Creative Writing with Fusioneers
This is Part 37 of a serial blog originally titled 'Martha Carter's Healing Journey'. Curious about the earlier posts? To start from the beginning, read Part 1.
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The last time Patti Horvath and I hosted Fusion Wellness Weekend—a workshop with a combination of movement sessions and guided writing in the company of other ‘fusioneers’—I wondered what Patti would get us to write about. I felt shy and insecure, and wasn’t convinced that I would have anything interesting to say. But Patti’s charming guidance was irresistible. Within minutes, she got us to pick up our pens, and put words to our senses, reflections, and memories.
The gentle bodywork classes beforehand warmed us up for these creative writing sessions, coaxing us into new places, in body, mind and soul. It was a nice surprise when the resulting writings turned out to be fun, insightful, and touching - including mine! - and almost all of them brought new meaning to living with a fused spine.
See below to read a few of the writing excerpts from our weekend.
Patti’s ‘prompt’ was “I’ll never forget…”.
Our next Fusion Wellness Weekend is coming up May 21-22, 2023.
Are you ready to gently stretch and breathe into your spine and explore your stories?
Can you imagine what tales your pen might tell?
Join us for Fusion Wellness Weekend, in-person in NYC or online.
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FIRST GLASSES
I'll never forget
the first day of getting glasses. I was nine years old and in the fourth grade. My parents took me to the ophthalmologist in Cleveland. I imagine my father drove, as my mother didn't usually drive long distances. The doctor was grouchy and I remember my father criticizing him for that. My mother didn't mind because he was supposedly a good doctor. The doctor told me not to read so much. I ignored that, and my parents never told me to read less.
I'm surprised at what I don't remember about that day. I don't remember what my first frames looked like. My mother had told me I could choose whichever frames I wanted. She had glasses in high school and hated them. She wanted me to be more comfortable in my glasses. I was comfortable. I never had to be reminded to wear my glasses. I never removed them. I thought they were miraculous. I hadn't any idea of what I'd been missing. I remember how much I could see with my new glasses! Leaves on the trees, the name of my father's plant nursery on the side of his truck, just how un-blurry everything was.
I've tried to remember what I was wearing that day, but I can't because it didn't matter. What did matter was I was wearing glasses that enabled me to see.
ANNE’S WEDDING
I’ll never forget
how I was excited about Anne’s wedding.
She was our favourite baby-sitter growing up, so it felt very special to be invited to her special day. Considering I mostly wore my dad’s jeans and a big sweatshirt to cover my cast, mom decided to make me a dress from some of the Liberty Cotton fabric she had bought during a recent trip to London. It was more like a mumu than a dress, but it did cover the cast quite well, so that gave me some protection. Nevertheless, I felt like Frankenstein in frills. I can’t remember what anyone else was wearing, but I am pretty sure that I was the only 14 year old in a mumu.
Walking into the mansion they rented for the event felt like walking into a castle, which we don’t really have in Canada. It felt joyous and overwhelming, but I felt ugly and stiff. I was hoping that nobody noticed my cast, but of course whenever anyone went for a hug, the illusion was destroyed and I felt embarrassed.
My parents and siblings were there, but it seems to me that they ignored my complaints and expected me to just go with the flow and stop whining.
I felt dread when we were shuffled into the chapel and shown the pew where we were meant to sit. Hard, long wooden pews. I tried to sit softly, but with a disproportionately heavy torso, I kind of just fell down and backwards, creating a big loud double ‘clunk’ that seemed to echo through the whole church. It felt like everyone heard it, and they were definitely either looking at me or pretending not to look at me.
When it came time to stand up, I couldn’t do it without help, I leaned forward and pulled on the pew in front of me, hoping that it was heavy enough that it wouldn’t slide. Thankfully it was not a Catholic Church service where we would be required to be up and down and on our knees repeatedly. We only had to stand at the beginning and end… a struggle both times.
I haven’t really thought about it before, but I think it was that day when I decided that pews and all hard wooden sitting surfaces were not my friend. It was only later that I realized that benches without backs are even worse. Then again, standing was the very worst. The plaster cast felt like it weighed a ton, pulling on my skin while pressing on my hump. I had to ruin the lines of the mumu to reach through the fabric and lift the bottom of the cast up to relieve its weight. Of course this was an unsightly action, and my mother was not happy about it. But mom!!??
