creative acts of suicide.
The latest class of VerbTribe just ended. This week, I will feature on 37days the writing of VerbTribe members in this most recent class. These excerpts are in response to daily prompts the class provides, and I hope you will appreciate the voices of these writers. If you’re interested in becoming a VerbTribe member, go here for more information on the next class that begins January 3, 2013.
Creative acts of suicide
-Mary Welty-Dapkus
Banana. That was bananas.
Wow.
I mean WOW.
I am a student of life and I have had some mind-blowing – soul-tickling experiences and THIS was one of them. I am reminded of the beauty of the Zen teachings. It is in the ordinary that we experience the power of now – the power of POW.
Two minutes looking at that banana – POW.
Looking at that banana was surprisingly intense and kinda hippy-dippy and FUN and I felt a deep appreciation for the focused awareness.
Peeling the banana – POW.
It took a bit to get started, a pull, then a tug, the slight resistance of the peel to let go. It’s function or purpose as a peel, an outer shell, is to protect the part that is soft, edible, that nourishing, desired piece. How like the idea of writing, that there is only the quality of what is written, the flesh, than the energy of the peeling. I see now the power in simply peeling back the layers and exposing what is beneath. And I thought as I peeled away the pieces, how brave is the peel, how thought-less is the peel to do its job, to be the container, the shell and then be thrown away. And it occurred to me, here on Day 6, in this act of creation, that the nourishment is in the peeling.
And then linking peeling a banana to the process of writing – well, this was the one – two –three POW.
The process of observing and peeling the banana is like the act of writing because that is where the juice is – the fuel – the potent potency.
As each layer peeled back, there was that same slight tug at the top and then release, an unzipping, and then again that slight tug at the bottom and off the strip came. It peeled in almost pre-ordained stripes, exposing the fruit – the flesh beneath. It felt very like this process called writing; the process of so many creative acts of suicide. Yes. There was the truth of it. To commit to the process of writing, the process of creating, is to commit creative suicide again and again and again. Only one idea lives as hundreds of other possible ideas die in the peeling process. Once the peel was removed, there was this soft, fragile fruit, easily bruised. My thought was ‘this is organic and only has some much time in the air, to be eaten or tossed.’ In the act of bringing about the creative birth of an idea there is a death to all others in the moment. And the truth is, writing is just like living. There must be a willingness to die to this experience, to committing to a word, a phrase, a moment, to the exclusion of all others. And in that moment, it will start with a slight resistance to begin and then be peeled back, exposing the writing to this cycle of death and rebirth…banana style.
