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BornWilder

Author. Certified Coach. Catalytic Speaker

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Anything That Happens

On Teetering

August 8, 2021 by Cheryl Wilder

Teetering. To teeter. To wobble, toddle, sway. From Old Norse titra, meaning shake, shiver. From titra to titter to teeter–an unsteady waver; indecision.

The teeter-totter I shared with my sister had a curved half-moon base instead of a teeterboard placed upon a fulcrum. Neighborhood kids flocked to our yard. Two at a time, we sat at opposite ends, rocking higher and higher, trying to flip the other person off. Everyone held on tight. I was no more than seven.

My husband calls them seesaws, as do most people. But a seesaw is simply a back and forth, a jarring from one direction to another. I can’t adopt the term seesaw. It doesn’t capture what happened in my yard–my first desire to float knowing there was an eventual fall. With every up and down, I shivered and wobbled. My head was swimming, unsteady. Excitement, anticipation, fear, triumph–teetering jolted me into an awareness where I wanted more.

What a difference four decades makes. Of bearing witness to the ongoing teetering in everyday life. The day-to-day preparation for the eventual falls. A building exhilaration with every rise, the tantalizing pinnacle. The hours of trying to make the right decision, of accepting other people’s decisions no matter how much they hurt. The joy in finding balance. Within myself. With the constant flux of the world.

My desire to float has not wavered. I just make sure there’s a soft cushion around. How far I am from my childhood yard, now that my preferred teetering is within poem-making. Where I shake and sway and waver, learning that not knowing is a path toward acceptance, an awareness that what I have is enough. And when I reach high and low moments, letting go is exactly the thing to do.


The last virtual book launch question answered.

Cheryl, how do you feel tonight, finally getting this story out into the world, via your gorgeous literature?

The book launch was deeply satisfying. To say that I felt all the emotions tied to “teetering” is an understatement.

Today, I feel something akin to the moment when one moves from teetering to steady. I never lied about my story. And yet, it’s not the kind of story one shares in casual conversation, or at dinner parties while getting to know new acquaintances. It’s a downer story. When I did share, it often sucked the air out of a room. So, though I never lied, I didn’t always share my full truth.

In my twenties, when I first started to write about the crash, I told myself that it was my job to write the hard stuff. Through writing, I could carry other people’s burdens. Let me do that emotional heavy lifting for you. And I wasn’t altogether incorrect. I’m a poet, after all.

With age, I learned I cannot carry other people’s burdens. My job is to help people feel less alone. And shame is lonely. In my experience, it’s an overlooked emotion that causes roadblocks in personal growth. In addition to obvious offenses (like my story), small offenses build up over time, unnoticed–a thousand paper cuts. Forgiveness is a remedy to shame. And yet, the path to forgiveness can feel impossible, especially when the person you have to forgive is yourself.

Though I dealt with the crash in my personal life, I didn’t know how to handle it in my writing. In my story, I’m the unreliable speaker–the offender. I crafted the book so readers could trust the speaker and see her guilt. You can imagine my elation when I read this comment at the book launch: “I’m struck by the trust you’ve learned to have in your readers, trusting us to see the humanity in your story and the connection we all have with tragedy.”

Now, I can talk about the book in casual conversation, providing me a conduit to talk about the crash. More importantly, writing the book removed a roadblock in my writing. I needed to tell this story, and now it’s told. I’m relieved the story is written. I have so much more to say.


Quote and photo by author. (From “Xing” in Anything That Happens.) All rights reserved.


Filed Under: Anything That Happens, Win at Life

On Writing Practice

April 25, 2021 by Cheryl Wilder

On Tuesday, March 23rd, I celebrated Anything That Happens with a virtual book launch. (Watch it here.) There were thoughtful, engaging questions from the audience. Due to time constraints, some questions weren’t addressed or didn’t receive thorough answers. For the next handful of blog posts, I’m going to answer these questions in more detail.

What does your writing practice look like now, when you put pen to paper?

My writing practice changed at the beginning of the pandemic. Before then, I primarily wrote on the computer. The pandemic prompted me to spend more time online, and I felt a pull to separate my creativity from the news.

I use a sketch pad with an Optiflow pen. When I don’t have an idea, I draw. Moving the pen around the page often opens me up. After I get a first draft, I transfer the poem to the computer. At some point during revision, I print and revise on paper. I read the poem aloud while walking around my office (or the upstairs bathroom when everyone is home). From there, it’s back and forth between the computer and a printout.

