We Women Writers
Inspiring and encouraging women to write, to develop a personal writing practice through exploring the real-life writing stories of other women
We Women Writers
Janice Exter Konstantinidis – Memoir: A Journey of Self-Discovery – Part II
This is Part II of Janice’s second visit with Jane on the We Women Writers Podcast. In this second part of the conversation, Janice Exter-Konstantinidis continues her journey as a writer, sharing her insights on the beauty of memory, the healing power of writing, and the role of magical realism in storytelling. She reflects on her personal journey as a gerontologist and writer, emphasizing the importance of revisiting memories and finding in them threads of connection and freedom. The discussion also touches on the importance of being aware and addressing one’s mental health when writing, whether journaling or creative writing. Janice encourages listeners to embrace their stories and explore the therapeutic potential of writing.
Quote:
" Well, our whole life is reconstruct or construct. We live in it together.”
Takeaways:
- Magical realism allows writers to explore deeper truths in a creative way.
- The act of writing can help individuals reclaim their narratives.
- Encouragement to give writing a try, regardless of past experiences.
Resources:
Website: https://janicekonstantinidis.net/
Books by Janice:
· Shifting Landscapes:
o https://www.amazon.com/Shifting-Landscapes-Janice-Exter-Konstantinidis/dp/B0DJ77GPBY/ref=sr
· Out With The Washing:
o https://www.amazon.com/Out-Washing-Janice-Exter-Konstantinidis/dp/B0DN6C2VPM/ref=sr
· The Time In Between:
o https://www.amazon.com/Time-Between-Janice-Exter-Konstantinidis/dp/B0DPQCC926/ref=sr
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (00:55)
Yeah. I think it was the clearing. The train, I just saw it as beauty. Is that what we're referring to? And I just realized that it wasn't all that... When I wrote it, I thought it was special. And it was, but it could be anyone. I just looked at it and appreciated how lovely it was, but it took... I had to learn how to do that.
Jane Jones (01:07)
Yes, yeah.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (01:26)
Be nice if someone had taught me that it's good when you come to things on your own.
Jane Jones (01:31)
Yeah, yeah. In your growing up, that was just not there. However, you did have an experience of the clearing when you were little. And that's something that now at where you are now, and that little girl is now gone, everything, who she was that she's maybe that gone was maybe disrespectful, I apologize. That little you, you have a different relationship with that little girl now, you don't need to go and visit her all the time. And you don't need to develop, go back to those stories that now you can look at them differently. You now look at where you are differently, right?
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (02:19)
And I see her appreciating beauty but not quite knowing what to do to it. So, she grabbed it and made up this whole fantasy about it, that it was hers and the birds were, and they might have been. And the colours, and she described them in infinite detail. What she was trying to say was. Gosh, that's a pretty place.
Jane Jones (02:36)
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (02:38)
That's all she meant, I really think that, but she found a great lot of joy going there as a kid after school and before school and feeling it and watching it change through the seasons. It meant, I think, it was a safe haven as well. So, it wasn't just a descriptive pretty place. I think it was a metaphor for her finding a bit of quiet and safety.
Jane Jones (02:58)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Wow. And then, and you're writing about that now. And, and yeah.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (03:06)
Did you want me, and don't worry about it if you don't, because I know you've got other things you want to address. I could read you a little bit of the house at the edge of sleep, so you could see where this lady goes in her mind at night.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (03:22)
Do that another time.
Jane Jones (03:23)
Yeah, you know, you just got an idea and popped in my head that maybe we could do segments of We Women Writers where there's writing, where the guests actually read a part of what they've written. So, is it like really long, or what section you got there?
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (03:44)
I guess I'm looking at it on some notes. Let me see if I find the shot. It's hard to know how long it is. It's when she walks through the house and she can see two chairs, but bearing in mind she's in her sleep and she's an elderly woman. So, it's just coming from, so I think.
Jane Jones (04:01)
You know what? Yeah, let's do that.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (04:05)
We'll just do it for, I'll do it until enough because it could be, okay, the tech is.
