Meteors. Bad Bunny. Love. Bell Hooks.

I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do. I am going to write fire until it comes out of my ears, my eyes, my nose holes — everywhere. Until it’s every breath I breathe. I am going to go out like a fucking meteor! — Audrey Lorde

Hello Writer Friends,

I came across this quote last week and it stopped me in my tracks. It got me thinking about what it means to write with fire, and why finding our fire — whatever that fire is — is exactly what we are meant to do right now. Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show was fire and love. “The only thing more powerful than hate is love.” It was a meteor!

We held our first Weekly Writer’s Call last Thursday. It felt really good to gather that afternoon and simply write. Happening every Thursday from 1-2, each call will be an hour of silently and virtually writing together. Whatever project you choose to work on. Whenever you want to join in. Between the cracks of our busy days. Join our effort to write together. Here is the link for this Thursday.

This newsletter — Living the Comma — will continue to be delivered on Mondays to keep our broader community up-to-date and writing. If you know other’s who might want to be involved, please share word of our group, the newsletter, and the virtual link.

Our writing group will be participating in sewing teddy bears for families impacted by ICE. The next group sewing session will be on Saturday, Feb. 21st, 1-4 pm at Atlanta Friends Meeting House, 701 West Howard Avenue, Decatur, GA 30030 (map).

Our next face-to-face writing session will be March 1 at VHC after snack time. We are scheduled to meet from 12:15 to 1:30 in April and May, too. To virtually connect with the group during our meetings, use this link — https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85095318186.

I want writing this week to feel loving and joyful like Bad Bunny. I want it to be a celebration of love. (It is Valentine’s week, of course.) For a prompt this week, I want to share Project Love, from Beyond with Jane Ratcliffe. I saw the invitation to participate in Project Love — an 11-day experience in which the Beyond community responds to the Beyond Questionnaire (the questionnaire completed by writers and others routinely published on Beyond). Here are my responses to the Beyond Questionnaire.

Bell Hooks is one of my favorite philosophers/writers about love. She wrote several books on the subject of love — All About Love: New Visions (2000), Salvation: Black People and Love (2001), Communion: The Female Search for Love (2002), The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (2004). I have written about her work on love.

Two specific Hooks’ conversations shed perfect light on the fundamental connection she draws between community and love —

Bell Hooks meets with Thich Nhat Hanh to ask: how do we build a community of love?

Listen to Bell Hooks and Cornel West’s discussion of love and justice in a Public Dialogue at The New School.

As we celebrate love this week — with music and flowers and all the things — let’s continue to build a loving community within and around Virginia Highland Church.

From the heart of the comma,

Katie

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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.