A vivid, honest story that lands like a shared memory. And I felt every beat of that yellow legal pad turning from gold to wound because don’t we all carry some version of that first betrayal, when the world mistook our imagination for pathology?
This reminded me of something James Hillman wrote, that our earliest myths about ourselves are formed not from triumphs but from psychic injuries, those formative ruptures where soul and self first collide. What matters is not avoiding these moments, but metabolising them. You did. And better still, you transmuted that old injury into a blueprint for future protection, for yourself, for others.
“The things that make me want to start over… that’s where the energy is” could be the entire creative philosophy of the 21st century, if we are brave enough to claim it. I think of the baroque, of Nina Simone’s cracked voice mid-lyric. Beauty isn’t in the polish but in the places we almost broke, and then kept going. Your mother sounds like a woman who understands that deeply.
Therefore let’s fund more beginnings. Let’s build sanctuaries for the wild, brilliant, unedited minds before the world teaches them shame. What you’ve created here, the Alchemy Fund, represents reparations for the damage done to genius too early misunderstood.
Thank you for this, truly! You’ve made me want to revisit my own margins.
Tamara such a heartfelt response with a final line that brought tears to my eyes not of sadness but of holiness. Isn’t that why when we face our demons the power of creation is elevated and everything once again is possible?
For me I see my first moment of freedom when at six I could leave my school room at lunchtime,leaving failure behind ,and run down the street like a Gisselle to the crossing before the 12 o’clock whistle blew. Then crossing that street and running some more til making it home to my mother’s homemade lunch filled with love repairing the harm being done.
As I enter my 80th year tomorrow ( I was born on Mother’s Day) my poetry takes me running down that lane to/ with love
A breathtaking image, “running down that lane to/with love.” It’s a line that carries the lightness of a child and the wisdom of a woman who has alchemised her past into poetry.
Your story of freedom, of outrunning failure toward the sanctuary of your mother’s table, feels like the purest metaphor for what we spend a lifetime trying to do as artists: to cross back over the road, through risk, into nourishment. And the fact that you still write poetry, still run (now with words instead of legs), tells me everything I need to know about your spirit.
How blessed we are to read you on the eve of your 80th year. You remind me that healing isn’t a one-time event but a rhythm, a return, a practice of reaching for what mends us, and offering it back to the world in verse.
My parents were pretty tough people. And there were 9 children in our family. We had to work hard and stand up for ourselves because there was so much competition in our family - music, art, sports, attention etc. They never discouraged us from standing up for ourselves. It was always survival of the fittest. So fortunate to have learned that early on in life. I wish more parents would teach that to their children.
Being forged in the fire of a big, competitive family, nine children, is impressive! That’s not a household, that’s a full-blown ecosystem (I am an only child and I see it this way). And I can imagine how quickly you had to sharpen your instincts, your voice, your sense of self.
What you describe reminds me of something Darwin never quite got enough credit for: that survival of the fittest is adaptability, not survival. To hold your ground without losing your heart. To fight for space and still find a way to make music in it. That’s a rare education, and one no school can provide.
I’d argue, though, that what we need now is not just to teach survival, but to also teach the sacred art of recovery. Because children today are short on toughness, but also short on spaces where their fire isn’t mistaken for a fault. I think what you learned, the ability to stand your ground with pride, is a gift. The next frontier is showing others how to do that without losing the softness it took you a lifetime to reclaim.
Oh Suleika. What wonderful stories you have. You are so fortunate to have a creative mother who encouraged you and has been there for you through thick and thin. Your story about your first foray into writing in junior high reminded me of what happened to me as a sixth grader, 10 or 11 years old. The teacher was very artistic and had us working on many art projects. I have never been able to draw or paint. However, I have other talents. One day the teacher made me stay after class where she totally tried to belittle and shame me because of my lack of artistic skills. I have an older sister who is a pretty good artist. She also had this teacher. The teacher told me that there was something wrong with me because I was unable to draw and because my sister could, I should also share that talent. But I was not going to allow her to demean me. I told her she had no right to speak to me that way, & just because my sister was artistic, didn't mean that I was. We weren't twins. I am a much better pianist, got better grades, cooked better, and on. I always was a bit mouthy. I ended by letting her know she wasn't a very good teacher if she thought it was ok to treat a student that way, turned around and walked out of the classroom. She never brought it up again. Your teacher had probably never read what you did and certainly didn't have your creative skills, even at your young age.
Your mother is a wonderful teacher who might have been able to bring out some artistic skills in me. Who knows? The picture of you two and your adorable pooch is priceless. Thank you for all you bring to this world. Much love to you.❤️❤️❤️
I am always appalled at so called teachers who don’t actually teach . That woman’s literal job was to teach you how to draw & paint, not berate you because you weren’t good at it. Even worse are music teachers who, instead of teaching students how to sing , tell kids to “ mouth the words”and not sing at all because they have a bad voice.
