Healing Through WAP

WAP = Word Association Poem

Saturday, August 17, 2024

This is another exercise from the Rupi Kaur book Healing Through Words, which I am still so glad to be working through, however slowly. At first I scoffed at it a bit, as the word “healing” has become (well, to me, anyways) pedantic. Overused. Redundant. Insulting, even. 

All creativity and consumption of any sort of art is “healing” in that it provides for us a mirror. We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are. The famous quote by Anais Nin is “We don’t see people as they are. We see people as we are.” but I extend that idea to all of life; every person we interact with, every piece of art we examine, every book we read, every video game we play, each meal we plan and consume for the joy of it either alone or with others. This is why I try to read outside of my preferred genres and authors, and why I rarely express a preference when it comes to seeing a film or listening to music or choosing a restaurant. I want it all, always, and am always happy to go where life takes me.  Even when it sucks. I just might not choose it next time, but as Samantha says in Sex and the City, “I’m tri-sexual, I’ll try anything once!” I try to apply that concept to life, although I won’t try certain foods.

So. If we stop to notice and/or examine our emotional or visceral response to a poem, a song, a story, or a movie, we are “healing”. The very essence of experience “heals” us as it broadens our horizons, whether we are actively creating or passively engaging any of our senses. Even the things we notice are noteworthy; in my journal I use three prompts daily and one of them is “Today I noticed…” The others have to do with feeling and thinking, and due to my established propensity for overthinking and refusing to feel, noticing (and therefore wondering about) is often a real lifesaver. 

“Healing” is living mindfully, (ugh, another word I have come to hate, but that’s for another day…) being curious, open minded, teachable, and integrating new experiences into the depth of our being. Pondering the story, or why a certain character stays with us over time, or why a certain work of art makes our pulse quicken or our breath soften is “healing” us. 

I have come to believe that none of us are ever “broken” regardless of the shitty circumstances that life can, and often does, throw our way. We simply are who we are at any given time or place, doing our best with what we have in good times and in bad. I guess that the word “healing” bothers me because it implies that there is something wrong with us, some defect that we are trying to fix. No matter what has happened, we are not broken just as there is no fix for our particular brand of strife-du-jour or mois or an or longer. I have shared some of the difficulties of my life in this blog, but there have been some circumstances that, if I believed in it, would have left me “broken” and rotting in the stench of self-pity. So I choose to become curious, examine my reactions to people or circumstances or yes, even art, and integrate some new sensory or intellectual experiences to give myself a fresh perspective. 

Hmmm… what book title would I propose rather than  Healing Through Words? I guess that “Examine Your Psyche Through Words” or “Develop Your Head and Heart Through Words” or “Wonder Your Way Through the Shit of Life” all sound pretty lame. It seems that the secondary point I wish to make is that you don’t have to wait until you are “broken” to “heal” through words, or any other kind of creative endeavour. 

Regardless of your experiences, good and/or bad, I want to read the poems or songs you write, stories you compose or narrate; I want to see any form of art you create and hear all about it, always. I want to hear the ridiculous jokes you make up or the songs you sing to your cat or dog, I want to see (or taste, yum) the cakes you decorate, recipes you create.  We don’t have to be broken to make art, nor do we have to have training or wait until we are in some sort of group art therapy. We are all healing, always, just as we are all living, always. What do you do when there is “nothing to do”? What do you wonder about?

Aaaaanyways, sorry for the somewhat ranty ramble. Rantle? I followed a prompt in Healing Through Words by Rupi Kaur to write about something that had made me angry by making use of some word associations I had done in a previous exercise. I don’t know what to call it. I’m not happy with it or satisfied with it, in fact I think I have no business writing poems at all, but one of the parameters was to time yourself and then work with whatever you had written over about 20 minutes. I’m trying something new and trying to flow with the idea of my previous post – that I have become too mired in the idea of a final product to be able to enjoy the process. This applies broadly to my life. 

I don’t know what to call it, so it’s just going to live with this title and undercurrent for now: “Healing through WAP”. Haha, hoho, and heehee. 

Healing Through WAP

Silence can be delightfully golden, although –
it can also be crimson.
In the wake of discovery, silence
fills me with pulsating sounds of hematic hue.

I fail to remember a time, or place,
or circumstance physically unencumbered
by fear and rage so deep and old
that it bore the stench of stagnant onyx blood.

Rage is nauseating pressure and pain – imperfect me
unable to swallow it even once more.
A crimson cacophony erupts, and on its tail
the ruddy shame of release, however delicately restrained.

This apocalypse is purple rocks, storming scarlet cobalt
within and without – without sympathy or restraint the
indigo shock waves silently pound my breath.
Within, purple haze and lavender calm await the ripples of redemption.