Weekly Wide-Awake: From Blossoms

[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: From Blossoms

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
From “Blossoms” by Li-Young Lee

Spring is coming to an end. Summer is upon us. Our boxes are unpacked. Our pictures are hung. The magnolias are blooming. Mornings are a little warmer and the sun sets a little later. We are seeing friends and family. Everything is blossoming. It is easy to miss the beauty of what is around us by thinking about what lies ahead. Staying separated from paradise as we wait for “normal”. Knowing what/when to remember and what/when to forget. Making plans while not sleepwalking. Building the new while tending the old. All the while pondering existential questions. It can be a lot, in the most rejuvenating, dizzying, intoxicating, amazing, almost-but-not-quite-numbing way.

As no stranger to overwhelm, I remind myself not to think too much about what happens after the blossoms. I learn (and learn again) the lessons of the seasons — perfect timing, ebb and flow, and authentic power. I learn (and learn again) the value of presence, impermanence, and change. I learn (and learn again) how beauty, from blossoms, grows.