Oh Sally, thank you so much for saying that! That really means the world to me. I spent so much time with this piece by the end I couldn't really tell if it was all pointing to something or if it still didn't quite work. Yay! ❤️❤️❤️
It works Jocelyn! It works!! Just beautiful...so grateful and happy I stopped my morning long enough to read your work today -- I love the "behind the scenes" description of the "rewriting" process -- and how this piece evolved! ❤️❤️❤️
Hi Dawn! Thank you so much, sweet friend. I’m so grateful and happy you paused in your morning to read something i wrote! What a dream come true. And yay! You liked the notes too. They seemed to be a bit so I’ll probably do more of them. It will be interesting for me too to see if there is a pattern or thread to how I rewrite and revise. Hope you had a lovely rest of your day!❤️❤️❤️
It worked! I found myself remembering so many times splashing around in mountain steams when I was younger. Not just that, I loved how you reconciled the change that the passage of time brings to us all when it comes to places we have loved, and the people who are strongly attached to the memories of those places.
Wow wow wow. I feel like this is one of your best pieces yet. It always amazes me how your writing incites such deep emotion in me. The intense nostalgia of your past weaving itself into your present and your beautiful weaving of words builds such a connection to your personal experience. I thought to myself at one moment how effortlessly your words created the history you were trying to convey. Then I read the last part about the countless hours of revisions and your feeling of giving up. Don’t ever give up my love. You are brilliant 💓
Thanks babe! I have been WORKING at it and I'm so glad it comes through. It's funny you say that about reading, because I do that with other writers, like "OMG this shit just pours out of her brain this way and it's so gorgeous!" Which is so not true, not for any writer I've ever talked to or read about, but that's part of the beauty right? You, the reader, get to experience the best way we can put together this puzzle and share it with the world. And hopefully, it reaches you somewhere inside, maybe somewhere you didn't know was still there, or ever there, or somewhere you've been trying to get to within yourself. That's why I write at least. :) xoxoxoxo Thank you for the gorgeous feedback. I love you!
Thank you! And you're welcome. I love this, "hot lumber underfoot memories." just beautiful, Steve. And cold water. It smells so different from the creek water here in Austin or salt water or rain. It's just incredible. I can't wait to go back!
Jocelyn this brings back so many memories of growing up in the Canadian Rockies and swimming in rivers. Sizzling on granite, smelling dirt and pine sap. I live on the coast now but I ache for fresh water swimming. Thank you for letting me live vicariously through you. Love the last line 🥹 And happy belated birthday!
Oooooh yes! the Canadian Rockies. I love that you have similar visceral memories from your childhood. The coast is wonderful and beautiful, and the ocean was my first water-love. But there is just something about fresh water isn't there. I know that ache, Monika. I do. That last line eluded me for a bit, it took writing and rewriting the piece before I think I realized what that conversation with my dad meant for me in that moment. And thank you! It was a fantastic birthday! Where on the coast do you live now? Are you still in Cananda? xo
I love how you break down your writing process and talk about your search for aboutness (as Jeannine would say). Aboutness is one of the most elusive things for me, too. In all my pieces 🙈 I feel like I’m just starting to crack it. I’m in Vancouver, BC. We took our pup for a swim today. It’s gorgeous to walk on the beach when the tide is way out. But I have zero desire to get in the ocean myself! Are you in California?
Oh thank you for saying that. I wasn't sure if it was too much, but I figured there are enough people from WITD and just people in general who might find it interesting. Aboutness is tough for me too. I find the less I try to figure it out, the better. I'm really working on trying to get my head out of the way and not force the pieces but let them come more on their own and then work on the details, a la Jeannine. ❤️
And how fun. My pup loved the beach. Loved it. I have less desire to get in the Northern Pacific ocean than I do in cold fresh water like Tahoe. I think living in the tropics spoiled me to warm oceans. I'm not in CA now, I'm in Austin, where my husband is from, but we're on a 1-2 year plan to get back to CA and move closer to the mountains. Wheee!
