Weekly Wide-Awake #39

[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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Street Magic. Showing Up. Many Questions.

Between Errand and Epiphany

On street magic, epiphanies, and resolutions

“The magic of the street is the mingling of the errand and the epiphany.” —Rebecca Solnit

We live between the errand and the epiphany. Let me explain. We live between have to and get to, work and rest, what is and not yet. Experiencing real magic — the magic of the street — is understanding the liminal space where fear, joy, anger, awe, grief, and love occur.

I think about Marie Howe’s poem “The Gate” when I think about the magic of the street. She talks about folding sheets, washing dishes, and eating a cheese and mustard sandwich, explaining her brother would ask if this is what she had been waiting for. “This sort of looking around.” The magic of the street is all about looking around. The magic of the street is about what happens when we are present folding or washing or eating — life’s errands. The magic of the street is about experiencing the holy chore, the sacred ritual, the prayer of the everyday. That’s magic.

Read entire post here.

Living the Comma #11

Large Enough Language. Showing Up. Keeping a Notebook. Loving Hard.

This week, I am thinking about the effort it takes to simply show up. To show up to the page. To show up in body, mind, and spirit to life. To show up in relationship to myself and others. The prompt I want to share comes from the 30 Day New Year’s Project in Suleika Jaouad’s Isolation Journals newsletter, “Here Come the Warm Jets”. It is about the relationship between listening and showing up. Joan Didion reflects about showing up in our writing in “On Keeping a Notebook”. Jimmy Santiago Baca’s [It would be neat if with the New Year] beautifully describes what it means to “love hard”. Showing up is the heart of loving hard.

Read entire post here.

MONDAYS ARE FREE EXERCISES 156—160

EXERCISE 160: DREAM/ NIGHTMARE INTERVIEW, PART v

Answer one

Answer one of the questions by telling a story about a clock.

What is the most outrageous lie you have ever told?

An old clock hangs on my wall. It hung on the wall with stardust and moonbeams. It hung on the wall with glaciers and fire. It hung on the wall with shelter and language.

It hung on the wall when travelers started lives in New Worlds. It hung on the wall when a group of Revolutionaries declared independence from tyranny. It hung on the wall when the framers of the United States Constitution drafted a document establishing a nation of the Rule of Law. It hung on the wall as some seceded. It hung on the wall as wars were fought at home and abroad.

It hangs on the wall as rights are established and taken away. It hangs on the wall as laws are made, followed, and broken. It hangs on the wall as humanity — our capacity to understand our oneness and interdependence — balances delicately. It hangs on the wall as we pray for a more perfect union. It hangs on the the wall as brave and honorable people stand for justice and peace and love. It hangs on the wall as we teach our children how to love one another. It hangs on the wall as we care for our vulnerable. It hangs on the wall as we seek to build and sow and breathe into the world we want to create.

Read entire post here.

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