Living the Comma #34

[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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Living the Comma #34

Headlights. Joy. Ross Gay.

“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” ―E.L. Doctorow

Dear Writer Friends,

I am struggling. It is summer. I want to take a huge trip to somewhere amazing. My elderly cats — that I love dearly — cannot decide on a food that they like to eat. And, on top of all that, there was cage match on the White House lawn last weekend. My thoughts are everywhere and nowhere. In an effort to maintain, I just finished a two-week writing challenge. I am taking a writing class. I have restarted my exercise program for the 187th time. And, I am planning our writing group that will start again in September.

I am definitely relying on headlights to take the trip right now. The night. The fog. The fact that — for better or worse — I am not wired to turn away. It is a lot. So, I write. I write to sort things out. I write to yell and scream and sing and dance in a safe place. I write to find the words. I write to remember all the things — both the big and the small. I write to connect with others and myself. I write to keep my word to my creative self that I will create something every day. I make the whole trip that way.

Conversations with Authors — Ross Gay

I am rounding the corner of completing author and poet Ross Gay’s MONDAYS ARE FREE exercises. It involved writing poetry-like pieces 5 days a week for one year. Here is my latest installment — MONDAYS ARE FREE EXERCISES 236-240 Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato. Finger Food. Visiting. Turkey Soup. I became aware of Gay’s work a few years ago when I completed a writing course focused on his Book of Delights, in which he walks readers through a chronicling of things he finds delightful. (It is a truly wonderful book/practice.) I have learned so much from Gay. I have learned we often find what we seek. I have learned our attention is powerful and sacred. I have learned joy is resistance and medicine.

Tomato on Board

What you don’t know until you carry a tomato seedling through the airport and onto a plane is that carrying a tomato seedling through the airport and onto a plane will make people smile at you almost like you are carrying a baby. A quiet baby. — Ross Gay

Read entire piece here.

Ross Gay: Finding joy in the process

[An interview in The Writer Magazine by Toni Fitzgerald]

I think there might be a kind of reflection in writing of seeing what you’re thinking. Trying to sort of drill into what you’re thinking more accurately, to communicate to yourself, first, what it is that you’re feeling. Often writers have expressed not quite knowing what they feel or think until they write or say it. So it’s a kind of dialogue on the page. It’s not that different than a dialogue with a person. — Ross Gay

Read the entire interview here.

Ross Gay — On the Insistence of Joy

[An On Being Conversation with Krista Tippett]

“I often think the gap in our speaking about and for justice, or working for justice, is that we forget to advocate for what we love, for what we find beautiful and necessary. We are good at fighting, but imagining, and holding in one’s imagination what is wonderful and to be adored and preserved and exalted is harder for us, it seems.” — Ross Gay

Listen to the entire interview here.

A Writing Prompt

This week I want to share a writing prompt from MONDAYS ARE FREE.

EXERCISE 236: SMACK

all the noise

Eat a meal making as much noise as you can. Describe yourself eating that meal and all the noise you make. (This is inspired by my wife, who is an unapologetically, symphonically comparable noisy-eater.)

Let’s point our headlights toward joy. Let’s write toward knowledge. Let’s write toward awe. Let’s write toward wonder. Let’s write toward memory. Let’s write toward understanding. Let’s write toward empathy. Let’s write toward fire. Let’s write toward spirit. Let’s write toward love.

From the heart of the comma,

Katie

Thank you for Living the Comma with me. This community is truly love and light. Subscribe to the Wide-Awakeness Project and share your light. It has never been more important.