Tag: writing life
-
An unexpected conversation
Today I sat in community and nourishing conversation with independent business women, artists, solo practitioners—sisters in entrepreneurial endeavors. I brought with me my struggle with overwhelm and a question about finding and tending the energy needed to do my work with passion and integrity. I’m so glad I did. It was such a good conversation.…
-
moving with the stirring stillness
Spring is here whispering in my ear about possibilities and growing and how much she (somehow, I always think of spring as a young woman) loves waking up after a nice, long sleep. She’s so close, you know. Closer than the still monochrome landscape reveals. She loves this bit. The almost-ness of it. The yearning.…
-
{poem} in which I outwit my muse
(1st thought) The last one wrung me like an old washer. Left me flapping thin and ragged on the line. Transparent. Insubstantial. Unraveling. So I’m afraid, dear blank page, that the good ones have all been written. You’ll get no more wordscapes from me. (2nd thought) Unless… That wind-swooped strand over there. If I can…
-
{poem} in which a woodpecker saves me
Into the aftermath of blaring car accident near misses, thrum of impatience covered with sheepishly-offered smiles of good people pushed into temporary belligerence drops the tiniest sound full of curiosity and glee because late season goodness was found tucked into tiny gray-brown caverns in gnarled tree bark. she-tree slumbers on, roots holding fast aware she’s…
-
In the Belly of the Moon
I’ve written more poems by the glow of the bathroom nightlight than have ever passed through these fingers in daylight hours. With children and a husband sleeping, my options for daytime writing—and nighttime writing without waking anyone—are limited. So, the bathroom nightlight and I are long-time writing friends. Last night my mind was yadda yadda…
-
Don’t let the critical voices win
When I was in sixth grade, I started drawing an ever-expanding Halloween-themed picture. In a few weeks it went beyond a simple drawing into becoming a whole world. A story in images. Bewitched, I drew more sprawling worlds. In seventh grade, I found poetry. Words fell into and out of me creating images from language. I called them wordscapes.…
-
Writer’s Block remedy
Sometimes when life has tossed a challenge at me, I get stuck in hamster-wheel thinking. Churning the same thoughts and beliefs around and around. “Squeak, squeak, squeak…” Reaching the same conclusions over and over until I just wish I could pop my head off, give it a good shake, and snow-globe myself into a different…
Tracie Nichols 