Jane Jones (04:12)
Yeah, you will find you'll find the stopping space.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (04:17)
I will. So, and I don't know why I paused on two chairs. It's just infinite. And her wedding, and her baby's birth, and the first steps, and the two chairs. We'll do it for today. And at the end of the house, past the narrow door that never quite latched, there was a room no one else ever asked about. It had once been the sunroom. They called it that, just the back room. Years ago, they'd placed two chairs there, mismatched but equal in comfort, angled slightly toward each other, not directly. It was where they read the paper in the late morning, where they sat after dinner dishes were gone, not speaking, only listening to the ticking of the mantle clock, to the soft creak of timber setting, to the presence of the other still breathing in the room. One chair was empty now, but not vacant. It had the indentation of ears, the quiet thought of someone having just stood up. The air around it bent slightly, as if out of habit.
She sat in her chair and waited for nothing in particular. The window was fogged, through the day beyond it seemed clear. Somewhere, a breeze lifted the edge of a page, but there were no books on the lap. I can read to the end, actually. She could almost hear the way he shifted before speaking, the way his voice would trail off before the final word, trusting her to find it. Once when they were younger, she had asked him what he was thinking, and he'd said, I'm thinking I'm glad you're here. She’d nodded, not answering, chairs had heard this, and the house had kept it. Now she closed her eyes just briefly, when she opened them the second chair was still there, not dust-covered, not preserved, just waiting, not for him, not for her, but for the memory of sitting besides someone who stayed, the garden asked nothing of her it simply held.
That's about the two chairs. Don't even ask me why I would write that.
Jane Jones (06:12)
Whoa, I tell you, I have my mother and father-in-law had a sunroom at the back of the house that they would sit in. And I have, as you're reading it, and everybody's gonna have their own. This is one of the beauties about what we read or what's read to us is that it will bring up thoughts, or memories, or ideas in our own minds. So, I went to my mother and father-in-law's sunroom. And no, and they're not here anymore.
Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna, thanks for that. Just know, it's a bringing up memories of people is important. And knowing the context of that writing, I know it's a, I know it's a story, but aren't all of our lives stories?
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (07:09)
Well, I think, you know, I do remember there were two chairs, not exactly in the sunroom, but in the sitting room. And there was one, a couple that were very well-worn. And I can imagine someone walking back through there, seeing the person sat there, the imprint. And I just tried to capture how it was still there, and it was waiting. It's very hard to do, but I hope I caught it. yeah. I had the sense of someone
Jane Jones (07:34)
You did.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (07:37)
Having sat, but he died earlier, the husband and he died before her but I just want to capture that thing that they were there and that they sat.
Jane Jones (07:48)
Sure, and you talked about, she's waiting for him to talk, and how he kind of moves before he talks. My father-in-law always did that. He always shifted in his chair before he said something. And then you talk about the air was, the air bent around as though he was still there. You know, you just kind of, and even in their living room, they had two chairs. It was his chair and her chair. And there's some comfort to that. There's some... symmetry to that in life that
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (08:19)
I think so, she goes back in her bed, maybe she's just really uncomfortable in bed, but when she goes to sleep, she goes back and she reclaims.
Jane Jones (08:28)
Yeah?
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (08:30)
What was there, and she can see the shape in the outline and...
Jane Jones (08:35)
So, she has this history, this experience, and we'll just talk about that particular story. She has an experience. has like, in her sleep, she can go back to, and she goes back to hers.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (08:52)
Yes, All the time.
Jane Jones (08:54)
So, in our creating a, you're writing a story now that is allowing other individuals to read another woman's experience within her space. And if I can be so bold as to say, each, she's going back to what she knew and processing it through it within that environment. And then, but for each of us, we can go back through our lives, what we remember and maybe not necessarily in our sleep and having been confined to bed, hopefully it's we have the opportunity to pick up a pen and a piece of paper and write about those things and revisit them in a way and finding our way to them and through them and seeing what comes.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (09:56)
It just occurred to me, despite my protestations that this is creative, there is a lot of authorial intervention. Because you just said our own experiences, my experiences of maybe a house with some chairs, could be a lot more stark than I want my grandmother, this is the authorial, I want my great grandmother to go, to get out of that bed, to go back to her house and know that it was comfortable and that was nice things said and there was a chair there and I don't want her to experience any harm and nothing comes badly to her in that house. That's interesting to me now because I'm just saying, well, you didn't create a creation, you really mapped out somewhere where someone was going to be happy, and you wrote it. Isn't that dreadful?
