Write like you're running out of time
Welcome back to 'This Dream is a Poem,' where we talk about dreams, poems, and all the places where they intersect.
“Breathe-in experience, breathe-out poetry.”
Muriel Rukeyser
Hello dear readers,
I have heard from some of you this summer, and you have told me that you need some inspiration for your writing.
Readers, so do I.
You’ve been following along with my posts this spring and summer, so you know this has been a time of big losses for me. And I know that so many of you are dealing with personal challenges and/or losses, too. Not to mention the collective chaos that we are all grappling with.
What I’m finding in the midst of all of this is that sometimes I have to sink down into the ‘ugh’ before I can find what I need to lift myself up.
So here we go. First I’ll share what’s going on over here. Then we’ll dig deep for some inspiration.
We can do this. Together!
Describing the scent of grief
Here’s one thing that inspires me: Discovering new words.
I learned the word petrichor during one of the three trips I took to New Mexico this year. I’d been traveling back and forth to spend time with my soul-friend in Santa Fe, who last fall was given a prognosis of about nine months to live.
It had just rained, and I stepped outside to go for a walk. "Smell that?" my friend's wife asked as we walked along a quiet road through the desert.
I inhaled the sweet, earthy scent. It was hard to put into words, except that for me, it was the scent of aliveness in a landscape that is so often mistaken for dead. “That’s called petrichor,” she told me.
Petrichor, it turns out, is the word for how the world smells after it rains. But for me, it will always mean something more particular than that; it’s the smell of the desert after a storm.
(What’s the word then for the scent that lingers after tears have fallen, watering grief so someday something else can blossom inside?)
I had tucked my new vocabulary word away.
And then, three-quarters of the way through reading the book I’d brought along on my last trip to Santa Fe as airplane reading for my final visit to my friend, there it was again:
“Someone told me once that explaining grief is like trying to describe the scent of petrichor. How do you tell someone how you experience the smell of rain?”
—Shelly Jay Shore, Rules for Ghosting*
What word or words would you use (or invent) to describe your experience of grieving?
When I lose hope, I turn to my friend for inspiration.
Although anyone who knew her well knew that my friend Aja was a poet, she only claimed poetry as her own in the last few years of her life.
As her time here dwindled, Aja devoured every class, book, craft talk, and author talk on Poetry that she could.
She used whatever strength and energy she had left to write Poetry.
She pulled Poetry to her in a mamma-bear hug and didn't let go.
She spread out beneath the rays of Poetry, like a greedy sun worshipper.
She watered her body and her soul with poems.
She fell in love and she married poetry, and pledged herself to it, “Until death do we part.”
Write like you’re running out of time
This week:
If you are grieving as I am, water your poems with your tears.
If you are happy and feeling blessed, put the beauty you see and the gratitude you feel into a poem.
Write like you married Poetry and will not break your vow.
Write like you are a mama bear and your poems or stories are your cubs. Stand by them, protect them, feed them, and love them.
Write the most honest poems that you can.
Let your writing be funny, let it be maudlin, irreverent, relevant, or relentless.
This week read poetry, write poetry, and celebrate poetry—like you are running out of time!
In one of my last texts to Aja, I told her my poems had been rejected by an online journal where I had really hoped to be published. I thumbed out my long whine to my friend, and said I was throwing in the towel.
And she texted back:
“Sounds like keep going.”
My friends, take this good advice. Keep going! Keep writing! Keep being thoroughly, unapologetically, wholeheartedly YOU!
May you dream write, and be well,
P.S. If you know someone who might enjoy this newsletter, invite them along!
I’m going to Stay Home and Write the weekend of August 22-24
Join me!
Time really is running out on this one:
We start soon, so register today.
In this low-cost Write-at-Home retreat, you’ll write at home at your desk or in the park—or close to home: at a local café or library—it’s up to you.
You don’t have to book a room, board a flight, or pack a bag! Just get comfy in your favorite chair and enjoy a weekend of focused writing, prompts, encouragement, and community.
Work on a big project or just get in the flow with daily writing prompts and virtual check-ins with a community of other writers.
This is a live interactive Zoom retreat, with ample time to connect with others in real time on-screen, balanced by plenty of time off-screen to write and relax on your own.
Beginning Friday at 4 p.m. US Eastern Time through Sunday at 4:30 p.m. US Eastern Time.
“ I highly encourage anyone curious about the power of your written words to turn to Tzivia for incentive, instruction, and guidance.” Sylvia, Canada
* Recommended reading: I read Rules for Ghosting, by
I'm sorry for your loss. This is a lovely piece of encouragement, though.
I would love to talk to you. Do you still frequent amherst. Love to meet at yoga sometime. Just a thought.