The Air After Pain

[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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Live for the air after pain and there will be no reason to run.
Mark Nepo

When we live knowing pain will end.

We make fear an ally.

Fighting fear does no good. Fear steals peace. Fear ties knots. Fear turns open hands in to fists incapable of holding center. When we make fear an ally, pain is contained and then released. When we make fear and ally, pain becomes that part of human experience that allows us to embrace all that is more completely. When we make fear an ally, pain is not an abyss into which we fall, but rather a mountain top from which we can see the other side of what we are facing.

My pain is your pain, and your pain is my pain.

If you believe that we are all interdependent, navigating this world in an interconnected web of life, then my pain is your pain, and your pain is my pain. That means strength and relief from pain is found together. That mean comparing my pain to your pain is irrelevant

We embrace change.

Pain comes and goes as part of the ebb and flow of life. We are learning that even chronic pain can be managed to allow for a high quality of life throughout treatment of illnesses. The fundamental idea that all things change can be comforting. Living through pain is the way we learn to see the ephemeral beauty of each and every day, even the ones defined by pain. Living through pain is the way we find peace, even in the most difficult times.

We learn we are more than strong enough.

Pain teaches us we are steel. Think back to painful times from your past. Was there a moment when you doubted you could make it? Was there a moment that tested your metal? Was there a moment when you sat with your head in your hands crying? After all that, was there a moment when you just decided you were simply going to make it? Was there a moment when doubt and fear and anger were replaced by unbridled fierceness? Was there a moment when the only thing you could taste was the sweetness of the air after pain?