Go into yourself. Find only the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depth of your heart. . .try to say what you see and feel and love and lose.

Rainier Maria Rilke, from Letters to a Young Poet

Hello, dear readers and writers.

Some of you know that I occasionally like to utilize songs as writing prompts, and the one linked above is golden. “I Remember Sky,” written by Stephen Sondheim, was originally part of a televised live production of the musical Evening Primrose, in 1966. Here, Dianne Reeves soars through the lyrics in a way that sounds ethereal.

The best songs for writing prompts are ones that have a lot of minor keys; research has shown that minor keys bring up feelings of melancholy and nostalgia in listeners, and the lyrics of this song may conjure up images of the natural world, and for some, a sense of loss. (You can read the lyrics here.) A phrase—or even a few words from the lyrics—may also work as a prompt for you.

Really though, there’s no right or wrong way to respond to a prompt. Even repeating a beloved prompt—like this song—can evoke new writing (or reignite a story you’ve left behind). I suggest wearing headphones, and before you read the lyrics, let the song wash over you and resonate with you.

What I wrote in response is below, followed by the poem, “From a Country Overlooked,” by Tom Hennen, from his collection, Darkness Sticks to Everything (2013). Hennen’s poem may also work well as a prompt.

Either way, carve out some space to write in response for 20 minutes. Don’t edit yourself. See what comes out.

And please keep writing. You inspire me

What I Wrote in Response

We weren’t carefree, far from it, but we did a good job of self-medicating, laughing at the world and most of its participants. We were still kids, covering up a heartbreaking loss and hoping for an escape with cold beers, and beaches, and hand rolled joints. KFRC on the radio playing dance hits, disco and funk and a little R & B.

At home it was jazz vocalists and Linda Ronstadt singing torch songs from the 1940’s; I knew every word, because something about the longing and the desire to be saved was achingly familiar. Even so, we made an art out of hate watching: Mommie Dearest and Dynasty every Wednesday night. And later, big dinners in the dining room on the old wooden table with both leaves in.

We tanned in the summer on the little patio in the side yard, a place where someone could park a boat (the big gates opened wide), but instead we planted sod and a sad vegetable garden and pretended like we still had a mom. Gossiping over the fence with the nosy neighbor, throwing the tennis ball for the dog: one bright yellow spot in all that green and concrete. We knew about the hole in the ozone and we didn’t care. Back then, you could turn on the TV and never see the news, you could fold the paper to the advice column or the movie listings, you could ignore what was happening.

We didn’t know people we loved were HIV+, we hadn’t given anyone our virgin bodies, and thankfully, no one had taken them. We shoplifted from the Hallmark store where we rang up other people’s sales, we knew nothing about how to cook for ourselves, or what it meant to look in the mirror and see textured fat or crow’s feet. We were eternally youthful.

Now, when a friend calls me crying because their mother has dementia, or they haven’t been touched in a week, or they drank too much tequila last night and are fighting the blues as well as a stomach ache, I can’t help but miss those kids who were really good at pretending, who stayed outside until it was too chilly to be without a jacket, or one of the more responsible parents called in their kid and we all said goodnight.

Back then we had Pat Benatar to scream for us and Tina Turner to remind us that you can be reborn. Even Olivia Newton John slid into rubber pants and high heeled mules and teased her hair, singing about sex and working out in the same damn verse. Were we better off then? I can’t say we were. Sure, we had our whole young lives ahead of us, and adventures still to be had, but I look at us now, the thinning hair and the sagging necks, those bellies we swore we’d never have (until we admitted we just love wine too damn much), and I feel like I can love both versions: those kids with all their beautiful denial and their solid iron coping skills, and the adults we became, with their tender hearts that still cry during sappy songs. I can love both versions, and maybe this one that we are now more than ever, because we’re still here, singing along.

From a Country Overlooked 
by Tom Hennen

There are no creatures you cannot love.
A frog calling at God
From the moon-filled ditch
As you stand on the country road in the June night.
The sound is enough to make the stars weep
With happiness.
In the morning the landscape green
Is lifted off the ground by the scent of grass.
The day is carried across its hours
Without any effort by the shining insects
That are living their secret lives.
The space between the prairie horizons
Makes us ache with its beauty.
Cottonwood leaves click in an ancient tongue
To the farthest cold dark in the universe.
The cottonwood also talks to you
Of breeze and speckled sunlight.
You are at home in these
great empty places
along with red-wing blackbirds and sloughs.
You are comfortable in this spot
so full of grace and being
that it sparkles like jewels
spilled on water.

I’m offering three one-day afternoon workshops online, from 2:00-4:30, September 19th, October 17th and November 15th (Two Saturdays and one Sunday). I’m calling this new series, “Keep the Words Flowing.” You can come to all three for a special fee, or just sign up for one to try it out. Each workshop has its own theme, but as always, you can write about whatever you want during our time together.

Get more info here.

And There’s More to Choose From

I’m so happy to share these new offerings with you, and there’s more! Feel free to explore beyond these retreats and one-day workshops to get more info about the next Gay Men’s Writing Brunch on September 20th, and the Grief and Healing Workshop on November 8th, where you’ll be well fed (including a homemade DeLorenzo dessert!).

Finally, please enjoy the poem, “They Taught Us,” from @leyley_the_poet, a South Sudanese refugee who has won the hearts of thousands on Instragram.

In the meantime, keep writing. You inspire me.

Hello, dear readers.

I know the title of this post might sound misleading: it’s not national poetry month (or poetry week, for that matter), but right now, at Laguna Writers, we’re getting deep into poetry.

It all began with a wonderful documentary about Mary Oliver, arguably one of the best-known poets in the United States. I was able to see this the documentary, Saved by the Beauty of the World, at the Roxie Cinema in San Francisco. If you can make it there, please go. It’s been extended until August 19th (see showtimes here). You can also access t on the PBS website or app: it premieres there August 25th. To learn more about the tone of the film, see the short trailer below.

Some of you may know that Oliver wrote beautifully about the natural world. For her, it was almost like a religion. But she wasn’t just a hippie wandering the woods. This documentary addresses how the natural world was a kind of salvation for her, especially after memories of abuse in her childhood resurfaced when she was a young woman. Poetry, the film seems to argue, can help us survive.

I also found Oliver’s struggle as an artist compelling: she didn’t become well-known—or widely published—until she was well into her 40’s. At times, she and her life-long partner, Molly Malone Cook, ate what they could forage from the beaches and forests in Provincetown, MA.

Poetry can help us survive.

While I was in Provincetown in May, I discovered a new book by another favorite poet: Against Breaking, by Ada Limón. Limón was the US poet laureate from 2022-2025. I have loved Limón’s poetry for a while, but this book is something new: an essay. You can click on the image below to learn more.

Her poetic voice is evident as ever in her prose, and she makes an interesting argument for why we need poetry, and how it connects us to others in some surprising ways. Especially interesting to me are her descriptions about the collaborative efforts she made to place poetry in several of our national parks. It’s a quick read (50+ pages), and a great thought-provoking gift for any of the fellow poets in your life. (Or just grab one for yourself!)

The title of the book comes from the Emily Dickinson poem below.

If I can stop one heart from breaking
by Emily Dickinson

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Poetry connects us to others in surprising ways.

And to top it all off, this week I received feedback on my very first manuscript of poems. I’ve published over a dozen poems in my life as a writer, and decided I wanted to enter them—as well as some new poems—in a few chapbook contests, so I’ve spent the summer working on revising them. “I didn’t even know you wrote poetry,” a few fellow poets recently said, so I’m coming out about it now. You can enjoy a playful one here (excuse the weird formatting in the archive). I’m also including another one below.

This is all to say, get out there and enjoy some poetry! And perhaps get inspired to write a poem yourself. One prompt that might help is this throwback from my old blog (The Catalyst). I call the prompt, “The Braided Exercise,” and it produces some very interesting metaphors. You can write a prose poem, like I did, with this prompt, and even play with breaking it into lines and stanzas, if you’d like to.

However you decide to get your poetry fix, my hope is that you’ll be inspired, as the poets I mentioned above have inspired me. And if you want MORE inspiration, join us at Laguna Writers this fall for any of the new upcoming workshops (or new retreats in 2027).

