Happy Anniversary
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On Sunday, March 8, 2020, I flew back from a writing conference in San Antonio that I almost didn’t attend. I stepped off the plane in the warm spring air feeling distinctly like I’d gotten away with something. By Thursday, it was all over. I packed up my laptop and biked from work to Weaver Street, where I played gin rummy with a friend in the springtime sun, as if we had all the afternoons in the world. The next night, we had dinner indoors with friends and semi-ironically played the board game Pandemic. These moments carried weight, but how much we would not know for some time.
I am certain all of you can vividly and clearly recall similar experiences from last March—the last dish you ate in a restaurant, the last hug you received, where you scored toilet paper. The job of a writer, fiction or nonfiction, is to document the details. Specificity is what makes our stories come alive. The more we put on the page, the more real everything becomes.
We find these details by noticing. If you’re not sure you remember how to notice, follow the lead of any small person in your life. Children are consummate noticers, constantly examining and remarking on their surroundings. I’ve spent a lot of time in my imagination in the last twelve month, regressing to my childhood dreaminess. At the same time, I can remember very little and feel my ability to adult has almost completely disintegrated (explained well by this Atlantic article). I recently mused to a friend in letter, What really is dinner anyway?, as if it were a topic of philosophy rather than a biological necessity.
If you want to reflect on and process some of the last year, please join me for Writing Heals, an evening of consolation and community that will include writing prompts, guided sharing, and some space to capture what we’ve lived and what we’ve lost. This isn’t the kind of occasion anybody wants to celebrate, but coming together, however we can, is the best way I know to commemorate it.
Happy anniversary, friends. Thanks for your presence on this unfathomable journey.
J.
Writing Heals will provide space to notice what we’ve gained, lost, and learned in the last year. This gathering will include writing exercises and sharing, drawing on our collective energy and presence to encourage healing and connection. Please share this event with anybody you think might benefit. Our heavy hearts are lighter when held together.
Also coming up is Reflect, Recenter, and Refresh, a seasonal yoga and writing workshop that pairs movement with written reflection to reconnect with ourselves and refresh us for the season ahead. Learn more about this workshop and register here.
I’m offering another round of Memoir Writing through the Durham Arts Council. The class starts April 1st and will cover the basic elements of telling our story: establishing a writing practice and using voice, setting, character, and scene to recreate the meaningful movements of our lives. Full details and registration are here.
I am so excited to be offering Storytelling this spring. The class will be in-person and outdoors, giving us a chance to safely share our stories. I am so ready for some face to face interaction and the sound of voices not my own. If you are too, join me.
To Go Poems
My uncle Freddy died on March 14, and at the Zoom memorial, the rabbi read There are Stars, by Hannah Szenes, which I somehow had never heard and found beautiful and comforting. It also reminded me of The Light of Stars by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, whose words seem apt for this year:
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong
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