I am trying something new. I have been writing a Weekly Wide-Awake for many years. On my personal website and several newsletter and social media platforms. In writing classes, “business school,” and with more designers and developers than I can count. I have struggled to know what I want to say, wrestled the demon of why I need to say it, silenced the feeling others say everything so much more eloquently, and fought through the sludge that none of this even matters. 

In the spirit of saying what I want and need to say and paying attention to the beauty of the world and sharing a bit of it, I am re-launching Weekly Wide-Awake. It will be a weekly stroll through intentionality, sense-making, attention, and imagination. It will reflect the writer I am becoming, the community of creativity I explore, and the loving world in which I want to participate and build and eventually leave.

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It is spring and we have work to do. I live in Atlanta and the magnolia trees are about to burst. Blooming is serious work. One of my favorite writers and thinkers, 

Anand Giridharadas talks about our work right now being an assignment. Weekly Wide-Awake is my assignment. It is my assignment — borrowing from a Navajo story — to feed the good wolf. It is my assignment to get in shape — a calisthenics of paying attention. It is my assignment to call out the good wherever and whenever I see it and amplify it with every fiber of being. It is my assignment to establish social proof that there are more of us that are guided by love than not. 

I am giving myself the editorial space and permission to start (again) exactly where I am. Meaning, it might/will have different structure over time. Today, it is a collection of writing exercises, a brief essay I recently wrote, a series entitled “Taking a Walk,” and the transcript of a gratitude conversation I conducted a few years ago. (Thank goodness gratitude is an evergreen — ever important — topic.)

MONDAYS ARE FREE 011 – 015

EXERCISE 011

Write a poem that takes at least three cues (it could be the tone, the number of lines, an image, a sonic element) from Robert Hayden’s “This Winter Sundays,” including this one is mandatory! – the line, “what did I know, what did I know.”

Irises In The Snow

Irises survive early snow, every year/ Resisting hard ground and head and history/ Knowing the stories of generations/ Fearing no ice/ Stretching toward the sun

Waking up like morning/ Choosing today to be today/ Elastic and rigorous/ Delicate and and undeniable

I would wait impatiently as a child/ What did I know, what did I know/ of generations and seasons/ of perfect time and strength/ of stretching toward the sun.

The Unspeakable Gift

A chaplain asked if she could pray with my mom and me. It was the last morning of my week-long Turner syndrome study at the National Institutes of Health. Her visit was not on my printed schedule, and hard edges and clinical elbows of the entire week had worn me down, so the whole thing felt miraculous. Like an angel arrived to carry me. Only two percent of us diagnosed with Turner syndrome survive pregnancy. The fact I was sitting there at almost 40 — about to hear a litany of tests results delivered by a team of researchers from all over the world — blew my mind. It still does.

Our door was cracked open and she asked to come in. I was weepy and scared, confronted by the weight of silence and sitting in fear of the unknown. Silence and fear do that. Her presence was an immediate balm for my soul. We learned she was ordained in the same liberal Christian denomination in which I grew up, my family’s denomination for generations. She sat and we talked about travel and faith and she did not ask me about Turner syndrome. Warmth and laughter and kindness embraced the sterile space. The breath I could not take for days began to return — story by story — thought by thought— blink by blink. My minister’s sermon had been about love that previous Sunday. He quoted scripture. “Thanks be to God for this unspeakable gift.” Love is our unspeakable gift. As our time together ended, we joined hands. She asked that the God of health watch over us and that the fullness of God’s grace surround us. That moment was love.

Talking A Walk #4

This week, I am walking and thinking about grounding, the railroad, and the Sears Catalog. I am walking and thinking about home, history, and roots. I am walking and thinking about story, art, and community. We arrived in Atlanta and immediately landed on the Beltline. The pieces on which I focus this week all highlight why Atlanta is home. I am grounded in who I am. I am made from German railroad workers. I grew up loving repurposed spaces, pubic art, and long walks through lots of trees.

I have lived all over the Unites States. Big and small cities. College towns. North, south, east, and west. I have found pockets of cool in each place. Moving has strengthened my love for my roots. Just as e.e. cummings celebrates the both the root and the bud, my roots connect my past, present, and future. Just as plants and trees survive by the strength of their roots, so do people. Our roots are our story. Our stories connect. In this way, remembering is both a celebration and lamentation. In this way, we are grounded. In this way, we thrive.

Feeding Good Wolf: A Gratitude Conversation with Dr. Ferial Pearson

In 2017, heartbroken and eyeballs deep in despair, I started searching for things for which to be grateful. I asked myself the question asked by poet Katie Farris

“Why write love poetry in a burning world? To train myself, in the midst of a burning world, to offer poems of love to a burning world.”

I reached out to people who — in the way in which they live — write love poems to our burning world. I cast my net far and wide amongst my heroes — those I knew personally and those who teach us all by their example. I invited artists, philosophers, psychologists, politicians, professors, yogis, writers, clergy, and others into a dialogue about gratitude. I am deeply grateful to those who said yes. Read more about my gratitude project methodology here.

A friend on the faculty a the University of Nebraska at Omaha suggested I speak with Dr. Ferial Pearson. Dr. Pearson, also UNO faculty, had written a book about the program she created, the Secret Kindness Agents. More information about the Secret Kindness Agents can be found at TEDxOmaha and Hallmark Channel. Read more about Dr. Pearson here. Our conversation gets to the heart of Secret Kindness Agents, her life and work, and her fierce example of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Though this conversation took place many years ago, Dr. Pearson continues to make this world a kinder and more just place.

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