“That joy you’re experiencing is not only contagious, it’s necessary and urgent and irresistible.”
Wesley Morris talking about Black music / Sept 7 episode of The Daily, a #1619 episode
“The ghosts shudder, but they do not leave.”
“We hold hands and pretend at forgetting.”
“There is soft yellow sunlight and drifting pollen where he was, and me and [Pop] embracing in the grass. The animals are quieting in grunts and snorts and yips. Thank you, they say. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, they sing.
Jesmyn Ward, Sing Unburied Sing
“… All the patience lost with holding on and finding out the cost of being strong.”
Amy Wedge, “Not Enough” — soundtrack to “Keeping Faith” TV program
“Where is the ground we can stand on?”
A friend, about the current state of American affairs
“She slid like a seal out of any old sadness she carried.”
“Why does death catch us so by surprise?”
“The slightest clue can give us away.”
“Dizzy, I eventually found the car…”
Colum McCann, TransAtlantic
“She didn’t tell me anything until we were standing by the river.”
Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the #1619 project speaking on one of The Daily shows
“And that is the way she saw the land, with no difference between the different kinds of yesterday.”
Anne Enright — sorry not sure which novel
“There is no full circle, tidy conclusion, or simple solution to any of this.”
Suki Kim, Land of Darkness, in The Best American Essays, 2018, talking about N. Korea
After reading Maureen Jones’ poem titled “Nuptial” (blessed are the menial chores) and Robin Greene’s poem titled “This Old Dress I Call Jewish,” (Illuminations, Expressions of the Personal Spiritual Experience) the prompt was simply: write about a dress.
“… in the next age, the forests will prevail, not you humans.”
Goddess Alchemy
“… a shard of ice shivered through me. I was aware of a terrible voice.”
“His voice — his beautiful voice — rang high and light.”
Geraldine Brooks, The Secret Chord These two voice prompts worked well one right after the other.
“Nature has the talent to soften, forgive, and remake, to create something beautiful out of our mistakes, paradoxes, and counterpoints — even when it comes to you invisibly.”
Mark Helprin, Present Tense in Paris
“My soul. She was eating my soul.”
Mather Schneider, “Suicide Lane,” Rattle, Vol. 61, page 35
These next seven prompts were given at six minute intervals. I was worried about interrupting the writers’ flow, but it worked marvelously. These are headings from one of the fairy tales in The Complete Fairy Tales of George MacDonald. With each heading I supplied a few words from that section of the fairy tale, to use or not.
1. Where is she? (rose bush, sultry, ethereal, mischief)
2. She laughed too much (awkward, abandoned, consultation, peculiarities)
3. Try metaphysics (ecstasy, mineral, imponderable)
4. Try a drop of water (condescended, balcony, wind)
5. Look at the moon (canopies, knot, trembling)
6. Hiss (horizontal, unlocked)
7. This is very kind of you (fate, joy)
Enjoy!!
Just completed a five day Amherst Writers and Artists (AWA) facilitator training. Who-hoo — intense, exciting, and the best people, including my weekly facilitator, Kathleen Olesky, and from Amherst, Mass., Maureen Buchanan Jones (blog: 
Since I haven’t obtained permission to post peoples’ pictures, here are a few blurry shots, a form of photography I seem to do rather well lately!
Now it rains. I’m home. I feel like I’ve been through something. Finn is out with the Handsome Dog Walker for the last time.
I expressed interest late and was told the workshop was full. Facilitator, Maureen Jones, would put me on a waiting list just in case. I discussed Dog care with husband and confirmed that he wouldn’t be in Russia or China that week. Then I forgot about it.
(Except for Finn, maybe, who according to K spent an awful lot of time at the side door, waiting for me).
Every morning I wake with unnameable dread. “What’s so awful, again?” I wonder. It’s how I felt after each of my parent’s deaths. It was how I felt when my sister was hospitalized in 2009. It’s how I feel most mornings now.
We stopped at a funky place near Charlemont for ice cream. I passed on the sugar — it being Day 8 of my new regime.
It was hot. Really hot. There was no AC and the fan/outlet/screen situation was far from ideal. It was a big presence, the heat. It made all of us go more slowly. Some of us took regular cold showers, including me. Not tepid or body temp showers, but bursting cold showers. There was an outdoor faucet equipped with what they called a “fog nozzle” (sounds like a sex act) which delivered a delicious mist of cool water. I stood naked under it, but some enjoyed its spray fully clothed. Just to cool off. One woman had to quit early. We all understood.
We were thirteen, counting facilitator — all women (remind you of anything? Just kidding). Half the group was trained as teachers themselves but came to write as participants. Maureen Jones, pictured in closest Adirondack chair below, was lovely. She knew how to open up to the imagination AND keep time. She was thoughtful in her responses to EVERYONE and shared her own work. She helped all of us cope with the oppressive air by here and there adapting the schedule. If she judged anyone, it didn’t show.
I woke up in time to see the sunrise one morning. One evening, a lightening bug flew into my room and made a flashing circle around me before exiting. One afternoon there was rain and a double rainbow. Nothing like my day to day, in other words.