My Words Are My Shelter Project

Dear Readers,

As most of you know, this blog is mostly about helping you as artists to find funding and residencies throughout the globe. I try to keep my personal life out it this blog as much as I can, although now that I have a book coming out, a memoir no less, the line between my personal life and my blogging life as arts advocate will get a little blurry sometimes. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, considering what my book is about. Read on....

My mother, Norma, a brilliant pianist (see picture above, an illustration from my book), was struck down by schizophrenia early in her music career. For the last seventeen years of her life, she was homeless and her life story and the story of how I found her late in life at a women’s shelter in Cleveland, is told in my book, The Memory Palace (coming out mid-January).

Recently, the shelter where my mother lived, the Community Women’s Center of Cleveland, was rebuilt and renamed in her honor. It is now called The Norma Herr Women’s Center and is sponsored by the Mental Health Services, Inc. of Cleveland. It is a safe haven for women who have fled domestic abuse, substance abuse, homelessness and poverty. There they can receive food and shelter, friendship, counseling and assistance in employment.

One of the things the shelter does is encourage the women to keep a journal. They also hold poetry workshops when they can get funding or a writer to volunteer his or her time. This writing process is key to their empowerment. When I found my mother at the end of her life, I discovered that she kept a storage unit at U-Haul all those seventeen years. When I opened it up, I found seventeen years of diaries.

My mother wrote each and every day to help keep her imaginary voices at bay. She wrote descriptions of flowers in the park, she wrote poems, screenplays and soaring lyric prose. I read each and every one of these diaries and was blown away at their beauty and power, and yes, their sense of tragedy, delusion and loss. But ultimately, I realized how much keeping a journal helped my mother navigate through the world. I believe that she found a certain strength in writing every day—it gave her a different kind of sustenance than the food she received at shelters and from strangers. It gave her a voice.

This is why I am starting a project this year called My Words Are My Shelter. I am sending a box of hardbound journals made from 100% recycled materials, along with a pen and a pencil, to each and every woman at my mother’s shelter in Cleveland. The cost of sending that box is more than I can afford right now so I am asking you if you would be willing to help me out and be a part of this process. That said, I realize that everyone is asking for money these days, so please do not feel pressured. But if you do feel so inspired, here is what you can do to participate and to get your name on a giant card that I am sending out on December 20th:

1. To send one woman one journal, one pen & pencil, plus postage, it costs $5. You can click the donate here button on my blog (right hand side bar) and use your paypal account or credit card. Please write that it is for the My Words project because it is not a Mira’s List donation.

2. Or you can send a personal check made out to me, Mira Bartók, or to Mira’s List, and mail it to my post box address: Mira’s List, P.O. Box 273, Athol, MA 01331.

3. OR...if you don’t feel like donating, please consider donating something to your own local shelter or donating your time. Or buy a sandwich for someone on the street or a cup of hot chocolate, and tell them where the nearest shelter is. Do you know where the nearest shelter is?

Thanks for reading this. I’d love to raise $500 by December 20th and put a lot of names on the card I am sending out. Any money I receive above and beyond this amount will just be donated to the shelter for other much-needed items or put into an account for next year’s My Words Project. Please spread the word about this project and if you get inspired, why not start a My Words Are My Shelter Project of your own for your local shelter next year?

Happy Holidays!
Love,
Mirabee