Volume VI, Issue 43 October 23, 2017 Dear ,
I identified with the themes in many of the essays, and "I'm Awake" is one of them. Hey, she brings Buddha into it in the second paragraph!
My husband and
I were certainly awake last weekend whilst visiting with our daughter and her family. Harry and Rhys are early risers, and nobody in the household sleeps when they're awake.
From pumpkin carving to hiking at Great Falls Park on the Potomac River, we were happily "awake awake awake."
Would Everybody Please Stop?: Reflections on Life and Other Bad Ideas was my read-in-the-car-on-the-way-there and at-bedtime book for the duration of our visit, and author Jenny Allen, when she wasn't making me laugh, inspired me to look for writing material unfolding around me in every awake moment.
Reading these short essays, which have been described as being "like the work of a female Dave Barry," and containing "Allen’s wit and compassion" makes me
feel like writing. And that's my favorite kind of reading. Hope "I'm Awake" does the same for you. You can scroll on down to read it. And if you are craving some dedicated time for writing, remember that there are two WordPlay Coastal Writing Retreats right around the corner. (November 10-12 and 17-19). I'd love to have you! Meanwhile, as they say, "Life's short. Stay awake for it"—and write about it. Love and
light, Maureen Upcoming WordPlay
COASTAL WRITING RETREATS Connect with Your Creativity at
the Sunset Inn
(Writing—and more—as Renewal and Inspiration)
Due to response, this retreat will be offered on two different weekends: November 10th – 12th and November 17th – 19th. Pick the dates that work best for you.
Renew yourself and reconnect with your own creativity, whether you are a practicing writer, closet writer, or as-yet-to-pick-up-the-pen writer! The techniques and prompts we’ll use will spur your imagination, and can be used to create
nonfiction, fiction, and/or poetry—the choice is yours.
$418 + room tax for the weekend beginning either Friday, November 10th through Sunday November 12th or Friday, November 17th through Sunday, November 19th. The Coastal Writing Retreat includes writing sessions, two nights’ lodging, two breakfasts and Saturday lunch (hotel tax and Saturday dinner at a local restaurant not included).
Want to extend your retreat? If you’d like to stay another day to write, or to just enjoy the beach, the Inn is offering Coastal Writing Retreat participants the opportunity to stay Sunday night at half
price.
(Extra writing retreat sessions are a possibility too. Email info@wordplaynow.com if you’re interested.)
WHERE: The Sunset
Inn, 9 North Shore Dr., Sunset Beach, NC 28468
WHEN: Friday, November 10th – Sunday, November 12th, 2017
~ and also ~ Friday, November 17th – Sunday, November 19th, 2017
TO REGISTER: Contact the Sunset Inn at 888.575.1001 or 910.575.1000 (if you would like to handpick your room, view your choices here first, then call). Because the Inn is holding rooms for our retreat participants, a number of them are blocked off as unavailable online. Phone to check on your choice.
*Also, please let the Inn know when you call if you are interested in staying Sunday night, November 12th or 19th, at half price. The Inn will hold your reservation with a credit card.
More WordPlay
opportunities here. Featured
Writer
Jenny Allen
Jenny Allen is a writer and monologist. Her essays and articles have appeared for years in many magazines,
including The New Yorker, The New York Times, New York, Vogue, Esquire, More, Huffington Post and Good Housekeeping. Recent essays appear in “Disquiet, Please!” a new anthology of humor pieces from the New Yorker, and in In The Fullness of Time: 32 Women on Life After 50 (Simon & Schuster). Read more.
Featured
Writing
I'm Awake by Jenny
Allen
I’m up. Are
you up? I’m not up up, not doing-things up, because I’m supposed to be sleeping. I’m trying to go back to sleep. But I’m awake. Awake awake awake. That’s what Buddha said. Buddha said, “I am awake.” Buddha got that idea, that whole concept, from a middle-aged woman, I’m sure. Not that this sleepless business
ends at any time. I think you have to die first.
If you added up all the hours I’ve been awake, it would come to years by now. Fifty may be the new forty, but it feels like the new eighty. Thank you, that’s a very good idea, but I already took a sleeping pill. I fell asleep right away—it’s bliss, that drugged drifting
off—but now I’m awake again. That always happens! I fall asleep, boom, and then, four or five hours later, I wake up—like it’s my turn on watch, like I’ve had three cups of coffee. Like I’ve just had a full night’s sleep. But if I act as if I’ve had a full night’s sleep, if I get up and do things, I will be a goner after two o’clock in the afternoon. I will confuse the TV remote with the cordless phone and try to answer it, I will not notice any of my typos—I will type pubic
school this and pubic school that in e-mails to people whose public schools I am looking at for my daughter. I will scramble words as if I have had a small stroke. I will say, “I’d like the Drussian ressing,” and then I will have to make one of those dumb Alzheimer’s jokes.
I could take another sleeping pill, but I worry about that. I worry about becoming too used to
sleeping pills. Sleeping pills always make me think of Judy Garland. Poor Judy.
It’s funny about the name Judy, isn’t it? No one names anyone Judy anymore—do you ever meet five-year-old Judys?—but half the women I know are named Judy. You would probably be safe when meeting any woman over fifty just to say, “Nice to meet you, Judy.” Most of the time you would be
right.
I am going to lie here and fall asleep counting all the Judys I know. Thirteen Judys. Including my ex-husband’s ex-wife. Who’s very nice, by the way.
I’m still awake....
~ Jenny Allen
You can read "I'm Awake" in its entirety here. You can order the book in which this essay appears, the fabulous and funny Would Everybody Please Stop?:
Reflections on Life and Other Bad Ideas, here. WordPlay Now! Writing
Prompt This is WordPlay—so why not revel in the power and potential of one good word after another? This week, it's
"awake."
PROMPT: Write about being awake, choosing any time of day or night, and using any definition of the word. When have you (or a character) been incredibly aware that you are awake? What awoke you? MAUREEN RYAN GRIFFIN, an award-winning poetry and nonfiction writer, is the author of Spinning Words into Gold, a Hands-On Guide to the Craft of Writing, a grief workbook entitled I Will Never Forget You, and three collections of poetry, Ten Thousand Cicadas Can't Be Wrong, This Scatter of Blossoms and When the Leaves Are in the Water. One of her long-held dreams came true in July of 2015 when Garrison Keillor read one of her poems on The Writer's Almanac. She believes, as author Julia Cameron says, "We are meant to midwife dreams for one another."
Maureen also believes that serious "word work" requires serious WordPlay, as play is how we humans best learn—and perform. What she loves best is witnessing all the other dreams that come true for her clients along the way. Language, when used with
intentionality and focus, is, after all, serious fuel for joy. Here's to yours! |
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