You know who you are. If you weren’t working with me on Saturday, January 10, in Changing Hands Bookstore, you could have been. You are a wo/man crazy for words. You have been since you were a child. You hid in words and made yourself visible to those who would not see you. You drew words from inside, outside, from who knew where; you wrapped words around you. You saved your life.
I will be seventy-five in two days and I have been saved by words since I was six, “sitting in a circle of other children in Miss Adams’ reading class in Reuben Dake Grade School in Irondequoit, New York—a child brutally in need of haven, a home in which a mother did not shape-shift, and a father was a grown-up who would hold me close and whisper, “You’re safe. I won’t change.”
What came to me in that first grade reading circle was better. A little boy read aloud, stumbling through: See Jane. See Dick. See Spot. Suddenly, his voice seemed to fade. I watched the words on the page in front of me begin to connect. See Jane. See Dick. See Spot. See Jane run see Dick run see Spot run—as if the words came alive and raced down the sidewalk between the grassy lawns of Jane and Dick’s tidy neighorhood. I checked to see if Miss Adams was watching. We weren’t allowed to skip ahead. She was focussed on the boy next to me. Stealthily, I turned the page. Jane and Dick and Spot were running down a long green hill toward a bright lake.
“Mary Elizabeth,” Miss Adams said, “it is your turn.” I looked up. She smiled. In that instant, I saw the bookshelves lining the classroom wall, and I knew I was not alone. I have a place to be safe, I thought, I won’t ever be scared again. Ever. —from my first memoir, Solace: rituals of loss and desire
This week’s post is dedicated to my students: the fifteen women in our Changing Hands writing circle, the core group and those who pass through our Wednesday writing circle in Flagstaff, my international students and those of you who have worked and work one-on-one with me. We make stories, we make books, we make beauty and truth in the face of what so often seems to be a world disinterested in anything but profit.
Prompt: I track what might come next. It is time. The way is not so much unknown, as undiscovered.
Set a timer for 30 minutes. Begin with the prompt and/or the photo. Write without lifting your pen from the page – or your hands from the keys for all that time. I would love to see what you have tracked. Please send to me and, with your permission, I’ll publish your work in next week’s Breakthroughwriting. You know who you are.
Share on Your Social Media
