Wacky and Wild

Hello, ladies and gents! I'm about to head out of town for a few days on a tiny vacation with my family, but I wanted to leave you an entertaining journal activity to work on before I left. This idea I've drawn from an absolutely charming book I received as a gift called The Sacred Sisterhood of Wonderful Wacky Women by Suzy Toronto (be sure to check it out at http://www.suzytoronto.com/ ). In the book, Toronto has created beautiful and bright illustrations of "wacky" women without faces (to ensure that you can picture what the woman would look like for yourself). To top it off, accompanying each drawing is a sweet poem describing the character and personality of that particular woman. They are each based off of friends the author actually knows, but that everyone can identify a particular friend with.

To give an example - the poem "She Who Has a Great Attitude" begins:

"The way she sees it,

If you want rainbows,

You gotta have rain.

So she pulls up her bootstraps

In the storm

And goes out looking

For puddles to play in."

(Here is a link to the illustration and full text of the poem - http://www.3wackywomen.com/files/1617020/uploaded/WD8104.jpg_

It is now your job to think of the friends you surround yourself and their wonderfully wacky traits. Male or female, pick one or even a few to write your own poems about. Do not be concerned with the form of your poetry, but focus instead on vividly describing the characteristics that make this friend unique to you. Title your poem(s) "She/He who is....." and finish the title appropriately. For an even more creative experience, make your own wacky illustration of what this friend looks like. After you have finished, write a short description of how you came to know your friend, some of the things you share, and why this person is important to you.

Good luck and best writing!

~Cookie

Return to the Light

Hello there, anyone who is still around! I haven't made an appearance here since August, but I guess it seemed to be a shorter span of time to me. I apologize for the lack of new updates. These months have been filled with pain and a disinterest in expressing myself. My personal journal suffered. This blog suffered, and I apologize for leaving you without new outlets for expression. I have been dealing with deaths and major illnesses in the family, and I even recently underwent surgery to remove my gallbladder which had had me in excruciating pain for months. It has been a struggle, but now I find myself wishing to return to this blogging world and my little journal topics project. Pain has been the major factor for my absence, so let's start there for this journal topic.

When I was about to have my surgery, a professor told me a curious thing that has stuck with me. "It may be hurting badly now, but just think, you'll never remember this pain" he said. I looked at him quite puzzled and asked him to explain. "Think about it," he said, "your senses can all reproduce exact memories. You'll always know what grandma's apple pie smells like in you memory, and you can always recall the exact taste of your favorite meal...stuff like that...but no matter how hard you try to remember, your body won't allow you to recall that feeling of pain." Now that my surgery is over and I'm healing up, I've tried to remember what the pain felt like before and after. I know where the pain was and that it felt like it was stabbing, but I can't recall the exact feeling or intensity. The soreness after surgery was bad, but I really can't recall the feeling of it.

Today I want you to focus on the topic of pain. Why might it be that our bodies don't allow us to remember pain as intensely as we remember other feelings produced by our senses? What is the most pain you've ever been in? Describe how you think the pain felt then, and also describe how it feels to try and recall that pain.

Good luck and best writing!

~Cookie