This writing is especially meaningful to me, an East Coast person transplanted a year and a half ago to Minnesota in the warm weather and El Dorado, California in the winter. I sense the power of the Sierras but it's just out of my reach. You brought it a little bit closer.
Oh Susie, that is wonderful to hear. I am so in love with this part of California and it's very satisfying to know that I could write about it in a way that brings it closer to you. Thank you thank you for sharing. We're on a 1-2 year plan to move back to Northern California and people have recommended El Dorado. Do you like it? xoxo
It's a little too rural for this city girl. In Minnesota I have just the right mix of green and the gray of asphalt. Also....the man made environment in El Dorado is very trucks and trailers. What are you looking for?
Oh that's good to know. I want things that don't co-exist lol. I want to be about two hours from Tahoe, but not too remote, my husband doesn't want snow, I want a little land, but my husband wants to be near good food. AND I don't want to live in the bay area. 😂
I think El Dorado fulfills these requirements except for the good food. Decent restaurants are rare out there. Have you looked into the Grass Valley/Nevada City area?
Okay good to know! And yess I’m looking around there too. Also out by the coast more which messes with being close to Tahoe. It fulfills other things. I’m mostly letting the universe guide me and trying not to overthink it. ❤️
Gorgeous writing, your pieces always feel like a poignant scene in a movie, where I’m not sure if it’s me or someone else at the centre. I truly lose myself in your words, what a gift that is!
What a treat to read your notes about the piece too, fascinating process, thank you for sharing your beautiful heart ❤️
Oh Sarina, that is such a beautiful compliment, “…where I’m not sure if it’s me or someone else at the centre.” Just wow. Thank you so much! And thank you for letting me know you enjoyed the notes! I tried something new there bc I know there are writers reading.❤️
Hi Jocelyn, I am a new subscriber, a fellow WITD’er. I started following you after the WITD Lit Salon featured story, The Game Was To Guess The Words, which was stunning and engaging! I gushed all over you in the comments section of the post! And this essay, I love! Your first two lines pulled me in and what came next through the end of the second paragraph put me in the water with you and your sister, all goose-bumped and flicking your waterlogged hair! I used to tube down the Sacramento River, so this part of your story brought back fun memoires for me!
A couple close reading comments. With this line:” When he left, we left behind those roads, those rivers, our communion” I felt a longing and a sadness. Wanting to buy the lot next door, a “place to mark my childhood with an X, like buried treasure” felt like a plea to return to happier, cherished times. And then this: “I collected rocks shaped like hearts, and wondered how to piece together my life,” so tender and beautifully conveyed.
Weaving the journey with three men, the man with the crazy ideas, your now husband and your father, the love you once felt and/or still feel love for them juxtaposed with your love for water while search for your sense of place, home, was skillful. By the end, I was left hat you had found your home inside yourself. It’s cliché to say but home is where the heart is. And your last line tugged at mine.
Lastly, thank you for sharing your craft behind the scenes in your writing process. As a beginning writer, it is very inspiring and reassuring to know quality writing just doesn’t magically appear. I loved your line ‘they say writing is rewriting and they’re not kidding.’ I have come to learn writing is worked over, word by word, hour by hour through multiple revisions. I laugh when I think back to when I first started writing. At the time I said whatever I wrote was going to be a ‘one and done.” HA! Maybe I should have said ‘one hundred and done’!
Hi Lisa! Ohmygosh it's so fun to see you over here! I'm thrilled you loved The Game and I remember your wonderful comments and that we'll be in the 6/27 class together, can you believe that's almost here already?
Thank you thank you for taking the time to do a close read. I love these for so many reasons, and especially because you picked up and put in words something that was only subconscious for me and I think that is so thrilling - the connection of the men in the story and how you say, "the love you once felt and/or still feel love for them juxtaposed with your love for water while search for your sense of place, home" I find sometimes that I'm doing a thing without consciously meaning to do a thing and I think that's what Jeannine talks about when she talks about the aboutness of a piece and also about getting in to the body because it knows the stories better than the mind. I think when I do that, more comes through than my brain knows. Which I think is just incredible!
