Weekly Wide-Awake #31

[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

Enter your email here to receive Weekly Wide-Awake

back

Questions. Answers. Thank You Notes. Lady Bugs. Conversations.

Living The Comma #3

The Practice of Writing. Big Magic. Dutch Tulips and Dodo Birds.

Dear Writing Friends,

I have been writing a ton lately. I completed Gratitude Conversations #7 — a collection of conversations about gratitude. I wrote an essay about gratitude for a travel magazine. I took writing classes focused on poetry and micro prose. I am finding heart and passion in words at this time when cruelty and pain surround.

This week I am thinking about creative living and amplified existence in Liz Gilbert’s Big Magic, writing as a practice in Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, and John Green’s prompt encouraging us to write about what we’ve never seen in The Book of Alchemy.

Paying attention right now is hard. Writing makes me feel less alone. Writing means a bigger ship to sail through rough waters. Writing means showing up and creating the world we want to live in through words.

From the heart of the comma.

Katie

MONDAYS ARE FREE EXERCISES 116 — 120

Questions. Sound. Answers. Silence.

EXERCISE 118: 21 ANSWERS

enjoying all the sounds

Answer each of your twenty-one t-i-e questions with answers (full sentences) comprised of many words with ‘b’, ‘m’, and long ‘o’ (e.g. oboe, motion, mobius). One of the answers should be an exclamation! The answers don’t have to make sense, though they can. Read each original question and its corresponding answer aloud, enjoying all the sounds.

How do we tell time? What if clocks tell time with arms? Then we measure time exactly. What if trees tell time with trunks? Then rings are time’s keys. What if turtles tell time with shells? Then shells are time’s story. What if days tell time with sunshine? Then we see time’s lightness. What if nights tell time with moonbeams? Then moonbeams are lightness, too. What if toes tell time with balance? Then hands tell truth with strength. What if tears tell time with falling? Then time is the heart of truth. What if thieves tell time with secrets? Then honest people tell time with truth. What if angels tell time with wishes? Then demons tell time with curses. What if miracles tell time with rainbows? Then dreams tell time with crystals. What if cats tell time with yawns? Then parakeets tell time with song. What if dogs tell time with belly rubs? Then pandas tell time with bamboo. What if tea tells time with leaves? Then coffee tells time with beans. What if trucks tell time with tires? Then windows tell time with glass. What if tables tell time with chairs? Then couches tell time with cushions. What if tattle-tales tell time with gossip? Then babies tell time with coos. What if telescopes tell time with stars? Then compasses tell time with magnets. What if leftovers tell time with refrigerator frost? Then bread tells time with softness. What if hope tells time with love?

Read the entire post here.

A Ladybug in the Cold

Small Stories and Big Fires

Come here sweet Ladybug. It is November and it is cold. I thought ladybugs did not survive in the cold.

Ladybug crawled from the window of the car onto my finger. I looked at her and felt her tiny legs tickle my skin as she moved from the window to my finger and up my arm. She then gently flew to the side of my cheek. Each little move felt like hope whispering, secret sharing, reality imagining.

In the cold, ladybugs speak courage and beauty. A black and red speckled testament to a nature’s strength, life’s miracle, and capacity’s flex. I am not sure where I thought lady bugs lived in the cold. Did they fly south like birds? My Ladybug friend reminded me to pay attention, persist in cold, and nod to gentle luck.

Heart Giving and Letting Go

What I learned from writing 50 Thank You Notes

“It is the heart that does the giving; the fingers only let go.” — Nigerian proverb

I want to start with a story. My understanding of giving grew from my early experiences. A family that hosted gatherings frequently. A church that taught me about tithing time, talent, and treasure. A school where I learned the value of community, relationships, and connection. A grandparent’s garden that fed a neighborhood. That is how, when, and where I learned about giving and letting go.

Read entire post here.

Gratitude Conversations #7

Anthony Ahrens. Rob Roeser. Lindsay Ryan.

Why Gratitude?

A few years ago, heartbroken and eyeballs deep in despair, I started searching for things for which to be grateful. I asked myself the question asked by poet Katie Farris

“Why write love poetry in a burning world? To train myself, in the midst of a burning world, to offer poems of love to a burning world.”

I reached out to people who — in the way in which they live — write love poems to our burning world. I cast my net far and wide amongst my heroes — those I knew personally and those who teach us all by their example. I invited artists, philosophers, psychologists, politicians, professors, yogis, writers, clergy, and others into a dialogue about gratitude. I am deeply grateful to those who said yes. Read more about my gratitude project methodology here.

Thanks for reading Weekly Wide-Awake. Subscribe to the Wide-Awakeness Project.