Jane Jones (10:46)
Well, that could be looked at that way.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (10:52)
It's probably got elements of truth in it because I can't think of any, there's about 15 vignettes that she visits. I don't know what to put them all in yet, but none of them has got any nastiness in it.
Jane Jones (11:09)
But that's valid. That's a perfectly valid thing to do is to write, be inspired from this perspective that you would wish for your great grandmother to have this experience, to have a life, have had a life that she can look back on when she's ailing, that she can go back in her mind and have beauty, she can have peace, she can have some joy and happiness.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (11:44)
She can, I know that I just you just made me realize that I've constructed that. I mean. Well, our whole life is reconstruct or construct. We live in it together. But how we ever agree on anything, I don't know. But I know that great-grandma lost a baby, had a stillborn baby. So, there could have been a room that she went back to then. You could call it the crib that was never used. I'm not going to write that.
Jane Jones (12:16)
No, because that is a time that at the end of your great grandmother's life, let's give her the blessings of a life well lived and carry the joy forward wherever she goes, whatever that looks like, I don't know, but that she can carry that through because at the end, it's not about the...the unhappiness, it's about finding the joy that was there. Maybe we missed it, maybe we didn't, I don't know. But that we can, and we can do that at any point in time, and finding the joy of something and having that become, or having that come out of an intuitive experience.
I use a lot of times this idea of the rain and it's a great analogy. People standing out in the pouring rain, they're getting soaked, and they're mad at the rain. Well, get out of the rain. But looking at, I love being in the rain.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (13:21)
I love having a nice coat on and feeling when I was little, I used to go out under the veranda and get a big box if we could find one in the barn somewhere I'd go and I'd sit in it with my umbrella and my grandmother must have thought I was insane. If I was dry and you know the warm, I would feel so secure.
Jane Jones (13:42)
Yeah, I bet she looked at that and there was, I know it's a tongue in cheek that she thought you were insane, but my thought is she probably took some great pleasure in watching that.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (13:53)
I'm not so sure about it. My great-grandmother modded them, but my other grandmother was very weird.
Jane Jones (13:58)
Sorry, sorry that's my grandmother.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (14:01)
Why would a child go under and sit under the veranda in the rain, well not in, but out of the rain, and be there an hour and look quite content? Nobody stopped me, I mean I didn't stop, they knew I did it when it rained, but I loved it.
Jane Jones (14:18)
Yes, yeah, and so you can look at one thing and you can see it from so many different perspectives. And so, like the rain, if, you know, for me it's pouring rain, well, I don't want to get soaking wet, well, put your raincoat on and then you can be out and you can love it. And it isn't very pleasant to get soaked to the skin, but it is kind of fun to think that a whole bunch of people, running from the car to the house, and for me it's a bit of a... a bit of a walk to get to where I gotta go from my car. And if it's raining, it's fun. You get in the house, and it's fun. You're soaking wet, and it's, there's so many different ways to look at things. Some things, no. Some things, no two ways about it, not fun. And we've got to process those things importantly. And I don't wanna be disrespectful Janice to you or to any of the listeners. But being able to get to that place where we can not have to revisit the unhappiness and not have it negatively impact this is just a really sweet, wonderful place to be.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (15:28)
It is, and I don't want her to have to experience children leaving home, or the baby dying, or crops fading, or I'm sure nothing, you know, and those were hard lives. But I want her to come back into that house, and just that's probably wanting that for me too, and having just glide through the house and remembering and feeling, and I guess it's all a bit of fantasy. I won't trash it at the moment, though, because I need to see it as a
Jane Jones (15:54)
It's like magic, this magical realism that you talked about earlier. You know, we probably should stop soon, you know, this magical realism, it lets us look at things that, and I'm gonna, or let me ask you, because I have my idea, but what are some of the benefits of writing from a, or looking at something from a magical realism perspective?