My husband sings around the house all the time- but he would never sing in church because was told as a child that he couldn’t sing. A few years ago he started serving daily mass and had to stand at the alter and sing acapella hymns with the priest, lo & behold he has a beautiful tenor voice. He would never believe us that he had a fine voice because his music teacher told him he did not.
Hi so heartbreaking when teachers do this to children! I am involved in training the next generation of teachers, and I am really clear on this value of honoring children and not injuring them in this way!!👍🏽💜
I so admire you that you were able to respond to that teacher the way that you did. Most children would have absorbed the creative injury and taken years to recover!!
I am so happy for you in your having the strength & courage to stand up for yourself to your teacher. Being a former teacher myself, I could never understand why some people went into this profession…As in people like your former teacher. Yes, we all have different talents and strengths. My sister is an incredibly talented artist. One of my friends who teaches art herself, told me that some of my sister’s artwork is the best she has ever seen. Me? I can’t paint or draw to save my life. But I have talents and/or strengths that are different than my sister possesses. As they say, that’s what the makes the world go round…If we were all exactly alike, our world would be in trouble. 💙
Hi Good for you! I had a nun for a piano teacher who was very insulting. She told me my brain was like a sieve. I was only six years old, so I did not talk back to her, but I knew in my head that my mom and dad thought I had a good brain and thank goodness for that because that could’ve been such a devastating experience.
I love how you stood up for the talents of everyone. I have been teacher for a long time, and I am teaching the next generation of folks who want to be teachers, and I am always super aware and mindful to teach the next generation that it is not acceptable to demean or insult students in any way! 👍🏽💜
In high school, in my family, we were expected to play a musical instrument. If possible, to play in the school band. I chose the baritone, the euphonium. However, reading music never made sense to me. So, I began to improvise. As the baritone was a fairly rare instrument, I was invited to join the all-city band. One day at rehearsal, a teacher from another school was standing behind me. He realised that I was improvising. He stopped everyone, pointed to the sheet music in front of me and said “play that music”. Well, I couldn’t. After rehearsal, leaving the building, a classmate from my school caught up to me and said “I hope you know you’ve embarrassed the whole school.” Thus ended my high school band experience. However, ever since then I have turned ever more deeply into improvisation : I pick up a flute and the first tone opens a door on a new adventure. I listen, and follow. The adventure of meeting one’s own voice in its birthing is very satisfying. A wound can deliver new flesh. 🏮
Eddie Van Halen didn’t read sheet music. I read his brother Alex’s memoir to Eddie recently and loved it. Alex shared that Eddie never read sheet music. 😉 I love your words, “The adventure of meeting one’s own voice in its birthing is very satisfying. A wound can deliver new flesh.” Keep on playing the flute & loving it!
David, when I was in the elementary school orchestra, Mrs. Cobb, who liked my singing, would hit me on the hands with her baton when I messed up. It's taken me years to become a better reader. But, like you, I did find ways to make things up, and if one follows that path, pretty soon what we make up sounds pretty good, and we win...is one way to put it.
My creative injury occurred in 6th grade. The art teacher picked my painting to hang in the ClothesLine Art show at Saks 5th Avenue in Paramus NJ. I was over the moon. My mom, dad and I went to the show, and there was my masterpiece! UNTIL - my mother said, the only reason your painting was chosen was because the art teacher liked me, not because it was a good painting. I was crushed, to say the least. It took until I was 50 yrs old to start honoring my creative self. I’m now 71 and do “art” almost every day.
Oh, Lousie, that is beyond awful! Wow, you took a major brave step, honoring your creative self. Why do people have to wound others? It makes my heart so happy that you let your artistic self, the one that has always been part of you, out to play, everyday.
I live in a world of "drawing in the margins" for I teach young children. Their uninhibited wisdom has helped me heal my own creative wound. When they enter our room, I know they know it is a sanctuary of safe, a surrounding of silly, warm, loving words that "wow" at their dynamic movements, lines, love, tears, and that am always there to help them navigate Big Feelings. They in turn, gave me the strength to be "me." So let us all glitter on with our (credits to Mary Oliver) "one wild and precious lives." (Well, she says "life" but I'm sure she would approve of my slight change here.) And to the person who wounded me with, "Hmm...this is ordinary," in reference to my very first loom weaving at age 15, may you know, in some way, that I am and have always been, anything but "ordinary."
