Pull off the Highway

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We almost didn’t exit Interstate 490 last week while traveling through Rochester, New York, to visit family for Christmas. “What do you think you’ll find? A picture of yourself from fifty years ago?” my husband asked. 

“You never know,” I said.

Minutes later, we pulled into the packed parking lot just off the ramp, bundled up, and walked into the massive steel and metal building. 

And there I was, trapped behind plexiglass, staring forward at myself through the decades.

It turns out this grainy, black-and-white photograph from 1977 still hangs on the walls of Bright Raven Gymnastics, the club where I trained for nearly ten years.

Here I am, age eleven, looking anxious during warm-ups.

A flock of ponytailed adolescent girls shuffled past me in their leotards and spandex shorts—bags of carrots and water bottles in hand.

I wanted to stop them, press them up to the case and yell, “That’s me, forty-five years ago!”

I wanted to warn them that, in years that will tick by like seconds, they will change places with me, stand here in this fluorescent hallway, transfixed, a knee brace hidden under their jeans, stubbed toes buddy-taped together, and the scars from lumbar surgery scantly visible between L3 and L4.

I wanted to tell them so much—like how badly I missed dancing across the floor in endless combinations to ‘“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” and how nothing has ever really compared to sticking my first back tuck.

I wanted to caution them about their young bodies, their hyperextended lower backs. The landings. Take care. This machine has got to last you.

But mostly I wanted to warn them against feeling not good enough from being unable to keep up with the higher scoring girls. But there are some things only time makes clear. So I stood still and watched them giggle as they walked by.

I’m sharing this story with you because I wanted to write something that ChatGPT couldn’t.

Seriously, though. I wanted to share pieces of myself that I thought I had forgotten.

And now that I’m back home in Los Angeles, I find myself flooded with more memories from those years as a competitive gymnast, like my mother’s waking up before dawn every Saturday to fry eggs and curl my hair in classic 70s bangs, only to sit on wooden bleachers for hours, as I fell off of the balance beam, over and over. I never thanked her.

There’s so much of me to examine from ages six to fourteen inside the stolid walls of that gymnasium. So much of me to integrate—the joy, the shame, the pain—into the woman I am today.

I think you know where this is headed: I will reach for my pen. I will continue to build my authentic voice.

Here’s a cheat-sheet of my process—a reminder for those of you who have been with me for a while, and something new for others. 

I hope what follows will inspire you to pull off the highway in 2024 and onto the page. You’ll never know what you will find.

First, I set myself up with intention in a calm, uncluttered, space—I might light a candle or turn my desk chair toward the hummingbirds swooping to and from the feeder in our courtyard.

• Next, I settle in with two or three minutes of breathing and guided meditation. I drop out of my conscious mind (I call it my “troublemaker” brain) and into my subconscious.

• Then I set up my page with the date and this liberating statement: “I am free to write the worst junk in all the world!,” a.k.a. “WJAW!” (Fun fact: Chat GPT claims that “WJAW!” stands for “Write Just Any Words!,” but I stand by my acronym for the ultimate freedom from self-criticism, thank you very much.)

• I set my timer for seven minutes and begin with a prompt. I find prompts everywhere: in grainy photographs serendipitously discovered off dark highways, in  poems, paintings, songs, quotations, scents, sounds, and more. I don’t stop my pen from moving, no matter what. I draw squiggles or repeat a word until something moves me from my quiet, centered self. I might stick closely to the prompt, or I might pinball around: either is fine. I trust that whatever emerges is what needs to be written. There is no right write. And if you don’t consider yourself “a writer,” all the better.

  A common question I receive is, what if I’m afraid of what I see on the page? I get it. It can be scary to dig around in your past.  But in twenty-seven years of teaching, I have found that we only write what we are ready to explore.

  When my timer goes off, I stop while I’m still feeling the juice, the flow. This is important.

• Then I read the piece back to myself in a whisper breath, highlighter in hand. I mark moments of heightened feelings on the page. I don’t question or judge; I simply look for places where my gut tells me “there’s more there, Jen.” I call this step “mining the gems.”

  Here’s an excerpt from one of my notebooks so that you can see what this step looks like. For my prompt, I listened to the sounds inside a bowling alley.

Mining the gems

Finally, I select one of my gems and rewrite it at the top of a new page. I begin again with five minutes on my timer, dropping into my second WJAW! Sights, sounds, images, dialogue, and insights tumble forth. I go deeper. Later, when I reread my words, I often don’t recognize them.

By WJAW!-ing, I come to understand things I never knew that I believed about myself. I make sense of my life in ways that thinking or talking or traditional journaling never could. I experience inner-knowing and clarity, a shaking loose of beliefs that no longer serve me—and probably never did. 

It feels like magic.

And from there? “Life goes on, bra / La-la, how the life goes on.”

Just like the Beatles said. Only better.

Yours in writing the worst junk in all the world (WJAW!) in the new year,

Jen

The Authentic Voice® process is for educational and informational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical or mental health advice.