3 generations, 2 poems, 1 writing advice

Hello friend,

This is going to be a short edition.

Here are three things I want to share today:

Trauma in three generations

Intergenerational trauma can be difficult to understand at first. When I came across this post on Instagram, I immediately resonated with it.

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​Link to the original post​

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Two poems by Nikita Gill

What if you could go back in time and meet your parents when they were kids?

Nikita Gill reflects upon this in these two beautiful poems:

In another universe,
I meet my father
when he is a child.
We play catch in the woods
and as we play he tells me
he isn’t allowed to cry
but sometimes the world
hurts him and he doesn’t know
what to do with all that pain.
So I give him the shoulder
he needs to cry on.
And he does. He does
until the tears are done.
Afterwards, I buy him ice cream
and I listen to his laugh,
the glowing warm laugh
of a child who knows he is safe.
I wish someone could
have done that for him.
Been a kind, safe place for the child he used to be.
Would it have made a difference?
Would it have made a difference?

– Nikita Gill

This is the second one about meeting the mother when she is a child.

In another universe,
I meet my mother
when she is a child.
We go for a walk at the seaside
and she tells me all the things
she loves about the world.
We share a hundred jokes
and she laughs so easily,
without a single worry.
I want to meet that version of her.
Wide eyed and full of joy.
Easy laughter and carefree.
Before the same world
she loved so deeply
broke her heart.
– Nikita Gill

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One writing advice by Charlie Bleecker

In her latest newsletter, Charlie Bleecker shares her recent realization about her favorite writers:

They don’t write about thoughts and feelings. They write dialogues and action.

She has given some great examples in her newsletter. But, what stuck with me the most was this conclusion:

“Even when I was solely focused on not writing thoughts and feelings I still slipped them in, unintentionally, because to only show action and dialogue was hard. It required stillness to sit with the story and see the movie playing in my head. Writing thoughts and feelings is the easier, lazier route.”

“required stillness to sit with the story and see the movie playing in my head..”

So insightful! It made me realize how many times I hide behind the thoughts and feelings in writing. It happens either because it is hard to relive exact details or I might have already processed those incidents and formed a narrative in my head. I guess this happens to almost everyone who attempts to write for the first time – X, Y, Z happened and I think/I believe/I feel this about it.

However, when I write, fresh out of hurt or share the exact incident in detail, the writing has always resonated more.

Sharing raw, intimate details about the incident feels boring or irrelevant. But, it is those intricate details that make your writing come alive and personal which is hard to replicate by ChatGPT. Moreover, sitting with them in stillness before acknowledging them in writing could also prove to be an effective way to process traumatic incidents.

What do you think?

That’s all from me this week, folks!

Until next time,
Love,
Vishal

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