I love that you loved this line "“I collected rocks shaped like hearts, and wondered how to piece together my life,” so tender and beautifully conveyed." because I did too and it was one of those where I wondered if I should "kill my darlings" as they say. But it spoke to me and so it stayed in. I'm so glad it worked for you too.
Also that you read this into it "by the end, I was left hat you had found your home inside yourself. It’s cliché to say but home is where the heart is" because I think it's exactly that. Like a home inside my heart, but also inside my dad's heart, and inside the maps and the river and the crazy idea guy and my now husband and the whole universe, right? Like it's all a microcosm and it's all infinite and it's all there in our own hearts.
And I'm sooo thrilled you enjoyed the craft behind the scenes. I had an inspiration to do that last night and I love that it was helpful to you. I love the one hundred and done! That's totally how it is.
I remember writing in college and doing a draft or two, maybe half a dozen and calling it good. And not knowing a thing about writing really, but just knowing I had to get things down on paper. It's so beautiful to me that in my life now, when I'm really able to connect with my heart and my body and my memories with more perspective and I'm willing now to take the time to do the hundred and done drafts! :)
Thank you thank you for writing and being vulnerable to do the close reading and share your own writing experience with me. xoxo❤️
Oh! also, I love that you used to tube down the Sacramento river! I have a friend who is doing that this week!
Hey Jocelyn, first off, sorry for the typos and incomplete words in my not to you. Don’t you just love thumbing on an iPhone?!! Yes, hard to believe it’s been 12 weeks today that Jeannine began the Visceral Intensive! Sooo good! Excited for her workshop on the 27th too!
So happy that you appreciated my comments about the juxtaposition and that it resonated. Initially I was wondering if I should share my thoughts but glad I did. I agree with “getting in to the body because it knows the stories better than the mind. I think when I do that, more comes through than my brain knows.”
I also know who sometimes it a challenge to get into that place. I am learning every day to let go and just show up. Free writing, allowing myself to roam my inner landscape, has help me a lot too.
And this: “Like it's all a microcosm and it's all infinite and it's all there in our own hearts.” YES YES YES! In the end, love is all there is💚
I am so so so happy and grateful that you did! It made my dad. Seriously, I went skipping in and told my husband. ;) It's such a practice, letting go and showing up and not _trying_ so hard. Yes! Love is really all there is! Can't wait to see your face next week! xoxoxo
The way you bring me to your hidden places is extraordinary. I can feel the goosebumps, the granite, the water and the sun on my skin. Absolutely stunning piece❤️
Oooooh thank you thank you! That makes my day. Like I said to Sally, it was hard to tell by the time I published if I'd done the thing I was trying to do. I so so so appreciate your words. xoxo
Wow wow wow. I feel like this is one of your best pieces yet. It always amazes me how your writing incites such deep emotion in me. The intense nostalgia of your past weaving itself into your present and your beautiful weaving of words builds such a connection to your personal experience. I thought to myself at one moment how effortlessly your words created the history you were trying to convey. Then I read the last part about the countless hours of revisions and your feeling of giving up. Don’t ever give up my love. You are brilliant 💓
Jocelyn, this was so beautiful, so embodied. Like you, I have been influenced by @Jeannine Ouellette so much. When I read your rendering of the concrete details of your childhood memories and discover the aboutness of your piece, I can't help but smile because I recognize Jeannine's influence. But what I really love is the fact that your writing in this manner brings me to the emotions, the interiority of this portrait and the story is just so much more intimate and authentic. The connection between you, your father, and Lake Tahoe is something to hold and to cherish. This was so tender, so wonderful. Thank you, friend.
I’m glad you waited. This piece is stunning! Every word and sentence points us to the heart of the story. All of it is simply lovely and touching.
