Community Blog
These posts were all written by someone in a Soul Writing group or workshop in ten minutes or less—really!
Not only that, what you read is virtually unedited from the original, timed writing. Several pieces often have the same title since groups write together on one prompt. Join us anytime to try it out for yourself. For now, happy reading.
Where am I in my own way?
Today, this morning, while lying on my back, breathing deep into my lower belly in an attempt to inflate and stabilize that sleepy part of my body while I did my recommended core exercises, Gertie began going berserk.
Re-forming
I watched, as the cloud of smoke jetted out from rounded lips, formed into a perfect ring, spreading, dissolving, re-forming, and at last in the encounter with a cross-draft, vanishing only to be replaced by a second, and a third.
Goodbye to…
I was seven, eight years old. The rows of Fiction were like the future to me. The Children’s section was wonderful, of course, colorful and sweet, but I climbed the YA with all my heart’s reach.
The tectonic plates edge closer, closer
Over tea with a friend, I said: My own actions need to get way bigger, or way smaller. I don't know which.
This way and that
This way and that, as if, like a wave in a bowl of water, motion is contained and governed by simple rules, my thoughts tend to cover and re-cover the same few points.
Do I have to?
Now there’s so little I feel I have to do, and yet so much space taken up by it. I get to do so many things, and seek joy in so many places. But I also have to find ways to say goodbye to friends, to family, to dreams, to possibility.
What is this?
“What is this?” You might ask if you visited today and walked upstairs to the gallery surrounded by windows and at least 15 degrees warmer than anywhere else in the house.
All that it is
I want them to walk through the world knowing that they are safe. And that they can land on their feet. Even when the world drops out from under them.
Once again …
As a musician, I have learned to take the small troublesome passages and work them, until all the friction has smoothed out.
Don’t you know who I am?
Tonight, knowing no one, I sat in the campfire circle and dared play a song. I didn’t play all that well, my fingers rusty and cold, my voice rusty and soft and then spurting out like air in the pipes.
Don’t you know who I am?
Growing up in small-town Louisiana, in a fairly prominent family, everyone knew who I was. I couldn't go anywhere, or do anything, without someone noticing. It made for excellent conditions for paranoia to grow like a weed.
Never again
The last time I thought "never again," as our family had scattered, and my parents' ashes floated out into the sunrise they loved so well. Well . . . here I am; specifically to add the first of my generation to that dawn tide.
All of a sudden…
I spent the whole afternoon yesterday watching the light fall on the marshes, watching a Great Blue Heron preening in the afternoon glow and the Snowy Egret catching little tiny fish wriggling in its beak.
Here’s how I know
I once heard a published writer say that writing her memoir had cost her tens of thousands of dollars in therapy, and I believe it – was relieved to hear that this might be part of a universal path, as it’s been the foundation – the may pole for me around which everything else has been born.
Here’s how I know
This morning there was one ripe fig on the tree that the squirrels had not yet nibbled. There was a purple bloom of borage not yet withered in the cold.
I didn’t know
If I were to frame the shot, I’d bring the camera in through a window streaked with rain or steam or fog. Or better yet through an open door with the focus soft, the Watcher’s gaze landing on the figures beyond: people stretching on their own at the barre, on the floor, or using the seat of a chair.
I never got to…
I really suck at goodbye. Not just when someone passes away -- whether or not I had time to anticipate. If we have a lovely afternoon together, I'll need to grieve for a bit before I can really feel the joy of the memory.
The whole picture
The whole picture is blurred, but not because it is raining. Not because the window is dirty or painted black. The whole picture is blurry, not because of a camera mishap. The whole scene is blurry because I will not stand still.