Moving Up USA

Last week, I watched two movies.

The first was Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World. It was a wonderful film exploring the life of the poet whose powers of observation – particularly of the natural world – were unmatched.

The second was The Karate Kid.

On the surface, these films could not be any different. But they – in different ways – reflect the cathartic value writing provides to both the writer and their audience.

The Oliver documentary begins by sharing a poem describing her escape to the woods, fleeing her home as a teenager for a week. The reasons for her escape are not shared at that point, although they are foreshadowed by another poem describing her relationships with her parents.

For most of her career, Oliver cast her vision to the beauty of the natural world. Using nature as a mirror to our own soul. It was only later in her career when she more explicitly turned inward, revealing more about her own life, including the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father.

Abuse in her home – a place where we are meant to feel safe – contributed to her need to find beauty out in the wild – where sadly many of us have grown more fearful.

Fear also played a role in the writing of The Karate Kid. The story was inspired in part by the life of its screenwriter, Robert Mark Kamen. He had been beaten up by a gang at the age of seventeen at the World’s Fair in New York and turned to martial arts to protect himself. He rejected his first instructor as being too violent and vengeful, eventually finding a Japanese instructor who studied under a master whose name was Chōjun Miyagi. Miyagi – like the character in the film- believed that ”the ultimate aim of karate-do was to build character, conquer human misery, and find spiritual freedom.”

Catharsis is “the process of releasing strong or repressed emotions—such as fear, pity, or anger—that results in relief, renewal, or psychological healing.”

In the case of Oliver and Kamen, their catharsis involved writing. Their own healing process has presumably played a role in the healing of others. It inspires us to look inward to confront our repressed emotions. We cheer for the Karate Kid when he wins his final match and finds balance, because we appreciate, understand or have experienced feeling bullied, unwelcome and out of balance. When we read or hear Oliver’s poems, we are grateful to feel the beauty of the world leap of the page even while accepting the suffering that too often comes with it.

Catharsis is a painful and powerful experience. It more deeply connects us to ourselves and – when shared – to others. Writing has helped serve that purpose in my own life.

Thanks to all the writers out there who put pain to pen, bravely putting themselves out there in the hopes that they – and by extension we – may heal.

Recommendation of the Week: I stumbled upon the new album, The Visitor from Sienna Spiro. She has a beautiful voice that is both powerful and aching. My favorite two tracks are Great Expectation and Pure. The album itself is another act of catharsis. In an interview, she shared that she has always felt like a visitor in her own life. This album is a result of a two year process working through that feeling.

Consider sharing this with someone who might welcome a cathartic experience.