Carrie Link

INTO THE FIRE

Last week's writing assignment was to revise and/or expand a previous piece and include a specific bird, a description of the weather, and the color red. I revised the piece I wrote about Grandma's hairpin, just for those of you keeping track. : )

This week has had me tossing and turning, as was the intention, I am sure. We were to do a handwritten quick write for eight minutes starting with the sentence, "I am still afraid to write about..." until we got to the "nugget" of what our piece would be about. THEN the piece was to include MONEY, SEX (or a veiled reference to it), a TABOO (mine or someone else's), and a SECRET (mine or someone else's).

A friend called and shared a very personal story with me that had all four. Eureka! I thought. I was going to cheat and just write out her story, because let me tell you, it's a goody. But her story is not mine, and last I checked, this is a memoir class, and not a tell-me-all-about-your-friend's-life class.

And so I did it. I wrote about something I'm afraid to write about. And someday I may even post it on my blog, but not today. Sorry. Some things are healed by sharing them with others, and some things are healed by bringing them out of the body, onto the page, and then burned.

My friend, Jerri, wrote a blog post about being faced with a difficult situation, and choosing to walk straight into the fire. I've been thinking a lot about that, and fire in general, and it's various properties. I've always been afraid of fire, but there's a purifying component that comes from it that cannot be forgotten.

Sometimes we have to look up, push our chests out, swing our arms with command and walk straight into our fear, straight into the dangerous, straight into the fire.

And out again.


* Photo from freefoto.com