? Well it's all a facade.
Nancy:No it's not, Wendela.
Wendy:Wendela. I haven't somebody called me that a long time ago.
Nancy:Well, I'm Olga, only Jewish.
Wendy:Jewish Olga. You'd have to have the green tongue to be Olga. But you had red hair and green eyes and very Norwegian and always sucked on Clorets and so her tongue was always green. So when she would scream at the students, you would see this green
Nancy:Oh my god.
Wendy:Contrasting the pale complexion and the red hair.
Nancy:Oh, what a great description. And did everyone know she was your grandmother?
Wendy:Oh, yeah. Come up and give granny a hug at the end of our class. After she just screamed at everybody and was slamming her hand on the top of the piano. Oh, good lord.
Nancy:Anyway. Yeah.
Wendy:You are teaching workshops.
Nancy:Yes.
Wendy:We've referenced them. How do you do the workshops? Are they in person? Are they online?
Nancy:Oh, they're in person. I did Zoom when we had those few years of COVID. And I've done them, and they're good. They work. I break them into groups and they go into rooms together.
Nancy:And actually some of those rooms have stayed connected. They write to me and say, we're still meeting. The original seven people were still meeting online. Thank you very much. And I love that that's happening.
Nancy:But I like to be in person. So I go to Kripalu and how do I do it? So I start out by telling my horrible story of what happened to me in that mean spirited thing. And then I give a prompt that is so universal and so everybody has had this happen, everybody writes it. And then we read out, you know, we tell them the rule when you finish, when somebody finishes reading, we tell them what you don't have to comment.
Nancy:And then immediately, I mean, by the first morning people have already fallen in love with each other. It's so beautiful to watch. It happens every time. And by the end, so it's usually four days. Here on the vineyard, it's four mornings.
Nancy:People come down on a Sunday night, it's Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, nine to noon. And they just end up, they don't know what they do for jobs, but they know everything else. It's just stunning, just the most beautiful. You know, if I had ever thought, what would you like to be when you grew up other than a rock star and a movie star and all the other fantasies I had, this combines everything that I love doing. I get to be like a stand up comic, sitting down, which is even better because you can rest.
Nancy:And I get to watch people at their absolute highest selves, being kinder than ever, loving, supportive, cheerleading for each other, no competition. And then I watch them get better and better. I watch their writing improve and I watch their honesty get deeper. And then on Thursday, nobody wants to leave the yard, including me, even though I live here.
Wendy:I get it. Haven't even been there and I don't want to leave.
Nancy:You're you're coming, I'm gonna get you.
Wendy:I would love that.
Nancy:Good, alright we'll pick a
Wendy:And for the folks who are listening, Nancy's in Martha's Vineyard and Kripalu is Western Massachusetts.
Nancy:And also Omega in Rhinebeck.
Wendy:Oh, okay.
Nancy:I have to follow in February. I don't know when you air this.
Wendy:It'll probably be after February is my It'll
Nancy:Omega in Rhinebeck. And then the vineyard is there's one in each month. One in May, '1 in June, '1 in July, '1 in August, '1 in September, '1 in October. That's it.
Wendy:Okay, so in the summer into the fall. Great. Okay, so how would people find out about your schedule?
Nancy:So it's Chillmark Writing Workshop, and Chillmark is c h I l m a r k, chillmarkwritingworkshop dot com. And by the time this airs, I'll have the schedule up on my website. I'm doing it right now. I'm just figuring out. I have to look and see what holidays.
Nancy:I keep screwing up and doing it, Passover. And I, some other holiday, it has to be in my calendar. I'm the only one still that is using a paper calendar. I know I am.
Wendy:I have one.
Nancy:Oh, good girl. There you go. So it
Wendy:And guess what? I also don't have a cell phone, so Really? I'm a Luddite, yeah.
Nancy:Wow! I promise I'm a Luddite, but I live in my phone. So how do you that's so you have a landline and that's it?
Wendy:I have a voice IP, so voice Internet phone here at the wellness center and at the at the house. We don't have cell service at our house anyway, but you're not alone with the paper calendar. And then I just thought I'd throw the cell phone thing in there too because it's kind of in the same category.
Nancy:It's almost writing workshop and it's four mornings and that's the story, nine to noon. And people come on Sunday night. It's very expensive to stay, find a place to stay. The workshop is very expensive, but if you're broke, you just tell me that and we figure something out. I don't I don't, need the whole money.
Wendy:All right. Well, this has been super crazy fun. Am really thankful that you, came on and chatted with me.
Nancy:I know we're gonna meet. I'm gonna give you the workshop as a gift, so you we're gonna meet because you're
Wendy:gonna come gonna That's amazing.
Nancy:So we just have to figure out when, so we'll do that and make sure Heidi, knows that we can
Wendy:have Okay, I'll tell her. There's a shout out to Heidi in the podcast
Nancy:right Fabulous. Are just really, you put people at ease. You're just easy. And no, that's not a nice thing to say to you that you're easy.
Wendy:It's okay. I'll take it.
Nancy:In the fifties, easy was not a, the implication isn't good. You're accessible, and your heart's huge, and I loved it.
Wendy:Oh, thank you so much.
Nancy:You're welcome.
Wendy:Right back at you. Man, she's fun, isn't she? And how cute is her husband? Don't you just wanna hang out with her and chat and write and then chat some more? Well, if you would like to do just that, you can sign up for one of her workshops at chillmarkwritingworkshop.com.
Wendy:A link is in the show notes. I so appreciate that you took the time to listen to this episode. The podcast world has changed pretty dramatically since I started in 2018. Small podcasts like mine get lost in the mire of zillions of podcast options. So the fact that you found this one is amazing and I'm thrilled.
Wendy:I've been hearing from more and more listeners that they heard about Lucid Cafe because a friend let them know about it, which is the absolute best compliment you can get, really. So thank you for spreading the word. It really, really, really, really, really means a lot, truly. I'll be back with another inspiring episode inviting you to reclaim your feminine power. Until next time.
