words

PROMPT: READING AND ITS IMPORTANCE TO YOU AS A WRITER

The prompt for the weekly meeting began with a reading from the book A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, by Betty Smith.

OH, MAGIC HOUR WHEN A CHILD FIRST KNOWS IT CAN READ PRINTED WORDS!
     For quite a while, Francie had been spelling out letters, sounding them and then putting the sounds together to mean a word. But one day, she looked at a page and the word “mouse” had instantaneous meaning. She looked at the word, and the picture of a gray mouse scampered through her mind. She looked further and when she saw “horse,” she heard him pawing the ground and saw the sun glint on his glossy coat. The word “running” hit her suddenly and she breathed hard as though running herself. The barrier between the individual sound of each letter and the whole meaning of the word was removed and the printed word meant a thing at one quick glance. She read a few pages rapidly and almost became ill with excitement. She wanted to shout it out. She could read! She could read!
     From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood. There was poetry for quiet companionship. There was adventure when she tired of quiet hours. There would be love stories when she came into adolescence and when she wanted to feel a closeness to someone she could read a biography. On that day when she first knew she could read, she made a vow to read one book a day as long as she lived.

The prompt is to write on a moment when you recognized the new world opened to you as a reader, or more generally on the importance of reading to you as a writer.

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PROMPT: MOMENTS, NOT WORDS

Today’s prompt is from the book “The Book of Awakening”, by Mark Nepo.

Moments, Not Words

Like the moon,
come out from behind
the clouds! And Shine!
      – BUDDHA

When I think of those who’ve taught me how to love, moments come to mind, not words. As far back as grade school, when Lorrie wouldn’t stop spinning when recess ended. Spinning to a deeper, higher call she laughed, her little head back, her arms wide, trying to hug the world.

Then, the day Kennedy was shot, there was my choir teacher, Mr. P., crying for a man he didn’t know, letting us go home, but I came back to hear him play a sad piano to what he thought was an empty room. And Grandma holding my little hands open on her basement steps, saying, “These are the oldest things you own.”

Or the changing faces I would wake to at the foot of my bed while recovering from surgery. Or my father-in-law watering black walnuts six inches high that wouldn’t be fully grown for a hundred and fifty years. Or my oldest friend who always listens like a lake.

Though words can carry love, they often point to it. It is the picking up of something that has dropped, and the giving of space for someone to discover for themselves what it means to be human, and the forgiving of mistakes when we realize that we’ve done.