Until then, keep writing and reading. You (also) inspire me.

midwestern childhood 					  
by Christopher P. Delorenzo

in winter I was my own playmate
lying in the snow covered slope of the early morning yard
still untouched
making lonely angels against the cold white sky
or sliding on the ice covered walk toward a dark, frozen drain

well windows glowed with the promise of spring
snow on my birthday
hollyhocks blossomed into towers of pastel and white
as I drowned helpless ants in rain filled potholes 
the dead pear tree remained fruitless, shriveled and brittle black.

lightening bugs blinked silent summer orange
I called the roaring cicadas the locust
and only noticed them when they were quiet
climbed so high above the sweet rot of crabapple trees
I was afraid to come down

come down from tiny birds in a crowded nest
who wore grey tufts of chick feathers like pompadours 
on their slick black heads
yellow orange beaks flew from the littered edge of the nest
hard white
to the cool, dark ground below

I had to hold the dog back from devouring them

in autumn we put the dog to sleep
and I cried like I had lost a brother
watched my sister get stoned for the first time
her laughing hands dug deep into a box of wheat thins

I hid from the mysterious howling power of 
tornadoes
did a backhand-spring on a ragged patch of lawn
my mother's clapping still burns my ears

we had Helen Reddy on 8-track
but I still stacked albums on the green 
plastic stereo in the basement
and only recently remembered the joy
of riding down the backyard hill without training wheels
flying alone for my first time
adolescence came too soon after

by that time I had forgotten how to fly.


(published in The Rockhurst Review, Spring 1999)

Dear Readers and Writers, I’m thrilled to announce the official launch of the NEW Laguna Writers Website! You can check it out by clicking here and utilizing the top navigation bar. You can also learn more about my newest offerings using the links (and enjoying the images) below.

Choose the Workshop or Retreat that Fits

I’m thrilled to share these new offerings with you. Explore the website and learn about my new workshops and retreats.

Sneak Peek of the Retreats in 2027: The Port at Valldemossa, on Mallorca Island (Spain); sunset at Jackson Beach, Friday Harbor, Washington

Finally, I couldn’t end this newsletter without sharing a poem with you. It’s titled, “If you lose your pen,” by Ruth Foreman; you can find it below.

I hope to hear your voice at a workshop or retreat in the latter half of 2026, and hopefully, in 2027 as well.

In the meantime, keep writing.

You inspire me.

If You Lose Your Pen
and all you find is a broken pencil on the floor
and the pencil has no sharpener and the sharpener is in the store
and your pocket has no money

and if you look again
and all you find is a black Bic
and the Bic you need is green

and if it appears beneath the mattress of your couch
but the couch is dirty and you suddenly want to clean 
beneath the pillows
but you have no vacuum and the vacuum is in the store
and your pocket has no money

it is not the pen you are looking for

it is your tongue and those who speak with it
your grandmothers and doves and ebony spiders
hovering the corners of your throat

it is your tongue
and if you cannot find your tongue
do not go looking for the cat
you know you will not find her
she is in the neighbor's kitchen eating Friskies
she is in the neighbor's yard making love

if you cannot find your tongue do not look for it
for you are so busy looking it cannot find you
the doves are getting dizzy and your grandmothers annoyed
be still and let them find you
they will come when they are ready

and when they are it will not matter if your pockets are empty
if you write with a green Bic or a black Bic
or the blood of your finger
you will write
you will write

Hello, dear readers and writers. It’s been a minute. I’ve been wrapped up in a few exciting new projects, including the planning of two new destination retreats, which you can check out here, on my new website!

I’ve missed you.

While I was away, I had a date with an artist. In this case, it was Claude Monet. Some of you know that I find the impressionists very inspiring, mostly because they were radicals in their time, and not often very well accepted, eschewing formal portraits and boring landscapes, and splashing color into the countryside with tiny, quick brushstrokes. Painters like Mary Cassatt had the audacity to depict the everyday life of women in her work, and Van Gogh made forest floors turn blue. He’s the author of quote today, from the book, Dear Theo):

Painters understand nature and love her and teach us to see her.

If one really loves nature, one can find poetry everywhere.

I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?

The exhibit I saw was titled, “Monet and Venice,” and it’s showing at the de Young museum in San Francisco through July 26th. If you get a chance to see it, go for it. What I loved about it was the narrative: Monet never wanted to paint Venice. Why? Because everyone else was doing it. What could he do that would be different? That would stand out? It’s a metaphor for writers, really, because I always say that no two writers’ voices sound the same, even when they are writing about the same subject. And of course, Monet painted Venice as only he could do it: with a gauzy, glowing beauty that always evokes the dawn. Had he not gone to Venice, he might never have painted the water lilies he is so famous for. And had I stayed home that day and stared at a blinking cursor on my laptop, I may never have known that story.

Drifting through the blues and pinks of Monet’s Venice felt like a mini-vacation that day. It’s what my mentor, Pat Schneider, used to call having an “art date,” which allows your creative mind to wander and recharge. I highly recommend it. You’ll return to your own work with renewed enthusiasm.

Growing up, we had an inexpensive reproduction of one of Monet’s later paintings hanging in our living room: a view of London from the Thames River. I always found it muddy and weirdly dark, and only recently learned that it was part of a series he did at the end of his life, when he was losing his eyesight. The fact that Monet painted until the very end of his life (from a wheelchair, with arthritic hands), and painted the world as he saw it then, blurry and darkening, doesn’t depress me, it reminds me that you can create your entire life. That what Lisel Mueller’s poem below is all about. May her poem, and his paintings here, inspire some new writing (or painting, or music!) for you as well.

Monet Refuses The Operation
by Lisel Mueller  

Doctor, you say there are no haloes
around the streetlights in Paris
and what I see is an aberration
caused by old age, an affliction.
I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don't see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.
Fifty-four years before I could see
Rouen cathedral is built
of parallel shafts of sun,
and now you want to restore
my youthful errors: fixed
notions of top and bottom,
the illusion of three-dimensional space,
wisteria separate
from the bridge it covers.
What can I say to convince you
the Houses of Parliament dissolve
night after night to become
the fluid dream of the Thames?
I will not return to a universe
of objects that don't know each other,
as if islands were not the lost children
of one great continent. The world
is flux, and light becomes what it touches,
becomes water, lilies on water,
above and below water,
becomes lilac and mauve and yellow
and white and cerulean lamps,
small fists passing sunlight
so quickly to one another
that it would take long, streaming hair
inside my brush to catch it.
To paint the speed of light!
Our weighted shapes, these verticals,
burn to mix with air
and change our bones, skin, clothes
to gases. Doctor,
if only you could see
how heaven pulls earth into its arms
and how infinitely the heart expands
to claim this world, blue vapor without end. 

Hello, dear readers and writers. This week we’re diving back into the beauty of grief and love, and how they can be braided into words. Of course, our guide is Mama Nature herself: specifically a cloud forest in the Andes mountains. But we’ll get to that in a moment.

Spending time in nature is a wonderful reminder of how truly awesome this planet we live on really is, and I mean awe in the literal sense, as in a sense of wonder. Nature prompts bring up all kinds of memories and connections, which can open up to narratives about love and gratitude, birth, and of course, death.

Let’s begin with today’s quote: It’s by Anne Frank, from The Diary of a Young Girl. Frank was only thirteen when she wrote these words, and because we know her fate, her writing breaks my heart every time:

The prompt this time is, “Song of the Cedars,” by Robert MacFarlane (and a collection of his colleagues and collaborators). McFarlane is a beautiful writer. He has written many books, including, Is a River Alive? in which he questions the ways humans and other animals communicate with nature. The song was inspired by the sounds in an Ecuadorean cloud forest, which has a voice here. You can listen to the song by clicking on the YouTube image below, and you can read the lyrics here.

Song prompts can work in many ways. Perhaps there’s a line or two in the lyrics that evoke writing for you, or the sound of the song itself may resonate with you emotionally. For some of my writers, the song brought up grief, stories of death, dying, and even re-birth. Give it a listen, and see what it evokes for you. What I wrote is below, followed by Mary Oliver’s poem, “Long Afternoon at the Edge of Little Sister Pond.”

What I wrote in response:

What’s the opposite of my city life, the hum of the electric streetcar revving up in the distance, or the thumping music from a souped up purple Honda Civic at the corner stop sign? Is it the branches snapping under the feet of a red fox searching for fallen apples, Black Mountain (in the shape of an elephant) in the distance, the marsh filling with the flow of the tide, then emptying with the ebb? Is it crickets at night, and your quiet voice behind the spare bedroom door, saying goodnight to your boyfriend? In the morning, a walk into the little town where we often retreat, negotiations over peach and ginger scones, the path along the river, a drive to one of the fantastic, nearly empty beaches on the national seashore.

