Selected pieces from diverse collections…
Surround Sound: an exercise in inclusivity
[*Note: “Are They Wake-Proof” is also available as a spoken word video on my YouTube channel, under “shorts”. “Instead” can also be found in one of my books: Giving LOVE the Last WORD: An Emotion Literate’s Lexicon.]
shawl photo: Bill Zama
shawl design: Rodger Scheibner
“Wish” text (Speak of the Ghost excerpt): Pamela Sackett
PART I:
For Crying Out Loud: her moments’ memoir in verse
In early August 2023, after having the rug pulled out from under my nimble feet—my diminishing ease of mobility—I found myself employing walking poles in the house. Unplugging from writing and producing for my nonprofit, my obsession, Emotion Literacy Advocates (ELA), I said to myself: “I will not be writing again. I have nothing else to say.” The amount of material I had created and produced, on behalf of ELA’s version of self and social awareness for over three decades, overwhelmed me. As did what my life had become: almost all virtual.
I was keeping up with closest friends and family members through lengthy and unusually frequent phone visits. My husband generously provided much, not the least of which was food that he shopped for, prepared and served.
A friend suggested I write about the situation and I said: “Maybe, but not until I surmount it.” One day I awoke to a thought and it said: for crying out loud…that’s the name of the next piece you will write. Since I, literally, do nothing of the sort (and had only just recently had that fact brought to my undivided attention by a myofascial bodyworker), the title struck me. And, “for crying out loud” conjured a memory of adults I grew up around who used that phrase in exclamatory fashion. Those voices were too stark to ignore. One day, not long after that moment, I picked up my pen and, in my signature stream of consciousness, spontaneous style, I hand-wrote, day by day, the spoken narrative contained within these pieces. The visuals and the audio production were soon to follow.
Part VII:
Destined by Design: choosing rhythm & rhyme
As I apprehensively dance with chronic pain, upwards of two years at this point, I seek in this piece to expand my orientation, my vision. My expression helps me reach into and through the trappings of fear, associations, habitual responses, the known, the ingrained—that I have learned through mindbody recognition—all figure prominently into the nature of my waxing and waning ease of mobility. I yearn to broaden the canvas unto which I tread, literally and symbolically. Intuition has always guided my heart and head. I need it now to extend further into and through, to the other side of fight-flight-freeze mode—more bravely, more broadly, more confidently—more than ever.
Part VI:
All Colors Speak: a missing link
In this part, I wrestle again with the survival brain as it allies with consensus reality protocol, characteristically hampering open-ended ways of thinking and approaching conflict. Social creature that I am, that we all are—whether we socialize or not—I find black-and-white ways of regarding life experience to be deeply disquieting, especially when it comes to pain and nuanced facets not tied to an immediate need for a life-or-death decision-making process. Quick fixes have their place. More often than not, I tend towards a closer, more in-depth, inclusive relationship to the full-spectrum mystery, movement and mélange of inner and outer orbits, with a watchful eye on how to fine-tune my ways and the ways we creatures coexist and communicate.
Part V:
Who’s in Charge: what rings?
I have observed that vulnerability—the state of being we all share—is quite unpopular and its absence is feigned by way of an illusion of special exemption. So many veils, so little time. A year after the pandemic hit, I stuck my vulnerability in a closet and immersed myself in an opportunity to work with visual artists across the globe. Writing and producing kept that closet closed until my mobility shrank to a hobble and my vulnerability came tumbling. Not one to be tongue-tied, my newly advanced state of vulnerability, out and about, very much alive and kicking, undeniably ticking, I speak and sing my grievances, my inquiry.
Part IV:
The Debt: may I carry you?
In my quest to leave no stone unturned, I plumbed the depths yet again. Though my long-time practice of language-ARTifying my life experiences can be quite telling and instructive, I realized there was way more to the story. Much of that story has its own language: a visceral system of correspondence—an especially pertinent system for pre-verbal stages of development—quite outside conceptual range. This part documents my “sensing” travels with a few signposts along the way.
Part III:
Righteous Rematch: talking back while mad to be had
The battle continues with me and my shadow, grappling down the avenue. Here, in this piece, I take my brain to task and not for the first time. Apparently, it’s not enough for me to speak out, again and again, I have to don SCUBA gear.
Part II:
As If The Other: vying for vision
What to say when the realization strikes that the most formidable battleship is charging you from within, and that its cargo is comprised of your very own—plus worldwide—ways and dilemmas? Yes, my existence is undeniably uniquely singular…my context…AND my one-of-a-kind synthesis of life experiences are all shot through with the collective unconscious—a non-exclusive conglomeration of selfhoods. I am alone, a single soul unto myself, woven into the web of the all of every one, every thing. What to do? Remain curious and extend the olive branch to myself, my process and to identifiable nooks and crannies within our interdependent society.
PART I:
For Crying Out Loud: her moments’ memoir in verse
In early August 2023, after having the rug pulled out from under my nimble feet—my diminishing ease of mobility—I found myself employing walking poles in the house. Unplugging from writing and producing for my nonprofit, my obsession, Emotion Literacy Advocates (ELA), I said to myself: “I will not be writing again. I have nothing else to say.” The amount of material I had created and produced, on behalf of ELA’s version of self and social awareness for over three decades, overwhelmed me. As did what my life had become: almost all virtual.
I was keeping up with closest friends and family members through lengthy and unusually frequent phone visits. My husband generously provided much, not the least of which was food that he shopped for, prepared and served.
A friend suggested I write about the situation and I said: “Maybe, but not until I surmount it.” One day I awoke to a thought and it said: for crying out loud…that’s the name of the next piece you will write. Since I, literally, do nothing of the sort (and had only just recently had that fact brought to my undivided attention by a myofascial bodyworker), the title struck me. And, “for crying out loud” conjured a memory of adults I grew up around who used that phrase in exclamatory fashion. Those voices were too stark to ignore. One day, not long after that moment, I picked up my pen and, in my signature stream of consciousness, spontaneous style, I hand-wrote, day by day, the spoken narrative contained within these pieces. The visuals and the audio production were soon to follow.