Bella Mahaya Carter

Bella Mahaya Carter is the author of Where Do You Hang Your Hammock?: Finding Peace of Mind While You Write, Publish, and Promote Your Book. She is a creative writing teacher, empowerment coach, and speaker, and author of an award-winning memoir, Raw: My Journey from Anxiety to Joy, and a collection of narrative poems, Secrets of My Sex. She has worked with hundreds of writers since 2008 and has degrees in literature, film, and spiritual psychology. Her poetry, essays, fiction, and interviews have appeared in Mind, Body, Green; The Sun; Lilith; Fearless Soul; Writer’s Bone; Women Writers, Women’s Books; Chic Vegan; Bad Yogi Magazine; Jane Friedman’s Blog; Pick the Brain; Spiritual Media blog; Literary Mama; several anthologies, and elsewhere.

Twitter: @BellaMahaya

Instagram: @BellaMahayaCarter

Do you collect anything? If so, what, why, and for how long?

Thirty years ago I inherited my grandmother’s antique fan collection, which was once displayed in a museum in New York. Today the collection consists of thirty-three antique fans from around the world, including Italy, Spain, Paris, China, Japan, and Taiwan. They’re made out of wood, ivory, lace, tulle, ostrich feathers, paper, mother-of-peal, plastic, and velvet, and are decorated with sequins, mirrors, macramé and tassels. Some are hand-painted with seagulls, peacocks, daisies, forget-me-nots, swans, dragonflies, and pastoral scenes.

I cherish the collection because it evokes a feeling of adventure, beauty, femininity, and wonder. My grandmother, a world traveler and a Juilliard-trained pianist, with a Masters degree in music from Columbia University, told me that there was a time (not too long ago) when no well-dressed woman left the house without a fan. Being well versed in how to communicate (especially with men) through the artful manipulation of her fan was part of a young lady’s education. My grandmother taught me how to open and close a fan with a flick of my wrist, which sounded like a sharp scrape on a ridged gourd instrument. This memory, and many others, are inextricably linked to my collection, which brings back a bygone era that connects me to my maternal roots. Both my mother and grandmother instilled in me a sense that I could do anything I wanted with my life, and they encouraged my creativity. My collection reminds me of the many gifts bestowed upon me by the beautiful and resilient women in my family.

Vacation druthers… City or Rural destination? Why?

For mini-vacations my favorite destination is Two Bunch Palms, a resort and spa in Desert Hot Springs, California. I alternate my time between soaking in mineral water while staring at palm fronds, hummingbirds, and clear blue skies, and taking mud baths, receiving body work, practicing yoga and special breathing techniques, and hiking in nearby Joshua Tree National Park. Longer vacation druthers take me to beaches. I love the sea, sun, sand, and salty air. Mexico is great, especially since I understand the language, but I also love the beaches in Italy and Greece. Extended vacation druthers combine historical sights with natural beauty: beaches, deserts, and mountains (hiking is a favorite activity), museums, ruins, and foreign foods.

Do you have another artistic outlet in addition to your writing? Do you sew? Paint? Draw? Knit? Dance?

Yes. I dance. My love affair with dance started at the age of seven with creative dance classes at our local community park, where I had countless carefree opportunities to embody a snowflake falling from the sky; to transform from a chrysalis into a butterfly; to become a tulip poking its head out of the hard, spring earth and blooming; to hop, skip, spin, jump, and lunge as much as I wanted–and it was magical!

When I was ten, my beloved teacher, Mr. D’Angelo, clad in a black tank top, stretch pants, and soft dance shoes, told my mother, “I’ve taken her as far as she can go,” and recommended I attend a private dance studio. My entrance interview featured a four-foot tall, lean, but muscular powerhouse of a woman named Martha Merideth, who poked and prodded my feet, spine, shoulders and more. I studied at her school and performed with her company for nine years.

After graduating from high school, I spent the summer dancing at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival before starting conservatory training at The Juilliard School. My favorite time at Juilliard was spent creating dances—telling stories. I collaborated with actors and musicians, as well as dancers. A back injury cut my career short, and for a decade I quit dancing. My grief was palpable. Eventually I healed, physically and emotionally.