As a little girl I love to draw. I would draw stories and my mother would write them down in the margins. I had no idea that I had “no talent.” Elementary school was a rather miserable time for me, but I had an art teacher in fourth and fifth grade whom I had forgotten about until now. Her name was Ofra. She was kind to me and encouraged me to draw whatever I wanted. She said there was no right way to make things. I wish I could have kept her in mind for a later time. In seventh grade the girls learned knitting and sewing and the boys learned woodworking. My teacher was unable to teach me to knit so she decided to try to teach me how to crochet instead. She gave up on that idea as well since I was left handed and she did not know how to teach crochet to a left-handed person. So she sent me to the wood working shop to ask that teacher to teach me how to crochet. I was so humiliated, but that teacher did teach me how to crochet and I crocheted many things after that. Once all the girls finished their knitting projects (and me my crochet project) it was time to learn how to sew on the sewing machine. I don’t remember what we made. Maybe an apron or a skirt.I was not very good at sewing on a machine and I remember my teacher declaring that I was the worst student she had ever had and that my work looked like that of a five year old’s. Fortunately for eight grade my parents and brother and I moved away and I attended a different school where the teachers were kinder otherwise I would have been forced to spend another year in that teacher’s classroom. Nearly fifty years have passed since I had that teacher and it only recently was I able to recognize that the reason I was not able to learn was because she was not able to teach. I have poor fine motor skills so I have difficultly doing small tasks, but I have learned that I can paint, I can make collages, I can write and I have other talents. It is heartbreaking that .one person’s word said offhandedly can have such a negative impact. The reverse is also true. I have learned over the years from patients that have often said one little thing to them that I really did not think about, but that it made all the difference. Words matter!!
I tried to play tennis in high school and the teacher said I was the worst player she had ever seen. I haven't touched a tennis racket since. Be careful what you do with your words. The stain they leave may be permanent.
Yes ! Words matter! And teachers really need to know how to use the words and kindly supportive ways! I’ve been a teacher for over 50 years and I’m training the next generation to really understand this point👍🏽💜
How I love your Mother, Dear Suleika! How I love you, Dear Suleika! Wishing all who celebrate, a very meaningful Mother's Day, and holding in mind all who grieve, perhaps in your own quiet ways, for your own very personal reasons, this Mother's Day...
Whether in celebration or in grief, you all deserve much love and kindness..
I had a creative injury in kindergarten when I didn’t follow directions. We were supposed to color geometric shapes specific colors. As I was working I decided I didn’t want to color the circle blue. I thought it would be prettier bright orange. I distinctly remember not being able to go to recess but had to try to erase the orange crayon which was nearly impossible. Tears flowed as I could hear my friends playing.
My kindergarten teacher was mean & as an adult, I often wonder why she even became a teacher. She embarrassed all of us equally, for different reasons, so we all pulled one another up after she aimed her anger at any one of us. At the tender age of five. I never told my own mother about it until I was an adult. My mother was naturally horrified and told me that had she known about this woman’s behavior, she would have been over at the school herself.
Hi am so sorry that a K teacher would act like that! I am teaching the next generation of teachers and making sure that they understand that they are not to inflict creative injuries on any of the children that they work with!
Yikes. What compels teachers to treat kids this way? I think it's been lack of teacher education, which leads to frustration with the process of getting squirmy little children to sit still and learn. Not understanding that some kids learn better with the squirming. And that self-expression is a very personal thing that should be respected.
With painting if I judge I’m done so I didn’t judge. The sun was shining thru my main room window, it’s 8:20 am and the leaves from my spider plant are shadows on my table. I draw them with magic marker in my diary. What a way to begin Mother’s Day! And happy I get lady judgement to be still. To this beautiful community: May you UNJUDGE yourself during this exercise. It’s a start ❤️. I’ve had to go on a lonely journey with creativity, because of no family support, but I’ve learned resourcefulness thru all this. Still would’ve preferred family support but they were
never there! Bless this Isolation Journal community! A lifeline to beauty, kindness, respect, empathy & kindness.
Cheers to all the creatives out there, and those who inspire and encourage them! Decades ago, my high school art teacher had us close our eyes, and create something out of our imagination on the paper attached to our drawing easels. So this morning, from Anne's prompt, I closed my eyes for five minutes, and chose various markers randomly and set them to paper. It was liberating, and fun. When I opened my eyes, it was definitely abstract, but I think the head of a dinosaur might have appeared somewhere in the middle of the paper!
Creative wounds are most often created by me. As an emotional cutter I race ahead of whatever criticism might be coming and get that first punch. Do ‘em one better by revealing the hidden fear and ridiculing myself for even having said fear. Whether it’s an artistic endeavour or in business or even my athletic pursuits for godsake—and I’m not even an athlete! I don’t swim fast enough or efficiently. I have played comparison bingo for sooo long going back to the first days in a ballet studio staring in the mirror with all the other anorexic hopefuls scrying for perfection.
