Day 10: Carrie

  

Anticipatory Set-" So Glad We Made It" Re-Written:  By Carrie

Art by:   Amy 1

 See Song: from the "Spoonful of Sugars"

Back up percussion and harmonies:  Heather

("Is  their band's name sexist? We argue respectfully for a moment, with the robust vocabularies and miles of words we share.)  
The reference to gender comes after Nancy's lesson from yesterday on gender, as shown in the voices of  our writing. 
She even had females in our class, write as if we were male.  The one male, John, admitting just how
limited he felt, tried to write in a more feminine voice.  This is a man, who loves swords and
Rifle Club Associations,  We understand and love his "shitty attitude".
Considering voice in this way is fantastic!

I pause for reflection.

I am full of gratitude for  our  2014 OWP's members' wit and wonderful array of giftings. 
I have most recently begun a  gratitude journal,  from an inspiring lesson earlier in the workshop on the subject of "Gratitude" from Sasha.  Thank you, dear Sasha.
 I write:  "I am thankful for my new friend, Heather, who reminds me of some of the more divergent students in my experience.  I celebrate all of our differences and similarities, as I do with all the variety of learners in our OWP Leadership Institute.  We all have strengths and dare I say, the converse is also true."
 
Thank you, Margaret for your brilliance and  Andra, your practical wisdom.
 Amy 1, your Empathy, and our moment "In the Spirit" I will forever remember.
 Kim, your  love of your youngers. Jeanne, your homemade muffins and command of the English language are nothing short of inspirational. I am in grateful awe for the depth of Nancy's giftedness, Amy 2's honest humor, and my own ability to
sort through the messiness of the muddy, ashy waters, only rising to the surface with light and treasures. 
We are all coming from a wealthy treasure grove, places with darker and lighter "jewels" follow us into the rooms of The Oregon Writing Project.  This much has been so very evident.

 I begun writing last eve. (I might add for hours) only to find such frustrations at home with a half working phone (that dies all too often) and a computer without a printer. (it is still in our storage pod, as we are remodeling.)

 I suddenly am moved by empathy by this experience.  This must be what our students that are a. not blessed to own their own computers or phones b.  have time to work-out technical issues, because they are moving, or babysitting their 6 siblings must feel.  I am humbled, again, by the thought that my BLOG will be less than perfect.

Ugh!  Perfection Impedes My Progress, but I press forth!!!  I traverse further with a flag that says, "To funny!"

 And the beauty is that I didn't  flee, but fought through some of the discomfort the subject of writing makes me feel.  I am reminded of the occasional emotion writing stirs up and the bravery one must have to reflect on our lives, past and present.

So I press on........

Blessed by  the OWP participants.

I am thankful for today and Kim's activity of writing about our senses outdoors.

When we return,  Heather does not disappoint with a line she wrote, referring to the black crow, most of us heard, calling from above.  The writings of these black birds, were in this author's opinion better even than, do I dare say, Poe's 

The Raven ?

"Another herald for this day, with all its fullness." Heather does not dissapoint, as we are reassembled to a setting so unnatural.

I am disappointed to leave the sanctuary of a cool, damp lawn.  The smell of a summer, I long for.

Margaret, feeling something similar, about the black crow, describes its sound, and then the bright, August sun."The sudden sun jabs my left eyeball."
Andra adds confidently about the barrage to her ears, many more noises.
"Deafened, I wonder, (from the sounds,"Is this the sound of civilization?"
I want, at this point, to stop for the teachable moment and write a class poem about this fella pictured.

 

Nancy invented a new form for analyzing gender in the voice of writing. She began by walking us through the analysis of Japanese characters. She follows by plunging us into the meaty conversations about the evidence of gender, at times, even in something as simple as texts. (Is meaty a gender specific word, I wonder?)

If not meaty, then it was a weighty discussion we had. (No, not weighty, because weighty is definitely not feminine, right?, because women have fluffy conversations. I jest.)

I detect a wonderful, quiet "still waters run deep" character in this young woman (person). I think I'm going to ask her to be my new best friend. She is so cool!

Amy 2, said, "This is tough."

Andra said, "Not tough enough." And I think they are both right. Too often we teach "or". Similar to the Hebrews, we study the "and". Maybe, it's possible that we are all sometimes biased and sometimes not. Sometimes right and wrong. Sometimes teetering on the politically correct and incorrect, which morphs with every generation. "I like being called a lady" Andra says, but "MY lady, suggests that the lady is the man's possession."

I love this safe place, where differences of opinion don't prevent us from all becoming friends.

I was able to go to lunch with Dave, the young man, who earlier had an epileptic seizure.  We prayed together over at the Peace House. I am not lying when I say we prayed to unearth the "treasures within our infirmities", that each of us could develop some gratitude around our diagnoses.  I shared earlier drafts of the poems I will share below.

Our afternoon lesson was a trip and I don't know why I am surprised when the  Spirit shows up.  Especially when we "keep our treasures above (in altruistic ways), rather on treasures of materialism.  I think Jeanne must have prayed over her assignment, bcause without even knowing it......Jeanne took on the challenge of teaching us professionals, beginning with a writing prompt of????????. 

You guessed it! 

 Surprise!  

She led us through a lesson entitled: "Treasures". 

What she Jeanne didn't know is that

Amy 1 began this thread with a story of......

A bronzed sculpture she saw in the library this morning.

It looked this this woman diving (above)

Only, as Amy described Her Lady Scuplture

Her arms invoking help from the 

Celestials.

Daniel, with his clear sensitivities 

Having to search hard for his blessings

Deep down at the bottom of

His ocean

Poem 1 By:  Carrie McCoy 

( I tried to use as few prepositions, as possible, and wrote in a male voice, something I have never done)

My Lady

is not fat.

but ROUND,

as love should be.

She comes not

to bed

with a bag of bones, this time

not this season,

though she has.

"Thick and Thin",

I tell her, "I love you all the same".

She dives under our covers, 

feeling for me,

likes she's Goodwill hunting,

making me feel like

I am her most prized-possession.

She feels my roundness, as she whispers:

"Thick or Thin,

I love you just the same."

Robust backside

Ample breasts

I feel the weightiness of her love.

We plunge-

to the depths of the Crystal Lake.

Her replete body

Intertwining

with mine,

as we explore

the treasures of our

Round love.

Aho!