The Write Way to deal with Covid19

For Therapy, for Posterity, write your life

Disclosure

I gave a little teaser on Facebook today about what I was going to blog about on my daily Covid19 Mental Health series.  I wrote a little poem about #GrandmaInLockdown.

The toys are all a-scatter
Not that it even matters
There won't be any knocks upon the door.
No visitors will visit
No kids will come to play
No one will ask for ice cream
Or beg their mom to stay...
#GrandmaInLockDown

My blog was going to be about how therapeutic writing is, about scientific studies that show the act of writing helps people deal with fears, stress and anxiety. I was going to encourage my fellow writers to use their words in public ways to help the world. To record this massively historic event so the generations to come will have a clear picture of what we went through. So we can be viewed as great adventurers, achievers, fighters. Strong.

I was going to tell those of my readers who are shy about writing, to pick up the pen anyway and keep a diary. Lock it if you want.  For now.

When we're long gone, our descendants will be interested in "the Pandemic of 2020". They'll want to read about our lives, our feelings, our fears, our governments. Our homes, our clothes, our food and technology. Our culture. They'll be intrigued with even just short accounts of firing up our i phones and logging onto Facebook, fascinated to discover how strange it felt for so many to work from home. They'll wonder at the quaint custom of 'buffets' and roll their eyes at our stories of toilet paper hoarding and maybe laugh at the government videos showing us how to wash our hands.

I was going to write all that until I wrote that poem. When I hit 'post' the life drained out of me. My spirit died. Hope, vanished. My desire to be useful left. I no longer wanted to write about writing. How could I tell people it was therapeutic to write, when it had decimated me?

I was going to tell you all that my latest novel written for middle grade children, BETWEEN THE SUN AND THE RAINBOW starts off with a mother admonishing her children to consider the turn in their lives an "adventure."

Danielle cannot believe she's embarking on an adventure. Her parents are fighting and divorcing and her mother has moved them from their city home to a rundown shack on the prairies.

Danielle  must have felt much like we do--life as she'd always known it was over. She had no electricity, no inside toilet. No running water. Her friends, her school, and her father are thousands of kilometers away. And...like us, she has no idea how or when it's all going to end. She knows, it will never be the same again.

Adventure indeed.

Well, come to think of it, now that I've written about my novel, I've cheered up a bit. I love talking about my books, reconnecting with the characters I've lived with and slept with and dreamed about for months (and some of them, years) as I worked to tell their stories.

Perhaps this idea of writing for therapy has some truth to it...

The Write Way...has been brought to you by BETWEEN THE SUN AND THE RAINBOW

Nine-year-old Danielle’s parents are getting divorced and she doesn’t think things can get any worse—but they definitely don’t seem to be getting any better, either.
Her mother takes her and her older brother, Jayson, thousands of kilometers from their Toronto home to the old family homestead on the Alberta prairie. Inside and outside of the rundown shack that is now home, everything is strange and frightening.
Her mother says they will connect with nature on the farm and begin to heal but to Danielle, it seems a very painful way to heal.
Little by little, however, she learns what a family is all about. She just might begin to find the peace and happiness she needs.

Eileen Schuh, Author 
FIREWALLS
FATAL ERROR
Schrödinger's Cat
THE TRAZ
Web site: http://www.eileenschuh.com