In the News

by Nancy Casey

Warm up your hands by putting your palms together and rubbing gently up and down along the length of your hand, from your wrist to your fingers.  Keep rubbing, maybe 20 or 30 times or more, until you notice that the friction of the rubbing is making a little bit of heat. Don’t try to make friction or heat, just notice when you notice it.

Stop the hand-rubbing and place your hands gently on your face.  Don’t strain or stretch at all.  Have your thumbs more or less along your jawline, your pinky fingers somewhere on your nose, and the rest of your fingers spread comfortably in between. (Impossible to do with glasses on.)

With your hands touching your face, notice the temperature you feel on your skin. Does the skin of your face think your hands are warm or cold?  What is the skin of your hands telling you about the temperature of your face? Don’t try to figure it out or guess at how it is supposed to be, just notice whatever there is to notice about messages coming from your face about your hands, and vice versa.

When you get bored with that, imagine your hands and face are covered in soapsuds, and swipe the suds from your face and shake them off your hands.  Then start rubbing your hands back and forth again. 

As you rub them together, fool around with the way your hands move.  Let the fingers flop between each other.  Then rub them so the fingertips stay in contact and notice how that’s different.  Rotate the hands so they rub at right angles to each other.  Do anything that isn’t stressing or straining as long as your palms and fingers are rubbing together somehow.  Notice where the friction happens and how the heat mounts up, but don’t try to make any extra friction or heat.  Don’t be efficient or purposeful in any way.

After a bit, put your hands back on your face and check out the skin temperature messages again.  Are you more aware of your hands or your face?  The answer is probably, “That depends.”

Swipe away imaginary soapsuds (noticing what that’s like) and return to rubbing your hands. After a bit, touch your face again.  Bring your awareness to the places where skin meets skin and notice the temperatures. Do your hands warm your face?  Does your face cool your hands?  Is it the other way around?

What else can you notice (without trying!) about your hands and your face?  Do your hands give you information about what’s under the skin?  Just by touching (not pressing!) your hands probably register whether they are in contact with something fleshy or bony.  You can also note points of contact and no-contact.  Can you sort out what your face tells you about your hands from what your hands tell you about your face?

When you go back to rubbing your hands together, notice as many different things about your hands as you can. 

Keep on making friction and heat with your hands and then touching your face, noticing what you notice for as long as you want to.  When you are ready to start writing, rub your hands together one last time.  Rub them hard and fast.  At the same time pop your eyes big and wide so your whole body makes the gesture that means, “Ready, set, go! Can’t wait to get to it!”

Take up the pen and notice how it feels in your hand.  Your hands could be so mightily warmed up that you have to change your position in the chair.  Get comfortable.  Where is your face in this picture?

Write about everything you have noticed about your hands and your face.  (Here’s an example.) Notice what your hands and face do as you write.  If you want to notice more things, go back to the hand-rubbing and face-touching part and you probably will.

What about your thoughts? Did you notice any of them? 

Nancy Casey teaches writing classes at the Recovery Center on Thursdays.  Check the calendar for classes and times.  All are welcome.  She coordinates Recovery Radio, which airs on KRFP 90.3 FM in Moscow Thursdays at 1:05 PM. Recovery Radio needs on-air and off-air volunteers.  Call the Recovery Center  208-883-1045 or email latahrecoverycenter@gmail.com for more information.

by Nancy Casey

Sometimes it feels like we have nothing to write about.  Other times, we can feel so overwhelmed by how much we have to say that no single “thing” to write about stands out.  Even when we do know what we want to write about, it’s often difficult to figure out where to start.

That’s because a piece of writing has a beginning and an end and is “about” something. But our minds and our memories don’t work that way.  We are full of ideas, thoughts, and stories that swim around in there all the time.  They echo and interrupt each other and are never still. Starting to write about one of them can make the others clamor that much harder to get in.

Rather than enforce the discipline that it takes to “write something,” here is a way to take pen to paper and follow your thoughts.  After your mind has had a chance to wander to all the places it likes to go, it is often much easier to think and write clearly about one thing.  See if this works for you. 

Begin with a clean sheet of paper, and have a second one handy.  Turn the page sideways so it is wider than it is tall.  In the center, write your Start Word.  This can be a topic that has been on your mind, the first word that pops into your head, or a word you point to randomly from a book.  Draw a circle (or any shape, really) around the Start Word.

What does the Start Word make you think of?  A new word? A story? A person who uses the word? Whatever comes to mind, write that thought down in a word or two, draw a shape around it, and connect to the shape surrounding your Start Word. 

