Your pain becomes your poetry
Your pain becomes your poetry
I think your pain becomes your poetry, your gift.
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As an avid fan of Patricia Cornwell’s Scarpetta series, I’ve had a full page newspaper article about her on the wall of my study since October 2022 (written by journalist Lina Das). Having had a particularly cruel upbringing, Cornwell says that she writes crime to make sense of the world, but perhaps subconsciously to also mete out justice to the bad guys who terrorized her as a helpless child.
While doing in-depth research for the twenty-six books she’s written, Cornwell says she’s seen things too awful to talk about, but not seeing things doesn’t make them not true. “I can’t avert my gaze,” she says.
When I walked into my study today and saw those words on the wall, it really got me thinking. Like, really got me thinking.
“Your pain becomes your poetry, your gift. Patricia Cornwell
My pain: I’d just returned from a celebration for a family member’s hundredth birthday. It required an overnight trip, something that is very difficult for me right now because my husband is seriously ill and I needed to muster help (which was lovingly offered and accepted) for our seven-month-old puppy as he’s too weak to take her for walks.
More pain: Then, I’d no sooner arrived home than I had to take my husband to emergency for the fourth time since Christmas because he’d refused to follow his doctors’ orders and let things go too far—again.
The worst pain: After getting home from the hospital, I was devastated to hear that in the aftermath of the hundredth birthday party, a beloved family member was being verbally abused and treated terribly by another family member.
Between worrying about my husband and the dreadful family dynamics, I couldn’t sleep that night. What one family member said to another still haunts me today and I think it will for some time to come. I don’t know if it’s forgivable, but it’s definitely not mendable.
Ironically, when I opened my Morning Pages (Julia Cameron) to journal this morning, the quotes on the page were all about “crazymakers.” People who make you crazy by their behaviour (more on that next week). WTF!? It’s not even a full moon right now!
As I sat down to write this essay and later, to work on my current thriller, I realized that while this is happening in (my) real life, I now have plenty of fodder for my creative side. Patricia Cornwell is known for her attention to detail: the sights, sounds, smells of the autopsy room. But it’s the emotion that she imbues in her writing. And while she denies the character on which her long-running series is based, medical examiner, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, is she, she says:
“I created a character who would have rescued me as a child, who would have saved me. And in a way, I did.”
So, as I transition from this personal essay—that I suspect you may also relate to—I will try to use my pain as my poetry. I’ll put extra care into making my characters real and try to get on the page what so many of us suffer and feel in our hearts. It’s a noble cause, don’t you think?
And of course—and most importantly—I’ll focus on being a more loving, kinder person. Not a crazymaker!
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I loved that chapter about the crazymakers. They really do exist. It’s their resistance. I’ve written a piece about it that I’ll share one day soon. Meanwhile, write hard and hang in there. You’ve got a lot going on and need to give yourself some grace.
Huge fan of Julia Cameron and morning pages here. And you do not need any more crazymakers in your life at the moment! I'm so glad that you have the solace of your writing to turn to. We are lucky for that, aren't we?