When writing becomes healing

This column was published in the Tri-Valley Herald in November 2007.

Ten years ago, Elizabeth Martella gave birth to a girl she named Viviana. Like many new mothers, Martella held the baby in her arms for pictures, and made prints on paper from her daughter’s tiny palms and feet.

But the occasion was not happy.

“Having a stillborn baby means dealing with very hard emotions,” said Martella, who lives in Lathrop. “For months my mind raced with questions of guilt and misgivings.”

To cope with the tragedy, she turned to the love of her husband, Jorge, but she also turned to poetry.

“Writing was a way of healing for me,” she said.

In fact, Martella, 35, has tapped into the power of writing poetry to grapple with the many challenges life has thrown her way.

When she was eight, her father left his wife and children for another woman.

“I was devastated,” she said, “and I still have difficulty with this.”

Martella’s mother, who was born in Taiwan and met Martella’s father when he was a Marine overseas, moved her young family from San Francisco to Oakland to live with her sister. “My mom was a strong woman,” Martella said, noting that her mother had to work three jobs—as a waitress, a hotel housekeeper, and a late-night janitor—just to support her family.

As Martella wrestled in her pre-teen years with her father’s absence, she became the victim of sexual abuse by a cousin. This went on for many years until she turned 14, when she stood up to him and said no more.

After high school, Martella took a few classes at Merritt College and started working. “Growing up with barely any food to eat sometimes,” she said, “it was great to be able to make my own money, so I left college and began working full time.”

Martella managed a Chevron service station and one day met a young man whose family had immigrated from Buenos Aires. “I soon discovered that Jorge was my soul mate,” she said.

A kind and caring husband, Jorge understood and loved Martella like no one else ever had. Then, a few years after the loss of their first baby, they were blessed in 2001 with a baby girl they named Izabella.

Though from the outside it appeared life was settling down for the Martellas, an avalanche of unresolved inner conflict led Martella to a nervous breakdown in 2005.

She began to see a therapist, and as she made progress, she leaned heavily on her writing for support.

“The month after I started therapy,” she said, “I started compiling a collection of my poems, which led me to write even more poems.”

Martella poured her tears and sadness into her work, writing about her father, her stillborn baby, the abuse—all of her life’s experiences.

The result is a book of published poems dedicated to readers “from broken homes and dysfunctional families” and those “molested as a child.” Martella states in her dedication, “Know that there is light at the end of that tunnel.”

And part of that light for Martella became the publication of her second work, this time a children’s book. Based on a happy experience with Martella’s 6-year-old daughter, the book is titled “Izabella and her Wardrobe.”

“My daughter was my inspiration,” Martella said. “She is quite the character, especially when it comes to her clothing.”

Martella’s goal is to write a ten-book series on various topics as Izabella grows older.

Both books, available at http://www.lulu.com/, are the expression of a caring woman dedicated to sharing her experiences with others on the path to healing.

As she writes in her book of poems, "Life isn’t always perfect; it’s what you make of it that counts.”














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Saying goodbye to Kent

This column was published in November 2007 in the Tri-Valley Herald.

In 1964, when Diane Nelson was eight years old, she made friends with a 10-year-old neighbor named Kent, a boy she came to love, a man to whom one day she would have to say goodbye.

Their families lived along Mines Road, a rural area a few miles from downtown Livermore, which back then had just one grocery store and stoplight.

“He was a pudgy boy with wavy blonde hair and big white teeth,” said Diane, who still lives in Livermore. “And he had arms that would stretch out as if to announce himself to the world.”

In contrast, Diane was “a skinny little tadpole with asthma,” prompting Kent to nickname her Wheezy.

Diane said Kent came to Livermore to live with his mother after she gained custody of the boy from an abusive father.

The two new friends often played together, building forts or hiking along a creek. At times they even played with dolls, though sometimes this would send Kent running for home in tears.

“One day we’d be with Popeye on the high seas,” she said. “The next we’d spend with Mr. Spock on the starship Enterprise.” Kent was a natural comedian with a galaxy of voices and characters.

“I can still see my mom laughing as he told us about his vacation with his family and a run-in with a woman in a big yellow muumuu,” she said.

At such moments, Diane would struggle for air, pushing oxygen into her unwilling lungs to express the laughter building inside.

Older and stronger, Kent would swing his little friend in circles on a patio as she wore roller skates and clutched a rope and screamed. Other days they’d gather friends and dance as an old radio crackled out the Beatles and Rolling Stones.

Then there were horses. Kent’s horse was King, and Diane’s—a little gray pony with a sweeping tail—was Suzy.

“We’d gallop down both sides of old Mines Road,” she said. “King liked to kick Suzy, so I had to be careful not to get hit by a flying hoof.”

Through it all, Kent’s mischievous and curious presence transported Diane somewhere else, into someone else.

During their teen years, they drove an Oldsmobile—the purple bomb—owned by Kent’s stepfather. “It looked like a space ship with its pointed fins and bulging headlamps,” Diane said, “and its worn-out springs seemed to levitate us down the road.”

Sometimes, though, Kent would drive recklessly, one time reaching 100 miles an hour along Tesla Road.

When Diane was a high school freshman, Kent asked the skinny tomboy on their first date. “We hiked up a hill and used big rocks to spell out Kent + Diane so airplanes could read it,” she said.

She wore his class ring, and the two went steady. Once they even made a show of kissing when they knew Kent’s 4-year-old sister was watching.

But that’s all it really was: a show. And eventually they stopped going steady, stopped dating, because something inside Kent made it impossible to be more than friends.

At 19, Diane left home to search for life’s answers. She found herself living with Moonies in a chilly Victorian mansion in San Francisco. One day Kent showed up on her doorstep.

“He’d come to talk to me, to save me from the cult,” she said, “and though I didn’t leave right then, his visit made an impression on me, and eventually I left and made my way home.”

As years passed and she married, she heard he’d moved to San Francisco to seek his own answers. Then, in the mid-1980s, Kent’s 30 years of life was slashed apart by the knife of his boyfriend, perhaps out of anger or jealousy.

“I didn’t find out until after the funeral,” she said, her eyes deepening. “And I don’t know the details of his death.”

Still sad and angry that she didn’t get to say goodbye, if she could speak to Kent today, she would push oxygen into her lungs to express her yearning for a childhood long gone, a time when she’d knock on his door and ask in a small voice if Kent could come out and play.

“And then I’d tell him goodbye,” she said, “and to keep King and Suzy saddled, because one day we’ll gallop again together.”











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English Class

Jim Ott's English Class at Las Positas College, Fall 2007