Writing Wednesday Prompt: How We Grow When Confined

Today I am concerned with boundaries and limitations. What do we do and how do we behave when we are folded and placed in between confines?

There are so many narratives and discussions running simultaneously in my life right now—those concerning my family, sensitive and uncomfortable ones in my university concerning tolerance and social justice as it pertains to marginalized writers, my future as a writer—novelist, poet, essayist, or all three, how to care better for myself and ensure that I do not suffocate beneath work, how can I teach, online, and in my community rich, everyday writing for all folks, not just those pursuing a higher degree.

The one thread quilting all of these layers of my life together is growth and expansion. Shedding. A few weeks ago I burned my hip while cooking in a freak accident. A dark stripe angles across my hipbone, reminding me of the stretch marks that appeared on my hips in puberty. They have all since faded and melded into the brown of my skin in their own way, but this one stripe keeps reminding me to look, and see that there are more. Marks that heralded me into becoming a woman. Marks that appeared as my bones widened, making room to house my children. So I am sort of fascinated by stretch marks, bare with me.

And that is the thing here. Everywhere I turn I see stretch marks appearing. Classmates hearts, university policies, other’s understanding of narrative supremacy that eludes many who are marginalized in literature, friends and family member’s personal growth, and my own expansion of myself. The stretch marks no longer appear on my skin, but there are tons, appearing daily on my soul.

In my Translation Seminar, we are rounding out things with a small prose excerpt from Italo Calvino’s Le città invisibili (Invisible Cities), published in 1972. Our small section is titled “Ottavia.”

As I worked through this final piece, first creating a trot, and then moving on to create more refined drafts, I kept coming back to the last line and the premise of this section, as I understand it—that there is less doubt in knowing limitations.

A lot of the growth, stretching, and expanding I am witnessing has been birthed from a recognition of limitations, boundaries, and either a need to dismantle them, or a need to find the right way to be creative, productive, and empowered within them. There is no shortage of boundaries and hurdles in our lives. But how we perform when faced with them is the definition of who we are.

I have long realized that I write and create better when given boundaries. It sounds counterintuitive, but it is so very true. In fact, sometimes we need the boundaries to better define who we are. It is sometimes easier to know who we are by eliminating or recognizing who we are not. Pinpointing the specific, when you are growing and in the midst of change is nearly impossible at times. I could not tell you how wide my hips would grow until they were done expanding and settled, but I could tell you daily how less narrow they were. Personally, I am constantly trying to define who it is that I am, and what it is that I am not.

This week I accepted an opportunity to show in an upcoming art show. Without hesitation I said yes. But soon after, I realized that I said yes because of a deeper doubt of myself as a writer. If I had been standing in my truth, that I am a writer and my writing work comes first after my family, I would have said no. Not because I cannot or would not like to, but because I have a large amount of writing work. Exciting writing work.

I am still learning, and adjusting. I am still growing into my seat at the writing table and am fresh into realizing that I am a writer first, artist second. Sometimes they intersect and I am allowed to be both.

There is something moody and melancholy in that realization for me. It means that I must realize that perhaps I am better writer than artist. Equally, I am excited to discover what that means for me.

This is where the stretch marks appear. They should stripe across my hands and fingertips as I find myself filling out on writing. Sometimes they are painful, like growing pains they strike me without warning and I am paralyzed, confused about what is happening. But soon, there is someone from my University community to nurture me, remind me that I am growing, remind me to be kind to myself and selfish, and I am back on course, knowing that I am expanding as I need to.

We all should have that support. We all should know that when life is most painful, we are expanding as needed. We all should learn to be great, not despite limitations, but because of limitations and how they allow us to refine.

Here is my translation of Calvino’s text, followed by my Wednesday Writing Prompt.

“Ottavia”, by Italo Calvino

as translated by Kiandra Jimenez

If you wish to believe me, good. Now, I'll tell you how Ottavia is a city spiderweb. There is a precipice in between two steep mountains: the city floats over a void, bound to two ridges with ropes and chains and foot bridges. One walks on the slats of wood, careful not to place a foot in the gaps, or one clings to the rope's stitches. Beneath, there is nothing for hundreds and hundreds of meters: a few clouds pass-- glimpsed beneath the bottom of the ravine.

This is the foundation of the city: a net that serves as passageway and support. Instead of rising up, what remains, hangs beneath: step ladders of rope, hammocks, houses made of sackcloth, hooks, terraces like gondolas, goatskins of water, spouts of gas, roasting spits, baskets hung by string, service elevators, showers and gutters, trapezes and rings for games, tramways, chandeliers, flower pots of plants with hanging leaves.

Hanging over the abyss, life of inhabitants of Ottavia is less doubtful than in other cities. They know all the net cannot support.

Here is my writing prompt for you this week:

What boundaries are currently in your life? Have you assigned them negative or positive connotations? What would happen if instead of assigning a positive or negative value to them, you viewed them as refiners or funnels. Tools to help you better concentrate who you are.

And finally,

Who are you not? What have you discovered you are not? Now turn this into a statement of who you are. Who are you becoming now that you have released what no longer fits?

Write five statements of who you are not. Turn each of those statements into declarations of you are (becoming or hope to become counts too).

I will share my list in a future post, and as always, I encourage you to share here, share on your blog, Facebook, etc.

Peace and love,

Kiandra