Weekly Wide-Awake: Joy might help us survive.

[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: Joy might help us survive.

My hunch is that joy is an ember for or precursor to wild and unpredictable and transgressive and unboundaried solidarity. … Though attending to what we hate is often all the rage (and it happens to be very big business) noticing what we love in common, and studying that, might help us survive.
Ross Gay

Joy might help us survive. It is that simple. Let me explain. Joy is antithetical to division and looks more like dance than a fist fight. Joy is vital in the way that breath keeps us alive. Joy is lithe, fierce, and abundant. Joy creates and does not destroy. (Why does creation often seem more complicated than destruction? Perhaps it is a result of a collective lack of imagination — an atrophy of impulse, energy, and love.) Joy attracts expands, elevates, and extends. Joy is not one size fits all. It is as small as a wink or hug and as big as a miracle or masterpiece.

What is the relationship between joy and survival? The stakes of cruelty, isolation, and fear are too high to sustain a life without joy. The pain of a life without joy is too great. The weight of a life without joy is too heavy. Noticing what we love in common is where the stakes, pain, and weight begin to fall away — one decision, intention, invitation, belief at a time. This is gentle work. It is the work of soft hearts and outstretched hands. Its is the work of listening and seeing. It is the work of inches and moments.

What I am Learning

Folk Song

Let me enter the afterlife lithe not plodding. — Dianne Suess

I believe in an afterlife. I never plod. Sometimes I crawl. I sometimes cry. Sometimes I climb. Sometimes I dance. Sometimes I sing. I never plod. When I feel myself begin to plod, forget to breathe because breathing hurts, grow numb at the enormity of it all, clench my fists and heart in anger, coil like a snake being pursued by a predator, I sit. I sit as many times as it takes to remember. I sit as many times as it takes to pay attention. I sit as long as many times as it takes to invite it all to walk with me. I sit as many times as it takes for knowing to rest within me.

Kindness

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,/ only kindness that ties your shoes/ and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,/ only kindness that raises its head/ from the crowd of the world to say/ It is I you have been looking for,/ and then goes with you everywhere/ like a shadow or a friend. — Naomi Shihab Nye

I few months ago, I listened to an “On Being” podcast conversation between Naomi Shihab Nye and Krista Teppet, “Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside . . .“. She read this poem during the conversation. I have thought about this poem ever since. As someone who spends time connecting kindness, gratitude, and wide-awakeness (ultimately/hopefully, living more kindly, gratefully, and wide-awake), her words made me think.

The Last Thing

I know/ you don’t always understand,/ but let me point to the first/ wet drops landing on the stones,/ the noise like fingers drumming/ the skin. I can’t help it. I will/ never get over making everything/ such a big deal. — Ada Lemon

I make things a big deal. Over and over again, I pay attention and notice and reflect. Let me explain. I believe our capacity to experience awe is holy. I believe our ability to feel joy is a blessing. I believe our ability to love is divine. I believe making a big deal and taking up oxygen and space and time is essential. I believe making a bid deal is living exactly they way we are supposed to live — with intention, purpose, integrity, honesty, and love. Within all that, even the smallest of deals are big deals.