Weekly Wide-Awake: Perhaps The World Ends Here

[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!

Melanie Faith

Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.

Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.

The Society of Professional Journalists

In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.

I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.

Maxine Greene

Philosopher and Education Scholar

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Weekly Wide-Awake: Perhaps The World Ends Here

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
Joy Harjo

I paid attention to a social media post from a friend this week. She referenced the Joy Harjo poem, Perhaps the World Ends Here. Harjo places the kitchen table at the center of our lives. Joy and Sorrow. Life and Death. War and Peace. Feast and Famine. It all happens there. I am thinking about kitchen tables this week. As Thanksgiving comes and goes. As the holidays are here. As rituals remain and change.

As we all situate ourselves during this time when so many carry so much, I ask myself some questions. I consider the wisdom shared in Gratitude Conversations. I offer a Thanksgiving prayer. I think about acceptance , grace, and grief. I remember life’s gifts.

It makes sense that Harjo invokes the power of the kitchen table in her words. Kitchen tables are a powerful place. Kitchen tables are powerful enough for emotions and prayers. Kitchen tables are powerful enough to champion love. Kitchen tables are powerful enough to hold the world.

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