Once in a peer coaching session when the old ‘what does success look like to you’ question came up and I blurted out (or my tired wise soul did) if I were successful I wouldn’t, couldn’t compare myself to anyone! So that’s it. I strive to be incomparable. I’m attempting it by creating before I consume anything! So this margins exercise is perfect for me. 🤩
PS I’m loving the Alchemy book! Saving up for a scarf or sweatshirt 💝
Oh, that story, Suleika! I definitely know that feeling of anticipating praise (or at least acknowledgement of creative effort) and getting something very different back.
On another note: I have been wanting to share the beginning of my 100 day journaling journey. When my book arrived, I was so excited and part of me wanted to begin immediately. But another part of me realized I didn’t want to do it alone. So, I took a chance and texted five friends/colleagues to explain the project and ask if they’d like to join me. All five said yes!!! And bought the book! Then two more friends heard about it and joined - so now there are 8 of us - six in MA, one in Minnesota, and one in Ireland! We started on May 1…
i too read Bowles, Justine...all adventures.. however my 7th grade teacher encouraged my writing.. certainly no one at home did.. that blessing for me was to be curious. It is Mothers Day and I am think of my two mothers .. one was the Black caretaker at a family run hotel, where I was without family and the other my beloved Henry Sutton the gay stage manager at the theater where I volunteered.. Blessing and loving all mothers.
Yes mothers and mothers come in all shapes and forms…
Apparently, in England, it’s actually called mothering Sunday so you can be mothering and have been bothered without technically being a traditional mother. I love that idea. 👍🏽💜
Hello All. I want to thank you Suleika for a wonderful gift. The telling of your creative injuries and your mom's beautiful story had me in tears. I thought of mine own and seeing them in different eyes. And the prompt is a great way to help in this journey. I hope you have lots of rest. I am slowly enjoying the book daily. And I love the The Alchemy Fund for Girls Write Now and will share with lots. Have a peaceful day
The one that sticks with me is being told "Why don't you get a REAL job?"
I'm on a disability income - and am writing my 60th book. (And no, the books don't make me a lot of money, but it helps)
A family member said. "You should quit this writing thing and get a real job." - I explained I was permanently disabled and unable to hold down a 'real' job - but that writing was, for me, a 'real job' and I was going to keep going.
Some days, I hear that voice in my head and wonder why I keep trying. Then I look up at the screen, fall into the story, and keep going.
Interestingly enough, after reading this today, and being introduced to the term “creative injury”, I realize that this is exactly what I’ve tried to avoid for the last month or so. Fear was with me. My sister’s celebration of life took place this past Friday. I thought about writing a speech. My niece (sister’s daughter) asked me if I was still milling about it. I said, yes, still. Then one day, I messaged her and told her I wasn’t going to do it. Meanwhile, I had been writing notes about my sister all along. At some point, I remembered an IJ prompt that I had changed slightly to, “When I think of you, I remember”. This is how I began to write a letter to my sister. Still uncommitted, I wrote the night before the celebration and on the morning of. Once it was done, and I felt it had come together, I tucked it into my purse, along with a birthday card that my sister had sent to me that I wanted to read. Now I had to do it. I felt as though I had tricked myself into it. It went well and I had a few positive comments from people.
A vivid, honest story that lands like a shared memory. And I felt every beat of that yellow legal pad turning from gold to wound because don’t we all carry some version of that first betrayal, when the world mistook our imagination for pathology?
This reminded me of something James Hillman wrote, that our earliest myths about ourselves are formed not from triumphs but from psychic injuries, those formative ruptures where soul and self first collide. What matters is not avoiding these moments, but metabolising them. You did. And better still, you transmuted that old injury into a blueprint for future protection, for yourself, for others.
“The things that make me want to start over… that’s where the energy is” could be the entire creative philosophy of the 21st century, if we are brave enough to claim it. I think of the baroque, of Nina Simone’s cracked voice mid-lyric. Beauty isn’t in the polish but in the places we almost broke, and then kept going. Your mother sounds like a woman who understands that deeply.
Therefore let’s fund more beginnings. Let’s build sanctuaries for the wild, brilliant, unedited minds before the world teaches them shame. What you’ve created here, the Alchemy Fund, represents reparations for the damage done to genius too early misunderstood.
Thank you for this, truly! You’ve made me want to revisit my own margins.
Love this and also the many conversations it has spawned! Thank you for always being such a generous reader, Tamara ❤️
Thank you, Suleika!
Tamara such a heartfelt response with a final line that brought tears to my eyes not of sadness but of holiness. Isn’t that why when we face our demons the power of creation is elevated and everything once again is possible?
