Good morning, you and you and you. How is the morning singing where you are? Here it’s the Amtrak whistling through Jack London Square, the rush of cars moving toward rush hour, my neighbor warming up their motorcycle, the long build of the teakettle’s steady hum as it comes to a boil. Just a few birds; the feeder’s empty, and so they’re shunning me until I get them more seed.
I’m resting in the comingle of this song this morning, letting it wash over me. Last night’s Write Whole workshop left me both full and emptied out; we wrote about fear (visit the link to hear Joy Harjo performing the poem we used as a prompt), and we wrote about apologizing for things that weren’t our fault. The writing was vivid, layered, complicated, strong, and the stories were painful and gorgeous and necessary. I carry these stories with me; they live in the space I occupy, they live along the skin of my forearms, they live in the cilia just inside my ears. I learn from these stories; I stretch and open; I ache and celebrate. Every one of us in the room during these writes, we have the opportunity to stretch, to experience another someone’s story. Continue reading