‘Off the Scales’ - The Gift of Stories: E-Letter 3
Hello friends,
Welcome back to my Off the Scales letter. Thank you for taking the time to return this week. I hope sunshine has found you, wherever you are reading from today.
This time last week, I shared that I was preparing for a focused week of writing. A couple of people mentioned to me that a ‘writing residency’ didn't make much sense to them, so I thought I’d expand on this a little. Creative ‘residencies’ can take many shapes and forms. The format of the one I took part in was centred around writing, alongside a group of other people who work in performance, supported by two (incredible) writing tutors, who ran daily writing technique workshops and some 1:1 tutorials. We ended the week by reading samples of things we had written over the week, to the rest of the group.
When I signed up for a course that would be hosted online, I’ll be honest that a full 5 days of workshops held on ‘Zoom’ filled me with dread. I don’t know about anyone else, but I have found the increased screen time and intense concentration required to converse and learn over Zoom this last 12 months, exhausting. My eyes burn and my neck aches and my brain fogs and my words begin to slur.
But this residency ended up being something very special. Every day began with games - like the ones played as children; ‘traffic lights’ where you run on the spot for ‘green’, or stand up straight and still for ‘red’, and acting out Little Red Riding Hood in totally hammed up actions of our big teeth and claws! We played, and it was silly, and I remembered how good silly feels. Every day centred around workshops of tried and tested techniques to explore starting points to writing, which may become performance.
The biggest gift turned out to be permission to write. Endlessly write. Abstract, starting point ideas, not fully formed, emerging from the experiences I have had and the interviews with, and the people I have met over the years. Ideas of further research I’d like to explore. Songs and sounds I’d like to sample. Recognising that I already have such a huge scrapbook of brilliant stuff to work with. Recognising too, the generosity of people who have shared their stories with me; who trust me with their memories and their thoughts and their hopes and their fears. This course reminded me how precious all this is. How valuable these words are. How much I care for these stories and love that I have been trusted to hold them.
Off the Scales was born out of the generosity of a group of strangers who meet and connect, and then share their vulnerabilities, parts of their lives, their truth. This writing course offered the same experience; come as you are, have permission to fail, to be imperfect, to be incomplete, to be nervous and scared, and to be brilliant because of those things.
There is something so powerful about connecting with people and sharing something really raw and true about yourself, and for that to be really heard. I said in the week to a friend ‘Storytelling is so powerful, isn’t it?’ to which they replied ‘Storytelling is 50% powerful, the other 50% is in being listened to.”
I realise Off the Scales is - in part - a love letter of gratitude to everyone I’ve connected with through the WW groups. We begin meeting because we want to lose weight. We keep meeting because we find support and strength. We build a community because we care. I am thankful for a group of friends who replace shame with support. Guilt with guidance. ‘Not enough-ness’ with encouragement. Complexity with kindness.
This is a short list-inspired poem I wrote using one of the exercises from last week.
The Meeting
The advice
And the boxes of crisps
And the circle of chairs
And the envy
And the friendship
And the frustration
And the ‘Gold’ card holders
And the hugs
And the laughter
And the mismatched cups
And the overnight oats
And the scales
And the smell of coffee
And the snack table
And the tears
And the tea urn
And the top tips
And the warm smiles
----
To anyone intrigued about this process, I would like to offer an experiment to try out some of the things I learnt on the course. I’ll send more details next week, but in the hope of peaking some early interest, I’ll be offering a short writing workshop before the end of March. I'm excited at the possibility of trying a couple of the exercises we used this week, with some of you, if you’d be up for it. Maybe we’ll write something together. Maybe it will be rubbish, and that will be ok. Maybe it will be the best thing we’ve ever done! Or maybe, more likely, something in between. But we’ll try it out together, and that could be fun. If nothing else, we gave it a go!
And as ever, feel free to get in touch if anything resonates with you here today too.
I’ll catch up with you again next week. Until then, take good care.
Love,
Kate x