For me I see my first moment of freedom when at six I could leave my school room at lunchtime,leaving failure behind ,and run down the street like a Gisselle to the crossing before the 12 o’clock whistle blew. Then crossing that street and running some more til making it home to my mother’s homemade lunch filled with love repairing the harm being done.
As I enter my 80th year tomorrow ( I was born on Mother’s Day) my poetry takes me running down that lane to/ with love
A breathtaking image, “running down that lane to/with love.” It’s a line that carries the lightness of a child and the wisdom of a woman who has alchemised her past into poetry.
Your story of freedom, of outrunning failure toward the sanctuary of your mother’s table, feels like the purest metaphor for what we spend a lifetime trying to do as artists: to cross back over the road, through risk, into nourishment. And the fact that you still write poetry, still run (now with words instead of legs), tells me everything I need to know about your spirit.
How blessed we are to read you on the eve of your 80th year. You remind me that healing isn’t a one-time event but a rhythm, a return, a practice of reaching for what mends us, and offering it back to the world in verse.
Happy Birthday, Nancy! Your very being is a poem.
Now I am really crying..thank you Tamara
Beautiful post N(ancy) Hannah! Thank you for sharing this memory with us. Wishing you joy in your 80th year!
Happy birthday and Happy Mothers Day!
🎈 Happy Birthday 🎊🎈🎂! What a lovely memory of a loving mother!
Nancy,
May your today be filled with joy and peace as you continue to "run down the lane to/with love"!
Cheers!
My parents were pretty tough people. And there were 9 children in our family. We had to work hard and stand up for ourselves because there was so much competition in our family - music, art, sports, attention etc. They never discouraged us from standing up for ourselves. It was always survival of the fittest. So fortunate to have learned that early on in life. I wish more parents would teach that to their children.
Being forged in the fire of a big, competitive family, nine children, is impressive! That’s not a household, that’s a full-blown ecosystem (I am an only child and I see it this way). And I can imagine how quickly you had to sharpen your instincts, your voice, your sense of self.
What you describe reminds me of something Darwin never quite got enough credit for: that survival of the fittest is adaptability, not survival. To hold your ground without losing your heart. To fight for space and still find a way to make music in it. That’s a rare education, and one no school can provide.
I’d argue, though, that what we need now is not just to teach survival, but to also teach the sacred art of recovery. Because children today are short on toughness, but also short on spaces where their fire isn’t mistaken for a fault. I think what you learned, the ability to stand your ground with pride, is a gift. The next frontier is showing others how to do that without losing the softness it took you a lifetime to reclaim.
Thank you for sharing this, Susan!
"Beauty isn’t in the polish but in the places we almost broke, and then kept going." Thank you for this Tamara ❤️
Oh Suleika. What wonderful stories you have. You are so fortunate to have a creative mother who encouraged you and has been there for you through thick and thin. Your story about your first foray into writing in junior high reminded me of what happened to me as a sixth grader, 10 or 11 years old. The teacher was very artistic and had us working on many art projects. I have never been able to draw or paint. However, I have other talents. One day the teacher made me stay after class where she totally tried to belittle and shame me because of my lack of artistic skills. I have an older sister who is a pretty good artist. She also had this teacher. The teacher told me that there was something wrong with me because I was unable to draw and because my sister could, I should also share that talent. But I was not going to allow her to demean me. I told her she had no right to speak to me that way, & just because my sister was artistic, didn't mean that I was. We weren't twins. I am a much better pianist, got better grades, cooked better, and on. I always was a bit mouthy. I ended by letting her know she wasn't a very good teacher if she thought it was ok to treat a student that way, turned around and walked out of the classroom. She never brought it up again. Your teacher had probably never read what you did and certainly didn't have your creative skills, even at your young age.
Your mother is a wonderful teacher who might have been able to bring out some artistic skills in me. Who knows? The picture of you two and your adorable pooch is priceless. Thank you for all you bring to this world. Much love to you.❤️❤️❤️
I love hearing how self-possessed you were/are! What a wonder!
I am always appalled at so called teachers who don’t actually teach . That woman’s literal job was to teach you how to draw & paint, not berate you because you weren’t good at it. Even worse are music teachers who, instead of teaching students how to sing , tell kids to “ mouth the words”and not sing at all because they have a bad voice.
My husband sings around the house all the time- but he would never sing in church because was told as a child that he couldn’t sing. A few years ago he started serving daily mass and had to stand at the alter and sing acapella hymns with the priest, lo & behold he has a beautiful tenor voice. He would never believe us that he had a fine voice because his music teacher told him he did not.
