Yesterday, I attended a Yule celebration with a group of friends, a few of whom I've known for a while and a couple I was just meeting in person for the first time.
We shared a hearty meal, talked, and watched as three rambunctious little boys (two of whom are mine) ran amok. One topic of conversation - and something that I think will stay with me for the rest of my life - was how women communicate in order to build community. We place heavy emphasis on words to create actions. Several of us in attendance are writers. All of us, I think, are creative. And the men who were there with us (one who was there in spirit, as he had a gig to play) were just as creative and supported us gals as we yammered away. I also looked at how the boys were playing together. Even though they couldn't verbally communicate in ways we adults understand, the three of them were playing and building their world. Words are more than just things that get spoken or written down. They are living in their own right, deep within us, inherent. Even infants and toddlers have worlds they build through communication. And they become immersed in language more and more the older they get. But how do we translate the thoughts and feelings that stir within us into words? How do we get others to understand them? I know that I can articulate some of my feelings and have them be understood by certain people, and most of those people happen to be my female friends. But, to other people, I just come off as an awkward mess. These things have to come out though, so I talk or write. Even my fictional worlds are expressions of something within me. In my WIP (work-in-progress), my female protagonist, Jo, is dictating what I'm writing. I'm opening the doors to my mind and letting her come out. She's fiercer than I am, but she is insecure in some of the same ways. Her world inside of Girl in the Red Parka is my world, too, because I am building it for the both of us. I have been struggling with how I want her story to end. But, I think the truth is, her story has no end. Yes, it will have a conclusion in the book, but that's not the end of Jo's existence because I have already communicated her into the tangible world. Jo has always been there... Silent all these years, to borrow from Tori Amos. My point, I guess, is that we (especially women) will always create the world around us because we need to communicate the world within us.
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Jen
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