The Start/Art of Something New
a writing prompt for you + March Writing Hour
Welcome to Writing in Company. This is a community for you, whatever your experience with writing. It’s an invitation to write about what matters—grief, gratitude, grace, and more. Each week I share some ideas and a writing prompt, meant to be jumping-off points. Use the prompts however you like—to journal, to draft a writing project, as prayer ideas, or for another creative endeavor. If this one doesn’t resonate, look back through the archive for more.
In an off-kilter world, using our words can help us stay centered and move toward healing and wholeness. Writing in company with others saved me once. Let’s keep writing now, alone and together, and trust our words to help us see and say what matters.
I spent Sunday afternoon with a lovely group of women in South Carolina. They hold an annual “Mother Daughter Sister Friend” luncheon at their church where they surprise and celebrate one woman with a life award for her faithful service. I was invited to speak briefly about telling our stories, and to help them write and share a little of their own stories. I’m still wishing we’d had more writing time together. There are few things that light me up more than people bent over paper, writing what matters from their lives, and then being brave enough to share their words. The 30 minutes we had to write together was not enough.
I shared the idea that writing our own stories can help us begin to imagine new chapters and new endings. My introduction to the power of expressive writing was with fellow bereaved mothers. At the time, I couldn’t imagine any new chapters for my story that weren’t either bathed in tears or dissociated from my feelings. I was sleep-walking through my days. Functioning, but frozen.
Writing with that group, even just that first day, cracked open a sliver, letting a bit of light in—enough to keep going. Learning to follow my thoughts on the page, without editing or planning, showed me how to write about, and then past, the cold hard stop of Jack’s death.
One of the prompts the bereaved mothers’ group used that very first day of writing, was to choose from a collection of art and photos on the table—whichever one or two spoke to us. Then we wrote for about twenty minutes. I chose a print of a Degas painting. Here’s what came out of my pen all those years ago.
On Edgar Degas’ painting “Dancers at the Old Opera House”
I used to be a dancer. Way back when I was young. Was I ever really that comfortable in my own skin? Did I really feel free enough to move through space and time and music with grace? I feel so tight now. Closed in. Like I need to keep myself in control or I’ll fly off into space. If I started to spin I might never stop.
When did I lose touch with that ability? To let go and feel music and move, instead of thinking so damn much all the time? Was it when my body let me down?
Why can’t I let go of my head and let my body move? Let it feel? I think that there might be a little bit of heaven in dancers, a connection with spirit and light and joy and love.
I had a t-shirt back then that said, “To dance is to live.” Because I quit dancing, does it mean I’m dead? Dead inside. If I started to dance again, would I start to thaw and maybe, one day, live again? Be able to spin and move and laugh and love and finally rest? Tired out from dancing, instead of coping?
I read that piece now, twenty-two years after I wrote it, and I can still feel echoes of that frozen grief, tight and coiled. I can still feel the tears, hot and prickly behind my eyes. I can still feel all the questions I had. I can still feel how my hand cramped as the words and questions just kept coming.
And I can still feel the tiniest sprig of relief that germinated that day, writing about dancing again.
On Sunday, I told the group in South Carolina about that prompt and piece of writing. I described how, at the end of writing it, I put my pen down, and found I could breathe a little easier. A little like the dancer I used to be.
I didn’t realize it way back then, but it was the very beginning of a new chapter.
a writing prompt
If we were in a workshop together, I would have a series of art photos spread out around the room. I’d invite you to wander around, looking for the one that calls to you.
Instead, browse some of the highlights from the National Gallery of Art. Find a print that catches your eye. You don’t have to have a reason for choosing it. Then just start writing.
If you need a place to begin, start by describing the artwork. Then just keep writing, and see where it takes you on the page. Perhaps it will be the start of a new or necessary chapter.
March Writing Hour - Sat. March 29 | 4-5 pm Eastern
My next live writing hour on Zoom for paid subscribers is this Saturday. If you want to write in company with others, you are welcome to join in. You can upgrade your subscription for a month ($7) just to try it. A separate email to paid subscribers will go out with the link, or you can find it on my Substack tab called Writing Hours. Let’s write together.
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Lovely prompt. From the link you provided, my eyes landed on a painting called “The Last of the Buffalo,” except when I first saw it my eyes read the title as “The Last Buffalo,” which immediately prompted a feeling of sadness and loss to potentially write about. Dropping those two seemingly insignificant words—of the—was surprisingly impactful.
See you on Saturday.
My mother so loved all of Degas’ paintings of dancers, and I believe it had something to do with the fact that polio had interrupted her own dancing years. Thank you, Julie, for helping loosen something tight in my own heart as I remember—and write—about my mother.