Hi so heartbreaking when teachers do this to children! I am involved in training the next generation of teachers, and I am really clear on this value of honoring children and not injuring them in this way!!👍🏽💜
I so admire you that you were able to respond to that teacher the way that you did. Most children would have absorbed the creative injury and taken years to recover!!
Wow, Susan! Kicking ass and taking names! I love that you told your teacher who you were. Yes!
I am so happy for you in your having the strength & courage to stand up for yourself to your teacher. Being a former teacher myself, I could never understand why some people went into this profession…As in people like your former teacher. Yes, we all have different talents and strengths. My sister is an incredibly talented artist. One of my friends who teaches art herself, told me that some of my sister’s artwork is the best she has ever seen. Me? I can’t paint or draw to save my life. But I have talents and/or strengths that are different than my sister possesses. As they say, that’s what the makes the world go round…If we were all exactly alike, our world would be in trouble. 💙
Hi Good for you! I had a nun for a piano teacher who was very insulting. She told me my brain was like a sieve. I was only six years old, so I did not talk back to her, but I knew in my head that my mom and dad thought I had a good brain and thank goodness for that because that could’ve been such a devastating experience.
I love how you stood up for the talents of everyone. I have been teacher for a long time, and I am teaching the next generation of folks who want to be teachers, and I am always super aware and mindful to teach the next generation that it is not acceptable to demean or insult students in any way! 👍🏽💜
Hiya Susan, I'm another that salutes your early sense of self. Way to go. Love reading this.
In high school, in my family, we were expected to play a musical instrument. If possible, to play in the school band. I chose the baritone, the euphonium. However, reading music never made sense to me. So, I began to improvise. As the baritone was a fairly rare instrument, I was invited to join the all-city band. One day at rehearsal, a teacher from another school was standing behind me. He realised that I was improvising. He stopped everyone, pointed to the sheet music in front of me and said “play that music”. Well, I couldn’t. After rehearsal, leaving the building, a classmate from my school caught up to me and said “I hope you know you’ve embarrassed the whole school.” Thus ended my high school band experience. However, ever since then I have turned ever more deeply into improvisation : I pick up a flute and the first tone opens a door on a new adventure. I listen, and follow. The adventure of meeting one’s own voice in its birthing is very satisfying. A wound can deliver new flesh. 🏮
I’m so glad that experience didn’t stop you, David. Play on!
David my father’s name Levy so we must be related! A wound can deliver new flesh summarizes my philosophy of life… thank you for putting it here!
Eddie Van Halen didn’t read sheet music. I read his brother Alex’s memoir to Eddie recently and loved it. Alex shared that Eddie never read sheet music. 😉 I love your words, “The adventure of meeting one’s own voice in its birthing is very satisfying. A wound can deliver new flesh.” Keep on playing the flute & loving it!
Never give up on what you know about yourself. So happy that you are still experimenting and playing. I love the flute. ♥️
David, when I was in the elementary school orchestra, Mrs. Cobb, who liked my singing, would hit me on the hands with her baton when I messed up. It's taken me years to become a better reader. But, like you, I did find ways to make things up, and if one follows that path, pretty soon what we make up sounds pretty good, and we win...is one way to put it.
My creative injury occurred in 6th grade. The art teacher picked my painting to hang in the ClothesLine Art show at Saks 5th Avenue in Paramus NJ. I was over the moon. My mom, dad and I went to the show, and there was my masterpiece! UNTIL - my mother said, the only reason your painting was chosen was because the art teacher liked me, not because it was a good painting. I was crushed, to say the least. It took until I was 50 yrs old to start honoring my creative self. I’m now 71 and do “art” almost every day.
So happy you found your way back to it, Louise ❤️❤️
Oh, Lousie, that is beyond awful! Wow, you took a major brave step, honoring your creative self. Why do people have to wound others? It makes my heart so happy that you let your artistic self, the one that has always been part of you, out to play, everyday.
It is wonderful that you are doing artwork every day. ❤️
Keep on truckin’, Louise! That is how we heal those childhood creative injuries!
👍🏽💜
Hi I have taught young children and now teach those learning to be teachers; your words resonate deeply with me .. & I adore Mary Oliver! 👍🏽💜
I live in a world of "drawing in the margins" for I teach young children. Their uninhibited wisdom has helped me heal my own creative wound. When they enter our room, I know they know it is a sanctuary of safe, a surrounding of silly, warm, loving words that "wow" at their dynamic movements, lines, love, tears, and that am always there to help them navigate Big Feelings. They in turn, gave me the strength to be "me." So let us all glitter on with our (credits to Mary Oliver) "one wild and precious lives." (Well, she says "life" but I'm sure she would approve of my slight change here.) And to the person who wounded me with, "Hmm...this is ordinary," in reference to my very first loom weaving at age 15, may you know, in some way, that I am and have always been, anything but "ordinary."
