#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Pollinator Area

It was a day to focus on groups. My first Charles River Writers, in person and online. I didn’t walk. I got ready to welcome my writers. Brew coffee. Bake a gingerbread. Pick hydrangea for a vase in the group room. Make a crepe for Wave, see him out the door. Avoid the news. Which worsens every day and will worsen tomorrow. But I must stay in the day. And create. And make a space for others to create. And respond to people who need guidance and comfort. Like the phone call I received from someone I was able to encourage. My group was really lovely. My Israeli group online after. We are all a bit stunned, aren’t we? With the violence, the discord, the attacks against each other. I am trying to live into an inner peace and talk myself through strong feelings and focus on art. Focus on imagination. Focus on helping others use self care, find laughter. There was pain, yes, in the Israeli group. And also it’s a place of deep laughter. Today I noticed how many times we spontaneously erupted in shared laughter and humor. I thought about poetry today, and writing, and how much opportunity there is to share appreciation with each other. I really like focusing on what there is to appreciate about what we have to offer each other from our creative endeavors. What a gift it was to me to talk to the woman who needed my support! And then my daughter coming over at dinner time, taking time out of her busy working day to make a place for creative expression. We worked from 6-8 on planning and rehearsing our performance/reading of my poetry tomorrow night at Ten Trees Book in Natick. She could be so many other places and she’s here sharing her gift with me, and tomorrow with others. Yes, it does feel like acting against discord and hate to talk about poetry and love. In my own little towns, the towns of my neighborhoods. I want to be a pollinator. I see that, from my collage tonight. I had no idea where it was going when I sat down. And now I see this is something to focus on. As a pollinator, what is it I want to spread? Who are the pollinators who pollinate me? My daughter, Wave, my poetry friends, my neighborhood friends, my stranger friends. My husband who pollinates people trying to get sober, pollinates with sobriety. I don’t want to focus on my anger. I want to be with hope, in a state of hope, somehow. I want to use my imagination and my willingness to think and listen deeply to pollinate where I can pollinate something beyond divisiveness and rancor and control and silencing. I want to be a pollinator of speech and listening and asking and listening and trying. Trying to love and praying for the absence of guns.