List Essays, 25 Things, Writing Prompts

In my last blog post, I mentioned a list essay, “25 things, post-election version,” by my friend and MFA classmate, writer Noria Jablonski, originally published as a note on Facebook the day after the election. I deactivated my Facebook account over the weekend (enough with all the cacophony!) so I can’t link to her note, but with her permission, I have shared it with both of my classes and also used it as the basis of a writing prompt (explained after Noria’s words). Here’s her list:

25 things, post-election version   //   Noria Jablonski· Wednesday, November 9, 2016

1. Normally I shy away from posting anything too personal, but this time isn’t normal.
2. A year and a half ago I was diagnosed with MS.
3. My professional life came to an abrupt end.
4. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, I currently have access to health insurance.
5. The medication I take to slow the progression of my disease costs $65,000/year.
6. A drug that has been used for years to treat cancer and rheumatoid arthritis recently showed promise for treating MS. That drug was not brought to market because the patent was about to expire.
7. I have profound hearing loss.
8. Hearing aids are not covered by most insurance companies (hearing aids are considered elective).
9. Healthcare should not be driven by profit motive.
10. Neither should education.
11. I became a teacher to help young people find their voices.
12. I became a writer to find mine.
13. “…it becomes strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature…literature does its best to maintain that its concern is with the mind; that the body is a plain glass through which the soul looks straight and clear.” – Virginia Woolf, “On Being Ill”
14. On a Saturday night the spring before last, I suddenly lost vision in my left eye. Everything went dim, grainy, colorless, as if the brightness, contrast, and color knobs had been turned all the way down.
15. A few days later my right leg went numb.
16. Before MRI machines, a hot bath test was used to diagnose MS (heat worsens neurological symptoms).
17. On a trip to Paris several years ago, I visited the library of Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot, who is most famous for his study of hysteria.
18. Charcot was the first to give a name to multiple sclerosis: “la sclérose en plaques.”
19. Sclerosis means hardening. It refers to scar tissue formed by lesions of the brain and spinal cord.
20. Nothing is in my control.
21. My body feels unsafe. I have been hurt physically and sexually.
22. “Everywhere in the world they hurt little girls.” – Cersei Lannister
23. My parents were Sufi. Sufism is a branch of Islam.
24. My given name is Arabic. It means light of womanhood.
25. I am not a terrorist.

Writing Prompt: inspired by two list essays: Noria Jablonski’s “25 things, post-election version” and my essay, “Things People Said: An Essay in Seven Steps”:

What are some of your acts of resisting invisibility? Write a list of 25. Include specific numbers when possible. Here are some phrases and ideas to get started. Remember this is just an option and you are welcome to freewrite in response to the Adrienne Rich quote (which I included in the previous blog post) or either of the list essays.

—Something someone said to you

—A year and a half ago,

—I have

—I became

—Normally,

—Before

—On a trip to…

—a quote from a writer, a song, a person

—I am

—I am not

—My parents

—A few days later

—On a Saturday night

Temporary Talismans

My penultimate essay for the Kenyon Review blog continues the theme I’ve been exploring of late—what we hold onto, what we keep. In this mini-essay I explore postcards and epistolary friendships with writers Holly Wren Spaulding, Wendy Call, and Michael Martone. I’ve never lived near any of them and our friendships grew in part out of writing to each other. I have a lot more to say about postcards, and can imagine expanding this mini essay into something larger.

Though I didn’t write about the above image for the KR blog, Kundiman, an organization for Asian American poets and writers, has a postcard exchange for its fellows every April. The Bruce Lee postcard is one I picked up at the Kundiman table at AWP. Actually, I picked up several and have sent some to friends, one to my brother, and kept one for myself to remind me of this about writing and life. The importance of being fearless. I see the postcard I gave to my brother when I visit;  he’s kept it pinned to a bulletin board in his office (he’s a Bruce Lee fan).

