woman. warrior. writer. 05-08-25
Vol. 6 No. 6 05-08-25
Aloha,
Possession and Story. Let’s examine this…
Point of View: Lost or free?
WRITING: Possession and Story
If you haven’t read Possession by A.S. Byatt, you are missing out. It’s brilliant. This book was loaned to me by historian Philip Snow, author of China and Russia: Four Centuries of Conflict and Concord, when I was doing my PhD, living in the village of Mui Wo, and it was a wonderful escape from the often dry reading in the world of theory and philosophy.
There’s a story about possession that was relayed to me by my late Aunty Shirley Han who came from Illinois in the early 1960s, those early days of Hawai’i’s statehood. She was a nurse at a TB hospital.
We are not born with a desire to possess. We must be taught. Human beings are the only animals that excessively hoard. Stop it with the burying food blather about squirrels. Squirrels do not bury designer handbags, real estate, and jewelry. I would guess this hoarding or possession obsession is traced to our perceptions of death, as if accumulation might somehow ease or stop the anxiety and fear we have about this inevitability.
Back in the 1960s, just like now, patients came to Hawai’i from all over the Pacific for medical care because Americans bombed people’s islands for target practice, polluted waters, spread diseases, as usual, in the name of freedom. But they did and continue to do this in the name of possession.
There was a 12-year-old girl patient from one of these Pacific communal cultures where objects were shared. Turns out, if you liked a particular object, you might borrow it, and then when you tired of it, you returned it, or the person came and retrieved it. The point was that everyone enjoys the object and shares it. Perhaps the original possessor or finder of such an object dictates this or that—I have no idea, but the core is that ownership and possession do not exist in the way that we understand it now--attached to capital and individual existence. Power is present in every society, and often linked to possession, but obviously certain objects, places are simply shared.
So the young girl wandered around the hospital floor and saw stuff she liked in different rooms. A clock. A watch. A piece of jewelry. She collected, then displayed the goods in her own room. The patients were outraged and in total disbelief. How could this young girl steal their objects and, even worse, show no shame or inhibition about her actions? Why, what kind of behavior was this? There she was in her room, happily surrounded by the objects she enjoyed, owned by others.
My aunt said that the staff had to explain to the concept of possession to this young girl. That people owned the things. That people could choose not to share. That she had no rights to anything—she did not pay for it, so nothing was hers. Nothing was communal. It was theirs or it was hers, but it was never both. She was 12.
Years later, I found myself in Hong Kong. Just over the border: Shenzhen, a global manufacturing hub for all that we wear, use, and measure ourselves by. Hong Kong has plenty of factory overruns. You pull a designer dress off a side street stall for $20 (hello, Chanel), grab a shirt with a $100USD price tag from a box in a little store for $2USD. The goods are made by warehouses of 14-year-old children, loaded by workers onto carts and trucks, packed into crates, shipping containers, and offloaded into your shopping mall. You blow out a month’s salary because everyone knows where you are on this hierarchy chain for buying an object. That’s fine. It’s inescapable. It’s capitalism. No one escapes this. We must possess something.
When I moved back from Hong Kong to LA, I found myself in a boutique that featured designer European bras. At the time, they were oh, $80. A week later, I was in Target. Was that same bra $20? Friends in manufacturing laughed and told me yep, probably was. Same factory, different companies. These are global economy, trade, and capital basics. It’s about natural resources and perception. We beat death by buying what we think elevates us (think about this—the delusion of ascension). And ultimately, we try to beat death through the act of possession.
To make sense of our lives, we have to make sense of possession. To do this, we must shape the story of an object. We must carve, build, winnow, and expand the story. We must determine its starting point and end point. We extend the story or shrink it, but mostly we try to figure out how we construct possession to make sense of our view of the world. You can start the story of a chic handbag wherever you want to start it. From the fingers of the teenage girl making it. The designer in Italy. The shopping mall where you spot it. The crate where it was loaded. The discount heap you saw it in. The story can end in your hand. Or when you give it to a thrift shop or throw it away. It can end in a landfill or in an attic. Think about where you are starting or stopping a story. Coz guess what: that is your world view. Period.