What’s the opposite of forty-five boxes and a $2000 moving truck? One twenty-two inch suitcase and a new light backpack; just enough room for two face masks that we might not get to, a laptop and a journal, a beloved novel that one of us can’t seem to put down. Maybe it’s the Red-tailed Hawk’s nest and the gravel road, so bumpy you have to slow way down, even in your magic white car that I call “my boyfriend.” Because it’s the first smart car that has ever helped me to drive, pulled me back when I’ve gone over the line on the zig-zagging road on the east side of Tomales Bay, heading somewhere I can’t quite remember now. Because all that mattered was you trusted me to get us there and safely back in your new car, the night turning black around us, no city street lights and no other cars on the road. You never dozed off; you didn’t want me to be alone. Played DJ with West African music and taught me a few words in Kreyol. French with a soul. Memory on your tongue. A younger you with no illness to speak of, a whole anticipated long life ahead.

The last time we went to your eternal resting spot, we covered it with flowers (again), we danced to the drummers, and we scooped our hands up into the sky. Fly spirit fly. And again, I saw the path that led to the Golden Gate Recreation Area, and promised myself I would one day take that path past the little mound that is you now. Or are you that hummingbird that was hovering over us? Days later, I am still thinking about this, the flowers, the path, the thrum of her wings, even when a loud skateboard drags by my urban window, even when I enter the freeway and press down hard on the gas.

Long Afternoon at the Edge of Little Sister Pond
by Mary Oliver 

As for Life 
I’m humbled,
I’m without words
Sufficient to say
how it has been hard as flint,
and soft as a spring pond,
both of these 
and over and over,
and long pale afternoons besides,
and so many mysteries
beautiful as eggs in a nest,
still unhatched
though warm and watched over
by something I have never seen
a tree angel, perhaps,
or a ghost of holiness.
Every day I walk out into the world
to be dazzled, then to be reflective. 
It suffices, it is all comfort—
along with human love,
dog love, water love, little serpent love, sunburst love, or love for that smallest of birds
flying among the scarlet flowers.
There is hardly time to think about
stopping, and lying down at last
to the long afterlife, to the tenderness
yet to come, when 
time will brim over the singular pond, and become forever,
and we will pretend to melt into the leaves. 
As for death,
I can’t wait to be a hummingbird,
can you? 

Hello, dear readers and writers.

I’ve got some exciting news: I’m about to launch a new website and offer a variety of new workshops and retreats. I’ll keep you posted and let you know when to check out the new site with its new features. Until then, I wanted you to know that I’ve streamlined the way I show up on various platforms, so The Writing Catalyst here and on Instagram, is now officially going to be called Laguna Writers.

Here’s a little of what I’m going to offer in the latter half of this year, as well as in 2027:

• Single session daytime weekend workshops (online/2.5 hours)

• More sessions of the Gay Men’s Writing Brunch (the next one is on June 7th)

• One on one consulting and editing services

• An afternoon retreat in my new neighborhood, inspired by the natural world

• The return of the Grief and Healing Retreat (November 8th)

• A BRAND NEW EUROPEAN RETREAT in Mallorca, Spain, May 22-29, 2027 (more about this soon!)

the writing catalyst = laguna writers

Keep an eye out for a newsletter next week (and a video) that will link you directly to the new site. And please know that these changes are designed to offer you more opportunities to jumpstart your writing, to maintain a writing practice, or to return to the dream of a writing project you may have in your heart.

jumpstart your writing

No matter how or when we meet—or meet again—I will always offer plenty of free writing prompts, poems, quotes and recipes here for free subscribers.

maintain a writing practice

And as always, I will remain your writing catalyst.

return to the dream of a writing project

Sincerely, Christopher P. DeLorenzo

Hello, dear readers and writers.

This week, we’re dancing around the idea of evolution—as well as life and death. As some of you already know, I’m inspired by the natural world around us. And I sometimes utilize fun facts about interesting creatures as writing prompts. This week it’s the Axolotl, a metaphor in the flesh.

But before we get into that, here’s an inspiring quote from Lisa Cron, about the importance of storytelling in our evolutionary process:

You can find the first part of today’s prompt below: my recorded voice reading a collection of facts about the Axolotl. Listen to it while watching this slideshow, which is on loop. and check out some images of this salamander in the wild. Afterwards, write for twenty minutes, anything that comes to mind.

Read more

Hello, dear readers and writers.

Many of you know that my writing workshops and retreats began more than twenty-five years ago at my studio apartment on Laguna Street, in San Francisco (that’s why we’re called Laguna Writers). Before I offered online workshops, my groups always sat in a circle during our writing sessions, and we still do this on Thursday nights. We’ve evolved over the years, writing together on Zoom, and traveling as far away as Italy and Mexico for week-long retreats, but my first love has always been hosting these in-person workshops in my home.

But in September, there was a fire in my building, and everyone has had to move out before a major reconstruction project gets under way. (You can read more about that here, if you missed it.) This reality meant I had to re-enter a club I hoped never to belong to again: a renter looking for a new apartment in San Francisco, one of the toughest and most expensive rental markets in the country.

It took a while to find a new place, and when I stumbled upon this one in the outer Sunset District, three blocks from the beach, it seemed a little too good to be true. But I’m here to report that Laguna Writers officially has a new home, filled with sunlight and a view of the Pacific Ocean. So consider this brief post an invitation to join me in my new cozy living room for the upcoming Thursday night session, or one of the monthly afternoon retreats I’m planning in the fall.

Right now, my website is currently going through a redesign, so if you click on the link above, the virtual space you enter may also be a reconstruction zone, but the info about upcoming workshops is there, and more is on the way.

Stay tuned.

And keep writing: you inspire me.

Dear readers and writers, this week I want to give you a sense of what it’s like to be in one of my workshops, so I’m highlighting the voice of one of my participants. I’m honored to share my Substack this week with my very first collaborator, Laurie Pomeranz. Laurie and I have written together for several years now in my one day retreats, and more recently, in my Wednesday night workshop. To say that Laurie is a treasured member of the workshop would be an understatement; she always listens to others carefully and responds to their writing thoughtfully. And she is often the first person willing to read something vulnerable, trusting the group in the deepest way.

This post highlights a piece she recently wrote about her beloved pet, Stewie, a handsome Siamese cat. Stewie often sits next to Laurie as she writes with us on Wednesdays, and this night in particular, her musing about the prompt brought her attention to his purring presence by her side. What follows is her story about their first meeting. What I love about this piece is how it represents what Pat Schneider used to call, “turning a corner”: that moment when you are writing, you see something shine, and you decide to focus on that image. Pat wrote:

Laurie models this beautifully for us here.

The prompt is called, “Grains of Sand,” and is a slideshow of exactly that, magnified under a powerful microscope. You can view that slideshow here.

Here’s what Laurie wrote in response, followed by a poem from May Sarton.

Looking at grains of sand under a microscope is like looking at what I imagine a strand of DNA would reveal. What’s the origin story, the components that make up a life, the clues to decode that reveal history, mysteries unseen to the eye? We can piece together colors and shapes and chemical properties of the elements, and tell a story about what used to be there, what broke down and degraded to become this particular pile of sand crystals, on this particular beach.

We can share what we know of our own human origin stories with each other, passed along via generations, oral history, and now affirmed or clarified with genetic testing.

But, what about you, my precious Stewie, my beloved feline? What is your origin story? Who did you come from? How did you end up being who you are? What happened to your parents and siblings? How did you find yourself cowering behind a parking garage median, covered in fleas and grease, just fourteen little ounces? Was your mama hit by a car on California Street? Did you see it? How did a gorgeous blue-eyed Seal Point Siamese kitty end up in the Whole Foods parking lot, hiding out, alone? I’ve been thinking a lot about your beginnings today, the 7th anniversary since you so unexpectedly entered my life and blew my heart open.

I was in a counseling session with a high school boy. There was a knock at the door. No one ever knocks on the door when I’m in session, because there is a note on the door saying that I’m in session and to please email me or come back soon. If someone was knocking, they really needed me. Something was up. So, I asked my student to forgive the interruption, and I got up to answer the door.

