#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Charles River

I want to write about the great and powerful thing that listening is. And how we forget it. And how we don't listen to our children, or those we love. And least of all - which is so important, too - to those we do not love. But we should. Because listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. Think how the friends that really listen to us are the ones we move toward, and we want to sit in their radius as though it did us good, like ultraviolet rays.

~ Brenda Ueland

Rain is the sound I wake to; it lulls me back to sleep. It’s dark early and the light is changing. It’s hard to get out of bed in the dark, and so I don’t. This morning I swim, a long, lovely, hearty, healthy long set of laps indoors in a pool and I don’t walk. I lead my Farm Pond Writer’s Group. I have planned something a bit different than usual: We explore the creative process and deep listening. I am able, through breakout rooms on Zoom, to separate us into pairs to have sharing and listening that goes deep. And then writing from that. It was exciting to hear how the act of listening, and feeling really listened to, (and then sharing the writing we did about it) impacted everyone. I continue to feel strongly: powerful experiences can happen, can be made to happen, on Zoom. I had some good news when I checked my e-mail, in that three poems I submitted to an anthology on Alzheimer’s have been selected. All poems from my father’s Alzheimer’s and previously published; I am glad thy will have more life. I walked in the afternoon, it was a very fine rain and the leaves and trees and grass were all quite wet, but it was fairly warm and pleasant and the dogs were happy. The river gets so remarkably red and green in this rain. I signed up to continue, in November, in my Thursday morning poetry workshop, having taken the month of October off, and I was so grateful to have a place open. I’ve needed the time off from this group, but I’m so excited to get back to my two weekly workshops, to be generating two poems per week, to be engaging with craft. I’m excited! Today I found myself feeling a bit Covid-restless. Because of the seasonal change, I think, this being so much more indoors instead of seeing people more easily as part of being outdoors. So, I am working on my attitude. Keeping positive. Taking positive steps. Focusing on gratitude on a rainy day.