I couldn’t stay away from dance. In my thirties and forties I found myself taking classes again, this time in Los Angeles. But my spontaneous, free-spirit, not to mention the perfectionist in me, wasn’t satisfied in technique classes (I’d had enough of them), and I eventually made my way back to my first love: creative dance, where I could move any way I wanted with no mirrors and zero concerns about how I looked. I returned to that same enchantment I experienced as a child in Mr. D’Angelo’s class, where the point was to explore and to feel the movement, to let my heart and imagination wander and soar. This release from rules and schools, from how I look as opposed to how I feel, is blissful.

What do you worry about?

I like to think of myself as a warrior, but for much of my life I’ve also been a worrier. As a young writer (I’ve written about this in two of my books) I worried that if I wrote what I wanted to write my parents would disinherit me, my husband would leave me, and I’d end up either in a psychiatric hospital or homeless. As my writing life evolved and those fears didn’t seem likely, I worried about money, failure, and not being good enough in every area of my life. In recent years I’ve worried about my health, car accidents, earthquakes, loss of control, making a fool of myself, passing out in public, loved ones dying, and becoming a burden to others.

I’ve come to think of worry as weeds in the beautiful garden that is my imagination. The weeds crop up, but they’re not personal. They don’t have much to do with me, nor are they out to get me. Also—and this is key—I don’t have to water the weeds. This refusal to nourish worrisome thoughts takes awareness and skills. I cultivate these skills by realizing that when I worry I am caught up in a loop of thinking that is habitual, often unconscious, and detrimental. Worry is a coping mechanism. My unconscious, misguided thinking goes something like this: If I worry about xyz, I’m anticipating it and will therefore be better prepared to handle it if/when it shows up. In other words, I’ll be in control. But research shows that most of what we worry about never happens, and the only outcome worry guarantees is anxiety and stress. Plus, we’re not in control of what happens. Still, we can control how we react to what happens. When I’m able to recognize my worry pattern, I naturally step back from it, and my thoughts no longer fuel my emotions. The loop/cycle is broken.

I read somewhere that worry is a form of hoarding. We hoard scary thoughts and ruminate over them. I’ve done this to the point of making myself sick. My inner healer has been activated to try and alleviate the suffering this creates and I’m happy to say, I’ve made progress. In November 2020, I wrote a blog called “No Worry Zones,” in which I describe setting up places in my home, like in bed before falling asleep, where I’m simply not allowed to worry. I kept expanding my no-worry zones, and am freer from worry than ever before. Mark Nepo, in his book, Things That Join the Sea and Sky, writes “We need to pause and perch atop our worries and concerns so we can return to the world and do what needs to be done, until what sustains us reveals itself like the inside of a seed cracked by our beak.” This is, of course, a practice, and as the saying goes, old habits die hard. Still, it’s a relief to know that awareness provides a get-out-of-jail free card when it comes to worry, and the science of neuroplasticity is proving that it’s never too late to change a bad habit.

Is your go to comfort food sweet or savory? Is it something you make yourself? Does food inspire your writing?

Growing up, my go-to comfort food was pasta, but in my early forties, I found it difficult to digest. Conventional pastas left me feeling bloated. I also developed chronic stomach problems. In an attempt to heal, I adopted a raw, vegan diet. My memoir, Raw, chronicles this journey, which dragged me kicking and screaming into spiritual adulthood. Although the raw-food diet had many perks, it wasn’t the panacea I’d hoped for.

The first cooked food I ate after having been on a raw-food diet for five years was quinoa. After I ate it (with steamed veggies) I felt pleasantly sedated. My belly was full, and I had no bloating. I felt grounded, but also sleepy. The quinoa was heavier than the food I’d been eating, but it wasn’t a bad way to calm down. It felt to me like a healthier option than alcohol, weed, or Xanax. I still enjoy, and am comforted eating quinoa, but I’ve discovered plant-based noodles, such as Pasta Zero and Miracle noodles, which are great substitutes for the comfort food I grew up eating. I also enjoy zucchini pasta, and I can eat modest amounts of pastas made from quinoa, chickpeas, corn, and brown rice. I also love beans, which I find very comforting, too. Fruits and vegetables still occupy center stage in my diet. The more life in my food, the more energetic I feel. I no longer live to eat, but prefer eating to live.

In the case of my memoir, Raw, food definitely inspired my writing—and healing.