Day 65 – A writing hangover

Day 65 – I’ve been thinking a lot about vulnerability the last few days.  Vulnerability, truth, and fiction – or in this case, poetry.  As I keep saying (although I’m not sure I’ve been saying it here), making “art” is usually a process of encountering the “other” – of allowing oneself to meet and be met, even with the other within.  And of multiplicity which is always a part of life.  I couldn’t really write yesterday.  The poem, A palette of grief, from day 64 – was such an encounter for me and left me with a writing hangover.

 

The great thing was that I remembered that I wanted/needed there to be a way in which I “showed” and not just “told” about what it is I am trying to say.  I want to talk about the power of art to help us know ourselves as clinicians, and to meet our clients – but I also don’t want to bog down the piece of writing with my own story. 

 

I showed my poem to a friend, and she reminded me that there are sometimes the themes that come through are meaningful not just to the writer but to others as well – she generalized the words and it made me feel much better.

 

I’ve been thinking about autoethnography as a research method, and of “performance autoethnography.” Meanwhile – this space is still a place to put my raw work out… hopefully, it will turn into a few solid academic pieces of writing.

 

In the meanwhile, the image for today is another collage made at the high school during my last day.

 

Ellis, Carolyn; Adams, Tony E. & Bochner, Arthur P. (2010). Autoethnography: An Overview [40 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 12(1), Art. 10, http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1101108.