Volume IX, Issue 04
January 22, 2020
Dear ,
I have been thinking about houses lately, in part because my youngest and his new wife just bought their first house, and also because I have been working on a piece about one of our houses for my upcoming memoir, How She Fed Us. Here's a tiny excerpt:
I came across a letter of my mother's describing the first nine months in the new home my father built on Meredith Drive in Cincinnati in 1957 and ’58.
She wrote that "the house was livable and painted but without doors, interior trim, bathroom tile and numerous less essential details," and that she "cooked on a hot plate, one burner, until Paul hooked up the three-wire electricity,” and finished with the words, “We look forward to the bloom of the crabapple in Spring.”
Due to my father’s burgeoning career, Mother had to leave that house with the blooming crabapple a few short years later—as she’d left behind, in the first four years of their marriage, three other houses already.
Two moves later, Dad planted another crabapple in our front yard in Erie for her to enjoy each spring. But Mother remembered that crabapple tree on Meredith Drive, that yard, that house. When she spoke of our time in Cincinnati, her eyes were wistful.
Some years ago, when my mother's dementia was worsening at an alarming rate, I wrote a poem called "Familiar Houses" (this week's featured writing), exploring my feelings about, among many other things, the value—and cost—of staying in one house for many years, as well as the kinds of comfort a house can and can't provide.
Not long after I wrote "Familiar Houses," in November of 1999, my siblings and I gathered at our house in Erie, where my parents lived for 38 years, to help them pack and move to the managed care facility that was to be Mother's last home.
We are wearing our brave faces. It was hard. And sad. And yet, we were all together, our love and commitment to each other more sheltering than
any house could possibly be.
It occurred to me, as I studied these two photos in which my mother's beloved crabapple trees were just outside the frame, that houses offer many rich writing opportunities, whether you're writing about yourself, another person, or one of your characters.
What about you? What houses have sheltered you? What stories do they hold?
Love and light,
Maureen
This week, I'm featuring a conference at which I'm honored and delighted to be giving a presentation at this March. Barbara Brown Taylor is one of my favorite authors and speakers!
Early bird registration, which comes with a discount, ends January 31. Details below.
If you write, or read, books that matter – books with substance and soul – then this is the place for you.
Writing for Your Life welcomes you to Christ Episcopal Church at 1412 Providence Rd. in Charlotte, NC for our next Writing for Your Life Spiritual Writers’ Conference! The conference is open to all who are interested in spiritual writing, as well as those interested in reading spiritual books (more on that below!). Speakers
include Barbara Brown Taylor, other popular Christian authors, and representatives from the Christian publishing industry. The main conference will take place on March 24-25, 2020, with an optional post-conference seminar: The Business of Being a Spiritual Writer
(separate registration required) on March 26.
In addition to Barbara Brown Taylor, our speakers include: authors Leighton Ford, Margot Starbuck, J. Dana Trent, Patrice Gopo, and Kathy Izard, and literary agents Kathryn Helmers and Jevon Bolden. You can learn more about each speaker through the links below. Also participating in the conference will be Park Road Books,
CharlotteLit, AK Classics, WordPlay, and authors Kate Rademacher, Niki Hardy, and Erin Hall.
For the first time this conference includes a Reader Track. These will be breakout sessions where our speakers present on some aspect of reading spiritual books, rather than writing them. But all breakout sessions are open to all attendees, and you will not need to select anything in advance.
Early-bird tuition (through January 31) for the main conference is $329 and includes all General Sessions and Breakout Seminars (both Writer and Reader Tracks), lunches, morning refreshments, small group meetings with speakers and others, and an open-mic session. (After January 31, tuition will be $359.)
Writing for Your Life is pleased to offer 1.0 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for pastors for this writers’ conference. Writing for Your Life is a member of the Association of Leaders in Lifelong Learning for Ministry (formerly the Society for the Advancement of Continuing Education for Ministry).
Registration Now Open! Click on the link below to pay for your registration (credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, or PayPal Credit are accepted; all payments are processed through PayPal). After you pay, an email confirmation will be sent to the name and email address you
enter into PayPal (or the one associated with your PayPal account) within 5 days. If you need to change the name or email address please let us know.
CLICK HERE to pay for your registration.
More WordPlay opportunities coming soon. Stay posted!
Featured Writing
from
Ten Thousand Cicadas Can't Be Wrong
by
Maureen Ryan Griffin
Familiar Houses
In a closet of this house
where I’ve lived my entire married life
is a box of letters
saved for the envelopes
naming the places I’ve called home.
Nineteen old addresses holding narrow
memories of slant and angle, stairwells, wallpaper
I don’t want to forget, like my mother forgets
who I am, which house she’s in—
my house, built on a concrete slab,
where she’s come for
Thanksgiving.
Last night she asked my children
to go to the basement
for a can of soup. They looked at me, confused.
Mother once told me how her mother
fell down the basement stairs
in a strange house
looking for the bathroom. She herself now
stumbles into walls of guest bedrooms—walls
she thinks are doorways
in the house where she’s lived thirty years.
She has bruises.
Me, I’ve been dreaming
labyrinths of rooms, wishing I could fall
asleep again in Kansas on a west-bound Greyhound.
I don’t want to take comfort in my daughter
trilling Dona Nobis Pacem on her silver flute, souring
the high G, I don’t want to stand here
sorting cranberries, rolling each
between thumb and forefinger like Mother taught me
while she rolls out pie crusts thin, thinner
than I can, fluting
the edges.
My body maneuvers
these corners too well. This kitchen
is much too familiar, the same recipes stirred up
again and again. Time to move, leave behind
what won’t fit neatly
into boxes, drive through this dark
till I’m somewhere else,
spread out my groundcloth,
lullabied by some body
of water I won’t lay eyes on
till dawn.
~ from Maureen Ryan Griffin's Ten Thousand Cicadas Can't Be Wrong
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 “house.”
PROMPT: Make a list of the houses (apartments, dorm rooms, etc. count too) where you, or one of your characters have lived. Notice the thoughts, images, and body sensations that arise as you list. Pick one of these houses to write about, in any genre you like. You may want to hone in on one particular moment or experience.
It's fun to play with prompts in community with fellow writers, and to be able to share the results when you're done. You can find out about WordPlay classes, workshops, and retreats here.
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.
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!
|
|
|
|