It took a while to learn that I need to move my body to create. I thought being away from the desk meant I was ignoring the work. But I need movement; gardening, hiking, yoga, dancing, and even cleaning. During the pandemic, I couldn’t do a lot of deep thinking. I relied on movement to keep my creativity flowing. Writing prompts are great, but I don’t often use them. I use movement to prompt me.

Do you write at certain times of day or in certain places? Or does it happen organically in bits and pieces?

My schedule has fluctuated over the years. During graduate school, I wrote mostly at night and on the weekends. When there were babies in the house, I wrote very little, if at all. Flexibility has been a consistent part of my writing practice.

A more consistent writing schedule came when my youngest boys went to kindergarten in 2018. I work part-time from home, which allows me time to write. I do my best generative writing in the morning, whether I start at 5:00 a.m. or 9:00 a.m. Writing also happens in bits and pieces. There are notebooks and pens all over the house, inside every purse, and stashed in the car. I strive to make the writing happen and to let it happen. No matter where I start a poem, I always return to the “workshop” to get the writing done.

It took decades for me to have my own office (with one exception in 2009-2010.), and it’s where I want to write. The exception is during final revisions or when I am stuck. While working on Anything That Happens, I went to Cup22 in Saxapahaw, NC, to revise. I also took mini solo trips to spend uninterrupted time working.

I don’t pull late nights writing anymore. Instead, I like to be asleep by 10:00 p.m. so I can start over again in the morning.

Writing Practice Summary

Movement – Keep the writing brain ignited while moving your body.

Flexibility – Adapt to life’s changes instead of fight against them.

Space – Find the space where you feel “at home” as a writer.


Quote and photo by author. (From “Moon Poem” in Anything That Happens.) All rights reserved.


Filed Under: Anything That Happens, Writing Life

On Accident

March 20, 2021 by Cheryl Wilder

When we want to heal after tragedy, we look for answers. Answers aren’t easy—if there are answers at all.

People reassured me a car crash wasn’t my fault, even though I was behind the wheel drunk, because it was an “accident.” “Accident” was their answer, and it seemed to provide closure. The word “accident” made me feel even more alone.

When I spill a glass of water or trip and knock over a lamp—those are accidents. When I drive drunk and crash a car…

Yes, the crash was unintentional. I didn’t plan to drive drunk or lose control of the car. I didn’t plan for my friend in the passenger seat to suffer brain damage. But this didn’t absolve my actions leading up to the crash. And “accident” didn’t help me heal: I didn’t know how to live in a world where I was capable of this tragedy. I needed language that held me personally responsible. (I’m not talking about stricter incarceration laws—that doesn’t help.) Until that happened, I couldn’t begin to forgive myself. I couldn’t learn from my mistake in the way I needed and wanted.

Anything That Happens

It wasn’t until I looked up the definition for “accident” that I realized why the word made me feel lonelier and even more helpless than I already did.

accident (‘ӕksidәnt), sb. [a. Fr. accident: —L. accidens. –ent, sb. properly pr. pple. of accid-ӗre to fall, to happen.]

  1. Anything that happens.
  1. † a. An occurrence, incident, event. Obs. b. Anything that happens without foresight or expectation; an unusual event, which proceeds from some unknown cause, or is an unusual effect of a known cause; a casualty, a contingency. the chapter of accidents: the unforeseen course of events. c. esp. An unfortunate event, a disaster, a mishap.

[The Compact Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., s.v. “accident.”]


I’m not alone in this thinking. Here’s two articles: “It’s no accident” and “When a car crash isn’t an accident.” Both talk about the “Crash not Accident” effort started by Transportation Alternatives and Families for Safe Streets based in New York City.

On a similar note—and yet a whole other discussion—restorative justice “is an approach to justice in which one of the responses to a crime is to organize a meeting between the victim and the offender, sometimes with representatives of the wider community.” (Wikipedia)


Quote and photo by author. All rights reserved.


Filed Under: Anything That Happens, On...

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"The future way of life consists in the recovery of the intimacy of life."
—Sigfried Giedion, art and architecture historian

Cheryl Wilder, a middle-aged woman with short brown hair, wearing a black puffy jacket, holding a pen on a cold day at the Sonoma Coast in CA

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