Tag: Memoirs

Inside the U

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I have a passion for learning, teaching, and uncovering the truth. So much so, that in another lifetime, I might have pursued a career as a full-time educator.

While that never happened, over the past thirty years, I’ve discovered episodic ways to teach … sharing my communication expertise as an adjunct PR instructor, opening minds as a diversity trainer and consultant, and–now–encouraging others to write and share their stories.

***

On Monday, October 21, fourteen people walked through the door of The Loft on the second floor of the Scottsdale Public Library. Each found a place at the table around a U-shaped configuration.

Lisanne, the library’s program supervisor, welcomed them, introduced me, and described each of my books (which she propped on easels at the far end of the room).

I sat–inside the U–smiling and ready to share my tips and guide them on their memoir-writing journey.

First, I asked each writer to introduce themselves. Some told me they have been writing in various forms for years.

Others have fought the impulse to do so or simply have never found the time or place but have always wanted to write.

“This is a safe space for you to begin,” I told them.

To mine vivid memories. To spin them into previously unwritten sentences. To shape them into stories that one day they may want to share with the world or simply pass along to immediate family and friends.

By the end of our first session together, we got to know each other better. I walked them through a “prompting” exercise.

Each person selected a random image–fanned out in my hands like a deck of playing cards–and then proceeded to write a paragraph or two relating to it.

One selected a photo of a tiger lily. She wrote (and shared) an especially sad, but poignant and revealing story about her flower-loving mother.

Another recalled a funny encounter with a monarch butterfly. All of the stories written and shared had merit.

During the last part of the class, they completed a three-page “Telling Your Story” Worksheet I prepared. It will be the baseline for each participant to begin to write their memoirs.

I asked each person to write one to two manuscript pages for next Monday’s session. I will offer constructive feedback at that time, and they will share insights with each other.

We will meet one final time to discuss another round of writing on Monday, November 4.

Already, this workshop is proving to be a meaningful experience for me.

I hope it is a catalyst for each of my fourteen fellow writers.

If I can make even a small difference as a library volunteer to help them on their storytelling journeys, my time–inside and outside the U–will be time well spent.

Student and Teacher

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It’s time to come clean. I haven’t been devoting enough time to an important piece of my life and identity. I haven’t been scheduling–and honoring–a critical creative need: uninterrupted time to write.

Like an untuned car with dirty spark plugs, this sputtering connection–between me and my creative self–has been misfiring for about a year.

Though I have produced creative things (like a few librettos for my chorus and a blogpost once each week), I haven’t been protecting my creative time. I haven’t been developing enough ideas that are purely mine.

It’s time to take action. To go back to school. To open the metaphorical hood of this mid-century car. To do something about it.

I know this is a challenge for all writers … and I’m luckier than most. I’m not juggling a full-time job at this stage of my life.

Still, external forces and demands often flood through the door–disrupting my good writing intentions. (Even as I began to write this, a sprinkler head outside our front door just went haywire. I texted one of our condo board members to tell him a fountain of water is spraying everywhere!)

I’m back to the keyboard of my writing universe. Beyond the whack-a-mole geysers that pop up in every life, it’s time I became more selective and vigilant with how I choose to spend my time.

It’s time for me to find a better balance again. To be more attentive to my own creative needs (like I did when I wrote and published four memoirs and one book of poetry from 2016 to 2023) … while still taking some time to help others.

Today I began by scheduling two hours–between 10 a.m. and noon–to write this blog post about the writing process.

Tomorrow, I have another two hours on my calendar. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday will be the same.

Perhaps it is fitting that I’m treating myself like a misaligned student, who needs guidance from the teacher in me. Because this fall I will be leading a three-part “Meaningful Memoirs Matter” writing workshop for up to eight students at the Scottsdale Public Library.

I’m excited about the opportunity to teach again. (In the early 2000s, I taught the fundamentals of public relations as an adjunct instructor for Roosevelt University in Chicago.)

I think this 2024 experience will be more fulfilling on a personal level than the communication courses I led more than twenty years ago.

I genuinely want to help aspiring writers in my community tell their own stories. I want to tell them they don’t have to be celebrities to do it.

Extraordinary things happen to all of us. Important stuff flies under the radar in our everyday lives.

Just as important, I want to share my passion for the memoir art form and set this small group of individuals on a path to discover and unearth their own voices.

Back to scheduling. One of the things I will tell my students is that writing is a discipline. It requires solitude, time, dedication, energy, and–of course–passion.

But if you start small and string enough hours, days, weeks, and months of devoted and affirming writing sessions together–with time–the misfiring or underutilized writing jalopy can become a well-oiled machine.

Simply writing this is helping me get my creative energy back.

