Poetry & Art Therapy Column, Sept/Oct/Nov 2004
A BodyWrites! Experience
Note
from Kara:
In our BodyWrites!
class,
we offer many writing and
expressive arts ideas to
prompt more mindful experiences
while creating your art.
I recently had the amazing
pleasure of doing an online
exchange of this class
with Ms. Pat Butler. On
the second day of class,
I sent a couple writing
exercise ideas. The following
is a copy of the exercise
idea itself -- and then
below that is Pat's wonderful
response!! I'm humbled
to be able to connect with
talented and insightful
writers like Pat through
our Kota classes. And I'm
so very grateful to you,
Pat, that you were willing
to share this with our
readers! Many thanks to
you. And for everyone reading
this, enjoy it -- and then
try your hand at writing
your own version!! Have
fun!! Explore!
Exercise
3, Day 2 of BodyWrites!
Make Sense of Age
(many thanks to Nancy Talley
for her inspiration on
the
creation of this exercise!)
Experience your age through your senses? What do you look like, sound like, smell like, taste like, feel like at birth; when you are 2 years old; 5 years old; 10; 20; 30; 40; 50; 60; 70; 80; 90; 100? Try making this an actually body exercise. What was it like to gestate? To be born out of a warm womb into the world of air and light and sensations? To pull yourself up the first time? To crawl? To walk with those tentative first steps? To walk confidently? To skip? To run? To dance? What does it feel like to walk when you are 90? How do things change in your body and attitude at your 50th birthday? Explore the past, present, and future with this.
Response to Exercise 3
by Pat Butler
I am conceived. What do I look like, a colon: two cells, swirling around a big page. I smell like amniotic fluid, I taste salty, I feel slippery. I am an egg, as slippery as an egg. I sound like the act of creation
I am born. I am still slippery, but not like a 3 min. timed egg. A little form and structure is giving shape to my yolk. I am green not yellow, I like green eggs and ham, Sam I AM! I smell like fluids of my mother, like those greeny black fluids. Green eggs and overfried ham, Sam I Am. I taste salty, I make a scream but it sounds like a squeek to you
I am 2
I am a wobbly duckling
waddling along. Little
chubby feet hit that floor
and pick up particles of
dust that I will stop and
examine later. Little
toes that jamb into everything
and hurt mightily. Little toe
jambs into
door jambs. Little wispy hair
flying away from her head with
the smell of
Johnson's baby shampoo. Little
baby smell, smell of little,
diapery smell,
biscuit smell, the smell of biscuits
and milk in her mouth. Congestion
smell, little ones always
have colds, completely
vulnerable to all the
demonic microbes sent to infect
them and them us and us to drag
our slumpy
carcasses off to work, so tired,
so tired, felled by the tininess
of tiniest
tinyness. All this subterfuge
but I am two years old and exploring
and my
thumbs and fingers and toes go
where ever they want and find
things mostly
miniscule things that tickle
and pink and smell and choke
and taste--I taste
like talcum powder. My mother
has sprayed me. I feel like the
smooth skin
of an olive.
I sound like cartoon. I look like a commercial for diapers.
I am 5
I am in a red dress and smell like a flower, fresh and dainty.
I feel like a petal.
I sound like silence
I taste like a bit of salt on a good crust of bread.
I'm losing touch with myself
I am 10.
I look like a stick
I sound like a tree
I smell like cheap perfume for little girls, but it only lasts about 10 minutes before it dissipates.
I taste like a loaf of bread, no salt.
I feel like a rubber hose
I dance like a doll
I am 15 years old.
I look like a clown in a bright blue dress with yellow polka dots, but it is a pretty hip dress in a pretty funky cultural time. The end of culture as we knew it. The overthrow of all sorts of value, the total and utter rejection of the feminine. Look at Tippy Hedren in 'The Birds" and then tell me we haven't lost something.
I sound like a girl. Giggling way too much or whispering in closet phone call conversations with Diane Zully. This is how desperate I was for privacy.
I smell like an ad for Yardley, lavender toilet water. Delicate and scented, but again, not for long. But even when the bottle is empty I keep it a long time, because it is beautiful. Lovely long slinky green and lavendar stripes, trimmed in white. Lovely. I taste like a bit of Yardley too. I taste like a violet candy.
