grief

The Story Doesn’t End

May 31, 2022

CBAW had our Memorial Day observation reading yesterday. Ten veterans/service members, many of whom I met during very very difficult times in their lives, came together to perform and hold space for the particular grief that is especially tied to the camaraderie of military service. During the month of May CBAW’s visual art programs were dedicated to a collaborative art project of remembrance for Memorial Day. Designed by Joe Merritt and Ashy Palliparambil and assembled and marketed by CBAW’s own Rob Haney, nineteen artists contributed tiles. You can buy a print here.

the shadow is

May 13, 2022

From The Wild Unknown Archetypes Guidebook by Kim Kearns:
“We often think that The Shadow can be purified, illuminated, and made right through effort and achievement. However, it is typically the case that our lofty pursuit of ascension and perfection is the very source material of the shadow itself.”

Here here, everything is fine

July 23, 2021

The headlines are apocalyptic: the subways flooding, the wind on fire, the heat, the drought. And also: this week I got a pedicure, kissed my son’s cheeks which he tolerates, sat by the pool with my mother and sister ate so much ice cream. I walked IN the river and got up the nerve to…
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The poem I meant to write

August 29, 2020

The poem I wanted to write is crouched in the dark under the table, it crawled out of its skin and curled its fist around a pen. Yes, the poem I wanted to write wants to write a poem of its own. I moved a sofa into my study so I can lie down and cry between line breaks. And now you are worried, want to know if I’m okay. No, I am not. But neither are you.

These times are no more or less extraordinary than others.

May 2, 2020

I have been reading Annie Dillard’s ought-to-be-a-classic book For the Time Being very slowly. It’s a book that warrants the rereading of pages. There’s this one passage I’m totally stuck on. I’ve been reading it to everyone–in workshops, over the telephone. The passage calls me again and again. Here it is: There were no formerly…
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Talking About Trees

June 9, 2019

Dearest friends, I’ve got a fundraising campaign going for the next month–CBAW is trying to match a foundation grant. If you can help us out, or know someone who can, please consider passing the information along. Here’s a link to the campaign. With the help of the community, we can bring art, music, improv, and…
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This Week

May 12, 2019

This week I got my hair cut and got news of a suicide and news of a murder and cried in the car and drove over a bridge with my mother and son and read a poem in the state capital and stood in a circle of magnolia trees on the verge of blooming and…
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Dealing with our parents’ grief

January 20, 2019

A couple of weeks ago I had a phone call with my friend Joy and we talked about what we’d planned to talk about quite efficiently and then got into the things we wanted to talk about. Poetry and poems and writers we love and writing we love. Before I hung up, I’d ordered another…
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For Granted

June 27, 2018

We spent the weekend doing the things we like to do: playing cards, cooking big meals while dancing around, pranking one another, visiting the turtles, acting dumb at the grocery store, turning on one in changing alliances of two. It was our last weekend together at home before my older son leaves and it’s been…
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Sweetness & Its Source

June 20, 2018

Tonight I’m doing two of my favorite things–eating a delicious dinner with fantastic people and leading a writing workshop with unsuspecting participants. It’s a stacked day, it will be my fourth writing workshop of the day. That is a sweetness I almost cannot believe. There are a few tickets left, please join us at the…
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Tag: grief