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (16:19)
Well, know, shapes can bend and people don't freak out and they think, huh? Because you've already, if they know what the genre is or they, like it's like when you begin to tell a naughty joke, people said there's a place in the brain for naughty jokes. And I say, did you hear about the vicar who? And you'll feel your brain.
Jane Jones (16:43)
Yeah, you kind of like it, it goes somewhere, you're right.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (16:47)
Somewhere, and you're ready to accept any sort of lunacy. You know it's gonna be either naughty or bad or even hilarious, but your brain clicks over to think anything can happen, and I'm gonna accept that because I wanna get to the end of it to hear the punchline. Yes.
Jane Jones (17:04)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And if I'm particularly, if I'm offended by that, then I get to look at myself and go, why are you offended? if I think it's absolutely hilarious and somebody else doesn’t and I'm laughing hilariously, then it's, we kind of get to interact with one another over laughing or something where, yeah, it's a great, it's a wonderful environment to be in, like what you just gave me was just, and hopefully the listeners too, is that you just gave us a minute of total relief.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (17:45)
Did you hear about the time the vicar and everyone, and you can feel your brain ready to accept. It doesn't have to be naughty. Sometimes it is, but I wouldn't do anything too bad. But I like to be raucous at times and make people crack up and think about the reality of seriousness and how we've got to laugh a bit. But I think it's a receptive thing that we think, okay, this isn't going to turn out in black and white, and it's not going to conform to the various norms, it's going to be silly, and I want to hear it.
Jane Jones (18:20)
Yes, and we get a relief from ourselves. I think I've heard numbers of years before, laughter is the best medicine.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (18:28)
I believe it is
Jane Jones (18:29)
Yes, laughing about something, even, you know, finding in amongst situations. Now again, there's sometimes in our writing, I've had this experience with some people that I was working with, that they're just like, don't want to share what they've written because it's dark.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (18:28)
Yes.
Jane Jones (18:50)
Okay. But then after they keep writing, then something, one day we had this conversation, and both of them said the same day, something changed. Today was different. We did this multiple prompts in a day. Both of them, both of them were writing independently, not the same, different people, different situations. And they both found that something changed, and now they could now write something different was coming.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (19:15)
I see yes.
Jane Jones (19:17)
The dark things were not necessarily about their past or anything. They were just like darker kind of stories for they would written for five minutes and and they like to think about things in a positive way in a happy way. So they didn't really want to share that because they just didn't want those on those dark things to come to be given the light of day, so to speak. But they had that experience that I wrote through that into this more pleasant day. And I'm just realizing now that's the same or very similar way of describing what happened with you or your process and experiences. You wrote through it. But you know...
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (20:00)
I mean, there's some of the darkest things that human, there's abuse, neglect, rape, murder, and I won't list anymore, but they're up there with some of the worst things in human behaviour. And I, it's not that I refuse to write about it anymore. I don't have to, it's done. And I really want to see people, I want them to be dreaming. Maybe it's me, it to be magical. I don't want them to have to suffer that anymore.
Jane Jones (20:32)
Yeah, but you know, we can offer people an experience, or you can offer, let's do it this way. You offer us an experience of writing about your experience. First, there's a lot of this experience of back and forth and then you have the meadow and then you have writing and then you're here, you have a friend in Tasmania and you're writing these limericks and you're around people that are writers and you're involved with organizing things around writers and it's natural part of your life. But you weren't doing that on purpose to get to where you are. It was just part of your journey.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (21:14)
Progression. Yeah, it happened to... and I guess I was, there was some magnetism about being drawn to those areas and...
Jane Jones (21:22)
Yes, yeah. And so, you've provided us that experience of your experience, and then we can draw from it whatever we need to, or not, whatever. So, now we, for somebody to go on this journey with you through your writing and realize what that journey has been.
