Weekly Wide-Awake #33

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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Blessings. The Mess. Hope. Gratitude.

Living the Comma #5

Blessings. Grace. Courage.

Dear Writing Friends,

It’s Thanksgiving and I am profoundly thankful.

I am thankful for connection and community. I am thankful for health and mornings. I am thankful for healing of all sorts. I am thankful for seasons and perfect timing. I am thankful for my grandmothers turkey soup recipe that I will spend all day making with my mother. I am thankful for deciduous leaves and soil. I am thankful for breath and returning to it again, again, and again.

This week, I am sharing Kate Bowler’s prompt from the Book of Alchemy, “Anti-blessings”. Ann Lamott’s Thanksgiving essay originally published in Parade magazine, “Counting Our Blessings: Why We Say Grace.” Francine Prose’s take on reading with courage.

Our next face-to-face writing session is December 7th. To virtually connect with the group, let me know in the comments, direct message, or email, and I will send a meeting link.

Happy Thanksgiving from the heart of the comma.

Katie

MONDAYS ARE FREE EXERCISES 126-130

EXERCISE 126: PARDON THE MESS

a little shine

Describe a room in detail that is not yet fit for someone who is about to visit.

We are preparing for Friendsgiving. Our living room is a mess. Laundry strewn on the coach waiting to be put away. Kitty litter box waiting to be cleaned. Table waiting for flowers. Bag of potatoes sits on the counter waiting to be mashed. Rolls waiting to become pork sliders. Puddles of brine spilled in the process of moving the turkey from the bag to the fridge waiting to be roasted. The concrete floor with cat puke stains waiting to be scrubbed. Plants waiting to be pruned and watered. Three flights of wooden stairs waiting to be cleaned and polished. Carpets waiting to be vacuumed. Toilets waiting to be cleaned. Dessert table waiting to be set up. Folding chairs waiting to be placed around the room for guests. Everything waiting to be dusted.

Read the entire post here.

Hope

The thing about hope is it breathes imagination.

The thing about imagination is it creates courage.

The thing about courage is it feeds heart.

The thing about heart is it fuels desire.

The thing about desire is it builds fire.

The thing about fire is it demands fuel.

The thing about fuel is it moves mountains.

Words, forming. Fingers, molding. Seeds, planting.

Babies, cooing. Cats, purring. Red velvet cupcakes, baking.

Clouds, parting. People, gathering. Prayers, lifting.

“Hope is the thing with feathers”— Dickinson

Hope as bird. Hope as poem. Hope as song.

Hope as lighthouse. Hope as rock. Hope as soil.

Hope as foundation. Hope as scaffolding. Hope as sanctuary.

I refuse to live in a world without hope.

Gratitude Conversations #1

David Sawyer, Liesl Carter, Seana Murphy

Why Gratitude?

A few years ago, heartbroken and eyeballs deep in despair, I started searching for things for which to be grateful. I asked myself the question asked by poet Katie Farris

“Why write love poetry in a burning world? To train myself, in the midst of a burning world, to offer poems of love to a burning world.”

I reached out to people who — in the way in which they live — write love poems to our burning world. I cast my net far and wide amongst my heroes — those I knew personally and those who teach us all by their example. I invited artists, philosophers, psychologists, politicians, professors, yogis, writers, clergy, and others into a dialogue about gratitude. I am deeply grateful to those who said yes. Read more about my gratitude project methodology here.

Read Gratitude Conversations #1

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