Love this, Mary! I love Mary Oliver as well! ❤️
Thank you, Susan. Oh, yes, Mary Oliver takes me into her world with her words, as do you with yours.
As a little girl I love to draw. I would draw stories and my mother would write them down in the margins. I had no idea that I had “no talent.” Elementary school was a rather miserable time for me, but I had an art teacher in fourth and fifth grade whom I had forgotten about until now. Her name was Ofra. She was kind to me and encouraged me to draw whatever I wanted. She said there was no right way to make things. I wish I could have kept her in mind for a later time. In seventh grade the girls learned knitting and sewing and the boys learned woodworking. My teacher was unable to teach me to knit so she decided to try to teach me how to crochet instead. She gave up on that idea as well since I was left handed and she did not know how to teach crochet to a left-handed person. So she sent me to the wood working shop to ask that teacher to teach me how to crochet. I was so humiliated, but that teacher did teach me how to crochet and I crocheted many things after that. Once all the girls finished their knitting projects (and me my crochet project) it was time to learn how to sew on the sewing machine. I don’t remember what we made. Maybe an apron or a skirt.I was not very good at sewing on a machine and I remember my teacher declaring that I was the worst student she had ever had and that my work looked like that of a five year old’s. Fortunately for eight grade my parents and brother and I moved away and I attended a different school where the teachers were kinder otherwise I would have been forced to spend another year in that teacher’s classroom. Nearly fifty years have passed since I had that teacher and it only recently was I able to recognize that the reason I was not able to learn was because she was not able to teach. I have poor fine motor skills so I have difficultly doing small tasks, but I have learned that I can paint, I can make collages, I can write and I have other talents. It is heartbreaking that .one person’s word said offhandedly can have such a negative impact. The reverse is also true. I have learned over the years from patients that have often said one little thing to them that I really did not think about, but that it made all the difference. Words matter!!
Makes me think of the first of the four agreements: be impeccable with your word. Such good advice for just the reasons you outline above!
I tried to play tennis in high school and the teacher said I was the worst player she had ever seen. I haven't touched a tennis racket since. Be careful what you do with your words. The stain they leave may be permanent.
Yes ! Words matter! And teachers really need to know how to use the words and kindly supportive ways! I’ve been a teacher for over 50 years and I’m training the next generation to really understand this point👍🏽💜
How I love your Mother, Dear Suleika! How I love you, Dear Suleika! Wishing all who celebrate, a very meaningful Mother's Day, and holding in mind all who grieve, perhaps in your own quiet ways, for your own very personal reasons, this Mother's Day...
Whether in celebration or in grief, you all deserve much love and kindness..
Love,
Janet
I had a creative injury in kindergarten when I didn’t follow directions. We were supposed to color geometric shapes specific colors. As I was working I decided I didn’t want to color the circle blue. I thought it would be prettier bright orange. I distinctly remember not being able to go to recess but had to try to erase the orange crayon which was nearly impossible. Tears flowed as I could hear my friends playing.
I hope you’re defiantly pulling out an orange marker to doodle in your journal today!! 🧡🧡
My kindergarten teacher was mean & as an adult, I often wonder why she even became a teacher. She embarrassed all of us equally, for different reasons, so we all pulled one another up after she aimed her anger at any one of us. At the tender age of five. I never told my own mother about it until I was an adult. My mother was naturally horrified and told me that had she known about this woman’s behavior, she would have been over at the school herself.
Hi am so sorry that a K teacher would act like that! I am teaching the next generation of teachers and making sure that they understand that they are not to inflict creative injuries on any of the children that they work with!
This is a core value of mine for sure ! 👍🏽💜
It was the principal!!1951
Yikes. What compels teachers to treat kids this way? I think it's been lack of teacher education, which leads to frustration with the process of getting squirmy little children to sit still and learn. Not understanding that some kids learn better with the squirming. And that self-expression is a very personal thing that should be respected.
My experience inspired me to become an art teacher, and I never micromanaged any child's work.
For me I had to sit in a chair at 5 as everyone marched out of auditorium and knew I had committed a terrible wrong…
brutal
With painting if I judge I’m done so I didn’t judge. The sun was shining thru my main room window, it’s 8:20 am and the leaves from my spider plant are shadows on my table. I draw them with magic marker in my diary. What a way to begin Mother’s Day! And happy I get lady judgement to be still. To this beautiful community: May you UNJUDGE yourself during this exercise. It’s a start ❤️. I’ve had to go on a lonely journey with creativity, because of no family support, but I’ve learned resourcefulness thru all this. Still would’ve preferred family support but they were
never there! Bless this Isolation Journal community! A lifeline to beauty, kindness, respect, empathy & kindness.
