a day in the life

At work in Gladstones

/ RCRuiz

Here I am in Gladstones Library in Wales for a week of writing at the Milford Writer’s Writing Retreat. It has been a while since I’ve done something like this and I had quite forgotten just how enervating taking time out to write can be. It’s more than carving out time during the regular day, but just being here among so many books with other writers and just focusing on the work of writing has proven to be quite helpful in my process.

Before the diagnosis in 2022, I had been working on a couple of projects which I quite forgot all throughout treatment, so finding them again early in 2024 made me realise that I actually still liked these projects and they were stories that deserved to be finished. But coming to the Milford week, I was still torn on which project to work on.

In the end, I found myself drawn quite strongly to what I call the En story. I had been avoiding finishing it because the scale felt just so large. I realised that I have to acknowledge that it really is a novel. Not a novella, not a long short story, but a novel. It also means that writing in Gladstones works perfectly. I am in the process of putting together all the bits and pieces which I feel belong in this work and there it was staring me in the face…climate change. And what joy to be able to look through the library catalogue, head to the stacks, take all the books you think will be helpful and find exactly what you need for the huge thing you have been terrified about. It also helps a lot that one of my writer friends is a geophysicist and so I could send her a message saying: “uh…I have a question, help”.

It’s interesting to me too that the desk I’m seated at right now is located between two stacks of philosophers.

There is something about the moment and place of creation and how tapping into the source will bring you to the places/people/sources that you need in order to keep moving.

Working on the En story, I understand what it is about this work that terrified me. Now that I have the proper focus, I see how the world has always been comprised of opposing forces. Forces at a constant push and pull and forces that threaten to overwhelm each other. There is the nature that uses up worlds without thought or without care. It’s the kind of nature that discards without thought because when something is used up, there will always be another to take its place. It is the assumption born of privilege. There is another nature at place here too. It’s the nature of lifegiving and restoration and nurturing. Because the second nature is not brutal in nature, it’s often trampled on or made little of. But without the second nature, what would happen to our earth? What would happen to humankind? There is another nature somewhere in there and this is one wherein I hope balance takes place. I am working on it and my head is constantly busy with it.

A little while ago, I had a conversation with one of my Dutch friends. We talked about the balance between the realm of the spirit and the real world and how it’s easy to get caught up and lost in the spiritual, but we need to remember that we are also here in the real. It is the same with writing. My first drafts tend to be vague and starry eyed and not too grounded…more floaty and slippery than solid.

I started writing again in 2024 and it feels to me like I am learning all these things all over again. But what a joy to be able to do so. To be able to write and tell the stories I want to tell. Isn’t that a blessing?

Blessings and peace to you who read this. Agyamanac Unay for stopping by.

Bucketlist

/ RCRuiz

There was a time when I was a struggling university student that I used to go with a girlfriend to one of the high-end shops in Ayala. My girlfriend was tiny and fair-skinned and looked like a princess and while she had to make do with her allowance (just like I had to) it was quite obvious that she was from a well-to-do family. In the Philippines, fairness is associated with wealth and my darker complexion as well as my non-fairylike appearance made that people tended to associate me as coming from a lower economic bracket. Not that I cared. But well…anyway…my girlfriend liked window-shopping and so we would window-shop at those high-end stores.

We had a planned dialogue, my girlfriend and I. She would try something on, come out of the changing room and ask me what I thought and I was supposed to say that I wasn’t quite sure if it was really her thing. Of course, she would later on squee about how much she liked it but as we were struggling students, just being able to see what it looked like on her was just as good as buying things.

During one of these outings, she proposed making a list of things to buy. She showed me her list and said I should write one too. To humor her, I also made a list of things which included a watch from some upscale brand. We later parted ways and as tends to happen, we lost touch.

I have to laugh today because I just sat down to write a bucket list (entirely different from the list of things to buy…but it had me thinking of her). She had a pretty long list by the end of one year and I never found out if she went back to buy anything.

The bucket list I’m making seems to keep on growing and I find myself wondering how many people have bucket lists and what happens to those lists should they go uncompleted?

