Letters From New England

They call me Ms. Richard...

Saturday

July 19, 2008

Hi,

Okay, maybe "They call me Ms. Richard" isn't quite as dramatic as the line from To Sir With Love..."They call me Mr. Tibbs", but that's all I could think about as I read the article.

I mentioned (maybe?) that a reporter from the local snoozepaper contacted me a couple of weeks ago about the journal workshops that I teach at work and the college.  She wanted to interview me and sit in on a couple of classes for a community education piece she was writing.  Since I just finished a class 2 weeks before, and didn't have another one starting, I invited her to join the writing group that formed from the last workshop.  We had our first gathering at Jumpin' Juice & Java on Tuesday.  The following article was in the newspaper yesterday.  I completely missed it, so I'm glad I got a heads up from someone (Kevin) who'd read it.

Here, in it's entirety (try to stay awake), is the article.  I don't know what's going to happen to the formatting, so I'm sorry if it's all over the place.

Students experience theraputic power of keeping a journal

By Malia Estes - Intern Published On Friday, July 18, 2008

GARDNER — Keeping a journal isn’t just a pastime for Kay Richard and her students: it’s a way of life. As an advocate of journal writing for personal growth and wellness, Ms. Richard was certified in 1997 by Kathleen Adams’ Center for Journal Therapy in Colorado to lead “Journal to the Self” courses, designed to share the proven therapeutic power of writing, with the community. “It’s actually pretty odd, how I got started in journal therapy,” said Ms. Richard, who has been keeping personal journals since age 12. “When my son went to college, I got a job in a bookstore. One day, a woman came in looking for a journaling book, but she couldn’t remember the title. When “Journal to the Self” came up in the system, I thought it looked interesting, so I ordered one for her and one for myself. And when I started reading it, I was just amazed at all of the things you could do with journaling.” According to Ms. Richard, the book contained information from the author regarding training certification based on the program. Kathleen Adams, a licensed psychotherapist and well-known advocate of writing therapy, offers readers of “Journal to the Self” to become accredited to teach workshops based on her therapeutic writing techniques in either a six-week correspondence or four-day intensive retreat program. “I’d put the book away, but after about a year I dug it out again, and decided to write a letter of interest,” Ms. Richard said, and also added she was surprised by the author’s prompt response. “It took me about six months to go through the process by mail. There are tapes, required reading, and toward the end of the training you tape one of the workshops you teach, as well as write a mini-thesis.” According to Ms. Richard, who has taught a number of journaling and memoir workshops throughout the community, journaling is a powerful support system for daily life, and her workshop participants agree. “That’s one thing I notice about the journaling class — you don’t have to be a writer,” stated Debbie Raymond, one of the women who joined Ms. Richard for a journaling session on Tuesday evening. “The words just seem to flow out.” In addition to being offered at Mount Wachusett Community College as part of its community education series, Ms. Richard also runs workshops out of Heywood Hospital, where another of her participants, Kay Landry, assisted Ms. Richard in getting the Journal to the Self workshop accredited by the Massachusetts Nurses Association as a therapeutic tool. According to Southern Methodist University in Texas, the research of Dr. James Pennebaker shows that students who journaled their feelings about traumatic events had elevated immune systems and less stress than peers who did not keep a journal. Many journaling exercises are also intended to recall memories, which, the university claims, is useful in therapeutic exercises. “It really did bring me back to when my parents were alive,” said Cathy Bourne of one of Ms. Richard’s writing exercises. “It’s funny that I didn’t even think of it while I was writing.” Ms. Richard’s workshops encourage participants to share stories and memories while at the same time providing them with new writing techniques. And though she runs the sessions, Ms. Richard is always open to her students’ ideas, such as the book journals introduced by Chris Harvey at her last session. Ms. Richard also runs a series of popular memoir-writing workshops. “It’s really based on the journal workshop,” Ms. Richard said. “I’ve basically just taken a handful of tools that I learned with journaling, and put a spin on it for memoirs. Anyone can do it.”  And journaling is a habit that becomes addictive, according to Ms. Richard. “In 1999, I bought a journal called ‘10 Plus’ that has 11 years’ worth of pages, four lines per day,” Ms. Richard said. “And the way it’s set up, you can go back and look at 11 years’ worth of one day. It’s good to be able to go back and see what was happening at a particular time in your past, to help you with the present.” More of Ms. Richard’s Journal to the Self workshops will begin at Heywood Hospital in the fall, and Ms. Richard said all are welcome. “The best part of all this is I get the opportunity to meet people, and to interact with the people I work with,” Ms. Richard said. “You get to know people on a whole different level.” For more information on therapeutic writing and the Journal to the Self series, visit Katheleen Adams’ Web site at journaltherapy.com.

Peace,

Kay

My birthday gift to myself...

Thursday

July 17, 2008

Hi,

First, Happy Birthday to my cousin, Diane!  :)  Tomorrow would be my mom's 79th birthday.  We've have a handful of birthdays whose year ended in 9.  Mom in 1929, Jackie in 1939, Diane in 1959 and Shelby in 1969.  I'm willing to bet that, with the plethora of cousins I have, there's a 1949 in their somewhere!  Linda, maybe?  Hmmm... I need to research that.

Okay, that's not what I came here to write about tonight.  I recently received the latest catalog from Kripalu.  I went looking for a workshop with Deena Metzger and found one with Natalie Goldberg!  I've used both of their books on writing over the years.  Writing Down the Bones is dogeared, marked up, highlighted, well-loved.  BUT, the thing that was so serendipitous is that I just fell across her book on memoir writing, Old Friend from Far Away a few weeks ago.  Even read some of it to my last memoir class the last night we were together.  So, I'd already made up my mind that I was going to take that workshop come hell or high water, when my friend, KayL, caught up with me in the cafeteria this afternoon.