When it came time for the reception, the only thing I remember are the cookies and how I ate as many as I could until I started to feel sick. My mother saw me take another and said, ”Don’t make yourself sick”, so of course I had to pretend that I felt ok.
I don’t remember what people said or how my parents explained my cast, but I think this was the beginning of my habit of hanging in the back of large groups. Needing extra space around me. Doing my best to be invisible so I could escape.
KISS
I’ll never forget
my first concert in 1979, which is a good thing, because someone told me I would have to pay for that pleasure with the eternal damnation of my soul.
That winter I had undergone a spinal fusion. To halt the progression of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, an orthopaedic surgeon implanted a metal ‘Harrington' rod from my second thoracic vertebrae to my second lumbar vertebrae, reinforced by bits of bone carved out of my right posterior iliac crest. Six weeks later, I left the hospital encased in a plaster cast that started above my shoulders and went all the way down to my hips. The cast served as a protective cocoon while the fusion solidified, transforming the metal, vertebrae, and bone bits into one long, clunky mass that somehow still protected my spinal cord and nervous system. For nine miserable months, I waddled about the humid environs of the Southeastern U.S. in my plaster turtle shell. It was heavy, hellishly hot, and there was no escape.
Unlike other people who found themselves in the same predicament, I had no support system to help me navigate this new existence… emotionally, financially, or even medically. The parental units divorced three years earlier, and our single-mom household’s standard of living dropped dramatically. My fractured little family moved from a small town in Florida to the capital city, which meant I started eighth grade in a new town with a new school and no friends. Of course, I endured teasing and mean girls and pitying looks. There was no money for mental health counseling or physical therapy, or if these were services covered by insurance, no one thought to pursue them on my behalf. Mom basically told me to "make lemonade".
One of my favorite bands was Kiss - not only did I have catchy, hook-laden anthems about teenage rebellion to inspire and sing along with; I got to dress up in a costume and pretend to be my favorite member (Peter Criss), which was another form of escape.
When Kiss released their Dynasty album in 1979, I was ecstatic when my father bought tickets to their show in Roanoke, VA. I was going to see Kiss! It would also be my first concert and the most thrilling thing that had ever happened in my young life.
One afternoon I was at a friend’s house, when her older brother looked me in the eye and earnestly informed me that demons would possess my soul, and that I would surely burn in hell for eternity if I went to the concert. He said that Kiss stood for “Knights in Satan’s Service,” and that Gene Simmons was a member of the Illuminati, whatever that was.
Somehow, I didn’t think the God I learned about in Sunday school would be too pressed about a crooked little turtle girl going to a rock concert, when he knew music was the only bright spot in her otherwise miserable existence. And what about Daddy? Was he going to hell too? Did the humble work of a country doctor not earn him a hall pass from Hades just this once?
Daddy and I made the two-hour journey to Roanoke on July 10th. As we drove around the stadium, he was struck (and I think a little impressed) by the number of semi-trucks required to take the Kiss show on the road. Over in the passenger’s seat, my anticipation was palpable. This is really happening. I am going to see Kiss!
The cavernous stadium was alive with energy as we made our way to the seats, which were way up in the back, but I didn’t care. For a fleeting, precious couple of hours, I forgot all about my plaster shell and lost myself in the music. I knew every word of every song and sang along. I danced my awkward turtle dance and didn’t care if anyone saw me. Transcendence achieved! Occasionally, I glanced over at Daddy. He sat there with his fingers in his ears the whole time, but I could tell he was fascinated.
I don’t remember much about that year, but I learned a really important lesson: Don’t ever let someone talk you out of your dreams.
Join us for this workshop - Click here to learn more!
Check out Patti’s recently released collection of stories But Now Am Found (Black Lawrence Press).
What happens when one’s illusions unravel? This is the question that animates Patricia Horvath’s debut story collection, But Now Am Found. A young man experiences heartbreak for the first time when his girlfriend rejects him on religious grounds. One woman fixates on a crossword puzzle to avoid thinking about her missing daughter while another, in a deeply troubled marriage, gives birth. The characters in these stories struggle to make sense of upheaval in their lives. But Now Am Found is a compelling exploration of the human spirit confronted by abrupt and rending change.
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