I feel like a rubbery sort of gold ball that you can hold in your hands and de-stress yourself with. I dance like a Courreges girl, white boots and flailing hair, and tortoise shell glasses that don't go with anything although they are the style.
I am 16.
I look the same, only older, more meatloafy, more brown colors coming into my wardrobe as I am increasingly distressed and depressed and no one notices but my mom who slams me with condamnation and rejection, horrified at my choice of colors, but never asking me why. Still pushing red down my throat, which I now wouldn't be caught dead in for all the tea in China. I smell like Ambush, which Anne Schmidt has introduced me too. And Taboo. We can't decide which one we like better, but she definitely has more class than me, because I didn't even know these things existed. Their bottles are a rubbery sort of plastic, funnel-y shaped and a beautiful coral color, at least for Ambush. I forget what Taboo came in. They are probably collector's bottles now. Most likely her mother got them for her, at Lord and Taylor's in Manhasset, where it was fashionable to go. Or Gertz. In Hicksville. Maybe any department store. I taste like what? A hot buttercream, coconut oil bathing beauty full of the taste of sun and salt and sand and Johnson's baby oil mixed with iodine with which we smeared ourselves and fried in that deadly beastly hot sun, whose heat I can only take the barest seconds of now. I sound like nothing as I am talking less and less, retreating into my browns and depression and coat closet with only Diane Zully to talk to.
I am 20, rigid with fear
and panic, although you
wouldn't hear those words
from me. I am in college.
I look like a lost bit
of panic a cloth torn
from its many Technicolor coat.
A cloth fluttering in the winds
of change.
A cloth coughing and retching
from many drunken nights on Boone's
farm apple
wine. A cloth drowning itself
in as sure a suicidal run as
ever. I never
suspected. I sought annihilation.
I was a lemming running off the
cliff
with my classmates, I could no
more resist them than I could
live without
them. If they rejected me there
was no life left anywhere left
to live on
the planet, so I must as well
run with them even if we run
off a cliff into
the sea. I sound like a weasel
or a mole or a terrified mouse
running
through a labyrinth, desperately
seeking escape from the jaws
of the
predator clampling down around
me. Agh! Running, screaming,
fleeing, save
me save me save me. Somebody
come and get me, I'm falling
catch me. I
smell like Boone's Farm apple
wine, I smell like death, I smell
like
sulphur. I smell like the fumes
of marijuana going up all around
me, though
I cannot smoke it myself. I somehow
know I will die if I start, and
I need
to wait till I can survive smoking
it before I start. I need to
know one
person in this world loves me
and that love will keep me tied
to the earth,
and then I can attempt suicide.
Slow death.
I am ready at 25
I take my first puff,
holding on to the ledge
of your love. You are safe,
though you are leading
me in self-destruction.
But I think I can find
my
way back. I know I can. I know
some limits. Somehow I can. I
can find my
way back I do find my way back
although perhaps it is only a
grace I am
receiving. But I remember in
those breakneck runs in cars
around mountain
curves drunk as all skunk that
I knew I would live and no matter
how dogged
the enemy's pursuit of me was
you were not going to let me
die like that
before living. You were not going
to let me die. The smoke hurts
my lungs
tremendously and tastes like
nothing but feels like burning.
I gag and spit
but feel it standing in my nostrils
and know it is entering my brain
and all
will be well soon. I feel the
buzz. I am sleepy but flying
in an airplane.
I am sleeping in the Marinos
bedroom, surrounded by Hummel
figures and
plastic and wondering what I'm
doing here. I taste the bitter
tobacoo of
it. I see Donna happy that I've
joined her here in this place
of death,
cuz then it makes it safer for
her too. Here I am for you, Donna,
and I
know you feel satisfaction but
it is not good for either of
us and I know
that. I sound like a person who
is completely disconnected from
her heart.
I taste like Oreo cookies, inhaled
while high. I feel like a piece
of
cordorouy, the color I am wearing
tonight, the dark green with
the stain
right at my chest. Astonishing
wood button. A perfect fit a
centimeter too
small, esp. around the bust.