And now we hear you now, that just makes me tingle. That's like I goosebumps is that we can look and go, Oh, I'm not there yet. You mean I can get there is my mind. So, you wish for your great-grandmother, and you wish for all of us to get to a place where the memories you have, the things you are doing, how you look at life is joyful or comforting or happy or pleasant, whatever word one wants to use. And we can get to that place, but we have to go through it. We can't go through it.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (22:37)
Yeah, you have to weed. Maybe we could call it necessary filters.
Jane Jones (22:44)
Okay, help me understand what you mean by that.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (22:47)
If I just got it sort to me, then someone might say, well, as you described that, I'm thinking, well, she's, me, Janice is looking through that rose-coloured glasses with her grandmother. And then I'm thinking, well, maybe that, what is, what's the interpretation of, well, filters. And I'm thinking, but sometimes maybe we have necessarily filters to experience joy because no one in their 90th year really wants to be having to dwell on the horrendous. They need to go back and see some floral curtains blowing in the wind, and they need to remember when they first expect a baby when they're a, well, they mightn't, this isn't for everyone, but that first joy of a baby or a marriage or a rose blooming, something that you really loved. I think that that's where my ideal place would be to dwell.
Jane Jones (23:40)
Yes, and we don't have to wait till we're in this book, we're going to realize, and I won't put the, you said it earlier, but I won't elucidate it, the actual experience that this woman is actually experiencing this in her dreams because of where she is. And so, we don't have to wait to be in a place where we can't act. We can act now, we can stand up, and we can go somewhere, we can go for a walk, we can experience this stuff. And if we're inspired to do that from reading what you've written, then that's our response to that. And your desire is that everybody would get to that. If they don't, they'll be on their journey, but that's where you are now.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (24:36)
I see some people, and I'll be very careful about how I word this, that went through horrific journeys. And I see them on social media and they are still exactly there in that agony and I like at least two can come to mind that I'm and you know they've got just cause that that did happen and nobody did not terrible I just wish they could have somehow processed that through and got to a position where they enjoy a sunset.
Jane Jones (25:16)
And maybe they will, we don't know, but your observation is that they haven't done it.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (25:24)
I’m thinking, and maybe they do have special times of Christmas or family, but every time I read something that they write, it's a celebration of a birth that might have happened 70 years ago, and didn't. Or, and I feel you're just stuck there, and I'm not judging them because I've been stuck too. Never judge anyone. If you can't do it, you can't do it. And by saying can't, I'm judging. If it doesn't come to you, then it doesn't come to you. And maybe you are happy to be in that position. I wouldn't say happy, but maybe that's where you still need to be.
Jane Jones (25:56)
Comfort is where it's important to be there at the time.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (25:59)
Because you haven't reconciled or... See, there's a judgment going down there that I won't allow. It's always me making excuse while I've been... No, there should be no excuse. They are there.
Jane Jones (26:10)
Yes, it's an observation that that's where they are. There is it, is it true to say, and I'll say for me, is it part of me, my heart goes out to them and just to give them a hug, and then stay, just give them a hug. Cause there's nothing you can say or do. It's maybe because we don't know.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (26:36)
No, there are some things people just don't get over. Certain things didn't occur at certain times for them to be able to live their life with less pain.
Jane Jones (26:48)
Yes, and so it's looking at writing as a, it's not a panacea. Not a, it is a method. It is a way that somebody can begin the process and honor themselves and their experience. And it might take 50 years. It might take a lot less. We don't know. And to respect other people and their journeys and where they're at not presume is important, and at the same time maybe finding a way in my head is trying to find a way to say this is it wish for them something more pleasant.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (27:36)
Yeah.
Jane Jones (27:36)
I think it's more pleasant if they do this. I don't know. Right?
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (27:44)
I know, and maybe it's not up to us to know. So, we just observe that we're not in that space although we've been there. Yes. And I know that getting out of that hole was a hell of a job to be honest, but so much more comfortable out of it. And I don't have hatred, and I don't have angst, and I understand what went on, and...I've got clearings to visit.
Jane Jones (28:22)
Yeah, I love that. On that note, we're going to end. I think we have so much great conversations and my mind goes in lots of different ways. But I, it's very inspiring to, to hear you, talk about your experiences and where you are with writing, and, the, you know, that I have lots of clearings to visit is a really wonderful way to.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (28:48)
Indeed, and you know they even pop up in provincial France. 75 years later they pop up in the fields of France when you're going past on a train. I like how small the clearing is.
