what I meant to post a long time ago, but it was stuck in my draft box: telling stories to get them back

 Today in Friday Writers one of my longtime (on and on I could go) students put into words what so much of this writing together is all about. In our first round of writing, she mentioned something difficult she was going through and during our "response write" another student wrote about something similar that a friend of hers was going through and all the success and support they had found further along the story than the first student. After that round, H thanked her for her story, adding, more or less that "this is why I tell this story to as many people as I can... in hopes of getting stories in return." 

Exactly that. Stories are the human currency we need to survive. You would never know it from it’s glossy and inviting surface, but the business of writing misses the point and has done a disservice to writers everywhere, creating a narrative that only "writerly writers, capital W writers, so-and-so writers " are worthy of having their stories bound and heard, that being heard is a privilege,  something one must earn before going public (publishing), only to be edited, cut short, polished the life out of before being a good enough story to put out there for the world to criticize (what we’ve grown to expect in the narrative created by paid and polished critics). I could at length argue the benefit of critics and publishing and all the good it has done—it’s more of a both/and—but the industry has come at the cost of missing out on countless of the stories we humans need to hear. The truth is, stories of any kind told in any way (written, danced, told, sang, painted, etc) by anywhom, detached from the commodities they all too often aspire to become, are the best gifts we can give each other, whole heart offerings etched in pen (etc) to lay on humanity's altar. 

Writing is what happens next

Dear Writers Everywhere and Everyhere Eternal,

Keep writing. Keep sharing your written gifts. We are collectively writing the human story and those who are heart hungry will go looking for it and drink it in. It matters! 

Write to remember. 

Write to offer. 

Write to receive. 

Write to be where you are, as you are.

Write to stay.

Write to grieve. 

Write to rejoice.

Write because it’s what you do and what you are.

Write as an act of love. 

Writing is your friend. 

Writing is peace.

Write where you belong is write where you belong. ⭐️

Happy Thanksgiving! Don't forget to thank your pens, your hands, your unique and familiar penmanship, your blank page and all the love you give it.

Let us remember that we are dear to one another. To ourselves. To this world. A wild and bright constellation of our stories connecting word-by-star, forever being written across the sky. Like the Sky Writing that made you so happy as a child !  💗

All hearts reaching: what I love about writing with you

 Every time we write and share together I am encouraged to witness the immediate palpable empathy that kicks in when you read your writing; from word one, we are rooting for you: we want you to get through this, we want to tell you to keep going, you can do it. No matter how big or small, we want you to go after and get the thing you are wanting, whether it is a trip to the east coast, a new puppy, allowing your grief and joy full expression, finding moments of peace amidst your grieving, getting there on time, finding the perfect pair of shoes, finding the courage to do or say the thing—whatever—and we will be listening along the way, through the obstacles, the inner and outer conflict. 

Despite everything wrong with our insane world and the wtf inexplicable ways of humans or the apathetic people we fear that we too have become and the moments we just want to give up, when I listen to you read, I know our empathy is still in check, going strong. As you read, we let all the insanity go and return to the present moment. We morph with you, becoming one with you as you read, grieving beside you, celebrating, feeling the warmth of a sunny day on our backs, marveling at the sprouts emerging in your garden, the excitement and uncertainty in the car with you on a long road trip to somewhere we've never seen, yet feel for certain we've been as much as we know you'll eventually get there; in one way or another, you'll arrive back home. We know it like we know that all told, we care deeply for ourselves and one another and we know we are not alone. 

It happens every time. 

Do remember

 how the other day on the table getting your yearly thyroid ultrasound you realized that you weren't exactly gripping your left hand with your right as much as you were holding it, giving it a place to rest and squeeze if need be and that your own ability and wish to comfort and hold yourself 

has been happening all along

Even though

they remind me of all the fallen fruit of my childhood, those carnival colors,  citrus stained slicks all over bleached SoCal sidewalks or sometimes even like a strand of prayer flags or those bulky paper chains we made out of construction paper as kids in slightly faded primary colors

even so, please don't litter your beautiful masks.

We are so funny

 because this is what I noticed myself craving today:

a trip to the dollar store to buy a colander                                        a higher sink in the bathroom like the one at the furniture place because that would solve everything.       And a smart place or thing to organize all  the extra garlic and onion

And last but not least a (or maybe a few) tiny dehumidifiers and oh yeah, one more, a hand towel that will actually dry my hands and around the bathroom sink where the faucet is too low

I also waited on an email from my yoga teacher, but waiting is an entirely different category of craving.

to the mid thirties platinum blonde mom I saw at Wolfe Park tonight with her 7 or 8 or maybe 9 year old boy

listening to that I guess grunge band                                       as the usual kingdom of clouds road in on the lowering citrus sky 

or for that matter to any mom about that age out and about roaming beneath generous summer skies with your about that age son:

It's not that I was staring exactly, in case you were wondering 

in case you looked up the hill at me through those dark black sunglasses I know so well, wondering why is that fifty year old lady with pink shoes glaring at us, the same way I saw up all those hills at staring elders feeling stared at or judged (for certainly there was so so much to judge)

What I really want to tell you is that I wasn't staring: I was mesmerized 

I was watching a movie of my old life: I was there, that was me, he is my child, you are me right down 

to the scattered, unsynchronized, sleep deprived, over caffeinated, text checking, starving, free spirited, free to be you and me micro moment exactly, to the bandshell music that only rarely, but sometimes perfectly captured the moment as you swizzled your neck around to check on your  blonde firefly: his little jumps and hopscotches and mama calls, falling freely into the summer night, his voice so edibly sweet. 

I want to tell you I am not staring at you at all: I am drinking you, I am feasting on a mirage, I am believing in miracles.  I am loving you

If you look up the hill just for even a second, we could bridge on the arc of a smiling sun so i could tell you things, so we could prolong things. But you never looked my way, go figure, you never did, you moved too fast.  And  I wished and wished that you would stay longer, that this movie would never end but a million other things were calling and in one exquisite swoop you were going, biking away with my son.