Just this week, I had a long talk with my GP. It was a great talk because we talked about my diagnosis and the implications of where I am in right now. One of the things she said to me was that I had the happy characteristic of being someone who was able to see the good in life no matter the circumstance. I suppose it’s true. I can’t control or change the circumstances, so I don’t really see the point or the use of crying or complaining about it (although I do sometimes grumble about it).

In the meantime, I’ve started on my bucket list and it’s already got thirty things on it. I think of something someone said to me–this is someone who went through a cancer scare and had the works and is now clean. He told me that his partner made a portrait of him while he was in hospital. It was a portrait in pencil, but his eyes staring out from the portrait are striking and full of life. He said to me that his partner had said: Oh, your eyes are good. They’re full of life. You’re going to be okay. I think to myself: but look, I am still full of life, aren’t I? And I think: I am still okay.

Today, I am preparing for tomorrow. Today, I am writing a list. Today, I have the energy to go out and bring things away. Today, I can pick up groceries and cook and prepare for the weekend. Today, I can be present for my youngest son who is still at home. Today, is full of possibility and there is still a lot of today left.

So, today I decided to share on here a close-up detail from one of my paintings. I liked this unexpected detail because it made me think of how while we only see the now moment, we don’t know how today affects everything that unfolds around us. So, let’s just keep on living and doing all that we can today.

Blessings and peace and Agyamanac Unay for reading.

Evolution

/ RCRuiz

There’s a Dutch phrase that captures the emotion for what we have gone through–het laat mij niet in de koude kleren zitten. Which means that all we’ve gone through as a family, all I’ve gone through as a person, these things have not left me unchanged or unmoved.

It’s a good thing to be moved and to be changed because it means I am still alive. I am still feeling, I am still living and I am constantly in transition, evolving, changing, not standing still. I think about this as I find myself surprised at how this season, this moment of being in a state of limbo, has feed the creative in me. I write, because I love to write. I make music because I love to make music. I teach because I love seeing how those I teach bloom into their potential. And I make art because a lot of times, when I am making art, I find myself in conversation with my maker.

Before 2022, I never imagined I would be making art as I do today. Or that it would become so important to me or that it would help me talk about what I am going through or that it would be a pathway to growing and knowing myself better. (I used to say that I write because I can’t paint or draw and am basically useless at art.)

When I told my Mom about my diagnosis in 2022, her command was for me to go ask God what his purpose was with me. At that time, I had no words for writing anything. I couldn’t even speak about what I was going through. Imagine being a writer unable to write or say anything about the storm going on inside you?

This was one of the first images I made which expresses what I was going through at the time. It was hope and agony and my soul just crying out. It was: God, if you really see me, then do something.

From that moment, telling the story of that time happened through images. Sometime in 2022, a friend proposed that I should try making use of acrylics. My first approach to painting was to simply splash color on the canvas. To try and put on the canvas or on paper what was in my head or in my heart at the moment.

This stormy canvas was just me saying: here I am in the middle of this storm and the storm is so big, I can’t even begin to describe it.

Making something visual happened because I had no words. But when you are without words for more than a year, and when you are engaging with art making almost everyday for a year, your work changes. One day, early this year, something told me that the way I was working was going to change and so was the art.

I think about the process of art making and how making art led me back to writing and how art that’s on the canvas tells a story just as the words on a page tell a story. We create because we have stories inside us that we want to share and stories will find their way out of the person bearing those stories. If not through words, it will be through other means of telling. (Just consider the plethora of youtube stories, audio stories, film stories..etc., etc.)

The more we engage with telling stories, the better we become at them. The more we engage with a certain medium, the better we become at that medium. Before my diagnosis, I would never have dreamed that I would someday tell stories through painting. After diagnosis, I thought I would never be able to tell stories through words again.

There are a lot of famous saying about life and art, but for the life of me, I can’t remember a proper one at the moment, but I do believe that art and life are intertwined. If anything, being diagnosed has made me more conscious of how important it is to live a life with purpose. To create marks with deliberation and care, to engage fully and be present in the moment, to look–really look, to really see and to also rest and be in the moment and allow moments to flow over me and change me and transform me so I can bring that back to whatever I am working on at the moment whether it is on art, on writing or my relationships.

