We are all full to the brim of information, entertainment, suggestions, & invitations. So I’ll cut to the prompty-chase.
I’m quite sure I first heard the following prompt in a Sue Reynolds workshop. During the retreat at Molino del Rey, I offered it to the group: From memory or for a fictional story, write a scene in which a major decision is made. As always, I encouraged them to slow the passage down with sensory details to give weight to the moment. After the fifteen or twenty minutes to get that down, I suggested that in that same situation, the character makes a different decision. This is an effective exercise to explore options in fiction, but for memoir it can expand possibility in surprising ways.
Since several of the writers were writing memoir, there was a moment of shock when I suggested this second half. One woman shook her head so vehemently it made me laugh and remind everyone that there is no requirement to follow any prompt.
For me, since AWA “rules” are that facilitators take the same risk, I was curious to find out how that would look. Here it is:
The DECISION
My body hums with satisfaction from Rohita’s skilled touch. She’s left the room of dim light, scent of sandalwood, the weight of the cotton blanket rests on my thighs and belly. Two years have passed since I left the “Ranch,” the commune on Oregon that shattered and reconstituted finally, after landing and leaving country after country, back in the guru’s home country of India. A country that had never called to me. My skin anointed now, I am content with Rohita’s massage treatment, but something is missing. I miss the deep, soul-revealing touch of Makarand. How, at the Ranch, his hands had found unknown-to-me places in my body, how he was able to release a cascade of grief and terror tucked up tight in my solar plexus, how this method called Rebalancing had set so much free and shown me buried parts of myself. Delicate flute music drifts through the stillness of the massage room. I’ve been back in Toronto for some time at the job I’d left for a year to be in Oregon; back in my ordinary life, and I am heartsick.
I don’t want to go to India. It terrifies me. The only Rebalancing training in the world is in Poona, India.
Rohita waits outside the comfort of this room, waits for me to pay and book another session. Which I will. My back soft on the sheet, the table beneath supporting me. Divine Honey —Deva Makarand, the name given to the man I once loved there, the one who held a sweetly divine mirror to my body and my heart, he is in India now but he is with a Puerto Rican beauty and I am navigating rocky terrain with Ray who has left his wife and child to be with me, even though he is not “with me,” not really or not at all, I cannot tell. Makarand and I write letters. We are friends now.
My body speaks to me now as it has never before spoken. It was a good massage, but I need something deeper, a touch that transforms. Yes. I open my eyes. “I’m going to India,” I say. “I’m going to take the Rebalancing training.” I would learn and I would give to others what Makarand had given me. Yes. Yes, I would save my money and fly to India.
A DIFFERENT DECISION
I’ll stay. It’s a good job, right? I make good money, own my own car, maybe one day I’ll buy a house. I’ll put this commune/ashram nonsense behind me. And besides, I never wanted to go to smelly, overcrowded, unsafe India. It doesn’t matter that Makarand is there or that he gave my body an entirely new experience. I don’t owe him and he doesn’t owe me. He doesn’t love me anymore anyway—he chose that dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty over me, so do I want to see that? No, of course I don’t. Rohita gives a fine massage and I earn enough to receive weekly treatments. That will be enough. Ray is confusing, but we’re trying to build something together. If not, there are other fish, right? I love my apartment in High Park with its garden and fruit trees in the yard. It’s perfect, really. Why would I want to pack up and fly across the world for who knows what? Even though Makarand writes to tell me how the new ashram is thriving and the trainings are brilliant, liberating—all the old rules are gone, everyone is a free agent. But nope. I’ll stay here where it’s safe and relatively controllable. I’m good. I’m fine. I don’t mind winter. Toronto is okay. I have friends, a respectable job, a nice apartment, a car that runs. I have a driveway. I’m fine to just stay put.
It’s your turn now. Write a scene in which you or your character made an important decision. You can include a bit of context, backstory, and so on, to give the moment of decision significance. Then imagine a different scenerio… just for fun.
I’m still in Italy but leave tomorrow for Barcelona. I’ll be back in Canada on the 17th and the first online workshop after this hiatus is on Thursday the 19th at 12:00 EDT. And then there are buckets of workshops and series to choose from all the way to October. Calendar
I’ll be posting some more of my travelogue soon. With some exciting news about future retreats in Italy. I’m just beginning to imagine how and when. I’m thinking April/May 2027, so you have lots of time to consider joining me!
(Note: I am not unaware of the turmoil, suffering, and terror in the west, east, north, and south. To balance the outside with the inside, the social with the political, the personal with the “big picture” is a constant.)
Thanks for reading Messy, Risky Writing! This post is public so feel free to share it.
Beautiful, Susan. I used a similar but different activity in a recent wordshop (write a childhood journal entry, THEN, change it to third-person, add invented detail and action). She was appalled. My memory is sacred. How can I change that!? We didn't know until the timer went off and she had written about not following the prompt and probably expected to be scolded. I told her that it was fine, valid even, to write about how fictionalizing that memory made her feel.
Beautiful, Susan. I used a similar but different activity in a recent wordshop (write a childhood journal entry, THEN, change it to third-person, add invented detail and action). She was appalled. My memory is sacred. How can I change that!? We didn't know until the timer went off and she had written about not following the prompt and probably expected to be scolded. I told her that it was fine, valid even, to write about how fictionalizing that memory made her feel.