She said, "Hey, I got the new Kripalu catalog yesterday" and before she could say another word, I was smiling and nodding yes yes yes and so, we are going together!  KayL is not only a co-worker, but a member of my book group, Stitch 'n Bitch,  and my memoir and journal groups too.  So, even though I don't, in reality, have the "disposable income" for the workshop right at this moment, I'm going to register anyway (I have a 0% interest credit card with nothing on it) and put it out to the universe that this is my birthday gift to me and make sure I write my abundance checks every month until October! :)  I fully believe that it won't be a problem paying it off because I have 2 jewelry sales coming up.  One before and one after the workshop.  Now, if only I can figure out a way to turn corn oil into fuel for my car, we'll be all set! 

Anyway, I'm very excited to take this workshop...not only to finally meet Natalie Goldberg in person, but also for the memoir writing I hope to get done during (and after).  It's October 17-19 and my birthday is the following week.  The plan is that I will take Fri, the 17th off to drive there, and all of the following week.  My friend Beth has THE best "camp" ever on a little pond in a tiny town about 30 minutes away.  I've already emailed her to see if I can use the camp for a couple of nights mid-week.  It is so peaceful there.  No phone, no computer, no t.v.  There's not even any cell phone service.  Sigh... I hope it'll be available. 

Okay, that's all I wanted to say.  Off to get some exercise.

Peace,

Kay

Catchin' up...

Sunday

July 13, 2008

Hi,

On Friday, during a long stretch of being on hold with a vendor, I grabbed a slip of (recycled) scratch paper and made a couple of lists.  One had all of the household stuff I wanted (well, needed) to get done this weekend.  The other listed some "fun" things I hoped to get to.  One of those was to FINALLY get here to write.

I chose to ignore that line on my lists as I was crossing things off yesterday.  As the Universe would have it, I got a gentle prompt to get in here today in the form of an email from a reader...thanks Barbara!

I usually go back and read a couple of my last posts before I write so that I'm not redundant, but today I've decided to just dive right in.  I'm pretty sure that the reason for not writing much lately has NOT been brought up previously, so I don't fear repeating myself.

Our small city was stunned by an event that took place on July 1.  Part of the reason I haven't been here to write is the state of disbelief I am still in.  I couldn't decide if I should write about it or ignore it and write about the minutiae of life. 

I've written tales of the upstairs tenant a few times since I moved here.  The level of noise, mostly.  I may even have mentioned, last fall, that I'd see A's car in the driveway when I woke up and Bi's parked out front when I left for work an hour later.  To each her own, but...she's got kids up there.

I don't need to list the detail of what a complete train wreck D is.  Most of what I know about her has come from members of her family.  They don't paint a pretty picture, but since she's never given me any trouble, I just took on a "live and let live" attitude, since it's none of my business anyway.  Her karma, right?

Bi had been hanging around here a lot last summer.  He's retired and is a friend of my landlord, so it didn't seem too odd that he was here.   However, it became apparent to me that he was upstairs an abormally large amount of time.  I'd see his truck parked out front more and more often, then hear him clopping down the stairs.  Then he and A were playing musical cars in the driveway for several weeks.  At some point early last winter, he stopped leaving at all. 

His wife, Be, was doing a few drive-bys, stopping out front and laying on her horn for an ungodly amount of time, but in all honesty, I could identify with her anger.  He "took up with" a 37 yr old woman with 3 kids still at home.  He's 58, by the way.  He's cheated on her with younger women before...one of them his own son's girlfriend.  Whatever...

So, okay...he's officially living upstairs with D throughout the winter and spring.  They seem happy enough, though I'd heard some pretty unsavory things about Bi over the years.  Again, none of my business if she wants him in her life.

Spring rolls around and they are working together in the yard.  I think that Be has finally just let go.  D is waving a large diamond ring around.  There is chatter about getting a house together (yippee for me). 

On 6/25, D told me that's she'd thrown Bi out.  I told her I was sorry, but didn't question her and she offered no more information.  I saw him come and go a few times over the next several days.  You know how break-ups are.  You never just break-up and that's the end of it.  There is always a breaking-up period of a few weeks before you either reconcile or finally let go.  So, I didn't think much about seeing him around those few days.  I still didn't know the reason for the break-up, so assumed that he was trying to make amends.  Then I heard that Be and her daughter (Bi's step-daughter, by the way) are pressing charges against him for child molestation.  Yikes.  Restraining orders were taken out by Be against Bi in Dec and again in April. 

On 7/1, Bi killed his wife, then himself in their home.  The day of the incident, I was confronted by detectives on the back deck when I got home from work.  They were looking for D. 

I won't get into all of the rumors that have been flying since July 1 because it would take too much time and they are just rumors after all.   There are many holes in D's stories and I wonder what's still coming down the pike for her about the whole tragedy. 

Bi and Be's funerals took place earlier this week.  I understand that Be's wake brought people by the hundreds to the funeral home.  If I'd gone, it would have been like a (tragic) class reunion for me (I graduated with Be). 

So, anyway...the last 2 weeks of this has kept me silent here.  Before that I was busier than a one-armed wallpaper hanger.  I'll try to be more faithful about writing.  Thanks for sticking around. 

Peace,

Kay