What we need to figure out is why we believe we possess something and why we want to possess something. Because the truth is we possess NOTHING but our stories.
We are made of stories. We are made of words that conduct how we feel and what we believe. We are driven by words on the page. These words on a page have dictated to us what we need to possess to be bigger, better, shinier, and brighter. And in the end, you know what it’s about?
We believe that possession will shelter us from the unknowable truth of death.
Take that in. Be scared. Be down. Be terrified. Be sad. Be whatever, but whatever you feel, you must ACT. The most powerful action that you can take when faced with an unknown outcome is to possess and to fully own your story, your narrative, your truth.
Write down stories you make up. Stories you lived and imagined. Because you, bluntly, have nothing else.
If you need help, want community, want a push, guidance, and camaraderie while you figure out these big questions you hold in your heart—take a class. Write your divorce story. Write your book of essays. Write your novel. Write your memoir.
We create the stories of our lives. Possessions: illusory. Stories? Forever. Commit yours to the page.
CLASSES
Please note: All classes are listed in Pacific Daylight Time (PDT)
Intersectionality: Manuscript Workshop (6 weeks) SUNDAYS, 9-11AM (PDT) June 15-29; July 13-27 (No Class 7/6): Writing submission/interview required. 3 spots left. Contact writer@drstephaniehan.com for more information. $719 Former students - $647
Writers are MFA/post MFA level. Everyone has a manuscript-in-progress. This is the kind of class where writers write and share the stuff that they won’t write in other classes. I know this because I’ve been told this. Because truthfully, good writing is tough because you have to dig deep into your emotional well. If you’re not feeling it, neither is the reader. And we often need support to write this way. To get to the end of your manuscript you have to write your pages. Most women take class at least twice. Instructor approval and sample required. Contact writer@drstephaniehan.com
6 week intensive. One-on-one meetings, accountability sessions, and critiques. STOP talking. Get. It. Done.
BREAK: How to Write Your Divorce Story SUNDAY, June 8, 9-11AM (PDT): Class includes the BREAK: How to Write Your Divorce Story e-guide. Write your divorce story for your legal/personal file. This is a discounted class, as I’m testing out new material.
Freedom is a practice. Learn to set yourself free and learn how to help others do the same. Learn how to help your neighbor, friend, sister, or colleague. Check out Oprah Daily. $99.
MAY Writing Accountability Group May 9-30, FRIDAYS, 9-11AM (PDT): weekly Zoom writing accountability sessions. FREE to all WWW, Workshop Alums, Syllabus Authors—email writer@drstephaniehan.com for the link. People zoom in from multiple time zones, so I will move the time/day around every month! June will be Sundays 9-11AM (PDT) New students $50
Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month
Mark your calendars! Woman Warrior Writer is celebrating AAHNPI month with a free women’s writing workshop Substack Live on 5/15 Thursday at 12pm PDT with myself, Darien Hsu Gee, and Kalehua Kim.
This is a recasting of the definition of Asian America(n) and is useful to those who teach Asian American writers/AA texts in the Academy.
Check out this resource:
RESOURCES
BREAK: How to Write Your Divorce Story $29 a downloadable e-guide to help you to easily write your story for your personal/legal file. As seen in Oprah Daily. Limited free copies if you are in severe financial need. LMK writer@drstephaniehan.com
FREE: Write Your Divorce Story: one page with divorce story basics. You can also head to YouTube!
Get your WWW merch. Proceeds support women’s scholarships for creative writing classes!
FALL 2025 SEND WWW nominations, publication updates and more…
WWW features will return Fall 2025! That means you send me news to get the word out about your literary endeavors. Please send to writer@drstephaniehan.com
Aloha,
Stephanie