Jane Jones (29:03)
I see what you mean. Yes, yeah, yeah, they can pop up anywhere. And just look and see and find little clearings and find little meadows and excellent. Good. If just one last thing is that if somebody was in a space that's really tough and thinking, well, but I don't see how writing will help me.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (29:27)
I understand that very well.
Jane Jones (29:29)
Yeah, yeah, could you address that question?
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (29:32)
Yes, I do understand it very well, and I've been in that position, and frustrated, and thought. That's a load of hogwash, that's not going to do me any ounce of good because I'm just lost. I don't have a distinct answer. I just think, gosh, that's hard because I don't know how I got there. But I do know that reading and writing helped, and I know that being with others of like minds helped. know that comparing others’ experiences and relating to them, and I don't know what did it. I have no real clear answer because it can be a very, very sticky area to be in, and maybe people are saying, well, now she's talking a lot of hogwash because she can't tell me how to get out of it. Well, I can't. Just know that people do, and there could be, my means was therapy for six years. So, I'm just giving a very concrete, trying to throw out a line because I couldn't give anything in the abstract. There's therapy. There could be medication if there's a depression involved or it's a mental health problem that the person can't get over a hump. And there could be just the hope that they get self-awareness. And they might think, how dare she say that? I'm self-aware. I don't know, Jane. I'm just probably digging myself into a hole here.
Jane Jones (30:58)
No, that's really helpful advice is to, if you think it's hogwash, all you know is that it helped you.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (31:11)
Yep.
Jane Jones (31:12)
And that why not give it a go? I would just add that. Just give it a go. It's very inexpensive.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (31:20)
You do Jane's Pebbling course and then you find yourself doing more than you ever thought. I actually didn't get down to doing a dedicated one of those, I'm a little bit like it.
Jane Jones (31:32)
Yes, and then just give it a go. Give it seven days, and then give it seven days more, and then give it.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (31:42)
I'll just reiterate that if the person's really stuck in a hole and you do need to make sure that your mental health's... I had to go and get therapy. I had to take medication. I'm not afraid to say that, think some people take insulin. With bandage of wound, if it's bandaged. So, get your bandaging done if you think you need it. Because I think if you can't move on, there's a chance that you might need a bandage. And once you stabilize...
Right. Right. And it probably will be ugly for a while. And then you might just see glimmers of clearings. You shouldn't come back to that like that. But you just might, one day you just might write and say, that feels good. I like that. I don't know. This is probably waffle, but because I really don't know. We all come to it our own way.
Jane Jones (32:33)
Yes. Yeah. We understand that, say to farm, there's some things you need. You have to have land, you have to have water, you have to have a pick, you have to have a seed, have to have, there's things you, tools, and we're all given, if we're going to be a farmer, we're given the same tools. And if we don't have some of the tools, we got to, we're in trouble. So, you got to go get the tools and you got to sharpen them and everything. And then you got to, then you got to apply your, yourself to the task, and applying yourself to the task is important. And that's where it's within the purview of each individual. And that's where, you know, the pen and the paper is sitting there and there's nothing on it. Well, there's...
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (33:22)
But if you're stressed and you're anxious, I could not focus in that way. And so there needs to be a shift to try and get yourself out of that really painful state of anxiety, and stress, and worry.
Jane Jones (33:41)
Yeah, if you're worried about, you don't feel safe, if you don't feel safe in your own skin internally, if you-
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (33:49)
Yeah, exactly.
Jane Jones (33:51)
You do have to take care of those things first. And this is a little like, this is like what we were talking about before was like kind of the front door, and now, well, wait a minute, there's, well, we were talking about the back door, and now there's like the front door. You have to pay attention to thin things that are their primary needs. And when it's time to eat, it's time to eat. Or when the little ones need your care, then they need your care. If you've got a job that is requiring you to be there, then you gotta be there. But you find your way through a little bit at a time. It does, it just changes things.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (34:31)
It does. But you have to be in a position to receive that insight and to be able to focus. And that's when you can write. I don't think you can write from a point of desperation.