Yes bless this community as we encourage and send love to one another!!👍🏽💜
Cheers to all the creatives out there, and those who inspire and encourage them! Decades ago, my high school art teacher had us close our eyes, and create something out of our imagination on the paper attached to our drawing easels. So this morning, from Anne's prompt, I closed my eyes for five minutes, and chose various markers randomly and set them to paper. It was liberating, and fun. When I opened my eyes, it was definitely abstract, but I think the head of a dinosaur might have appeared somewhere in the middle of the paper!
This is so good! I’m going to have to try it!!
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Creative wounds are most often created by me. As an emotional cutter I race ahead of whatever criticism might be coming and get that first punch. Do ‘em one better by revealing the hidden fear and ridiculing myself for even having said fear. Whether it’s an artistic endeavour or in business or even my athletic pursuits for godsake—and I’m not even an athlete! I don’t swim fast enough or efficiently. I have played comparison bingo for sooo long going back to the first days in a ballet studio staring in the mirror with all the other anorexic hopefuls scrying for perfection.
Once in a peer coaching session when the old ‘what does success look like to you’ question came up and I blurted out (or my tired wise soul did) if I were successful I wouldn’t, couldn’t compare myself to anyone! So that’s it. I strive to be incomparable. I’m attempting it by creating before I consume anything! So this margins exercise is perfect for me. 🤩
PS I’m loving the Alchemy book! Saving up for a scarf or sweatshirt 💝
Keep striving 👍🏽💜
Oh, that story, Suleika! I definitely know that feeling of anticipating praise (or at least acknowledgement of creative effort) and getting something very different back.
On another note: I have been wanting to share the beginning of my 100 day journaling journey. When my book arrived, I was so excited and part of me wanted to begin immediately. But another part of me realized I didn’t want to do it alone. So, I took a chance and texted five friends/colleagues to explain the project and ask if they’d like to join me. All five said yes!!! And bought the book! Then two more friends heard about it and joined - so now there are 8 of us - six in MA, one in Minnesota, and one in Ireland! We started on May 1…
This is so amazing, Susan! I can’t wait to hear how it goes!!
Keep taking chances, Susan YEA! 👍🏽💜
i too read Bowles, Justine...all adventures.. however my 7th grade teacher encouraged my writing.. certainly no one at home did.. that blessing for me was to be curious. It is Mothers Day and I am think of my two mothers .. one was the Black caretaker at a family run hotel, where I was without family and the other my beloved Henry Sutton the gay stage manager at the theater where I volunteered.. Blessing and loving all mothers.
Yes mothers and mothers come in all shapes and forms…
Apparently, in England, it’s actually called mothering Sunday so you can be mothering and have been bothered without technically being a traditional mother. I love that idea. 👍🏽💜
Hello All. I want to thank you Suleika for a wonderful gift. The telling of your creative injuries and your mom's beautiful story had me in tears. I thought of mine own and seeing them in different eyes. And the prompt is a great way to help in this journey. I hope you have lots of rest. I am slowly enjoying the book daily. And I love the The Alchemy Fund for Girls Write Now and will share with lots. Have a peaceful day
The one that sticks with me is being told "Why don't you get a REAL job?"
I'm on a disability income - and am writing my 60th book. (And no, the books don't make me a lot of money, but it helps)
A family member said. "You should quit this writing thing and get a real job." - I explained I was permanently disabled and unable to hold down a 'real' job - but that writing was, for me, a 'real job' and I was going to keep going.
Some days, I hear that voice in my head and wonder why I keep trying. Then I look up at the screen, fall into the story, and keep going.
Interestingly enough, after reading this today, and being introduced to the term “creative injury”, I realize that this is exactly what I’ve tried to avoid for the last month or so. Fear was with me. My sister’s celebration of life took place this past Friday. I thought about writing a speech. My niece (sister’s daughter) asked me if I was still milling about it. I said, yes, still. Then one day, I messaged her and told her I wasn’t going to do it. Meanwhile, I had been writing notes about my sister all along. At some point, I remembered an IJ prompt that I had changed slightly to, “When I think of you, I remember”. This is how I began to write a letter to my sister. Still uncommitted, I wrote the night before the celebration and on the morning of. Once it was done, and I felt it had come together, I tucked it into my purse, along with a birthday card that my sister had sent to me that I wanted to read. Now I had to do it. I felt as though I had tricked myself into it. It went well and I had a few positive comments from people.
I love that you persevered—and used that prompt from the Hatch! ❤️❤️
Me too! Thank you!
Good for you to overcome your fear to honor your sister!👍🏽💜
Thank you! I’m so happy I did.