Live Virtual Group Session: 6PM EDT June 24th 2024

10 Comments

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem “The Young ” by Roddy Lumsden, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about being young.”

More details will be posted on this session, so check back again!

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

Also, we would love to learn more about your experience of these sessions, so if you’re able, please take the time to fill out a follow-up survey of one to two quick questions!

Take the Survey!

Please join us for our next session Friday July 12th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions.

"The Young " by Roddy Lumsden

You bastards! It’s all sherbet, and folly   
makes you laugh like mules. Chances   
dance off your wrists, each day ready,

sprites in your bones and spite not yet   
swollen, not yet set. You gather handful   
after miracle handful, seeing straight,

reaching the lighthouse in record time,   
pockets brim with scimitar things. Now   
is not a pinpoint but a sprawling realm.

Bewilderment and thrill are whip-quick   
twins, carried on your backs, each vow   
new to touch and each mistake a broken

biscuit. I was you. Sea robber boarding   
the won galleon. Roaring trees. Machines   
without levers, easy in bowel and lung.

One cartwheel over the quicksand curve   
of Tuesday to Tuesday and you’re gone,   
summering, a ship on the farthest wave.

Credit: Poetry (December 2008)

10 thoughts on “Live Virtual Group Session: 6PM EDT June 24th 2024”

  1. Rita B

    About being young – Rita Basuray

    Oh! To be young again.

    Again? Did I ever stop?

    Frankly – let me be honest.

    Did I ever start?

    I was always studious and frumpy. Measured words before talking. Never mixed metaphors. Never lined up biscuit with scimitar (for example).

    For me, green was always placed between yellow and blue. Or, purple between blue and red.

    If I were youthful, I’d chuck caution to the wind and place aqua, orange and fuchsia side by side, without a care in the world! I’d be free!

    Like

    Reply
  2. Alice J. Vestergaard

    Really appreciated the close reading and sharing of this poem and all the wonderful discussion that ensued. Here’s what I wrote:

    Young – what is young these days, and who defines it? They say 70 is the new 50. our American society is seemingly obsessed with youth – and yet the grey wave is here and globally, the population is aging. They say as you age, one develops wisdom – but young people for the most part, are not interested in your wisdom – just like you were no doubt not interested in the wisdom of elders when you were young – unless you grew up in Asia or Native American family where the elderly are revered and respected. But in America, the elderly are warehoused, and the wisdom is kept hidden.

    Like

    Reply
    • michele348

      Yes, Alice, I agree, there’s so much wisdom and life experiences lost due to the “throw-away” attitude we have here in the US. When something or someone is “worn” or old, toss it out. Sad, but true.

      Like

      Reply
  3. rehavia6

    About Being Young

    When I was young 

    my life’s journey had not yet

    unfolded.

    I went where I was told,

    did not possess the power to stop the pain or

    make my own decisions.

    As a young woman I lacked

    the wisdom I have gained

    through trial and error 

    Over the years

    I grabbed the reins of my destiny and

    followed my own path.

    My mistakes were mine alone

    I review the twists and turns of a life 

    I could not have predicted.

    I have learned from every period and would not

    Want to retrace my steps.

    Like

    Reply
    • michele348

      I admire the responsibility you accept for all the positive and negative parts of maturing. Many of us, including myself, would wish to have a second chance granted to us, to do things a little differently the second time around.

      Like

      Reply
  4. michele348

    About being young~~~

    Young and innocent.
    The world was a vast pot
    of learning experiences
    that were continually being stirred up
    by the hand of life.

    Some experiences brought tears of joy,
    some brought tears of sorrow,
    but all forged me into who I am.

    I learned to listen and take in
    the knowledge of those around me.
    I usually kept my thoughts to myself
    unless they would bubble over and be shared
    with a parent, sibling, or friend.
    But often, my imagination worked overtime,
    exploring and discovering hideaways
    on my family’s farm.
    The “whys” and “hows” of most things usually
    kept my head spinning.

    I was not a risk-taker at that age…
    now I wish I could go back and
    “lean out and pull that brass ring off the hook
    on the merry-go-round ride” on every pass by.
    Taking chances often instills that spark of life
    that one needs to later maneuver through
    the more difficult parts of life.

    Well, that was then, the present is now.
    The passage of time has taught me that each moment of life is that
    “brass ring” opportunity.
    You better lean out and grab it
    because we only have one trip around
    on this ride.

    Like

    Reply
  5. Mattia Rosso

    When is it that mindless youth ends, and wise old age start?
    Is it a single epiphany? A meteoric catastrophe?
    A Roman milestone leading inevitably to the heart of the empire?

    I sit and think surrounded by memory how this applies to those of us

    Who were born with an old soul? Will age reverse time and space?
    What about those forced into young adulthood for the whimsies of chance?

    Being young? What does it mean? An endless question.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.