Writers’ Day in the City

Writers need time and stimulation to create. A couple of years ago, our writers group decided to host our own writers retreat. A weekend to go somewhere away from family obligations and routines and write - together and alone, learn from each other, take ourselves seriously. After two years of going to Carolyn’s former step-mother’s beautiful house in the country, we decided to have a day in the city instead. The city being Austin, Texas. We chose four stops and each of us took on the task of creating a writing invitation. 

First stop: Thunderbird Coffee - Esmer had four idea-generating prompts. We took one, wrote our list for one minute and then passed it to the next person. Then we picked one thing from any of the four lists, or something totally different, and wrote for five minutes. The four prompts were:

• Words that remind you of inner power 
• Poem titles
• Memories you would like to download
• Places you have never been

12:01 A.M

Nothing good happens

After midnight

My grandmother always said

The police came knocking on her door

After midnight

With news of a car crash

Driver had been drinking

After midnight

Probably started before

Passenger wasn’t wearing a seatbelt

After midnight

Didn’t have a chance

The driver was

But this time, it wasn’t enough

The tree was too mighty and big

After midnight

The agony of a mother’s loss

The cry of a mother’s pain

Was overpowering and all encompassing

Like the night

After midnight

-Esmeralda

Our next stop was the independent bookstore Black Pearl Books. We did not realize that it is housed in the same location as the wonderful organization Ten Thousand Villages, a shop where artisans from around the world can sell their products at fair prices. Of course, we had to look around! 

Andrea’s invitation for us was to write down the titles of ten books, from any genre. Later we used the words in the titles to generate some writing.

There's a Revolution Outside, My Love.     

There's a Revolution Outside, My Love

We Do This 'Till We Free Us

till A Chorus Rises

till we tase The Sweetness of Water

till we see The Evidence of Things Not Seen

in The Anthropocene Reviewed

differences between us - 

Almost Zero

we Come in All Colors

Life's too Short, Gilded Ones

                -Susan

After lunch we headed to the Blanton Museum. Although Susan had some way for us to be inspired by the artwork in all of Blanton’s galleries, we only had time to visit Black Is Beautiful: The Photography of Kwame Brathwaite. We chose one of the pieces to imagine a conversation, either with us or between the subjects in the photos. 

You see me, you see you.

How you see me is how you’ll see you.

My eyes are your eyes.

My hair is your hair.

You see it?

This nose, yours.  

These lips, ours.

I am you and you are me. 

Remember that when you look into 

the eyes, the mind, the heart, the soul, the story 

of somebody who looks like me, looks like you.

If you can see me, you can see you.

And if you can see us, then it won’t matter if they can see us.

See us just as we are

Black. Is. Beautiful

-Andrea

     

 .   

Public school, Harlem, 1966

Males: We are looking to our future, away from our past. We are strong, we are confident in our worth as people, whether others are or not. We are determined not to depend on others to set our own worth or value. We are standing on the foundation those before us have worked so hard to lay down.

Females: We try to look confident and strong, but we are not completely sure who we are in this day and age. We want to stand proud and BE somebody, but we are also products of a society that judges our worth as females in a certain way - a way that doesn’t encourage personal strength or intellectual achievement. Even more, a society that holds black women to another place entirely. How do we navigate the conflicting demands of this modern age: being proud, free, confident, self-reliant, while also avoiding the clutches of the past with its diametrically opposite expectations?

                                                                                                                -Carolyn

Listen!

You ask me

Why am I behind a camera.

Not in front of a march,

Or at a counter,

Or on a bus.

My weapon is my art.

My weapon is my eye.

Through my eye

You will see beauty, 

you will love that beauty

    You will love the skin that wears it

And the heart that beats underneath it

You will love the beauty that is 

Black.

                            -Susan 

We ran out of time and didn’t get to see what Carolyn had planned for us at the Austin Public Library. But no worries! That’s the subject of next month’s post. 

Writing needs time and stimulation to grow. Anything can serve as stimulation - the plants in your house, your children, the sounds outside the window, even the dirty dishes. But time, we must steal time if we have to, even if it's just a few minutes, to make something of our words. 

Digital Courage by Andrea

cour-age (noun): the ability to do something that frightens one, especially in the face of opposition or adversity

Recently, I listened to a well-known radio host decrying what he calls “digital courage”- one’s ability to “say” things online that he or she would never say face- to -face or in polite company. There are many trolls  (as they are called) who camp out, waiting for opportunities to berate and belittle news reports, blogs and social media postings.  They look for any opportunity to pounce on someone’s pain or vulnerability.  And there are those who over-share, make unwise personal declarations or bully others because they feel “empowered” by the digital distance. 

As I listened, it hit me.  This is NOT courage.  Spewing hateful, condemning or personally offensive messages online anonymously or behind the veil of a ‘handle’ is the opposite of courage.  A more apt description, I think, is “digital cowardice.”

A digital coward is just like a 3D, walking-around coward: one who lacks the courage to do or endure unpleasant or difficult things.  The perceived digital wall makes people like this bolder.  Real-world cowards say nothing yet snicker and criticize behind one’s back. Virtual ones say as many hurtful things as possible for all to see.  But they do it from a hiding place.

The term digital courage belongs to all the brave out there vulnerably sharing their gifts, thoughts, and wonderings with all of us.  How many of us read blogs regularly (raise your hand… you’re reading one right now)?  I read them almost daily.  Blogs are a large part of the online, global community. We get to experience life with people we may never meet because of the prevalence of blogs today.  The same is true with social media sites as well.

Someone pressed ‘Post’ and decided to share some of their innermost thoughts, feelings and opinions all in an effort to make a connection, on some level, with readers.  The braves decide that it is important for the message, the art, the music, the innovation to be “out there” in spite of the fact that they may be opening themselves up to challenge and criticism.  This is true digital courage.  And we are better for it!

Courage does not mean the absence of fear.  It is pressing forward in spite of fear.  It is deciding that it would be far worse to keep one’s creation to self than to share it and endure the discomfort of negative critique and judgment.  And each time, courage presses ‘Post’, someone’s life is impacted.  Someone thinks.  Someone questions. Someone creates.

All art, especially writing, serves as either a window or a mirror for the observer.  Looking through the window, we get a glimpse of the heart and life of the one who shares. This enables us to relate to people, to connect rather than distance ourselves.  And when connection happens, empathy is conceived.  Then empathy gives birth to compassion.  Each time someone exercises digital courage, the viewer may get a clearer image of self, as with a mirror. We get to see ourselves in someone else’s story. And we learn to be kinder to ourselves or at times to push a little harder as not to give up.  Too many times to count, I have found my voice, the vocabulary to express myself, because of the words of someone courageous enough to press the button.  

This I know for sure: when we are courageous online, as well as off, we give someone else the courage to say “I will share my (fill in the blank), too.”  We are here to elevate- first ourselves, then each other. 

I vow never to use the screen as a hiding place, but as a place to encourage: to give active help or to raise confidence to the point where one dares to do what is difficult.

-Andrea