It’s time for me to practice what I will preach. To nurture the most important pieces of who I am … the writer, the storyteller, the essayist, the poet, the creative protagonist.

Because I am happiest when I am producing something that is entirely mine. Something that speaks to our human condition. Something that celebrates our connections to animals and nature.

Something that amplifies the importance of raising your voice and sharing your truth … even if the rest of the world has blown a gasket.

Under Construction

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Writing can be gratifying, but it’s not easy. It requires introspection, imagination, and a healthy dose of discipline away from the demands of the day.

As I write this, my creative inspiration has been less certain and more diffused. Perhaps the construction cones, yellow tape, and jagged chunks of sod–prominent through the screen of our kitchen window after the replacement of a water main valve this week–are a fitting metaphor for the disruption I feel.

I’m living between and among several writing-related projects that deserve attention. The largest of these is a novel I’ve been mining … and drifting in and out of for the past eighteen months or so.

It’s a compelling (I think) fictionalized story of twin brothers navigating the pitfalls of their differences and a significant/sudden loss that muddies their family waters and transforms them.

I’ve written six or eight chapters, spent significant hours developing the back stories of both characters, and have a clear idea of the troubles they will face and how the story will end, but there is at least a year of research, writing and editing ahead. That feels daunting.

In the near term, I’m committed to blogging once a week and working with Marc, the artistic director of the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus, on another libretto later this month. This one, called “Encore”, will appear on stage in late June.

I’m also refashioning a retrospective essay about a teen’s emerging gay identity. This is something I’ve submitted to a few literary magazines. So far, no takers. But I’m determined to find a home for it.

Meanwhile, I want to teach a memoir writing class. On Monday, I presented the Scottsdale Public Library with a concept for a workshop I have developed. They like the idea. There are details and timeframes to figure out, but I hope to lead the first session with a small group of attendees this fall.

Yes, there is a lot under construction inside my brain and around me as snowbirds tiptoe to and from the parking lot past the various plots of uneven ground the plumbing crew left in their wake.

At least I’m choosing creative projects that are important to me … doing my best to entice more folks to read my books, while maximizing the slippery slope of my sixties.

It all feels exhilarating and overwhelming.

Ode to the D-Day Generation

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One hundred years ago,

You didn’t know what would happen in twenty-five.

You didn’t know what battles you’d fight or letters you’d write.

You only knew that school was out and the heat was rolling in.

You are gone now, but never far away in the stories we tell.

You live on the pages with your sepia-stained insights.

You will always be the ones who raised the flag high.

You will always be the ones we will never deny.

_____________________________________

Written by Mark Johnson on June 6, 2019

Photo of Violet, Thelma and Walter Johnson

1919 Bryan Hill Elementary School Picnic

St. Louis, Missouri

 

Telling Stories in the Desert

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On Saturday, June 1 (from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.), I’ll be exhibiting in the Authors Showcase at the KJZZ Arizona StoryFest in Mesa, Arizona. This free event will be held at the Mesa Convention Center, Building C (201 North Center Street). If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll stop by and see me. I’ll provide An Unobstructed View of all three of my books. In the meantime, here’s a little anecdote that may inspire you to write or at least get you in the storytelling mood.

***

It was July of 1989. My thirty-second birthday had just come and gone. At least that’s what the calendar told me. But I wasn’t feeling celebratory. I felt lost. Personally and professionally. I was deeply depressed.

Seated across from me in his suburban Chicago office was Randy (not his real name), a kind and confident man in his forties with salt-and-pepper curly hair. Randy was my new friend. Randy was my lifeline. Randy was my therapist.

Over the next several years, I saw Randy twice a week. With his guidance, I always left with more hope than when I entered his office. We spent most of our time together exploring my family history and unwinding personal traumas. But, during one of our sessions, Randy asked, “If you could do something different professionally … something that isn’t public relations … what would it be?”

“I’ve always loved to write,” I responded. “I think I have at least one good book in me.”

Randy didn’t say much. He just smiled.

Thirty years have passed. It’s been nearly twenty-five years since I last spoke with Randy. But I’ll never forget the many ways he helped me find, accept and love myself during my tumultuous thirties.

If he were to read this, I know Randy would be proud and perhaps a little amazed that over the past five years I’ve written and published three books  … that I’m surviving in my sixties in a warmer climate … that I’ve found my voice and a happier life with my husband … that I’m sharing my stories with the world … that I’m telling and selling stories in the desert.

Thank you, Randy, for all of your gifts!

 

 

In the Aftermath

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Though darkness abounds,

There is an opening in the aftermath.

An ever-widening aperture of love and hope.

It reminds us to focus on who we are at the center.

Able captains of our bodies, minds and spirits.

Imperfect, yet free and unencumbered.

