The Blog · Week 3

The Light You Carry in the Dark

This week is about grief. Not the kind that ends. The kind you bake into yourself like a cake and carry forward.

Writing as survival sometimes means writing what you lost, and letting the writing hold it for you. This is for survivors who are still here.

23 Years Without My Dad

23 years without my dad. April 16th. These are among the only pictures I have of him. 5 in total. I am thankful I found them in an album at the bottom of a storage box the other day.

Erik as a kid playing video games with his dad

Family photo with Erik, his dad, and relatives

Erik as a kid standing with his dad in front of a giant alligator statue in Florida

A meditation for this day:

This is what trauma-informed writing starts with. Not the page. The body.

Feel your body.

Let the morning press into you. The light, whatever sound is nearest, the temperature of the air on your arms.

Let it become so familiar that it feels like it belongs to you. Like it is you.

You survived into this morning. You have survived before.

Your body knows this. Let it remind you of whatever it is.

It may be a place that you remember the heat of, or the curve of your father's arm where your head fit so perfectly while watching Monday night football, or a song you played until you knew all its caves and silences.

Let your body sink into its memory. Let it water you. Let your feet go slightly light, like the ground wants to give you something back.

Take a deep breath.

Feel your feet on the ground.

What is who or what you lost still teaching you?

Grief Can Disappear Us

"Grief can disappear us. I know that first-hand. It's important to make space for grieving. Long-term grieving. To bake it into ourselves. Like a cake. I learned that from Joan Didion. But if we forget the candles, we burn out. What is the world without fire? Without glitter? Without the stars of us?

We are here. We are here. And we will never stop fucking shining."

From "The Cost of Healing," just femme & dandy, Vol. 4

I Caught a Galaxy in My Throat

"I caught a galaxy in my throat and I'm still shedding stars."

From Gellar Studies (Spuyten Duyvil, 2023).

What is the light you've been carrying in the dark these days?

The Song That Phoenixes You

The galaxy. The stars. The phoenix. Different words for the same refusal.

COMMUNITY PLAYLIST: THE SONG THAT PHOENIXES YOU: YOUR RESURRECTION SONG: YOUR DEFIANT YAWP

What makes you feel like your own personal Jesus? Brings out the holy bird of you? When I first heard Sinead O'Connor's Troy I felt like I was resurrecting the flame of myself that I had always embered down into ash. It was a visceral moment. I was birded and robed. I hear what you are thinking. I was just like a doctor! but no... I was risen.

Songs contributed by Instagram followers. Follow me @erikjfuhrer to contribute to future weekly playlists.

If you want to try this work live, the free Writing Trauma Workshop Series starts May 16. Four sessions, every other week, for survivors and other people writing trauma. No experience needed.

Register for the free Writing Trauma Workshop Series

If grief has a body, writing has a body too. The free course starts with yours.

The Light You Carry in the Dark

23 Years Without My Dad

Grief Can Disappear Us

I Caught a Galaxy in My Throat

The Song That Phoenixes You

The Body as Prewriting

You Are the Final Girl

You Are Safe