Kelly DuMar

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#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Coneflower in the Rain Garden

Myra Shapiro

Thaw little pancakes . . .
Flicker flicker . . .
I am speaking of his flashlights in the drawer.

~ Excerpt from Myra Shapiro, These Are The Pearls

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/22/these-are-the-pearls

This morning I find the rain garden. I missed it yesterday. Here it is, with the milkweed and the coneflower and the yarrow and the vines. . . It cheers me to locate it, to know it’s still here. I return to the sycamore bark; a park with such gorgeous trees. I have slept not that well. Awake early with adrenalin pumping and force myself back to sleep. Today is COMPLETELY full with deep conversation and with hard work in the Play Lab. The writers are working hard; it’s brave and challenging for them to do what they’re doing, this risk taking and sharing their plays and then revising, and acting in each other’s plays. I realize today we have 10 plays, and no monologues, and the show will run longer than it’s supposed to. Tomorrow is much work ahead to rehearse, to coach, to manage, to organize, to inspire, support, to let go. To let go and let it be what it will be. Frank called repeatedly, I had no time to talk. There are so many conversations had, and so many more I desire. We are so proud. Our own faculty member in poetry, our beloved, Myra Shapiro, has had a poem published this very week in the New Yorker. What a blessing she is here with us this week so we can celebrate her accomplishment. I hope to sit in on her class before we go. I know somewhere far away there are two dogs missing my footsteps. Here, and now, I am putting my energy into having these writers see and feel magic, their scripts coming to life off the page tomorrow night in front of an audience. Soon, Charles and Suzi, soon.