Oh Sally, thank you so much for saying that! That really means the world to me. I spent so much time with this piece by the end I couldn't really tell if it was all pointing to something or if it still didn't quite work. Yay! ❤️❤️❤️
It works Jocelyn! It works!! Just beautiful...so grateful and happy I stopped my morning long enough to read your work today -- I love the "behind the scenes" description of the "rewriting" process -- and how this piece evolved! ❤️❤️❤️
Hi Dawn! Thank you so much, sweet friend. I’m so grateful and happy you paused in your morning to read something i wrote! What a dream come true. And yay! You liked the notes too. They seemed to be a bit so I’ll probably do more of them. It will be interesting for me too to see if there is a pattern or thread to how I rewrite and revise. Hope you had a lovely rest of your day!❤️❤️❤️
It worked! I found myself remembering so many times splashing around in mountain steams when I was younger. Not just that, I loved how you reconciled the change that the passage of time brings to us all when it comes to places we have loved, and the people who are strongly attached to the memories of those places.
Wow wow wow. I feel like this is one of your best pieces yet. It always amazes me how your writing incites such deep emotion in me. The intense nostalgia of your past weaving itself into your present and your beautiful weaving of words builds such a connection to your personal experience. I thought to myself at one moment how effortlessly your words created the history you were trying to convey. Then I read the last part about the countless hours of revisions and your feeling of giving up. Don’t ever give up my love. You are brilliant 💓
Thanks babe! I have been WORKING at it and I'm so glad it comes through. It's funny you say that about reading, because I do that with other writers, like "OMG this shit just pours out of her brain this way and it's so gorgeous!" Which is so not true, not for any writer I've ever talked to or read about, but that's part of the beauty right? You, the reader, get to experience the best way we can put together this puzzle and share it with the world. And hopefully, it reaches you somewhere inside, maybe somewhere you didn't know was still there, or ever there, or somewhere you've been trying to get to within yourself. That's why I write at least. :) xoxoxoxo Thank you for the gorgeous feedback. I love you!
Evocative. Thanks for sharing.
It brings back hot lumber underfoot memories and cold water smells.
Thank you! And you're welcome. I love this, "hot lumber underfoot memories." just beautiful, Steve. And cold water. It smells so different from the creek water here in Austin or salt water or rain. It's just incredible. I can't wait to go back!
Jocelyn this brings back so many memories of growing up in the Canadian Rockies and swimming in rivers. Sizzling on granite, smelling dirt and pine sap. I live on the coast now but I ache for fresh water swimming. Thank you for letting me live vicariously through you. Love the last line 🥹 And happy belated birthday!
Oooooh yes! the Canadian Rockies. I love that you have similar visceral memories from your childhood. The coast is wonderful and beautiful, and the ocean was my first water-love. But there is just something about fresh water isn't there. I know that ache, Monika. I do. That last line eluded me for a bit, it took writing and rewriting the piece before I think I realized what that conversation with my dad meant for me in that moment. And thank you! It was a fantastic birthday! Where on the coast do you live now? Are you still in Cananda? xo
I love how you break down your writing process and talk about your search for aboutness (as Jeannine would say). Aboutness is one of the most elusive things for me, too. In all my pieces 🙈 I feel like I’m just starting to crack it. I’m in Vancouver, BC. We took our pup for a swim today. It’s gorgeous to walk on the beach when the tide is way out. But I have zero desire to get in the ocean myself! Are you in California?
Oh thank you for saying that. I wasn't sure if it was too much, but I figured there are enough people from WITD and just people in general who might find it interesting. Aboutness is tough for me too. I find the less I try to figure it out, the better. I'm really working on trying to get my head out of the way and not force the pieces but let them come more on their own and then work on the details, a la Jeannine. ❤️
And how fun. My pup loved the beach. Loved it. I have less desire to get in the Northern Pacific ocean than I do in cold fresh water like Tahoe. I think living in the tropics spoiled me to warm oceans. I'm not in CA now, I'm in Austin, where my husband is from, but we're on a 1-2 year plan to get back to CA and move closer to the mountains. Wheee!