But way cool otherwise. I still
feel pretty
rigid.
I am 25 years old and I smell like pot. I sound like disenfranchised youth. I am complaining and angry. I am a muddle and lost. I am able to divert everything into what's wrong at the job, unaware of what is to come because of what is wrong with me. But somewhere I am dimly aware-what is wrong? I don't know these motions of the soul. I experience them as deep movements in murky waters-things in the sea I'm afraid of. I taste like the oils of cannabis. Like the bitter waters of Marah. I am a bitter wormwood glass of absinthe. I feel taut and stricken, a thin bark on an old tree.
I am 27-28. I am slipping down the slippery slope and I don't know it. I know it. I slip. All it takes is a moment, a touch, and the match is lit. I look like a freefall, with long hair, a blue blazer with no buttons and a parrot pin in the lapel, khaki pants, a cranberry Indian shirt and a Siamese cat. I sound like the strike of the match. I smell like its sulphur, and taste like its acrid smoke, which combines with the Indian incense to make me nauseous. I feel like a spark ignited, like a life going up in flames.
I am 30 and sobered up. How did I get this old already and have nothing to show for it? I look like I'm waking up from a hangover. I feel old, too late, off the beat, like a failure. I have failed this part of my life. Though I have come to Christ-how is it that this is the first time I'm mentioning that? Should this scare me? I remember that beautiful house in Woodstorck? I think we went once, and it was a Jewish woman, lovely, refined, elegant in her elderliness. What would she say to me? I am moving away.I am leaving Long Island. I am moving to Woodstock. I am moving to Hartford. I sound like I've understood something, like a wind blowing, bringing in a new thing. I wake. I taste like outside. I smell like fresh air.
I am 40. I look like I've
made it-a certain success,
the same khaki pants.
Able to dress but unable to pull
my style together-still. I look
Irish. I
am wearing an Irish T-shirt to
work, the construction site.
I am not
growing up yet. I'm yearning
for a significant birthday experience
and I'm
getting frustrated, cuz it's
not happening. I feel frustrated-till
Saturday, when Donna pulls
off the best possible surprise
birthday party. I
sound like a grump. I smell like
Artistry products, and nothing
worse, cuz
I'm using Mennen deodorant, which
I begrudgingly concede is the
best, as Mom
always said. I hate to agree
with her on anything, but she's
right, so it
might as well be about deodorant.
I taste like Bath-therapy, which
I enjoy
ever since Donna gave it to me
umpteen birthdays ago. I think
I was Donna's
cannibal compulsion-she couldn't
get enough of me and she wanted
to eat me
alive. I couldn't set enough
boundaries.
I am 50. I am filled with grief, but healing. The year anniversary of Dad's death.
I look terrible. "Boy have you aged!" Celine exclaimed tactfully, on seeing me shortly after my father's death. Boy did I feel that. Knowing how true it was. I sound like a tomb, like my father's absence, a heavy silence, except with my sister, with whom thankfully I can share every particle of what I'm experiencing in this loss. Thank God for her. I don't think I can ever socialize again. I smell like the acrid air we lived in, having converted the house into a hospice zone. I taste still the rarified air of the oxygen tanks, the cotton balls, the antiseptics and lotions and potions and anger and salt of endless tears. I feel like flinging all those spaghetti wires of medical machines right off the balcony. I feel again my excess weight, perhaps more than can be accounted for by the excess weight.
I am 52. All is well. I am living a life I love. Almost perfect, in spite of many things I would fill it with: a husband, family, a newer car, perhaps another Siamese kitty or a Jack Russell terrier or a pug. But there are flowers on my balcony with the wash and it is a summer day not to be beat. I have spent time with my friends today, I have sold a story, I am writing poems. I've found my vocation and I sound like the sound of yes. I look happy; and I'm smiling, and there is only the slightest trace of anger lines and pain lines, leftover from the car accident. No more khakis for me: but a gray miniskirt and lots more dresses, cuz I've come to terms with my wardrobe, my mother and my femininity. The laptop is hot on my bare knees. I smell like the perfume Catherine gave me two birthdays ago: the one in the orange bottle shaped like lips. I taste like an After Eight Mint, refreshing, like all the water I drink. I feel like an excited teenager, trapped in the car where her parents have put her, and the car is moving slower than she'd like. I am resigned to never having my 20 year old body back, but not so resigned that I won't continue to work this weight from taking full possession of me. I move a little slower, but more methodically more thoughtfully, not the frenzied activism of even 5 years ago, but the thoughtful lumber of a poet collecting poems from the air and butterflies flitting about on the breeze. I choose life, over and over and over again. Thank you, Lord of Life, and please keep it coursing through me.
