Weekly Wide-Awake #55

[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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Weekly Wide-Awake #55

Ragtime. A Song. John Prine.

Living the Comma #27

Ragtime. Transcendence. Presidential Poetry.

Beyond that road,/ Beyond this lifetime,/ That car full of hope/ Will always gleam/ With the promise of happiness/ And the freedom we’ll live to know/ We’ll travel with/ heads held high/ Just as far as our hearts can go/ And we will ride,/ Each child will ride/ On the wheels of a dream! — “Wheels of a Dream,” from Ragtime

Dear Writer Friends,

I saw the musical Ragtime on Broadway this past weekend. The Lincoln Center’s (the venue where the show is being staged) website describes the show saying,

Ragtime is a sweeping musical adaptation of E.L. Doctorow’s novel that follows three fictional families in pursuit of the American Dream at the dawn of the 20th Century: Black pianist Coalhouse Walker, Jr. and his beloved Sarah, Jewish immigrant Tateh and his little girl, and a wealthy white family led by matriarch Mother. All grasping for the same dream, if only they can hold on to it.

To say this show is timely is an understatement. At this time when imagining our beyond is both vital and impossible, when hope’s headlights have dimmed, when carving the better angels of a more perfect union has left us weary and mad and questioning, this show reminded me of my 8 year-old self, who wrote poems in secret red folders and sang songs at the top of her lungs, who filled notebooks with brave love notes and biographies and performed musicals to earth shattering applause, who rode on the wheels of dreams with her body, mind, and spirit. Much of who I am today — my desire and passion and curiosity — comes from the childhood space of strength and creativity and joy.

Ragtime is an invitation. It is an invitation to be seen and heard. It is an invitation to teach our children well. It is an invitation create the world in which we want to live. It is an invitation to connect with one another and remember. We are one. From wherever. Praying to whomever or no one at all. Speaking whatever language we speak. Being whomever we are. Loving whomever we love. Holding. Creating. Imagining. We are one.

Read entire post here.

The Song That Wasn’t Just a Song

On Barges and Miracles

The Remembered Sound

I grew up on the Ohio River at Louisville, Kentucky. The River is a mile wide there. There are River sounds. Waterfalls flowing over fossil beds. Riverboat calliopes bouncing tunes like clouds and ice cream trucks. Frogs singing love songs. Children swinging on ropes. There are more River sounds that remind and locate and calm than I can describe. A particular remembered sound is the sound of a barge at night. Our house, where my parents lived for almost 40 years, was close enough to the riverbank to hear barges as they worked their way down stream. The slow churn of presence and motion. The powerful proclamation that some things never change. The familiar hum that immediately meant I was home. Part whale. Part foghorn. Par gear shift. Part torch song.

Read entire post here.

Taking A Walk #9

If I can make myself laugh about something that I should be crying about, that’s pretty good. — John Prine

It feels good to laugh. At serious times, it is hard not to get paralyzed by seriousness. At grave times, it is hard not to dig our own graves of despair and heartache. At sad times, it is hard not to drown in our tears. I turn to the music of John Prine to help navigate hard times. I saw him perform “Paradise.” I saw Bonnie Raitt cover “Angel from Montgomery.” I heard Brandi Carlile pay tribute singing “I Remember Everything.” I played fiddle when I was little, so maybe his music reminds me of an essential self that knew joy and connection. I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, so maybe his music reminds me of my story, a high lonesome I understand. He signed his first record deal in 1971, the year I was born, so maybe his music reminds me of the arc of my life and my responsibility to make the world a more honest and poetic and compassionate and beautiful place each day.

Read entire post here.

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