Café Discovery: writing workshop

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

Once upon a time, in a land far away, I participated in a writer’s workshop at a Women’s Project Retreat.  A large part of my reason for being there was the attempt to become an accepted member of the Arkansas women’s community.  Many of the attendees wished I were not there.

We were given the first phrase of the beginning of a story and asked to finish that beginning.  You are invited to do the same.

The first story:  

The second story:  

The following are my efforts, the first one in prose, while the second one became a poem.

And there is a story that goes with them, a story which has never actually appeared in anything but a comment before.  I’m appending it to the end to make it easier to find in the future.

“We called you in here because we can’t let you keep saying what you do,” said the man at the Bureau of Religious Thought.

My mind reeled at his words.  “Why not? I speak the truth.”

“That doesn’t matter,” he said.  “Your words, Truth™ or not, are dangerous.”

“They are only dangerous to those who don’t know the truth,” I replied.

“You don’t get it, do you?  Truth™ is a commodity, packaged and sold in our churches, not something that just anyone can invent.”

“I’m not inventing it,” I said.  “The truth is there for anyone to discover.  It’s free, though it does come with a cost.”  

“No. I’m sorry, but you are wrong.  We own Truth™.  You can check out our trademark registration.  Whatever it is you wish to say, we don’t really care.  But you can’t call it Truth™.”

Art Link Up on the Roof Rain on the Roof The sound of rain on the roof reminded her that she needed to hurry. It wouldn’t do to be stuck out here alone in the storm. She remembered the days of isolation… of deprivation… of loneliness… those days when the roof would leak and the fire wouldn’t put out enough heat to warm even her hands… those days when turning to her neighbors was not possible because they universally detested her difference. Now they voiced acceptance of her and would let her visit when the storms came. But they still didn’t understand who she was or what it meant to be her. They would open their doors during a storm, but they still wouldn’t help fix the damn roof. She was still different. –Robyn Elaine Serven –March, 1998.

The following is an excerpt from the July/August, 1996 special issue of Ms., the one with Xena on the cover.  Suzanne Pharr wrote an article entitled Taking the High Road.  She also was interviewed.  The first question and its answer is below.

How do we root out our own racism or homophobia or prejudice against poor people?

One way is to examine the place in yourself where you have experienced discrimination and imagine someone else there.  If you’ve experienced sexism or had a hard time advancing at work, you might examine that closely and ask yourself, Could this be how a person of color feels in terms of discrimination?  Could this be how a lesbian or gay man feels in terms of discrimination?  We need a politics of empathy: If this is what it feels like to be me, isn’t it possible that this is similar to the experiences of other people?  What also breaks through is hearing other people’s stories.  I cannot tell you how important this is.

May I tell you a story?  For 15 years the Women’s Project has had a women’s retreat in Arkansas.  This year for the first time a transgendered person came, a post-operative male-to-female lesbian.  On the first day, we sat in a circle and introduced ourselves, and she said she would like to create a workshop on transsexuality.  Only then did everybody realize she was a transsexual.  All hell broke loose the next day.  One lesbian couple came up to several of us who had organized the retreat and said: “How dare you let him stay in a dorm where our daughters are?”  We said: “We stand on 15 years of fighting for sexual freedom.  You have to deal with this…”  Personally, I love femmy men and butch women because they break barriers.  We have got to bust up gender roles.

Anyway, the next night this transgendered woman got up and told us about her life, what it felt like to be at a university in central Arkansas having no community, no intimacy, her only contact with other transgendered people occurring online.  Eighty to 90 percent of the women in that room listened and changed their minds.  They came up to us and said, “You did the right thing.”  This is an example of the power of story.

Stories must be built into our political work.  We live in a time where people feel so disconnected and isolated.  We have to speak that.  The Right does that.  They say, “We will give you a home in this church or this program and help you feel together by naming all these things as the enemy.”  They preach the myth of scarcity combined with the mood of mean-spiritedness:  there’s not enough to go around and someone else is taking something from you.  We have to speak to people’s better selves, find ways to make people in our communties feel better.  Let’s foster generosity and inclusion.