Travel Writing

Considering it's the holiday season, I figured that travel or holiday writing is the way to go.
We all have some quirky holiday experience we often share with people. It would be great to read about yours.

What can you do?
Write about an experience that stands out in your mind about a holiday or time of travel. Take us on the journey with you so we feel like we were there too.

An example

Barcelona Girls

I think someone is yelling at us in Spanish, I whisper in a groggy voice to my girlfriends. We are in a one bedroom apartment in Barcelona. It is about 10 in the morning and we have not long been asleep after another night of hedonism in the vibrant, party city. The girls are apprehensive about investigating the source of the voice. It’s quite angry, bordering on violence. I go outside onto the balcony to inspect. Our balcony looks onto other balconies separated by a thoroughfare. Below are shop fronts and people walking by and riding pushbikes, chatting to each other.  A man is waving his hands about, irate, yelling out the same incomprehensible sounds. By this time the girls have joined me on the balcony.

Our ignorance only serves to fuel his anger. He disappears and soon we hear thumping on our door. Jen runs into the bedroom and hides in the wardrobe, Michelle locks herself in the bathroom and Rach toughs it out with me. We hear scuffling outside as more men join our distressed neighbour. We presume it’s the police and freak out even more, despite our innocence. Jen rings the owners of the apartment, attempting to tell them what is happening, but their English is not good all of a sudden. She informs them that the police have been called and the phone drops dead.

The man hurries back downstairs and confronts us again on the balcony. A lodger in the apartment block joins the fray with her dog on a leash and begins to translate for us. She tells us that, as we expected, the police have been called and that our air conditioning is leaking and dripping down onto the entrance of the man’s shop. Right, now we understand. A Caucasian man appears in the balcony next to ours. He has dreadlocks and looks like he’s been out partying all night like we have been. ‘He just called you stupid bitches,’ he tells us blankly.

The police bang on the door and we open it this time. They inform us that an infringement notice will be issued to the owner, who incidentally is not licenced to accommodate tourists or travellers. Someone rushes to find our receipt.  We are frantic now that we will have to leave. Our time in Barcelona had just begun and none of us wanted it to be cut short. There were barmen to continue flirting with, bar front display boxes to pose in, paella to be eaten and dancing to the wee hours of the morning to be done. The police reassure us that we can stay. We all let out a collective sigh of relief and laugh in a kind of shocked excitement.

Poetry Writing

This week I am inspired by beauty. I see beauty and love in everything and everyone. And so it felt fitting to focus on a genre of writing that is a pure expression of our hearts.

What can you do?
I invite you to write a poem about beauty and love, whatever that is for you.

An example
Below is a poem I wrote about my time in Nepal and India. The memories still hold a deep sense of knowing about life and acceptance of the beauty it brings us in the most profoundly unexpected ways.

Patan Bridge

For months I have crossed Patan Bridge,
Stopping to watch the tent houses,
Reflecting off the liquid mud,
Like a smudged painting.
Above the rooftops, mountains cut
Like a scalpel through the plastic haze,
wrapping around the city’s rim.

For months I have watched women worshipping

Water thrown into the air with their washing,
Wind blowing sails into their saris,
Blurring the mundane,

Children clicking tongues

Sliding along the water.

On this day, men encircle the flame, blazing

from the concrete slab underneath the bridge,

Struggling for breath with each step,

Pushing each other forward, while

A baby is wrapped in linen
Tied like a gift with rope
And attached to a brick

 

Until later, in the boat, rowed to the middle

Handfuls of ash thrown like seeds in a barn yard 
Fall like dust onto the surface of the river,
Dissolving the image of the village,
As the baby is lowered like an anchor
Into the river.

Stream of consciousness writing

What is it?

For this type of writing you express what is in your subconscious through the seemingly random collection of words and ideas that come out of your mind onto the page.  The words flow without judgement or editing for ‘correctness' of grammar or expression.  Virginia Wolfe was renowned for stream of consciousness writing.

