You know my friend Dianita of the Singing Bells?

She is a psychotherapist and is just starting a website, AwakenedSpirit.com. It’s not up yet.

Dianita has a fine mind. She knows how to organize without even trying. She instantly grasped a structure for her workshops. She’s so down to business, so well-organized.

She also happens to be a fabulous writer. I am amazed at her writing ability. She has imagery that takes your breath away. You will see a sample below. Her writing is what I would call meaty. In a few words, she tells a whole story.

I helped Dianita edit her writing for her website. We edited together, decluttered her text, as it were.  Dianita was a doll to work with. She seemed to love everything I suggested, wowee! I’m kinda used to resistance, but, in Dianita’s case, her eyes lit up at everything I suggested.

Dianita saw me in a way I never really saw myself before. I am not astonished at her view, yet it helps me see myself better. This is sort of a guest entry.

Here’s what Dianita wrote:

 A Sketch of Gloria

The flow of sweetness and connection occurs between Gloria and me.

She takes the words I have written and strips away all the fat. My writing becomes very lean ah but not anorexic. Gloria is like that drug you can take that takes the fats you eat and — voila you are 20 pounds lighter in three weeks.  Gloria is the Jenny Craig of editing.  She puts thoughts together in logical groupings.  She is dominant with her editing and I submissive. I must be faithful to myself.  And yet she sees my self and writes of me faithfully, me, in my slenderest black slacks of words.

 Do you note those fabulous metaphors?

In her office where we meet, I sit on a round balance ball. At times, I teeter. I knocked over the lamp. The balance ball is the only free chair. My laptop is on her computer table off to the side.  Her table’s not really a table. It’s an ironing board which hosts her keyboard and her little notes and cough drops and a pen, four paper clips and a reminder to get 4-6 Roma tomatoes and panir. She carefully moves all that, so my laptop can wiggle into the end corner space.

I thought she would tell me what needed changing and look at my pages on her computer, and I would re-type it on mine.  Yet she goes over it and over it, this word, then that phrase.  She takes every one of my lines and re-thinks it, groups themes together and argues for a rhythm that suits the piece.

I sit speechless as she re-combines, re-constitutes and abolishes thoughts of mine. She strokes my heart saying how beautiful this line is and how wonderful and succinct my blogs are while she removes a word, cuts and pastes a phrase, alters the paragraph from end to middle.  She removes all the she’s and says it’s “Barbara” who treats, “Barbara” who trained, “Barbara” who learned, not “she” treats, “she” trained, “she” learned.

Do you feel the rhythm of Dianita’s writing?

“Can’t we say this in a positive way?” she asks when trying to discuss the fact that, as a therapist, I treat people with depression, families that are not talking, and people who wash their hands a hundred times a day.  How do I say such things with a positive spin?  “Could I say Barbara who treats couples needing greater capacity to communicate?” she asks. 

In the above paragraph, Dianita has found just the way to describe what she does — families that are not talking, people who wash their hands. Those phrases are just what we want.  Such phrases replace: depression, anxiety, grief, loss, post traumatic stress, marital and family conflict.  Much better, do you agree? 

Now Jacqueline’s knocking at the door. The two of them have an appointment to go for a walk. Next thing I know, I’m putting on my coat, my website still not complete, but another snippet of  structure has been re-worked.  Jacqueline too must flow in this curious non-linear arrangement.  Gloria does not put on her coat and hat and leave.  We first, Jacqueline and I, ooh and ahh over Gloria in her new but used suede coat as she models it.

Everything fits together illogically in Gloria’s world from where I bounce on the round exercise ball, yet it all holds together in the circle of her writing.  It’s not linear, and it hangs together perfectly even if I must wait a day or two or weeks to complete the several paragraphs of editing for my website.  When it’s done it will be succinct, lean, and statuesque.

How does she with her abstract rambling create such a sleek work of art?

Dianita, do you see how in a few words, you create a graphic picture? Note from this blog how it usually takes me much winding and weaving and many words to convey what I want to!

I see more clearly now how right-brained I am. I understand better now, how outside of Heavenletters and this blog, I am not always perceived the way I would like to be.

Thanks for the sketch!