Writing into Self Care

Real, genuine self care is finding ways to make meaning within our lives—swirling, chaotic, baffling, replete with unfeigned grief and petty grievances, searingly beautiful, riven by misunderstandings, most notably within our own chests, and fleetingly rushing past. The “atmospheric river” of it all.

Stilling the carousel long enough to catch our breaths doesn’t mean the impossible—we can’t wrench back an imaginary brake on an unstoppable force. It’s more like reaching for a chubby hand as it whirls around. Dipping a cup into that river that flows by us whether we step in it or sandbag it, so why not take a quick sip?

We know that without expression there’s only repression and/or depression. But what do we do when we have precious few minutes of non-distraction and our clay masks are dried from disuse? How can we be “just” human, not an aspirational Cyborg version of ourselves, and still visit this far off country called Self Care?

Rest and leisure are important components, but the most accessible self care is woven in as much as possible into our daily lives, not hours blocked off (that so rarely are). Here’s a case for writing our way into self care.

First, no one needs to write in order to make meaning, definitely not.

However: scribbling on a pad (or iPad) uses skills we already have. Rather than having to buy paint and canvases or learn a computer program, we can stake words around feelings, fence them in for a moment—since like ranch animals, they aren’t naturally contained for long.

A disclaimer: multiple times most days I text and talk about writing. I matriculated from two graduate writing programs and, more recently, trained to be a facilitator in a non-academic method. My work days are spent editing other people’s stories and holding classes to generate words on the page. This gives me inroads to help others but these skills never fully “set” or “dry out.” Meaning-making is an expert- and authority-free zone, thankfully. It’s a gut feeling, and we all have those.

Second, no one needs to be an editor or a graduate of anything to use (and by use I mean exploit selfishly) writing to make meaning for ourselves, definitely not.

I still don’t easily know how to explain what I mean, even though I want to encourage everyone to write into self care. Here’s how I explained it to myself (another definition of writing) this time, for this piece:

I wrote the word “matriculate” which is not common for me. Once the letters landed on the page, I realized I didn’t know exactly what the word meant or how close to “mother” (alma mater) it was. Wily Latin! Matricula, diminutive of *matrix, *means “list” or “registered” and has more to do with being enrolled in a current state of learning, than being mothered—though earlier meanings refer to female animals kept for the purposes of breeding. (Did your mind just veer into Handmaids territory? Mine too.)

Mothering reminds me that true self care is expressed in acts of re-parenting ourselves, modeling the supportive, loving attributes of that time and of the people in charge; healing the ways they fell short as all-too humans.

So to write we can simply lean into our human-ness, our daily lives, our memories, and our imaginations. Cleaning, work, childcare, cooking.

Beyond the homemade chicken soup of a few minutes of leisure, some concrete action or prompt is essential. That’s where the list or registering comes in. Humans do this naturally: we collect and collate sensory details, feelings in their transitory amoeba morphing, and connect them in sequences.

We are narrative machines. A blessing and our kryptonite. We can spin out stories through flimsy or projected assumptions and create conflict or distance where there was none. But we can also write stories to lower ourselves, rung by rung, into the river to pan for meaning and to alchemize details of the everyday into insight, wisdom, healing, even transcendence.

So we’ll set a timer and take a few minutes to register something in our Notes app. I mean register in the lowest value sense: in fact I simply mean “sense,” allowing for reverberations without the forced effort of banging. Much easier to experience than to explain!

A mode, a worry, a hope, a moment of redemption. We can write in the style of a grocery list, replacing food items with clothing we wish our child would pick up off their floor, a How to Manual about how to change an air purifier filter that can veer metaphysical (or not), a recipe for a complicated or familiar dish replaced with the steps of how to achieve something we have no idea how to tackle. A list of office supplies on our desks, what’s outside our window, or something fully imaginary, equalizing the fictionalized and “from memory” since that divide is just as surreal in our current world.

I also mean “register” as a barely conscious action. Giving ourselves a few minutes of suspension—existing as the watery beings we are—balances the stark (un)relief of how helpless and frightened and fractured we might feel. Tuned into the pulsing of our blood, our body does its mechanics without our having to ask, so we too can be aware of without being beset by the world’s ills. Inside our lives and slightly outside of them. Sensing the world in detail, but canted at an angle, slanted, playground slides into our hearts. Real but more ours to ease us into becoming more us.

If you’re interested in more spaces to write into self care, you’re welcome to join me in my weekly ongoing class here. If you’re interested in a container geared toward a longer project, I’m currently teaching a five month incubator and will start an eight week class in March.