This week’s writing was inspired by a suggestion from a friend and writer during one of our writing sessions to write about 21/12/2012 – the end of the Mayan Calendar, and what that means for us and consciousness.

What can you do?

Write for about 10 minutes using your stream of consciousness about 21/12/2012. You might like to consider what you think it is about, how it will affect you and other people and your attitude to the hype.

An example

Your belly has grown full, filled with the watery waves of a new dawn. The gentle pains of healing and release of how we have been treading through the forests of our lives, scratches bare, insides exposed, dripping fluids. A growing pain, gauging your eyes out, messing with your mind, no longer able to rely on past longings of life as it should be. Into the bliss of lighting radiating purity, love in the thump thump of our hearts, free in exuberance. A glow across the globe, lighting into the cracks, opening up the heart centre. Shoooo, shooing, swishing, growing brighter with our imagination, more lovely. Hands joining, fingers clasping, skin to skin, speaking through our energy, rather than words. Knowing in our beings, believing the messages within and above and so is below, and acting on our intuition with wonder and trusting.

Journal: Pillow

A dear friend and I went to a meditation group the other day, specifically for women. When you enter the gentle space you are supposed to embrace the spirit of quietness and compassion. On the floor were rectangle blankets arranged in a circle. On these blankets lay one or two square pillows, the type you would find in India or buy in Tree of Life. My friend and I found our spot and prepared ourselves for meditation. I was immediately drawn to a pink velvety pillow on my friend’s blanket, which I hurriedly grabbed as I mumbled a request to have it. I made a huge presumption that that would be okay for her, but it wasn’t. She frowned in disbelief and scanned the room for an equally appealing pillow, found one (not as sensual and soft) and swapped it for the one I had given her. I sat on my blanket smiling and half laughing through my embarrassment. I immediately knew that I had taken us both back to our childhood when friends and siblings take from us what they want, disregarding our desires. That pillow was a symbol of beautiful things and feeling worthy of having them. And I had taken that from her. When my friend went to the toilet I swapped the pillow back.

Journaling

To begin our writing journey I have been inspired by 'short cuts' or random extracts from Helen Garner's journal published in the Sydney Morning Herald on November 3, 2012. The article contained short snippets from her journal about everyday things like conversations with her grandchildren and the waitress at a cafe, catching a train, watching a DVD or listening to a CD. What touched me was how Garner was a passive observer, yet active participant in life, insightfully appreciating the moment. Apparently she used to burn her journals (and I have done this for years) thinking they were boring. Yet her journals inspired her first novel MONKEY GRIP.

So there you have it. As Paul Kelly says, 'from little things, big things grow!'

What can you do?

So take heed of a great writer and reflect on the moments in your life. Write about a moment in any day in your life that struck you as interesting in some way. Post your journal entry in the comment box below.

An example

Below is a short journal entry about my daily walks.

Just about every day I walk through the caravan park, nodding hello to the permanent residents and holiday makers, stroll across the bridge over the ever changing river that leads me onto the sandy pathway to the great expanse of our beach line. One of my favourite parts of this journey is crossing the bridge, especially at high tide, as all sorts of marine life glide through the jade crystal water - a sting ray and her baby, schools of fish big and small, pelicans dreaming and occasionally playful dolphins.

On this day the water was aglow with hundreds of aqua blue jelly fish pulsating up stream in a collective rhythm. It was such a surprising delight as it was a first for me. I saw a couple approaching the bridge in a canoe and I blurted out with over excitement for them to look out for the jellyfish. I was deflated by their subdued reply that yes they were good, but not good for fishing. Of course I realised that the novelty of seeing this wonder had probably worn off for the couple after they past a steady stream of the jellyfish, although I was perplexed by their response. Did they mean that the jellyfish kept other fish away or that they were a nuisance to catch? I pondered how differently people see the world.

These jellyfish stayed around for several weeks, although not in as plentiful supply. I was more likely to see them washed up on the beach shore, upside down in what I presumed was an undignified manner for them, with their bunch of gherkin like tentacles flopped onto the sand and protective hoods inside out with the sun slowly fading their glistening and glowing gum like bodies.