I keep thinking of that friend who said to me “if only we knew how much time we had”. The truth is, we know. We know our time on this planet is not infinite. We know it, we just don’t want to acknowledge it.

I think about this as I contemplate the story of my life and I find myself wondering about the overall arch and how the completed story will read like or look like if it were in a book or hanging in a gallery. When we are in the process, we only see now. We only see this moment.

This is one of my latest works in progress (yup, I have more than one). I’ve been working on it for almost two months. I do a little work. I put it away. Think about it. Work on it some more. Right now, it’s missing one more element which I am thinking about.

I can honestly say that I don’t know why I am writing this or sharing this at this moment. It just felt good to do so. I don’t know what 2024 holds. I don’t even know what will happen tomorrow or next week or the weeks after that. Today, I am heading to the hospital. I am getting a CT scan. I am doing what I can to keep my body healthy. I am spending time with my kids and with my loved ones. I am writing. I am alive.

Blessings and peace to you who read this. Choose life.

Day Two

/ RCRuiz

It’s the end of the second day of the workshop series. I’m thankful that we’ll have a few days before the third and final session as these two days have been quite intense. We had a number of new participants join the workshop today and so I had to think a bit on how to introduce them into the workshop without making the session feel repetitive for participants who’d attended yesterday.

Here’s what I learned: given a space where people feel safe and accepted, they will share amazing stories. By creating a safe space for others to tell their stories, I’ve created a space that feels safe and warm and loving for myself and created a space to which participants tell me they want to return to.

Removing the mystery around story creation and throwing out the myth of talent or giftedness opens the door for those who’ve felt uncertain about writing or telling their stories. The realisation that story can be as simple as taking a walk around the block and noticing things and talking about them is enough to free participants from uncertainty and the fear of even attempting story.

At the heart of today’s session was a moment of history making. I’d prepared a science fictional scenario. In it, I asked participants to create a history of that future world from the perspective of five groups of people who are often overlooked. It was a risky exercise since I was asking participants who had never engaged with science fiction before, to imagine or envision in a science fictional way. But just as yesterday, the workshop participants blew me away.

Next week, we’ll be holding the final session of this workshop series. I know I am being ambitious yet again. Who in their right mind gives fledgling writers and storytellers only 30 minutes to build a world and create a story?

The thing is…when you tell people to just have fun, they will take you at your word. There will be laughter, there will be lots of chatter, but in the end, they will blow your socks off and to me, that’s just magic.

7 minutes

/ RCRuiz

I had a conversation while at the hairdresser’s about the work that I do and how my work involves writing, the teaching and encouragement of writers, and how that sometimes also includes one on one coaching. My hairdresser told me about how they’d always enjoyed writing and how as a child they used to write essays and little stories and how they enjoyed the act of escaping away into a fictional setting.

Someday, I would like to write a book, my hairdresser said. But I keep thinking that writing means I need to carve out lots of time to write and I don’t know that I have the patience to sit down for long stretches of time just to write.

She then went on to tell me of how she’d made this resolve to take along a journal during her holiday with the intent of doing some sort of travel journal.

Except, she said. At the end of the day, I would find myself quite overwhelmed by everything that I needed to write down. I just didn’t know where to start or how to write it down anymore.

It was a story that I recognised from others who were just learning to embrace writing as a practice.

I recently gave a fresh notebook to a young and upcoming writer and her first response was to say that she would take time to write thoughtful things in it.

To which I said: write everything in it. Write even your mundane grocery list in it. Write a to-do list or any random scribbling.

She said: Oh, then I’ll look for the perfect pen.

And then, she looked at me because I was shaking my head and she said with a laugh. I know what you’re going to say. Don’t wait to find the perfect pen. Any pen will do.

And we laughed together because she already knew what my next words would be: Just write.