This writing is especially meaningful to me, an East Coast person transplanted a year and a half ago to Minnesota in the warm weather and El Dorado, California in the winter. I sense the power of the Sierras but it's just out of my reach. You brought it a little bit closer.
Oh Susie, that is wonderful to hear. I am so in love with this part of California and it's very satisfying to know that I could write about it in a way that brings it closer to you. Thank you thank you for sharing. We're on a 1-2 year plan to move back to Northern California and people have recommended El Dorado. Do you like it? xoxo
It's a little too rural for this city girl. In Minnesota I have just the right mix of green and the gray of asphalt. Also....the man made environment in El Dorado is very trucks and trailers. What are you looking for?
Oh that's good to know. I want things that don't co-exist lol. I want to be about two hours from Tahoe, but not too remote, my husband doesn't want snow, I want a little land, but my husband wants to be near good food. AND I don't want to live in the bay area. 😂
I think El Dorado fulfills these requirements except for the good food. Decent restaurants are rare out there. Have you looked into the Grass Valley/Nevada City area?
Okay good to know! And yess I’m looking around there too. Also out by the coast more which messes with being close to Tahoe. It fulfills other things. I’m mostly letting the universe guide me and trying not to overthink it. ❤️
Amazing piece! Thank you for taking us on the back trails to the river with you!
Thank you! And thank you for going there with me! ❤️
Gorgeous writing, your pieces always feel like a poignant scene in a movie, where I’m not sure if it’s me or someone else at the centre. I truly lose myself in your words, what a gift that is!
What a treat to read your notes about the piece too, fascinating process, thank you for sharing your beautiful heart ❤️
Oh Sarina, that is such a beautiful compliment, “…where I’m not sure if it’s me or someone else at the centre.” Just wow. Thank you so much! And thank you for letting me know you enjoyed the notes! I tried something new there bc I know there are writers reading.❤️
Hi Jocelyn, I am a new subscriber, a fellow WITD’er. I started following you after the WITD Lit Salon featured story, The Game Was To Guess The Words, which was stunning and engaging! I gushed all over you in the comments section of the post! And this essay, I love! Your first two lines pulled me in and what came next through the end of the second paragraph put me in the water with you and your sister, all goose-bumped and flicking your waterlogged hair! I used to tube down the Sacramento River, so this part of your story brought back fun memoires for me!
A couple close reading comments. With this line:” When he left, we left behind those roads, those rivers, our communion” I felt a longing and a sadness. Wanting to buy the lot next door, a “place to mark my childhood with an X, like buried treasure” felt like a plea to return to happier, cherished times. And then this: “I collected rocks shaped like hearts, and wondered how to piece together my life,” so tender and beautifully conveyed.
Weaving the journey with three men, the man with the crazy ideas, your now husband and your father, the love you once felt and/or still feel love for them juxtaposed with your love for water while search for your sense of place, home, was skillful. By the end, I was left hat you had found your home inside yourself. It’s cliché to say but home is where the heart is. And your last line tugged at mine.
Lastly, thank you for sharing your craft behind the scenes in your writing process. As a beginning writer, it is very inspiring and reassuring to know quality writing just doesn’t magically appear. I loved your line ‘they say writing is rewriting and they’re not kidding.’ I have come to learn writing is worked over, word by word, hour by hour through multiple revisions. I laugh when I think back to when I first started writing. At the time I said whatever I wrote was going to be a ‘one and done.” HA! Maybe I should have said ‘one hundred and done’!
Hi Lisa! Ohmygosh it's so fun to see you over here! I'm thrilled you loved The Game and I remember your wonderful comments and that we'll be in the 6/27 class together, can you believe that's almost here already?
Thank you thank you for taking the time to do a close read. I love these for so many reasons, and especially because you picked up and put in words something that was only subconscious for me and I think that is so thrilling - the connection of the men in the story and how you say, "the love you once felt and/or still feel love for them juxtaposed with your love for water while search for your sense of place, home" I find sometimes that I'm doing a thing without consciously meaning to do a thing and I think that's what Jeannine talks about when she talks about the aboutness of a piece and also about getting in to the body because it knows the stories better than the mind. I think when I do that, more comes through than my brain knows. Which I think is just incredible!