It was Drew, a Senior. He was more hyped than he even usually was. “Mrs. P! I’m so sorry to interrupt, but we need help and I didn’t know who to go to. I thought you could help. We just found a kitten, abandoned in the Whole Foods parking lot. What do we do? I left the guys there with the kitten and said I’d come ask you for help.”

I told Drew to run back to Whole Foods and stay with the kitten, and I’d be there in a few minutes, after I wrapped up my meeting.

Ten minutes later, another knock on the door. Another ask for forgiveness at the interruption. It was Drew, holding a cardboard box, containing an itsy bitsy filthy little fluff with baby blue eyes. He was so tiny in that cardboard box. Drew said, “We found this box, so we just brought him here.”

This kitten. He was caked with fleas and flea dirt, and he had what looked like black bike grease matted into his light gray fur. He weighed next to nothing. I told Drew I would call Animal Care and Control for advice, and make sure that this little baby was safe.

Within about ninety seconds, texts were going out, and the word was spreading that there was a kitten in Mrs. Pomeranz’s office. The room quickly filled with students, big high school boys, wanting to hold the kitten. Football players, wrestlers, kids who may look intimidating because of their height and heft, they were mushpots when it came to this kitten. They held him like a fragile little egg. My heart was double melting, from this precious creature that was now in my office, and these extraordinarily tender boys, who may act tough and full of bravado, but were turned into little boys with their teddy bears when they held this kitten. The school was called Stuart Hall, so we decided to name the kitty “Stewie.”

Stewie, who landed in my life, so utterly unexpected, and has become one of my greatest loves of all time.

New Year Resolve 
by May Sarton

The time has come
To stop allowing the clutter
To clutter my mind
Like dirty snow,
Shove it off and find
Clear time, clear water.

Time for a change,
Let silence in like a cat
Who has sat at my door
Neither wild nor strange
Hoping for food from my store
And shivering on the mat.

Let silence in.
She will rarely speak or mew,
She will sleep on my bed
And all I have ever been
Either false or true
Will live again in my head.

For it is now or not
As old age silts the stream,
To shove away the clutter,
To untie every knot,
To take the time to dream,
To come back to still water. 

Laurie Hessen Pomeranz is a San Francisco-based psychotherapist. For 10 years she worked in HIV/AIDS care and hospice bereavement counseling, and for 20 years she was a high school counselor. She’s written with Laguna Writers since 2023.

Her stories have been published in the BAYS anthologies, The Day My Nipple Fell Off, Shivering in a Paper Gown, Agony and Absurdity: Adventures in Cancerland, and Coming to Terms. She’s also had stories published in Salon.com, The Mother Company, Wildfire, and the anthology, I Am with You: Love Letters to Cancer Patients, edited by Nancy Novak, Ph.D. and Barbara K. Richardson.

Laurie and her husband, Jeff, have been married for 27 years, and are parents to a fabulously adventurous 23 year old son. Together, the three of them love to explore the world, above and below water. She loves to write, sing and dance, travel, scuba dive, paint, cook and snuggle her kitties.

Hello, dear subscribers. Today’s post includes a recipe as well as a writing prompt, and it all began with an oxymoron. So bear with me while I get “teacherly” for a moment.

What is an oxymoron?

An oxymoron is a figure of speech that pairs contradictory words within a phrase to create a striking or paradoxical effect. As a literary device, it enhances language by making certain expressions more memorable and thought-provoking.

The difference between oxymorons and paradoxes:

Oxymorons combine contradictory words, but paradoxes combine contradictory ideas. Usually, oxymorons are made up of just two words, but paradoxes are complete sentences, sometimes entire paragraphs.

Some oxymoron examples:

Oxymorons are common in everyday speech. Awfully good, bittersweet, same difference, and original copy are a few examples. Some others that come to mind: important bullshit, easy work, stupid smart phone, and effortless problem.

My writing group generated that list of oxymorons, and we each chose one to use as writing prompt. A few more of my favorites: cynical optimist, healthy cheese, quiet Italian American, and salty dessert. You could use any of these to generate a fresh piece of writing. The one I chose was, trendy classic. What I wrote is below, followed by the poem, “Runaways Café,” by Marilyn Hacker (from her collection, Love, Death and the Changing of the Seasons).

What I wrote in response:

Cooking has certainly gotten complicated in the last few decades. I mean, I understand that the same old recipes get boring, and that we like to spice these up with unusual additions, like furikake in your mac and cheese, and arugula pesto in your lasagna, but I sometimes miss the classics. I don't always want five spice on my baked apple or olive oil and black pepper in my ice cream. And call me old fashioned, but as much as much as I like salted caramel chocolate chip cookies, I sometimes miss the old fashioned flavor of a basic Tollhouse: no chocolate chunks, no pistachios. Just a good old fashioned chocolate chip cookie.

I'm fortunate to know a lot of great cooks and creative bakers, and one of my favorite cooks is my friend, Gwynn, because she usually doesn’t mess around with a classic. On a hot day in Hawaii, where she’s made her home for the last 30+ years, she’ll serve you a chilled zucchini soup that is her grandmother’s recipe, and it will rival any pear gazpacho you had at that beautiful Spanish restaurant you love so much. She’ll serve it with white sourdough toast and butter: old school. She makes a strawberry pie the way her mother always made it--just sugar and strawberries and a little cream--and that first bite will taste like home.

Recently though, she shared her hummus recipe with me, and it was surprisingly non-traditional. “It’s not that I care about the fat content,” she said, giggling, “it’s that I’m not a big fan of tahini.”

“So you only use a little bit?” I asked.

“No,” she said nonchalantly. “I don’t use any.”

The wannabe nutritionist in me guffawed and prepared a rebuttal. Tahini is rich in iron and protein; it’s the staple of delicious middle eastern dishes and sauces. I’ve had long conversations with friends from Israel and Lebanon about the best tahini, whether roasted is better than raw, and where you can find one in a tin rather than a jar. People are even jumping in on the tahini cookie craze now--adding tahini to brownies too--because you’re getting that extra moisture and chewiness, plus some added nutritional benefits. But here was one of my dearest, oldest friends eschewing tahini as if it was completely normal.

“I just add a ton of lemon juice,” she said, “and some more olive oil, but not too much. It’s the lemon that makes it special.”

“You sound like you’re on a cooking show,” I said, and we laughed.

“You’ll see, “ she said, in her characteristically confident way.

Ten minutes later she was offering me a generous taste, and I am here to tell you it is wonderful. It has a slightly chunky texture, it’s bright with all that citrus, but it does indeed taste like hummus. Somehow, this traditional cook came up with something surprisingly simple and new.

You can find her recipe below.

Read more

Hello, dear readers and writers.

In today’s virtual writing workshop, we’re revisiting the list exercise, but this time with a twist. As you may have read in previous posts, list prompts are a great way to loosen us up and help us get words onto the page. Today’s prompt is what I call the 4 x 4: four lists with four words each.

One of the reasons this list exercise works so well is because it draws from the five senses, especially memories of taste, sight, and smell. As you’ll see below, one of the prompts asks you to generate a list of plants or animals you associate with the season of spring. For me, flowers and spring are inseparable. And that brings us to our quote of the day (redux) by Georgia O’Keefe:

Nobody sees a flower—really—it is so small it takes time—we haven’t time —and to see takes time, like having a friend takes time.

Taking the time to see, to look deeply at a subject or a character or a setting, is what rich, lively writing is all about. So here’s how to do the 4 x 4:

The Prompt:

We’ll generate four lists each with four items or images on them. And remember: you can write this from your own POV, or that of a character you’re working with (real or imagined).

1. Four desserts or sweets you love (even cheap candy bars)

2. Four animals or plants that you notice in spring

3. Four places in the world you would like to return to (local places count too)

4. Four people you love or have loved

Now make four new lists by taking one item from each list (hence the title: 4 x 4). Each of the four new lists should include a dessert, animal or plant, a place, and a loved one. What you end up with is a surprising little sketch of an emotional connection to a character.

Now choose one of these new lists of as your prompt and write for 20 minutes, anything that comes to mind.

What I wrote is below, followed by the poem, “The Dead are not Dead,” by Senegalese poet, Birago Diop.