Postcards also make great writing prompts—I used this in the creative writing workshop I taught this week for teens (I read my essay at the instructor reading, too).

From my Kenyon Review essay:

A postcard arises from a quiet place, before picking up the pen—I think it’s about attention and intention, though there can be something breezy or even rushed, offhand about a postcard….Postcards are incomplete, imperfect, and often say something about one’s travel or daily life—they free us from the sense of having to write something extraordinary or profound. They are a first and only draft. For me, as a writer, that’s such a relief.…Read more here.

Upcoming: Spring Yoga & Writing Workshop

I’m looking forward to leading my next mindfulness retreat, a Yoga & Writing workshop with yoga teacher Erin Garvin at Midtown Athletic Club in Rochester, NY on Sunday, April 17th, 2016. Past participants’ comments have highlighted how valuable and restorative they have found these workshops. I love teaching them. 2016 is the fifth year that I’ve taught or co-taught a writing & yoga workshop.

Our day-long retreat will integrate motion and reflection, nurturing spring’s natural inclination towards metamorphosis. All levels of yoga are welcome; no writing experience is necessary. For more information or to register, visit here.  For more on my path of how I came to teach these workshops, click here to read an article in the UMASS Amherst alumni magazine.

   

Photographs As Writing Prompts

R took this photo of me by the Bay of Bengal (that’s his finger in the top left corner), when we had a break of a couple of hours between taking part in rituals at various temples in Tamil Nadu with his parents. The flowers in my hair came from these ceremonies. Looking at the vibrant colors now cheers me. Seeing vast Lake Michigan yesterday also made this earlier by-the-shore photo feel resonant two months later.

I’m at the Ragdale Foundation for a few weeks on a fellowship:  it’s a beautiful place to write and work. Yesterday, I met up with a former resident here, Michele Morano, and we walked along the shores of Lake Michigan with her young son. Michele is also a writer, and asked me what I was working on. I mentioned that I had brought with me a couple of folders of essay drafts, but that I couldn’t bear to delve into the messy drafts.

Over tea we ended up talking about our recent (December) trips to India. Michele’s descriptions of Delhi and Varanasi and all the details she mentioned (the ghats, the carnation and rose petals, the getting sick) brought back some of my own memories of my time in Tamil Nadu. I got to thinking about photographs.

A sculpture at a hotel where we had breakfast- showcasing modernity and planned obsolescence; an ancient culture and the Apple logo on a metal apple. The contradictions that are everywhere in India. That’s my mother-in-law off to the side, who always looks elegant in whatever sari she is wearing.

Before leaving for Ragdale, I had an appointment at the computer store to address the fact that I have four different photo libraries- it somehow happened from transferring what was on my previous computers to my current one. I had trouble even finding my recent photos from India. When I located the photos from our India trip, I glanced through most of the photos (I created an album), and it brought back some of my memories, too.

My first overseas travel with R. Again, the colors! Flowers floating in a brass pot of water. I don’t know what those bright red flowers are called. Do you? This photograph reminds me that it took me a few months after our wedding to decide I did in fact want to wear a wedding ring (I never wore a traditional engagement ring), but I knew I wanted toe rings to wear on my second toes, which signify that you’re married.

Look through photos from any particular time in your life and wait for one that suggests a story or that rises from the desktop a bit, that calls to you, talks to you, that you want to spend time with a little more. What made you take the photo in the first place?  What’s the story behind the image and within the person who was moved to capture that image in the first place? If you’re feeling stuck, look at photos. Write about one or two. These three captured my imagination when I looked back at them. I am writing about them now.

Words as Image

My guest post, “Words as Image,” published in the Brevity Blog discusses the origins of my essay, “Thank You,” in Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction. My post also refers to the use of imagery in an earlier essay, “Street Scene,” which was published in The Kenyon Review Online.  As a bonus, this post also includes a writing prompt.  Read it here.