Jane Jones (34:43)
Yeah, correct. You there could be like internal emotional memories, and those and that's I think what you're talking about. And to sort of make it a little lighter. You know if you've got a job that you have a deadline for, it's not time to go be creative writing. It's if you're driving your vehicle, that's not time to do creative writing. I know a lot of people have ideas that come, but you don't sit down and go, wait a minute, and then because it just doesn't, of course, it's ridiculous. It doesn't work. So do what you have to do when it's time. And if you need to eat, if you need medication, if you need to talk to somebody, therapist, and if there's no available, then sometimes if there's no therapist available, sometimes writing is very helpful.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (35:40)
Yeah, or reading, get a book about it, and try to have some insight into it. Because I think you need it, I need it; this is all based on what I need. Could be that some people write from the pits of hell and power to them. But it wasn't, and I'm just trying to say when I give encouragement that you can work it out with writing, as you say, you must attend to basic needs first. If it's trauma or stress or anxiety, or you've been in a domestically violent situation, there's going to be no creativity for quite some time.
Jane Jones (36:15)
Yes, yeah. It's, I know that some having talking to a therapist, psychiatrist, counselor, somebody is not always in the budget. And this is a conversation recently with someone who said, Our friends, we've replaced them with counselors. Now, having said that, I'm not a trained counselor. So, I got maybe some nice things to say may be really helpful, but if you got, there's some real issues, and I'm not the one that you got to talk to. I might be helpful a little bit, but you got to look for some help. You got to get that stuff sorted out.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (36:58)
And I can only say what I did to help me, and it took me long enough to do it, like 55 years.
Jane Jones (37:04)
Yeah, yeah. And you were writing though. You have been writing for a long time. And so, writing has been a part of your life. And so maybe it's a dovetail kind of thing, like, know, dovetail in terms of carpentry. It's something that you're working on back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until you're writing a little bit, and then there's a counselor. It's just... Yeah, there's just no easy answers, but...
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (37:33)
It can be done.
Jane Jones (37:35)
Yes.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (37:36)
It can be done if there's someone listening and they want to write and they're weighed down, then measures have to be taken to try to remove those weights. And you know, you might even write them away. I mean, I don't know what they're for. I talk about what worked for me.
Jane Jones (37:47)
Yes. Yes, say, so, well, I can say that I had a difficult childhood. I just don't even, I just say that in passing because it isn't a comparison, but it's in light of on a difficulty. I'm over here in the happier place, and you're like way over there. And so, it's easier for me to come happier than it was you had a different journey. And so, each individual's got to figure out where they were. And each person's upset, each person's experience is their own. And it's not comparing. It's just looking and going, we each have to figure out where we are on our little timeline, our little continuum of experience, and figure out, I don't like it here, how do I get over there?
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (38:53)
Yeah, well, obviously they're saying it if they're in that space and they're writing and then they're saying, can't, there's a part of me that says they're saying I don't like it here. And what would you like to do about that? Well, they don't know.
Jane Jones (39:08)
Just keep writing about it.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (39:12)
Ask others, ask people and don't... Don't not ask. Don't not write.
Jane Jones (39:20)
Yeah, and get the help you need. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. So, on that note, I'll let you run. And thank you, Janice, for this chat. I have really appreciated it. I appreciate you.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (39:32)
I have to with you. It's been very good. I'm thinking it's going to rain, so I'm just going to put my umbrella on and my coat and go out in the rain.
Jane Jones (39:40)
Excellent, excellent. Well, I'll be just thinking me going along besides with my little umbrella to my galoshes. It'll be fun.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (39:47)
‘Il pleut’ - ‘it rains’ in French.
Jane Jones (39:52)
Okay, excellent, excellent. We'll go enjoy the rain and thank you everybody for listening, and we'll look forward to another conversation, another day with Janice. Thank you.
Janice Exter Konstantinidis (40:03)
Ok, thank you so much for having me.
Jane Jones (40:07)
Thank you, Janice. Bye-bye now.