Some of you may recognize the subject in my piece: my friend Dean, who passed away in 2007 from complications with HIV. And some of you know that I lead writing workshops on grief and healing, and that I have written my way through loss many times. I also wrote about Dean in June of 2024, in a piece titled, “Letters from the Other Side.” All great loves (and all great losses) need to be tended to, returned to, and honored.

Here’s what I wrote:

The title of best friend is one that has always evaded me in some way. I’ve been lucky to have many close friends in my life, but I don’t like the concept of having a single best friend, as if one person could be everything to you. A few close friends are like sisters to me for sure, but there hasn’t been one person I could tell everything to for a long time. Maybe Dean was my last best friend. Maybe my only one.

It is rare to meet someone so unique. Someone who can spend time talking about the latest Deepak Chopra lecture in one breath, and help you understand how to enjoy anal sex in the next. Someone who sends handmade cards in the mail, drives his father’s vintage convertible purple Porsche to run errands around town, and lives in a cottage he doesn’t own, but has the appliances professionally painted a shiny black, anyway.

Dean was the first person who ever came out to me, and he normalized it. That was a revelation to me. And back then, he was the only person I felt I could call when I was at my lowest. I knew he wouldn’t express worry, but instead, would hold up a mirror and say, “Can you see who you really are?” I never doubted his faith in me, his love for me, the way he prioritized our friendship.

I want to tell you how he saved reviews about new restaurants from the LA Times so we could explore them together when I arrived for my frequent visits. How he insisted on renting a limousine for New Year’s Eve, how he called me “little one,” and near the end of his life, how he was brave enough on a lonely night, to finally admit he was struggling with addiction.

Nearly twenty years after his death, I still have a box of his cards and letters. And every time I look at them--maybe every five or six years--I lose it. There’s something in the sheer volume of those letters and cards, something beyond his lovely, light script, the silly images he chose, the carefully cut straight edges. There’s an acknowledgement of being loved in a thoughtful way. I’m left wondering if we are really only loved that way once in our lives.

Now, in the ever after, I carry him with me, along with a little guilt and sadness. When I am in Paris and see the Eiffel tower rising above Rodin’s sculpture garden. When I am dancing in Puerto Vallarta, surrounded by beautiful men, and we are one big throbbing sweaty mass. All the places I’ve been that he he will never have a chance to see, and all the places I’ll go in the future. The food I will taste and the men I will love, the children whom I will watch grow into adults. All without him.

I wonder sometimes where he went. I think of us young and carefree, driving up the road into Malibu Canyon in that purple car, the top down, the night air warm against our skin. Madonna’s first album on the tape deck. I know you’re gonna take your love and run, she sang.

And, of course, we sang along.

The Dead are not Dead
by Birago Diop

Those who are dead are never gone:
they are in the thickening shadow.
The dead are not under the earth:
they are in the tree that rustles,
they are in the wood that groans.
they are in the water that sleeps.
they are in the hut, they are in the crowd,
the dead are not dead.

Those who are dead are never gone,
they are in the breast of the woman,
they are in the child who is wailing,
and in the firebrand that flames.
The dead are not under the earth:
they are in the fire that is dying,
they are in the grasses that weep,
they are in the whimpering rocks,
they are in the forest, they are in the house,
the dead are not dead.

Hello, dear readers and writers.

Those of you who’ve read previous posts know that I often use poems as prompts, and this week I’m writing in response to, "The Body Speaks," by Ellen Doré Watson, from her collection, We Live in Bodies.

I’ve paired the poem with some images from a photographer I’ve recently discovered, George Platt Lynes (1907-1955). Lynes’ fantastic lighting techniques— and his appreciation of the human form—reveal an artist who was wildly ahead of his time: he used ring lights in the 1920s, and shot naked men when it was literally a crime. You can click on the photo or the caption above to learn more about this amazing artist.

Regarding the poem, I honestly can’t remember who first shared it with me, but I’ve had it for years, and occasionally pull it out and share it with my groups. It’s been particularly transformative for those I’ve written with in my Grief and Healing workshops, as well as cancer survivors (you can find some of their writing here). The beauty of the poem is not only how it reverberates with a kind of forgotten appreciation for these skin suits we live in, but also that it speaks from the body’s POV, and gets our undivided attention.

As always, there’s no right or wrong way to respond to the poem. I often allow the poem to resonate with me, and then write from that place; sometimes there’s an image or a memory that the poem evokes. And sometimes, a few lines from the poem stand out as writing prompts, as they did for me this time around (you can see those above what I’ve written below). You can read the poem yourself, or simply listen to me read it for you. Afterward, I invite you to write for twenty minutes, anything that comes to mind.

Finally, this week you get a two-for-one: Andrea Gibson’s poem, “Tincture” is at the end of this post. If you haven’t seen Gibson’s documentary, Come See Me in the Good Light, check it out.

Meanwhile, keep writing: you inspire me.

The Body Speaks
by Ellen Doré Watson

So? I’m a collection of oversized bones, blind in so much
casing, I’m a pair of lonely shoulders and a snip of a nose
turned up at the word cute. Two serious feet. Lungs
that have sworn off slang, still graced by old graffiti;
fingertips white candles that may never be lit. So what
if this voice has learned how to huddle? This
is a mouth that leads, even on the dance floor.
This is a survivor of a liver, doing cartwheels down the yellow
line. These unmentionable thighs think they’re in the wrong
movie, these are eyes that feast, ears for whispers. Two 
nozzles of love that enjoy team sports, and a wet spot 
that would rather pay rent than sign papers. The bleached
walnut that thinks it’s in charge keeps dozing off, keeps
to itself, wants to wash its hands of the question mark
—knees to mouth—in the baby space. This is a face
frontal by nature, too little set into too much. A belly
that bleeds for the world while it humps white food
unthinking, and hair that’s easily disappointed. This body
has scars from cats and dogs and scalpels, a throbbing fist
of blood crucial as any other. The wrists alone remain
unchanged, sprouting plain-spoken hands that love
dirt today, satin tomorrow. So? Own it all—the walk-in vanity, 
the basementful of self-disgust. As old as peekaboo: I loves me,
I loves me not. Oh how the soul goes on trying to butter up 
its wrapper. No choice but to live in this stew of mismatched
parts greased by doubt. Who needs the dumb self-assurance
of glaciers when you have love handles, when you have this
spacesuit for stroking they call skin? So, you know—play
with me. The way you do with words.

Three lines from the poem that stood out to me:

Lonely shoulders

Hands that love dirt today, satin tomorrow

Wants to wash its hands of the question mark

What I wrote is below.

For weeks now, his stomach and his back have been bothering him. I think, He eats like a monk, never smoked, and doesn’t drink. He can’t be dealing with anything serious, can he?

We’re eating a delicious veggie bowl he just prepared, and I’m asking questions like an intake nurse. Stool is normal. No vomiting. Is it a burning pain? I ask. (An ulcer, I think, though he meditates and rarely gets angry). No. A slight nausea. Sometimes accompanied by lightheadedness. His liver, his spleen? Recent blood work showed a healthy body, which I can attest to, since my lonely shoulders now have a regular place to rest.

I’m suddenly twenty-five years younger, and my boyfriend back then is telling me that he’s HIV+. T cells are high, viral load undetectable. But for the first few months after we move in together, I keep thinking, I love him, and he could die. “Well, sure,” said my best friend Dean, who is gone now, but was very much alive then. “We all could die at any time. That’s the risk everyone takes when they love someone.”

Touché, oh very wise one: Dean was never one to shy away from the question marks.

And here I am now, a man old enough to get a 10% senior discount, worrying again about someone I love. This isn’t what he needs, a voice inside me says. Stop adding to his concerns. Stop trying to fix it.

Adrenal failure, I think, comes on and surprises many. One day you’re enjoying champagne, the next you’re on dialysis. And of course, there’s always cancer, lurking around in our large intestines, our tumor blocking cells trying to eat up those nasty little guys before they develop their own blood source. Prebiotics grabbing the “bad” bacteria and making sure the gut stays vital, healthy. And the lymph nodes, those little bumpy balls on strings, flowing from our necks down to our groins. Everything working in tandem to keep us alive and well.

“I’ll see the doctor on the 13th,” he says, taking a big bite of multicolored vegan food and looking down at his bowl. “This is what doctors are for.” Point taken. I’m no doctor. I just don’t know how to love someone and not worry.