Seekers of light and truth.

 

By Mark Johnson

May 17, 2019

Love is in the Air

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Don’t let anyone tell you the Sonoran Desert is dead in the Spring. While it’s true that there are no daffodils, tulips, peonies or crocuses to speak of or admire, the Palo Verde trees are ablaze in yellow. The bougainvillea are burgeoning. The cacti are blooming in abundance. Splashes of white, pink, purple, orange and red abound. Oh, and love is in the air. I mean that literally.

I was a snowbird visiting Arizona from Illinois five years ago, when I encountered my first two lovebirds under open skies. They were a couple of diminutive, rosy-faced parrots huddling and chirping in a palm tree high above, as my husband Tom and I played Scrabble near our condo pool. I was captivated by their vivid, multi-colored feathers and the tender way they preened each other.

Now that I’m a full-time resident of the Sonoran Desert, I’m still smitten. So much so that I felt my adrenalin surge recently as I captured this image with my telephoto lens:  another fanciful flock of lovebirds holding court high atop a palm tree in Vista del Camino Park near my home.

In the past week or so, I’ve come to realize that these gorgeous birds aren’t originally from Arizona. The lovebirds are natives of Africa. Namibia to be precise. According to several sources online, in the 1980s two colonies of them were cast aloft into Phoenix-area neighborhoods. One was the result of a monsoon storm that destroyed a local aviary. The others scattered when an owner decided he didn’t want to keep them anymore. He released them into Sonoran skies.

The good news is the lovebirds don’t pose a threat to native Arizona birds. They simply add to the color palette and have adapted to life in the Valley of the Sun over the past three decades. Apparently, the palm trees and temperatures here are similar to those in their African home. So, the lovebirds are comfortable living in the Sonoran Desert.

Coincidentally, last Saturday–with the lovebirds front and center in my psyche–I was wearing my “Love is Love” t-shirt. (Imagine the silhouettes of a herd of six rainbow-colored elephants–red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple–with their trunks happily intertwined above the three words and you’ve got the right idea.)

Anyway, Tom and I were strolling up and down the aisles of the Scottsdale Farmers Market. I was shopping for vegetables and fruits in my diversity-loving t-shirt. A woman I didn’t know, a vendor named Elizabeth, jumped out from behind her booth. She approached me with a loving, beaming smile. She insisted upon taking my photo in the “Love is Love” shirt. She wanted to send it to a friend back in Chicago, whose sixteen-year-old daughter had just come out to her.

Of course, I was happy to oblige since I’m gay and had lived in Chicago for most of my adult life. I told her I’d even bought the t-shirt at a Banana Republic store in Chicago on North Michigan Avenue. But more importantly, I know how frightening and challenging it is for a young person who’s gay, lesbian or transgendered to find their way. They need all the support they can get.

Yes, it’s Spring 2019, but even if you have a loving mom or dad, and community of people around you who believe “love is love” and treat you with respect, the world is still a complicated and often judgmental place.

Perhaps all of us–now as much as ever–need all the love and lovebirds we can get.

Nothing Too Straight or Taxing

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Last Thursday, when my husband Tom and I greeted our Chicago friend Todd at Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix, we didn’t know if we’d have time to squeeze in a tour of Taliesin West during his week-long stay. We wanted to give Todd plenty of time to relax, read in the sun, swim in our condo pool, and watch our favorite movies together. But, because Todd is an architecture buff on vacation, an excursion to Frank Lloyd Wright’s iconic desert laboratory in North Scottsdale was near the top of his “to do” list.

I’m happy to report that today–on Tax Day in the U.S.–we fulfilled Todd’s and our architectural cravings. We drove north to immerse ourselves in Wright’s organic architecture. Fortunately, there was nothing too taxing about the experience. Only fascinating historic anecdotes from Harriett our trusty guide, grand horizontal lines connecting common-sense design with rugged nature, peace-inducing Asian artifacts from Wright’s travels, and expansive Sonoran Desert views from his functional living space and bedroom that faced west.

We three gay men didn’t witness too many straight angles during our ninety-minute immersion into Wright’s desert home and design school either. Instead, we found ourselves fully absorbed in the geometric patterns that surrounded us … like these three triangles that line the entryway to the Cabaret Room where Wright and his third wife entertained guests in their mid-century oasis near the foot of the McDowell Mountains.

I can imagine a roomful of wide-eyed architecture students gathered there in 1950. Wright holding court with grateful guests. Telling stories and sipping drinks with left legs crossed over and right arms resting on long rows of theatrical red seats placed at acute angles.

Witness Taliesin West for yourself next time you visit the Valley of the Sun.  It’s a design treat in the desert. Best of all, you won’t find it too taxing.