rebeccakuder

Step into the unknown

(Answer: A note and some foil that hid a banana cream pie.)
(Answer: A note and some foil that hid a banana cream pie.)

It seems I’ve been spending a lot of time lately in the unknown. Or maybe I’ve been here all along, and I’m just now realizing (or accepting) the way my feet feel on that cold, clammy ground.

Anyway, a couple of things I’ve read lately got me thinking that it would be okay to impose this idea on the students in my advanced creative writing class at Antioch College. (As with most of my teaching, I always feel like I’m learning more than my students, and certainly I risked imposing my shit onto my students in this case.) Last night, we tried this prompt, and I thought it would be fun to likewise impose my shit onto anyone reading this blog post. (If you try it, please post here about how or whether it works for you!) Here it is:

Writing prompt: Step into the Unknown

(inspired by Nick Flynn and Lynda Barry, February 2015)

Lynda Barry writes about the two questions that plague her: “Is this good?” and “Does this suck?” “To be able to stand not knowing long enough to let something alive take shape! Without the two questions so much is possible. To all the kids who quit drawing…Come back!” –Lynda Barry, What It Is, Drawn and Quarterly, 2008, p. 135

Nick Flynn, in his memoir The Reenactments, writes, “It was easier, when high, to take photographs than to write—photography requires focused attention, and I could focus when high, my world in fact was nothing but focused, reduced to a pinpoint, to a chunk of hash impaled on a pin. But writing requires both clarity and a willingness to step into the unknown, and there was nothing clear about my days, not then. Getting fucked up every day is about maintaining the status quo‑it has nothing to do with change, or the unknown.” (Nick Flynn, The Reenactments, p. 77)

If these ideas resonate, then writers must “step into the unknown,” and “stand not knowing long enough to let something alive take shape.”

Let’s try.

Start with a situation that you have in mind, one that is unknown to you. It might be something you are facing, a new phase of life. Or start with the phrase, “I don’t know” and do a freewrite.

rebeccakuder

A heart that beats for spring

Resurrection House XIII
Resurrection House XIII

This is the time of year when winter feels claustrophobic and oppressive, and although my brain knows, as Poor Will reassures us, that we have gained an hour of daylight since December 26, my psyche has trouble believing it. It’s when I start to yearn for spring, for the new life narrative that returns each year as things begin to soften and melt.

My daughter and I saw a robin in the redbud tree the other day; can it be counted as this year’s first? So early? I attach story to that robin, wonder how it could have landed, ruffled and fat, apparently unperturbed so close by the window that my daughter can’t help opening to say hello. The equinox can’t be far off.

This year, in addition to newness and hope, the equinox will bring Resurrection House XIII, an anthology of which editor Mark Teppo writes, ““Thirteen” is the first month of a new yearly cycle, wherein the old skins have been shed and the newborns are still learning to walk.” A short story of mine will be included, and I’m excited to see what else it holds, rising from the ground, between those pages.

(Any reviewers out there? I understand there may still be review copies available at Edelweiss.)

rebeccakuder

Turns out you can teach an old cheerleader new tricks

(That would be me.)
(Some of my best friends used to be cheerleaders.)

I’m at least ten years late to the party, but today I went to my first Zumba class. I love dancing, and I rarely do it; dance parties don’t abound these days. (That needs to change!) The Zumba class was hard, and I was often getting down in the wrong direction, but who cares! The dusty cheerleader inside me was reawakened today. Back in high school, way before MC Hammer ripped off Rick James’ riff, our squad did a pompom routine to Superfreak, before we even really understood the nuances (nuances?) of that song. Today, that superfreaky girl shook the hell out of her behind. At forty-eight, grin on my sweaty face, I am just grateful I still have a behind to shake.