I’m working on that with a redheaded mini Dr. Freud on Zoom: how to let go, to trust, to just be present. How to love and lose. (Well, in theory anyway.) But I don’t like this narrative of phantom pains and unexplained nausea. I don’t like it any more than I liked the nonchalance my friend Nina had when her abdomen swelled with what turned out to be ovarian cancer. “I think I’ve just been over eating,” she said, claiming a fat loaf of homemade banana bread as the culprit. Less than five years later, she was gone. “I’m not going anywhere,” I told her when the cancer came back. “I’m here for the whole ride, no matter where it takes us.”

Big words from a brain that sometimes can’t remember the word “tempeh,” and a body that sometimes likes to escape this troubling reality we live in with sexual fantasies, corny TV, and a big fat joint.

Satin or sludge. And everything in between.

Tincture
by Andrea Gibson (1975 –2025)

Imagine, when a human dies,
the soul misses the body, actually grieves
the loss of its hands and all
they could hold. Misses the throat closing shy
reading out loud on the first day of school.
Imagine the soul misses the stubbed toe,
the loose tooth, the funny bone. The soul still asks, Why
does the funny bone do that? It’s just weird.
Imagine the soul misses the thirsty garden cheeks
watered by grief. Misses how the body could sleep
through a dream. What else can sleep through a dream?
What else can laugh? What else can wrinkle
the smile’s autograph? Imagine the soul misses each falling
eyelash waiting to be a wish. Misses the wrist
screaming away the blade. The soul misses the lisp,
the stutter, the limp. The soul misses the holy bruise
blue from that army of blood rushing to the wound’s side.
When a human dies, the soul searches the universe
for something blushing, something shaking
in the cold, something that scars, sweeps
the universe for patience worn thin,
the last nerve fighting for its life, the voice box
aching to be heard. The soul misses the way
the body would hold another body and not be two bodies
but one pleading god doubled in grace.
The soul misses how the mind told the body,
You have fallen from grace. And the body said,
Erase every scripture that doesn’t have a pulse.
There isn’t a single page in the bible that can wince,
that can clumsy, that can freckle, that can hunger.
Imagine the soul misses hunger, emptiness,
rage, the fist that was never taught to curl—curled,
the teeth that were never taught to clench—clenched,
the body that was never taught to make love—made love
like a hungry ghost digging its way out of the grave.
The soul misses the unforever of old age, the skin
that no longer fits. The soul misses every single day
the body was sick, the now it forced, the here
it built from the fever. Fever is how the body prays,
how it burns and begs for another average day.
The soul misses the legs creaking
up the stairs, misses the fear that climbed
up the vocal cords to curse the wheelchair.
The soul misses what the body could not let go—
what else could hold on that tightly to everything?
What else could see hear the chain of a swingset
and fall to its knees? What else could touch
a screen door and taste lemonade?
What else could come back from a war
and not come back? But still try to live? Still try
to lullaby? When a human dies the soul moves
through the universe trying to describe how a body trembles
when it’s lost, softens when it’s safe, how a wound would heal
given nothing but time. Do you understand? Nothing in space can
imagine it. No comet, no nebula, no ray of light
can fathom the landscape of awe, the heat of shame.
The fingertips pulling the first gray hair
and throwing it away. I can’t imagine it,
the stars say. Tell us again about goosebumps.
Tell us again about pain.

Hello, dear readers and writers.

Today, we’re exploring the somewhat elusive concept of a writing voice, and what it means, how we define it. Voice informs the stories we tell by the words we choose, the way we use punctuation, even the slang we include (or avoid) in our writing. But it’s more complicated than that.

In her book, Writing Alone and with Others (2003), Pat Schneider wrote these words about how she defines the writing voice (and it’s our quote for the day):

A writer’s voice is an incredibly delicate instrument made up of all the places he or she has been, all the persons loved and lived with, all the cultural nuances of original neighborhood, workplace, home, country, continent, historical period, and personal story. The cadence, rhythm, the lulls and the ecstatic explosions of a writer’s voice belong only to the writer, and no teacher or workshop leader, no matter how gifted, can say what that music ought to be.

My early interest in literature and psychology came from this idea that Pat is digging into: how voice and narrative are deeply informed by the life of the writer.

Read more

Hello, dear readers and writers.

This week we’re looking at images and messages from children’s stories (and from Disney, in particular). As some of you who have followed me for a while know, I sometimes use video clips as a way to generate new writing. I first shared the one below during a Gay Men’s Writing Brunch, and I think it will resonate with many of you.

The writing we do in groups often connects us deeply to one another, but it also helps us to dig down deep into ourselves and see what’s lurking there, which often surprises us.

Today’s quote by Dawn Haines, from her essay, “Why We Write, (Poets and Writers Magazine, May/June 2010) is a good reminder of how writing deepens our connection to our own motives and beliefs.

The prompt below is a scene from Disney’s Snow White: the wishing well scene. Anyone who has seen the old film will recognize it right away. What you might not remember is the appearance of the handsome—and dare I say it, rather fae—prince. As you can see by what I wrote below, he brought up some surprising discoveries for me as well.

See the video, my writing, and following that, the poem, “Cinderella’s Diary,” by Ron Koertge.

The Prompt:

Watch the Video, then write for 20 minutes in response, anything that comes to mind.

What I wrote:

The story goes like this: I was six years old, and I knew every word to every song on Disney’s Snow White album. My sister, barely twelve, certainly pubescent and self-conscious, was given the task of accompanying me to the film in the theater at Crossroads Mall. We sat in the fifth row, and when the wishing well song came on, I began to sing along with the refrain. I was the voice—the echo—of the well.

“Stop singing!” my sister hissed. She was making an attempt to whisper; I was singing at full volume, ignoring her. “If you don’t stop singing, I’m moving!” she attempted to threaten. I kept singing. When Snow White got to the vocal exercise section of the song, “Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” I joined right in, my tiny pipes belting it out into the theater. “That’s it!” my sister said, and moved four rows behind me. I turned around once, just to make sure she was still there. Otherwise, I enjoyed my solitude, and sang along with the soundtrack.

Watching that scene again now on YouTube brought it all back: all those years I sat in front of the stereo in the living room, taking in those songs: Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White. I could barely walk, and yet I was already being indoctrinated by the messages that Disney was spinning: sanitized Grimm’s fairytales that depicted chaste love, and princes who saved beautiful, lonely, orphans, trapped in servitude, wearing rags, fraternizing with forest animals and mice.

What surprised me this time, watching it again after all these years, was the presence of the Prince, literally on a White Horse, singing his own melody, and interrupting my lovely memory with this realization: I got that message before I could talk. Before I had words, I learned that a strong, handsome, young man in tights was the answer to loneliness, suffering, sadness, hopelessness—you name the difficult emotion—the Prince was the answer.

Five decades later I am still unraveling—or is it recovering from?—that belief system, still struggling not to see myself as helpless, in need of a savior. Being raised Catholic didn’t help either. Hadn’t Christ himself (also handsome, young and brave) promised to return and save us all? As long as I stayed young and attractive, as long as I was good, then I would be saved.

What a messed up message.

What a long, long history to unravel.

Cinderella’s Diary
by Ron Koertge

I miss my stepmother. What a thing to say
but it’s true. The prince is so boring: four
hours to dress and then the cheering throngs.
Again. The page who holds the door is cute
enough to eat. Where is he once Mr. Charming
kisses my forehead goodnight?

Every morning I gaze out a casement window
at the hunters, dark men with blood on their
boots who joke and mount, their black trousers
straining, rough beards, callused hands, selfish,
abrupt ...

Oh, dear diary—I am lost in ever after:
Those insufferable birds, someone in every
room with a lute, the queen calling me to look
at another painting of her son, this time
holding the transparent slipper I wish
I’d never seen.

When the fire alarm in my building went off on Sunday during lunchtime, I rolled my eyes, and escorted my guest out the door. Since we had a new system installed, we’ve had numerous false alarms in my building over the last few years. And I was hungry: I wanted to serve lunch.

My nonchalance was quickly replaced by terror when I saw plumes of black smoke pouring out of the my building just two stories above. What followed was a rush to grab a few things from my apartment, a quick drive to a hill nearby, and the shocking image of my apartment building in the distance with orange flames quickly destroying two apartments on two separate levels.

