Weekly Wide-Awake: On Anniversaries, Elephant Gods, and Good Stories

[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: On Anniversaries, Elephant Gods, and Good Stories

Then what in your opinion is a good story? ‘What it’s always been, monkey,’ Ganesha said. ‘One dhansu conflict. Some chaka-chak song and dance. Grief. Love. Love for the lover, love for the mother. Love for the land. Comedy. Terror. One tremendous villain whom we must love also. All the elements properly balanced and mixed together, item after item, like a perfect meal with a dance of tastes. There you have it.
― Vikram Chandra

We recently celebrated our wedding anniversary — around the edges of a Harvest Moon and the Festival of Ganesha. Our life together has been a good story — a perfect meal with a dance of tastes. Our marriage has been both mirror and soil. Both shadow and broad daylight. Both falling apart and back together. I suppose all intimate relationships are it all. I suppose all intimate relationships — and marriages — are like people in that we are all not yet, the challenge becomes being not yet together. Being not yet together is a good story, a perfect meal of curiosity, compassion, humor, forgiveness, honesty, and love.

I don’t pretend to understand marriage any more than I understand the relationship between the moon and the tides (I know there is a scientific explanation for the relationship, but I always forget what it is.) or how explorers used the stars to navigate oceans or how our hearts beat and breath happens in perfect time. All of those phenomenon seem huge and awesome in the truest sense of huge and awesome. In that way marriage is huge and awesome. Beginnings and obstacles. Holding tight and letting go. Returning to stillness when nothing makes sense. Building up not tearing down. The elastic rhythm of minutes, days, years, and decades. The details and small stuff, too.

Being not yet together is a good story.

What I am Learning

Finding Strength to Make Sunshine

I was given my first Ganesha in 1998. I was in a women’s prayer group in Indianapolis. I was moving to Bellingham, Washington, and the group gave me a small bronze Ganesha at the final meeting before I left. The small statue had a card attached that explained, “Lord Ganesha, the elephant-headed God, was born to earth as the son of Shiva and Parvati. He is the remover of obstacles from our spiritual paths. He blesses our beginnings. Seeking his guidance, his devotees meditate upon the image of Lord Ganesha before starting any new venture.” I had never seen Ganesha before receiving my gift. They gave it to me to bless my journey. I have carried that small statue with me as I have moved, achieved, failed, started, stopped, climbed, crawled, crashed, and flown for more than 20 years.

Ganesh Chaturthi and Dupont Circle

During 2013, Katie and Greg had the good fortune to travel to South Asia. In March, Katie visited Bali and in July and August, Greg visited India. On those trips, they each learned of the Hindu God Ganesha, who is believed to remove obstacles from our spiritual paths and protect the important beginnings of our lives. The couple met one month after Greg’s return, during the Festival of Ganesha, the largest Hindu festival in India. Today, September 19th, 2015 also falls during the Festival of Ganesha. On this day of beginnings, may he bless the union of Katie and Greg. Om shanti. Om shanti. Om shanti. Om. — Text From Katie and Greg’s Wedding Program

The Festival of Ganesha, Ganesh Chaturthi, fell during our wedding weekend. Thursday, September 17, 2015 was the date on the lunar calendar of particular significance for the Festival. On this day, millions of people who celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi immerse clay idols of Ganesha in bodies of water to honor Ganesha. In the Hindu context, the act of immersing the clay idol follows days of preparation, worship, and feasting. The immersed idols are allowed to dissolve in the body of water, thus releasing the spirit of Ganesha to the Universe. Immersion of the Ganesha idol is seen as an offering, an act of gratitude for blessing of our beginnings and removing obstacles from our path. We chose to have our wedding during this time of celebration.

When I Tell My Husband I Miss the Sun, He Knows

against each other. We bring the shadow game home/ and (this is my favorite part) when we/ stretch our shadows across the bed, we get so tangled/ my husband grips his own wrist,/ certain it’s my wrist, and kisses it. – Paige Lewis

This poem is an ode to intimacy. Intimacy where playfulness and understanding live. Intimacy where knowing and stillness happen. Intimacy born of compassion that is never cruel. Intimacy where our shadows dance.