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Writing Prompt: Write Your Way Home
What does "home" conjure for you? Simply free writing on a page beneath that word written in broad capital letters is a potent writing exercise in itself.
Today, I drove through a piece of my hometown, eyes welling up at my closest childhood friend's driveway, at the stretch of sidewalk where I fell off my bike and nearly got run over, at the restaurant where I slogged through the worst summer job ever.
Gleefully, I told my daughter about the forest where I met the fairies for the first time in my adult life (they were happy to have me back). I did not point out my high school boyfriend's house or mention the church we thought we'd get married in some day.
I don't have a bed in this town anymore. My dad has moved four towns further out on the peninsula that held me from my first breath. Luckily, Cape Cod has great wide arms to welcome me "home," no matter what beach I land on. This piece of historic Route 6A in Barnstable will always lead the way home even if I have no fixed address along the way.
Now that I have survived the five-hour trip across Massachusetts and dipped down into our "real" home in New York's Hudson Valley, I can almost leave the tears behind. I can almost find the creative spark that hides amongst the yearning and the memories.
Gratefully, I can turn to one of the great mothers of American literature for three views through the prism of home. All true, all compelling, all addressing a different aspect of the complicated subject of home:
- "You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it’s all right."
- "The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned."
- "I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself."
Your turn... write into that simply stated "home" or use one of the quotes as inspiration. Consider submitting your story to the #365StrongStories project.
Some words that matter more than words
The afternoon is heavy with the perfect kind of April damp that invites you to play outside for a while and then rush inside for popcorn and a movie in front of a blazing fire.
The kids are tucked onto the couch with their grandparents and we're watching Inside Out. I wish I didn't have to have the laptop out, but I'm doing good work and everyone is safe and warm and feeling all the feelings. I have the room to hold space for this moment, the project at hand, and this...
Earlier today while I was on a quest for blog posts that combine story and the authors insights, I stopped over at Momastery.
There are blog posts that shine brilliantly as they tear up every script. They transcend mere bloggery and just... speak. To the heart and to the soul and to all the things that matter.
It breaks every form because it's written according to the laws of love and sorrow, connection and death. It's about the things we're most afraid of and the places we are most brave. It is about everything that quiet, non-eventful Saturdays seek to keep at bay because, as much as we want don't want to let the dark stuff in, "the hard" still part of our greater reality.
Where the Water Meets the Earth Day
Eight long months have passed. Finally, the moment I have been longing for. I’m standing at the edge. I am home.
Water. Sky. Frigid spring sand cradling my white winter feet.
It happens to be Earth Day, but that is just a coincidence. I am much more interested in the ocean than I am in the earth right now.
I call myself a mermaid who accidentally found herself living in the mountains. Over the almost twenty years since I left Cape Cod, the only thing more troubling than a landlocked existence is the way I’ve almost stop noticing the dull ache of my separation from the sea.
But finally, I am here. And I feel… nothing.
Maybe it is because my head is full of stories that are about everything but the natural world. Perhaps it is the habitual lack of sleep that makes it hard to be present in the moment. A lot of my distraction is due to the effort it takes to keep a two year-old from falling into the freezing cold water while she tries to wade after sister.
Either way, I feel like a failed mermaid and an Earth Day flunkie.
Luckily, the Bay will be there tomorrow. The sky and the sand and those squawking gulls will be too.
The Earth and her waters and her ceaseless winds have a way of forgiving us not matter how many times we forget and lose our way.
Thanks, Mama.
Dance Camp by Guest Storyteller Sara Eisenberg
I walk into the plain box that is the main studio bearing a small notebook, a water bottle, and a body trained from age four to classical ballet’s five stylized positions - turned-out hips, port de bras and all. Ignorant of the terminology, elements, rules, of modern dance. Ready to risk moving in unaccustomed ways. Age 68. De-conditioned.
Am I nuts? Or am I home? I am a Dancer of the Third Age, captured by this iconic image that hangs on my wall.
It’s taken me 28 years to drive 42 miles to the Dance Exchange, but here I am.
We move out from the opening circle walking randomly, casually pair up for counter-weight stretches, grasp with hands or elbows, pull away. Keep moving, lean on and into one another, form shifting sculptures of three or four. Flock together, following the changing leader, ever shifting to sync with other bodies. Practice not replicating but capturing the essence of a partner’s movement. Preliminaries to creating dance together.
We tell our stories and “found” gestures emerge - a sweep of the arm, a shift in gaze, height, level, or direction. We play with these gestures like words snipped from magazines, and build movement phrases, sequences, experiment with them as solos, duets, chorus. Later, spoken words are layered in. Even later, music.
I am unmoored by the absence of music. Sequence flusters me. Brow furrowed, I ask again: break this down for me. Ever seeking flow and smoothness, I am immersed in this staccato movement all week: break it down, re-member a sequence, work it through. Others waiting for me. Waiting. Waiting.
Still, I am willing to be the only one standing when everyone else drops to the floor, to forgo a jump and instead lift a leg, to drop a movement altogether.
I walk out of the studio at the end of camp with a few scribbles in my notebook, an empty water bottle, and no injuries. Praising.
Limitations have become less encumbrances than shifting opportunities to shape choreography, relationship, life. Secret chords that please: Hallelujah gestures, broken down, broken open, holy.
Sara Eisenberg grapples with honesty and kindness in daily life in Baltimore, where she practices as a healer, herbalist and creative inquirer. Connect with her at www.alifeofpractice.com
Do you have a story to share? Of course you do.
Your Next Story Is Hiding In Your Favorite Little Details
Some people remember exactly what everyone ordered during that special meal. Others have a vivid recall for the phase of the moon on an important day.
Personally, I have fashion memory. I can tell you exactly what I wore from head to toe the night I met my husband. (And yes, I still wear that denim jacket twelve years later.)
The shoes I wore to my unexpected date with destiny just hit the bottom of the trash can, however. During the last big rain I realized that the cosmetic issues on the soles were in fact structural deficiencies. Turns life is too short to wear leaky shoes - even if they do have great sentimental value.
The details make the stories
What little things do you tend to notice? Those observations form your unique point of view. They allow you to tell the authentic story that only you could tell.
My husband wouldn’t remember my outfit and he certainly wouldn’t remember what he’d worn himself. But now, the story of how that redhead at the end of the crowded bar in New Paltz knew there was something about that guy with the sweet smile - even though he wore a tie-dyed Harley Davidson shirt, tapered legged jeans, and boat shoes - that’s essential to the “how Mike and Marisa met” legend.
Your favorite details also inspire your stories
The details that are special to you can also help you decide which stories to tell.
Though my first date shoes are long gone by now, I was reminded of them when I tripped over another pair of sneakers that have been sitting in middle of the hall for much too long. If “the clothes make the man” is true, then apparently “the shoes make the memories” is valid too.
What little details stand out to you? How can you make a practice of noticing these details and put them to work in the stories you write?