As the brief reports in the news revealed, no humans died (thankfully) and no one was seriously hurt, though a small dog didn’t survive, and one of my neighbors was exposed to intense smoke. Five people lost their homes: one is completely destroyed, and another is unlivable for at least nine months. Two other apartments are compromised because of water damage: ceilings are going to have to be opened up, carpets will have to be replaced. My building is going to be a construction zone for the next year.

My apartment was mostly unscathed, except for my front door, which the fire fighters had to hack through with an axe—along with a few others in the building—to make sure the fire hadn’t spread, and that no one was inside.

Watching from the safety of that hill, I was in awe of the firefighters. These brave men and women arrived in less than five minutes, and had the fire out in less than fifteen. Several of them stood atop a burning roof above a burning deck using special tools to contain the fire before blasting it with water. Watching the power and the volume of that water made me think of the Civil Rights activists in the 1950’s and 1960’s who were on the other end of such a stream: it looked powerful enough to break bones.

Living in the aftermath of the fire for me is only an inconvenience: some of my neighbors have lost their homes, their belongings, and their sense of safety. My apartment, on the bottom of the building is miraculously (almost) the same. Except for a pile of debris in the driveway below, down here, it almost feels like the fire never happened. But a short walk up to the entrance of the building reveals a different story.

These last few days, as restoration crews and locksmiths have arrived at all hours, and I’ve watched my kind, elderly landlords struggle with the aftermath, I’ve heard Peggy Lee’s silly song in my head: “Is That All There Is?” The song, a campy tune from 1969, is a half spoken narrative sung by a character recalling seeing her childhood home burn down. My oldest brother used to joke that that kid seemed depressed, but the truth is, only a person whose home had never been destroyed by a fire could sing so nonchalantly about it.

No, Miss Lee, that’s not all there is.

What struck me most about the fire was the question I had to ask myself in the few seconds I had as my friend and I rushed back to my apartment to retrieve her purse: What do I want to take with me? And though today’s post isn’t a traditional one in any way, that question serves as today’s writing prompt:

What do I want to take with me?

Yes, in this case, I am talking about escaping a fire, but this question could be in response to any displacement or movement: leaving your home of many years, moving to another city or country, even leaving a retreat or a vacation that felt restorative and restful. It could be a question you ask yourself after surviving a life threatening illness, or the loss of a loved one.

What do I want to take with me?

It’s a question worth asking and answering. It’s a question worth writing about.

Be well. Stay safe. And keep writing.

Riding the Elevator into the Sky 
by Anne Sexton

As the fireman said:
Don’t book a room over the fifth floor
in any hotel in New York.
They have ladders that will reach further
but no one will climb them.
As the New York Times said:
The elevator always seeks out
the floor of the fire
and automatically opens
and won’t shut.
These are the warnings
that you must forget
if you’re climbing out of yourself.
If you’re going to smash into the sky.

Many times I’ve gone past
the fifth floor,
cranking upward,
but only once
have I gone all the way up.
Sixtieth floor:
small plants and swans bending
into their grave.
Floor two hundred:
mountains with the patience of a cat,
silence wearing its sneakers.
Floor five hundred:
messages and letters centuries old,
birds to drink,
a kitchen of clouds.
Floor six thousand:
the stars,
skeletons on fire,
their arms singing.
And a key,
a very large key,
that opens something—
some useful door—
somewhere—
up there.

Hello, dear readers and writers.

Today’s post is all about words. I mean, I know writing is all about words. Words are, of course, the tools of the trade. But this time we’re working with words in other languages.

Although I sometimes offer images or objects as prompts, I most often use words in some form: poems read out loud, list exercises, and all kinds of word play combos. I even hand out song lyrics to read if I play a song as a prompt. But sometimes, the best word prompts are the ones that introduce us to words we don’t recognize. That’s what this week’s prompt is about. It’s inspired by a list of words in various languages other than English. Words that describe complex feelings. Words that tell entire stories. Words we can snuggle up to.

Before we go further, here’s our quote for the day, by Rita Mae Brown:

The source for today’s prompt is The Intrepid Guide: Language Learning for Travelers & Heritage Learners. Take some time with these words and their definitions. Let them roll around in your head for a minute, and then write whatever comes to mind.

As always, what I wrote is after the prompt, and the poem, “Memory,” by Diana Donovan, ends the post today.

Enjoy.

And keep writing: you inspire me.

The Prompt:

Hiraeth: (hear-rye-th) Welsh, longing for home

Saudade: (sau-dayz) Portuguese, deeply nostalgic for something or someone

Aspaldiko: (as-pall-dee-koh) Basque, the euphoria and happiness felt when catching up with someone you haven’t seen in a long time.

Hygge: (heu-guh) Danish, a feeling of emotional warmth and well-being in the company of loved ones

Dépaysement: (day-pays-mo) French, a feeling of restlessness that comes with being away from your country of origin and feeling like a foreigner

Weltschmerz: (velt-sh-mare-ts) German, literally “world-pain,” a deep sadness about the imperfection and pain of the world.

Koi no yokan: (koi-no-yo-kahn) Japanese, the excitement you feel when you first meet someone, know that you will eventually fall in love with them, and are hopeful about being more than just friends.

Viraha: (veera-há) Hindi, realizing you love someone only after you’re separated.

Yuanfen: (缘分) (ye-an-fehn) Chinese, the belief that you were fated, karmically, to meet someone, that your spiritual paths are destined to cross.

What I wrote:

I want a word for the exhaustion one feels after a long day of showing up for others and not taking care of yourself. Shoveling food into your mouth standing up, or drinking a shake for lunch while commuting. And how about a word for that moment in the mirror when you realize that you are aging, maybe not so gracefully, and are becoming someone or something you never thought you’d live long enough to see.

Is there a word for the way I feel when I see a self-driving car in the rear view mirror behind me, with only one human head in the backseat, or a pop-up on my thin laptop screen that hopes I’ll learn more about the state most conservatives are moving to? Or that moment in Target when I notice the self-checkout lines now outnumber the ones with cashiers? What’s another word for dreading the future, or the fear of not keeping up?

Today, on the freeway, I was in a nice pack of conscientious drivers, moving along smoothly, until (you know what I’m about to say), some reckless hotshot started zig-zagging through the maze of cars, like he was in a high-speed video game, and I had to remind myself that I still knew how to drive, that my four wheels and the pavement beneath me were still solid.

Sometimes, I tell myself that this is normal, this sense that the world is moving too fast. Didn’t my father feel it when he was a child in the 1920’s, watching cars speed recklessly past the horse and buggy? Or was he whipped up into the excitement of it, as I was in my youth, when I thought ATMs and CDs were miraculous? Now I’m nostalgic for the pneumatic tube, and the canister that magically disappeared from my mother’s hands, then reappeared in the teller’s hands two lanes over.

I miss paper essays with staples in the corners, and half gallons of ice cream in rectangular waxed paper boxes, sprinklers attached to hoses, and the way a car key slipped into the driver’s side door. I’m tired of plastic bags and mylar balloons, I wish microchips would go the way of the Ford Pinto, and I liked it when dog breeds weren’t hyphenated. I like coffee in a mug and sandwiches wrapped in butcher paper. I don’t need to choose salted butter from five different countries, nor do I need forty types of toothpaste. Don’t get me started on passwords.

Can you keep up? That catchy pop music phrase spins around in my brain almost daily. Can you keep up? It’s been a long time since that song came out, so you probably won’t catch the reference; maybe you weren’t even alive then. Anyway, it’s an important question. Sometimes I wonder if it’s an invitation or a threat. Sometimes I wonder.

Memory
by Diana Donovan

The Finnish have a word for drinking at home
alone in one’s underwear: Kalsarikänni

so why can’t we come up with a word
for the first time we felt loved

or for the way skin smells
after swimming in a lake?

How about a word for the sensation 
you feel when an airplane takes flight

or the moment you’re about to do 
something you know you’ll regret?

There should be a word for the dread
of visiting your mother in the nursing home

because she might not know you anymore
and where would you even begin—where?

We’re living in wild times, dear reader. Is it just me, or does everything feel like it’s moving and changing very quickly? Tech advancements—especially AI—seem to be moving at the speed of light. And some days, I feel like I can barely keep up with all the various apps that send me messages (and you want me to join you on Slack too?). So it only seems fitting that this week’s prompt is about nostalgia.