In embracing the practice of writing, I think of the 7 minute rule. I don’t know if it’s a rule, really. It’s something that just came to mind and something that feels handy. 5 minutes feels too short and 10 minutes feels too long. But 7 minutes feels somehow just right. So, I gave the same advice to my hairdresser as I give to new writers who feel daunted by the idea of finding time to write. I said: find 7 minutes. Just 7 minutes. It can be shorter, it can be longer, but set your phone for 7 minutes if you’re sitting somewhere in between moments. Say to yourself: Okay. It’s 7 minutes. Just write.

It doesn’t have to be brilliant. It doesn’t have to be poetic. It can be mundane. It can be anything. But just take 7 minutes to write. You just might be surprised.

one for the road

/ RCRuiz

I can feel momentum in the wind. Like energy, rising and gathering as the universe opens doors to different knowings and learnings.

I’ve just arrived home from Amsterdam where I attended the Storytelling session and the reflection session for Amsterdam Assembly: Letting Go of Having to Speak All the Time at Framer Framed. Four stories told by people who shared not just their stories but also the process behind coming to storytelling and the process of finding voice and what that meant to them.

I think about the creation of community, about building bridges and connections and how by sharing something that’s personal or close to us, while being an act of vulnerability is also a very powerful thing. It requires trust on the part of the person telling the story as well as courage and I think that kind of trust should also be met with openness and trust and a willingness to accept and be vulnerable as well. In today’s social media society where everyone is busy talking over or alongside each other, to be present in a space and to be able to offer listening and being in the moment is a way of remembering that these circles of conversation are how we connect to each other and that requires making time to sit, offer your full attention and listen.

Later, during the break I had the opportunity to walk and converse a bit with Nneka Mora who is a storyteller from Nigeria. We talked about what storytelling meant to her and also about how story can be as simple as conversing with your mother and telling her what you did today. The conversation we had made me feel so joyful and I am thankful for Nneka’s words and insight.

If you’re reading this blog and are interested in watching the recorded sessions Framer Framed has the sessions published on YouTube.

There’s still one more day of listening and I’ve signed up for the webinar for tomorrow’s session. I think it’s a privilege to be able to sit and listen. To hear what’s being said and to take them to heart.

Lockdown and writing with the boys

/ RCRuiz

We were celebrating one of the younger cousin’s birthday, when the announcement went live.

We had been expecting it, of course.

“Well,” said the only other aunt who had showed up. “I suppose this will go down in family history as the Corona birthday party.”

We sat there, sipping our tea and coffee, while Ministers Slob and Bruins made the announcement. The room grew dark as twilight fell.

“A shame,” the other aunt said. “There was sun this morning.”

We made the appropriate sounds of assent and laughed at the sign language for hamsteren (hoarding).

Youngest son showed off a picture he’d made earlier in the day of empty supermarket shelves.

On tv the Minister says all pubs and cafes will be shutdown for at least three weeks; classes are suspended, and any gathering that includes more than your own immediate family is discouraged. And in particular, no visits to the elderly because they are the most vulnerable.

“That’s it then,” sister-in-law said. “So, I guess you should all go home.”

#

I found myself thinking of absurdist movies and it may sound strange, but for a moment I couldn’t help but wonder if a director would jump out of somewhere shouting, “Cut”.

Of course, this didn’t happen.

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In the morning, my sons and I walk to the nearest supermarket. We’re out of bread and cheese, and we haven’t got a gigantic freezer or any kind of stockpile.

So, we walk because classes are suspended and I think children (regardless of age) need some sort of physical movement. I also believe that fresh air is good for you.

Already, the youngest son wants to know what’s on the programme for today.

I propose a short piano lesson.

“Not too long,” youngest son says. “Or else I won’t have time for anything else.”

Eldest son scoffs at youngest son’s declaration, but I promise that all we’ll do is learn the second phrase of Fur Elise.

“What about a short writing session in the afternoon?” I ask.

Both boys perk up and look interested.

“Is this going to be like the workshop you’re giving?” eldest son asks.

“Uh,” I look at youngest son. “I’ll have to adjust it a bit, but it might be fun.”

“Why not?” Eldest son says.

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Today we did two small writing exercises. Afterwards, I asked them if they would like to do this again tomorrow.

It looks like we will.