#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
"This five-line Japanese tanka, written a thousand years ago, taught me that to be whole requires letting into your life what you might believe you’d prefer to keep out. It showed me that a fully rounded human life means agreeing to everything—hard or embraced—that all lives will bring.
Although the wind
blows terribly here,
the moonlight also leaks
between the roof planks
of this ruined house.—Izumi Shikibu"
~ Excerpt from Jane Hirshfield, Poetry, Permeability, and Healing
I rise into a Sunday morning to write my weekly Aim for Astonishing writing prompt before I walk. Charlie forgets it’s Sunday, is impatient. Finally, I hit the send key. And we walk to the river in this warming day of November summer. Today, in this Sunday Sanctuary of woods, the leaves are still the main story. They are clinging, a few, in a final phase of blazing color, or falling into the brook or onto the rails. I feel the sense of pleasure I feel on Sunday mornings, of deeply considering an idea, shaping it, editing it, and sending it. It’s a hopeful way to start the day. I am home just in time to meet on Zoom with my husband, to connect with our dear friends in Paris for a call. Here they are, across the sea, in the heart of Paris, in their apartment in their red sweaters and smiles. And here is Patrice, with his guitar, playing and singing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, making up his own lyrics, in English, with his French accent, singing the joy of our American election results. They are wholeheartedly congratulating us for our results. They have stayed up too late the past few nights watching the news, and last night, six hours ahead of the Biden/Harris victory speech at 8:00 p.m. here, they are awake in Paris watching. How excited they are! And Patrice says, about Covid, they can only go outside their apartment for one hour, and they have to stay within one kilometer. But, Patrice says, we are not complaining, in our “golden prison.” They live about a block from the Eiffel Tower, and they feel very fortunate they can walk to Champ de Mars. My daughters join the Zoom call, and we are so happy, remembering our happy times together, in Paris, Ardeche, Corsica, Martha’s Vineyard and New York City over the years. I pretend that Covid will be behind us so that I can fantasize about seeing them in Paris in the spring. Tonight I open the Chilmark poem I’m working on and see if I can make some progress. But, any progress I am making is in the invisible world. So, I need to take the poem to sleep and dream with me tonight and trust the process. Perhaps I will wake with a line that will break this open for me.
Join me! Register here
Will you join me at my next Aim for Astonishing free, LIVE ON ZOOM, writing webinar? You will write from a personal photo you bring. Whether you’ve joined me before, or will be joining me for the first time, this experience will be fresh and intimate, a gathering where you will write and be surprised by truths you didn’t know you knew. Register here for the Zoom link.