The prompt today is one that really resonated with a lot of my participants, and produced a wide variety of responses. It offers that wonderful surprise that only generative free-writing can bring, what Pat Schneider called the “diving board,” in her book, Writing Alone and with Others. She writes:

Today’s diving board is the following prompt about the term “nostalgia,” and the ways its meaning has changed over the years. Read the short paragraphs below, and write in response for 20 minutes, whatever comes to mind.

What I wrote follows the prompt, and Dawn Potter’s poem finishes off today’s post.

Enjoy.

The Prompt:

Nostalgia was once thought of as a treatable mental illness, and its symptoms included loss of appetite and a desire to return to one's home country.

When we think of nostalgia today, we tend to think of sentimental childhood memories, often associated with bittersweet joy; however, during the Civil War, it was known as a perplexing condition that, according to the Jeffersonian Newspaper, was a frequent killer of soldiers.

Many newspapers reported the symptoms of nostalgia at the time. One popular paper, the Cleveland Morning Leader, described a soldier talking in his sleep, hallucinations of wartime, and insanity. It discussed how without treatment—in this instance, being sent home—he would likely have died by suicide. The Plymouth Democrat wrote of soldiers sinking into “utter inaction and depression” in an “epidemic fashion.”

Over time, nostalgia became less an acute homesickness for a specific place, and more a sentimental longing for the past. Nostalgic memories, often partially recalled, usually evoke pleasant associations and simultaneous regret at the passing of time. But 160 years ago, nostalgia was almost a virtuous illness to have, because it showed that you cared about the right things.

What I wrote in Response:

I can't help it: I miss the old days. I liked it when you had to sit and talk on the telephone, before there were speaker phones, before they all went chordless. I liked having a server come to the table with a check, not simply swivel a screen in your direction, or direct me on how to use the kiosk or the QR code.

I liked it when cars didn't drive themselves, refrigerators didn't beep or tell you the temperature, when banks were places people went inside, sat down, and talked quietly. When crosswalks didn't light up, and planes served free food (and only offered one movie).

I can still remember how everyone had to be ready by 7:00 p.m. to watch TV on one of only four channels, how we shushed one another because people understood that you had to pay attention or you would miss an important line of dialogue. There was no rewind button, only commercial breaks and intro credits, and no such thing as cable.

I know it was a complicated time too, politically: glass ceilings and school bussing and people fighting for gay rights. Seatbelt safety was in its infancy, and there were no airbags to save your life. But because there was no GPS, you had to watch the road, to pull over, to ask for directions. You had to pay attention to landmarks and street signs and the numbers on the buildings. "Do you have any white out?" my guy asked me recently, and I thought, Now that's a man after my own heart. But of course, I didn't have white out. Do they even sell it anymore?

Don't get me wrong, I don't miss waving my hand at the white liquid drying on the typed page; I fell in love with the delete button on the first Apple “Macintosh” when they included them in the brand new computer lab on the top floor of my college library. I thought floppy disks and CDs were magic. And I still remember the first time I used an ATM and felt like I was in the Jetsons. But it all went downhill from there.

I recently heard someone say that AI can't replace craftspeople and laborers, and I thought, Not yet. However, would I have preferred a friendly robot to the emotionless face of the young woman at the coffee shop today? Most likely. Especially when she said, "We'll be there in a minute," sounding very annoyed, as if we customers were an inconvenience.

In a recent study that placed robot companions in retirement centers, every elderly person said the thing they loved best about their mechanical roommate was that they were always friendly and polite (and always laughed at their jokes). People say something similar about self-driving cars: they follow the traffic rules. I wonder how they’ll feel about robotic dogs when they are used regularly by the police and the army.

It's a weird and scary new world, but it’s the only one we’ve got.

Nostalgia
by Dawn Potter

It was darker then, in the nights when the cars
Came sliding around the traffic circle, when the headlights
Speckled with rain traveled the bedroom walls
and vanished; when the typewriter, the squeaking chair,
the slow voice of the radio stirred the night air like a fan.
Of course, the ones we loved were beautiful—
slim, dark-haired, intent on their books.
The rain came swishing against the lamp-lit windows.
The cat purred in his chair. A clock sang,
and we lay nearly asleep, almost dreaming,
almost alone, nearly gone—the days fly so;
and the nights, like sleep, disappear without memory.   

So the prompt today is two-fold: First, read about von Bingen’s life, and then listen to her song, "Spiritus Sanctus Vivificans" (translation: “Holy Spirit; the Life-Giving One”). Then, for 20 minutes, write anything that comes to mind.

You can find the prompts below, followed by what I wrote in response, and finally, the poem, “A Summer Night,” by Kate Barnes.

Read more

This week’s writing prompt is offered in response to all the flowers in bloom during this season. For years I’ve brought flowers to my writing groups, passed them around the circle, and asked everyone to interact with each blossom as an individual object. We take time to smell the flowers, hold them up to the light, twirl them between our fingers. Some of us take notes: then we write. This prompt encourages us to explore how flowers bring up memories, images, and stories of sex, love, death, romance, apologies, and of course, reproduction. These themes often lead to some very emotionally rich writing. And since I can’t pass flowers to you through the screen, I offer them to you virtually, in the video below.

But first, this week’s quote, by artist Georgia O’Keefe:

The Prompt:

Take some time to write in response to the video above, and enjoy the power of the time-lapse photography of flowers blooming. After watching the video, write for twenty minutes, anything that comes to mind.

What I wrote is below, followed by the poem, “The Poet Visits the Museum of Fine Arts,” by Mary Oliver (from her collection, Thirst).

What I wrote in response:

I've been lucky. Nearly all of the places I've lived as an adult have had an outdoor space. My current deck isn't the quietest; traffic rolls by noisily on Burnett Ave, people often scream at the nearby bus stop, and my neighbors seem to enjoy chatting on their cellphones loud enough for the whole world to hear. Still. I have times in the morning when everything is quiet, except for birdsong, when I can sit at my little table and drink my tea, and read or write for a while. I am sometimes visited by hummingbirds, and the occasional ornery scrub jay who likes to hide circus peanuts in my plants for another day.

"You live in Twin Peaks?" people sometimes say. "Oh, it's nice up there." The cynic in me wants to tell them about the endless rows of identical apartment buildings from a big development in 1969, the crappy aluminum windows, the fog, the wind. But I think they're talking about being up high, and being surrounded by so much nature. There are a lot of creatures up here, and wildflowers bloom most of the spring and summer.

Even so, I sometimes still long for a garden. Whenever I had one, I always worried about it; rarely did I end a day of pruning and planting and simply sit and take in my creation. But there was always something satisfying about opening the drapes, or walking someone to a small table outside, and knowing that what was growing was growing there because I had planted it. "Anyone with a green thumb is a witch," my friend Sam used to say. He was Wicca personified. I laughed, but I think I understood the magic he was talking about. You only have to grow sunflowers from seeds—those giant stalks and huge golden faces—to know what it feels like to give birth to something beautiful. Or a lemon tree that finally takes root, a lilac bush that is so fragrant you can smell it when you open the kitchen window.

When my friend Nina died, everything around her house started to bloom. The jasmine near her front door that was always scraggly and small, the camellias that were often fussy about blossoming in January, even the tree draped over her driveway burst with tiny white flowers that smelled like honeysuckle. I had visited her at that house for 20 years and never remember that tree blooming. "Please don't bring me cut flowers so I can watch them die," she often said. "Bring me a flowering plant I can put in the ground. Something that will live on after I am gone."

The Poet Visits the Museum of Fine Arts 
by Mary Oliver

For a long time
     I was not even
        in this world, yet
           every summer

every rose
     opened in perfect sweetness
        and lived
           in gracious repose,

in its own exotic fragrance,
     in its huge willingness to give
        something, from its small self,
           to the entirety of the world.

I think of them, thousands upon thousands,
     in many lands,
        whenever summer came to them,
           rising

out of the patience of patience,
     to leaf and bud and look up
        into the blue sky
           or, with thanks,

into the rain
     that would feed
        their thirsty roots
           latched into the earth—

sandy or hard, Vermont or Arabia,
     what did it matter,
        the answer was simply to rise
           in joyfulness, all their days.

Have I found any better teaching?
     Not ever, not yet.
        Last week I saw my first Botticelli
           and almost fainted,

and if I could I would paint like that
     but am shelved somewhere below, with a few songs
        about roses: teachers, also, of the ways
           toward thanks, and praise.