I love that you loved this line "“I collected rocks shaped like hearts, and wondered how to piece together my life,” so tender and beautifully conveyed." because I did too and it was one of those where I wondered if I should "kill my darlings" as they say. But it spoke to me and so it stayed in. I'm so glad it worked for you too.
Also that you read this into it "by the end, I was left hat you had found your home inside yourself. It’s cliché to say but home is where the heart is" because I think it's exactly that. Like a home inside my heart, but also inside my dad's heart, and inside the maps and the river and the crazy idea guy and my now husband and the whole universe, right? Like it's all a microcosm and it's all infinite and it's all there in our own hearts.
And I'm sooo thrilled you enjoyed the craft behind the scenes. I had an inspiration to do that last night and I love that it was helpful to you. I love the one hundred and done! That's totally how it is.
I remember writing in college and doing a draft or two, maybe half a dozen and calling it good. And not knowing a thing about writing really, but just knowing I had to get things down on paper. It's so beautiful to me that in my life now, when I'm really able to connect with my heart and my body and my memories with more perspective and I'm willing now to take the time to do the hundred and done drafts! :)
Thank you thank you for writing and being vulnerable to do the close reading and share your own writing experience with me. xoxo❤️
Oh! also, I love that you used to tube down the Sacramento river! I have a friend who is doing that this week!
Hey Jocelyn, first off, sorry for the typos and incomplete words in my not to you. Don’t you just love thumbing on an iPhone?!! Yes, hard to believe it’s been 12 weeks today that Jeannine began the Visceral Intensive! Sooo good! Excited for her workshop on the 27th too!
So happy that you appreciated my comments about the juxtaposition and that it resonated. Initially I was wondering if I should share my thoughts but glad I did. I agree with “getting in to the body because it knows the stories better than the mind. I think when I do that, more comes through than my brain knows.”
I also know who sometimes it a challenge to get into that place. I am learning every day to let go and just show up. Free writing, allowing myself to roam my inner landscape, has help me a lot too.
And this: “Like it's all a microcosm and it's all infinite and it's all there in our own hearts.” YES YES YES! In the end, love is all there is💚
See you virtually on 6/27!!
I am so so so happy and grateful that you did! It made my dad. Seriously, I went skipping in and told my husband. ;) It's such a practice, letting go and showing up and not _trying_ so hard. Yes! Love is really all there is! Can't wait to see your face next week! xoxoxo
Oh my, I did it again with my wrong words and typos!!! Maybe I need to get new glasses!!!
The way you bring me to your hidden places is extraordinary. I can feel the goosebumps, the granite, the water and the sun on my skin. Absolutely stunning piece❤️
Oooooh thank you thank you! That makes my day. Like I said to Sally, it was hard to tell by the time I published if I'd done the thing I was trying to do. I so so so appreciate your words. xoxo
Love it!
Wow wow wow. I feel like this is one of your best pieces yet. It always amazes me how your writing incites such deep emotion in me. The intense nostalgia of your past weaving itself into your present and your beautiful weaving of words builds such a connection to your personal experience. I thought to myself at one moment how effortlessly your words created the history you were trying to convey. Then I read the last part about the countless hours of revisions and your feeling of giving up. Don’t ever give up my love. You are brilliant 💓
Jocelyn, this was so beautiful, so embodied. Like you, I have been influenced by @Jeannine Ouellette so much. When I read your rendering of the concrete details of your childhood memories and discover the aboutness of your piece, I can't help but smile because I recognize Jeannine's influence. But what I really love is the fact that your writing in this manner brings me to the emotions, the interiority of this portrait and the story is just so much more intimate and authentic. The connection between you, your father, and Lake Tahoe is something to hold and to cherish. This was so tender, so wonderful. Thank you, friend.