Now it’s as if you have two Start Words.  What pops into your head next?  Write down a word for that idea and enclose it in a shape.  Draw a line to show which word it is connected to..  Now three words have jiggled loose from your memory.  Keep going. What pops into your head next? Try to fill up the whole page with shapes that hold words and show their connections. 

You will find that the words inside the shapes and the lines connecting them wander all over the page, just like your mind wanders wherever it can wander to.  It’s fun to see how far afield related thoughts and stories can take you.

At some point when you go to write a word or a phrase, you might get an urge to tell a whole story or explain a big idea. If a whole lot more words want to tumble out about a single topic, take up the second sheet of paper and let the words flow.

Sometimes it turns out that everything you put into this web of shapes is mostly about one topic.  If that happens, use the web of shapes as your “notes” and write about the topic on the second sheet of paper.

You could find that one area of the web of connections really stands out for you.  You can write about that on the second sheet if that’s what seems like the right thing to do next. 

What if you don’t feel like shifting over to writing sentences and paragraphs? Then choose an area of the web of connections you have made and, using it as a rough draft, make a different fancier version of it on the second page.

Give a different title to the two pages you have made.  Add any doodles or illustrations you think they require.  Put the date somewhere on the page as well.  Here is an example of what someone might write.

Try this multiple times throughout the week.  Notice which type of writing comes easier to you, the web of ideas or the sentences and paragraphs.  It will probably be different on different days.

Nancy Casey teaches at the Recovery Center on Thursdays.  531 S. Main St. in Moscow.  Check the calendar for classes and times.  All are welcome.  Call the Recovery Center  208-883-1045 or email latahrecoverycenter@gmail.com for more information.

by Nancy Casey

In order to do today’s writing prompt, you will probably have to take a walk.  You don’t have to take any of your writing materials with you.  Leave them on the table, ready to go, so you can sit down and begin to write as soon as you get home.

The writer Brenda Ueland said that she always began her writing time with a walk.  She walked without any particular destination and only walked places where she was sure she wouldn’t get caught up in conversation with anyone.  She walked fast or slow, whatever the mood, and tried to observe her surroundings.  She said that every time she accidentally walked a little farther than she had expected, the writing always turned out better.

In order to do today’s writing prompt, you will first have to remember the person you were four years ago and recall what was important in your life then.  Think about that on your walk.  That will be much more pleasant than trying to remember all these things while you sit at your desk.

While you are walking, try to recall the place you lived four years ago.  Where did you buy your groceries?  Did you live alone or with others?  What kind of work did you do?  Who were your friends and what did you do together? Did you have a favorite place to go? What did you like best about your life? Did you have a hobby?

Maybe you can remember the person you were four years ago by jumping backwards year by year?  What was going on in your life a year ago today?  How was your health? What kinds of things were on your mind?  Where did you spend your days?  How was your attitude?  What about the year before that?  And before that? Can you remember?

While you are walking and remembering details from the past, watch how your recollection of what it was like to be you four years ago refills itself. As you walk, you can also start thinking about the question you will have to answer when you get home:

What have you learned in the last four years?

Every time something changes we learn something.  Sometimes we choose it, and sometimes we are just stuck with it, but changes always teach us something. So when you think about all the things that are different in your life from four years ago, ask yourself what you learned in the process of change.

Things that stay the same teach us, too.  We keep things in our life that sustain us and teach us things we want to learn.  Hobbies, habits, jobs, friends and relations, the weather, plants and pets and everyday objects.  Everything and everyone around us teaches us something, whether they change or stay the same.

Ideas change us, too.  Ideas come to us from the outside in the form of information.  That information can change ideas we already have.  Sometimes we rearrange information in our minds and create new ideas that way.  What ideas to you have now that you didn’t have four years ago?

Every time you learn something, does that mean you have a new skill?

Let your mind wander randomly over these things as you take your walk. Four years ago…  What was your life like?  What were you doing?  And now?  What can you do that you couldn’t do then?  What do you know that you didn’t know then?  When you get back to your desk, write down as much as you can remember.

Here is an example of the kind of thing you might write.

When you have finished, doodle on the page a little bit until you think of a good title.  Put the title at the top.  Write the date somewhere on the page as well.

Nancy Casey teaches at the Recovery Center on Thursdays and coordinates Recovery Radio.  531 S. Main St. in Moscow.  Check the calendar for classes and times.  All are welcome.  Call the Recovery Center  208-883-1045 or email latahrecoverycenter@gmail.com for more information.