MONDAYS ARE FREE EXERCISES 201-205

[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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MONDAYS ARE FREE EXERCISES 201-205

Teachers. The United States. Mothers. Fathers. Brothers.

EXERCISE 201: WRITE TO SOMEONE WHO TAUGHT YOU

acknowledge who they are

Write a letter to a teacher or teacher figure.

Dear Ms. R., / I hope this note finds you well. I hope you are pursuing your heart’s desire. I hope you are still writing. I hope you are surrounded in love and community. I hope in some small way you understand the positive impact you had on so many./ My high school years were difficult. I received a diagnosis of a genetic condition. My family life was on blast. I never fit in, even with the theatre kids. (I was cast in things, I was just never the one asked to hang out.) Theatre was a refuge my entire childhood from church choir to elementary school choir to Equity Dinner Theatre to the high school drama program. I found safety in creativity. I found peace in creativity. I found joy in creativity./ I chose to pursue a career teaching high school theatre because of all that./ I held a theatre teaching position for a year and a half and quickly learned a little bit about the weight you carried. Casts of artistic, teenage, wanting-to-be-seen souls. Teaching three classes a day. A community with huge expectations. It was a lot, even for someone with theatre in her bones./ After many years, there are many things I want to tell you. I want to start by saying thank you for nurturing my love of the arts. The arts have been shelter in many storms. Thank you for your example of excellence and intellect. Thank you for building a foundation that allowed me to find my unique voice, and know part of what I was put on earth to do was to use my voice to tell stories, lift others up, and build community. You planted a seed in me that continues to grow today. Love, Katie

EXERCISE 202: WRITE TO SOMEONE YOU WILL MISS

who is going away

Write a letter to a person who is going away for a long time.

Dear United States of America, You have given me so much. The safety and security to pursue my dreams. A constitution whose center has held through dark times. The resources to learn and grow and question, even fall apart and back together over and over again./ I am not physically leaving as truths are revealed, cruelties are unmasked, pain is shared./ I will miss how I used to believe that most of our leaders fundamentally had the best interest of our world at heart (and those that didn’t were held mostly at bay by those with a moral compass.) I will miss unbridled optimism, the kind of optimism that worked for Hope and Change. I will miss an assumption of progress and the unquestioned belief we are forming a more perfect union. (I was born into more freedoms than I currently enjoy.) I will miss believing with every fiber of my being we are leaving a kinder, healthier, safer world than we found./ I find hope in days and tides and seasons and stars. They are constants, and bigger than my anger and fear and isolation. I find hope in young people. I am ready to keep loving and doing my part and watching them soar. I find hope in connection. It feels real to tend relationships. I find hope in the idea that we are made — from a persistent stew of love and wisdom — for these times.

EXERCISE 203: WRITE TO SOMEONE MATERNAL

your mother or a mother figure

Write a letter to your mother or a mother figure.

When You Teach Someone to Read

When you teach someone to read — night after night, passing books back and forth, listening to new words — you form a forever bond. When you teach someone to read — connecting letters and syllables and sentences — you give voice structure. When you teach someone to read — and ask questions and find responses — you plant seeds. When you teach someone to read — learning what makes them laugh and cry and wonder — you get to know them. When you teach someone to read — creating pathways of possibilities — you build dreams and futures. When you teach someone to read — sharing legends and myths and tales — you help them explore a moral compass. When you teach someone to read — traveling to places they have never been, experiencing things they have never experienced — you foster awe and curiosity. When you teach someone to read — taking them beyond the everyday — you quench their thirst. When you teach someone to read — weaving stories and lives and histories — you model oneness and belonging. When you teach someone to read — constructing libraries of knowledge and understanding — you change the world.

EXERCISE 204: WRITE TO SOMEONE PATERNAL

your father or a father figure

Write a letter to your father or a father figure.

When You Teach Someone To Sing

When you teach someone to sing — learning notes and songs— you form a forever bond. When you teach someone to sing — celebrating harmony and dissonance — you hear beauty in complexity. When you teach someone to sing — in choirs, with bands, and solo — you build joy. When you teach someone to sing — strengthening the muscles in our throats — you create our song. When you teach someone to sing — crossing language’s boundaries — you help them explore. When you teach someone to sing — about places they may not visit and in languages they may not speak — you foster understanding. When you teach someone to sing — and play instruments — you build experimentation’s connective tissue. When you teach someone to sing — hymns, anthems, and lullabies — you model oneness and belonging. When you teach someone to sing — around bon fires, in churches, and in living rooms — you change the world.

EXERCISE 205: WRITE TO SOMEONE AKIN

a sibling or sibling figure

Write a letter to a sibling or sibling figure.

A letter sent to my brother on the occasion of his retirement from public education after 31 years.

Congratulations, Brother./ Thank you for sharing this./ I could not be happier for you and more proud of the work you have done throughout your career. From watching you and Tara hug Emma and Amelia as they graduated, to hearing the stories about students, teachers, families, and countless others at what feels like every restaurant across Oldham County, to attending the last two Turkey Fries, I deeply understand the impact you have had on so many./ I have attached a picture of the badger fetish I believe Delvin gave me when we visited you at Pine Hill all those years ago — where your work began. It has sat by my desk a long time, reminding me of the courage, tenacity, healing, and protection it legendarily provides. It has traveled with me over many, many, many miles, always on or near where I work. It is a quiet reminder of how you have had my back over a lifetime, too. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you./ As you think back over it all — and look forward to what is to come — you need to know I lifted a prayer of celebration for you in church last Sunday. (We have a moment in the service where we can share community concerns and joys, and I spoke of the joy of your retirement.) I have no doubt what lies ahead will be as joyful and meaningful as the best parts of the last 31 years. The badger who sits next to me says so.

Thank you for reading MONDAYS ARE FREE. These exercises are explorations of poetry and language and joy. Subscribe to the Wide-Awakeness Project to share this journey.