I am 60.
I look like the sun has been baking me to a golden bun color. The smile wrinkles crease the bun just right. A few toasted sesame seeds complete my complexion. I sound like the ocean waves crashing down the beach, with great fidelity and dignity. They are comforting, and solid, those ephemeral things. I smell like their salty briny ring, which has plumped up my hair, which I'm letting go gray again, because I've earned it. And it's too much trying to keep it up anymore with the pool. Chlorine is about as bad as it can be for old hair. I'll go down to the ocean later. I taste like its salt too; it has infected every pore and is oozing back out, to the earth, from whence it came, and I wonder how many more years before I too am poured out, and I am ready. Not to die and end, but to die and begin the part of my life where I'm completely unhampered by death ever again.
I feel like a movie star; Katherine Hepburn in khaki pants! Yes, the khaki pants are back. Call it nostalgia, but I love the old comfortable bums. They fit me like a glove, both figuratively and literally. I love all these pockets. I put a belt on and don't care if my waist isn't as thin as Katherine's. In my mind it is.
I am 70.
I look like a faded page, or a piece of cabbage, except for my eyes which light it up and tell stories all by themselves. Sometimes I'm not aware of it, but that's what people tell me. When Irish eyes are smiling they tell me. I sound like a butterfly gargled, as Yoko Ono said somewhere back in the 60's, no? All happy little laughters fluttering up and trickling down. I smell like the spicy vanilla crème my niece gave me; never did like vanilla, but the spices make it tolerable, and I always did love my niece. So I taste like this spicy vanilla too, and smell my arms repeatedly. Maybe I do like vanilla. I can't remember anymore. I feel like a woman who has lost the whole world, but gained her soul. I miss my friends and my brothers and my parents. I'm so glad my sister is still with me and we can still make each other laugh till no sound comes out. She is my world now, and her family. And she is my light.
I am 80.
I look like a real cabbage
patch doll now, fragile
and sweet (if they only
knew) and wrinkly but just
right, and a faint tinge
of green if I don't get
outside enough, which I
never seem to anymore.
I sound like a stalled
car,
farting now and then, and am
glad no one's around to hear
it. I don't think
I have that old lady smell yet,
but I'll call my sister later
and have her
make sure. I taste like that
rain, falling into my beloved
ocean. We're
all coming to you, ocean! Just
wait and keep waving! I feel
like I'm
waiting with my suitcases and
ticket for the boat to come,
and it can't come
fast enough, cuz I can't wait
for vacation.
About the Author
Pat Butler
lives and works in northern
France, which has required
lots of loss ( family and
friends, familiarity and
language) to gain the richness
of living in a foreign
culture. A native New Yorker,
Pat began writing as a
child. Although single,
Pat's extended family—French
and American—provide an
endless source for stories
and poems.
A Comprehensive Archive
A few readers have written to say it's difficult to locate previous issues of this column, so below is a comprehensive archive. Please note that each link here will pop open a new window containing the Poetry Therapy column named:
Discovering
Poetry Therapy
Pt
I: Defining Poetry Therapy
*and* Pt II: Coping with
the Holidays
National Poetry Awareness Month - 2003
At the MISS Conference: poetry and kids
Giving Voice During Grief - winter holiday oriented
About
the Author
Kara is
an artist of many disciplines.
Trained as a poet and bookmaker,
she has also been known to act,
bellydance, and do henna body
arts. She teaches and performs
through faires, festivals, local
art centers, artists in the schools
programs, KotaPress and independently.
To
find out more, see:
http://www.KotaPress.com/kara/karajones.htm
