Live Virtual Group Session: 12PM EST January 28th 2022

14 Comments

This session we celebrated our 200th Virtual Group Session held in English since we first launched the sessions to connect and grow community virtually during difficult and isolated times. We are so amazed and honored at the community that has grown around these sessions, the new faces we continually get to meet, and the dedication and generosity of our facilitators in donating their time to keep these sessions active and open for all of us as we continue into 2022! Thank you to everyone who attended today, and to everyone joining us at any point to share in this virtual space!

For this session we sat with an untitled photograph by AJ Cincotta-Eichenfield, posted below. 

The prompt for this session was: “Write about taking a chance.“

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 Monday January 31st at 6pm EST,  with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

Untitled by AJ Cincotta-Eichenfield

14 thoughts on “Live Virtual Group Session: 12PM EST January 28th 2022”

  1. Grace Ann

    It hadn’t been planned that she’d be on this date.
    She stood in line, patiently waiting her turn.
    Arrays of festively festooned pastries glistened behind the glass display case, winking their sugary promises at her.
    ‘Pick me— no, me!’ They each called.
    She wished she could pick them all, take each of them home to savor and enjoy slowly.
    But she was only in New York for this one night, for now, anyway. A stomach could only accommodate so much joy. Her eyes, meanwhile, could drink it all in.
    It was her turn.
    She stepped up to the dispenser and took her ticket, readying herself to decide, whenever her number was called.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • al3793

      Grace Ann,
      I love the personification of the pastries and the conversation going on. Every pastry fan wishes “pick them all.” Many times have I, undecided, announced to sever when my turn to order arrived, “I will have the…”
      Andre

      Like

      Reply
  2. Elise

    My mother gave me money, and all week I dreamed I would win. I dreamed of balloons popping, the cheering from the crowd who’d gathered behind me, a boy who could just barely see over the counter.

    The money was for milk and bread and eggs, staples to get us through until my father found a job again, or until my mother could get more hours. The money was under my pillow while I dreamed of the dart that would cut clean through balloons and change my life.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • al3793

      Elise,
      You captured my dream so well and it was one that was long to go away. I like how your story captures common reality toggling between reality and dreams in just a few lines. The reality of your speaker reaches deeply into the heart of the reader. Andre

      Like

      Reply
  3. Patricia D.

    Sitting on a park bench, waiting for the sky to burst with raindrops following a devastating drought…
    Maybe lightening will strike me and I will be electrified and energized to approach the stranger on the park bench next to me.
    I will take a chance and just do it.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    • al3793

      Patricia,
      Your story reminds me that something seemingly devastating can have such benefit as to “electrify” us such that we might take a chance on engaging someone who could turn out to be the most important person in our lives. Andre

      Like

      Reply
  4. michele348

    About taking a chance~~~

    What’s life about? it’s a game of chance!
    Each day is a game of chance… are you going to be struck by a bolt of lightening,
    are you going to run into an old friend you haven’t seen in 20 years?

    To live a life of the mundane, although it may be safe,
    shuts one off from new experiences, new adventures.
    To always second guess about “the road not taken”.

    Life is to be experienced – the good and the not so good.
    That’s how we develop as human beings, that’s how we come to understand each other, to trust each other.

    Take a chance today – it’s worth the risk.

    Like

    Reply
    • al3793

      MIchele,
      It is interesting that the lightning strike showed up more than once today. Whether a mundane day or one that brings new experience your speaker’s voice reminds me that all of them are to be lived. My default is to be grateful to have had a chance. Andre

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
      • Elizabeth

        In the carnival of life,
        We are offered many chances.
        Some are obvious to refuse,
        The odds are stacked against us,
        So we don’t even offer them contemplation.
        Others are so easy to accept,
        That it’s a no brainer to say yes.
        And then there are those
        That require some thought,
        But hopefully not too much thought.
        And sometimes,
        Despite fear and trepidation,
        We take a chance
        And emerge feeling brave
        As heroes in our own world.

        Liked by 1 person

  5. al3793

    Write about taking a chance…

    “Come one, come all
    Take a chance!
    Take a shot!
    Three darts for a dollar!
    Prizes!
    Win the bulldog with the blue hat and a smirk or
    the monkey too big to get home in your car…”
    And you break a balloon, maybe two and
    your choice is always one of the plastic throw-aways
    on the bottom rack.
    Its funny how a dart with a steel point can bounce off a rubber balloon.
    Resigned, I try again tho’ last year I committed to never do so
    But the little boy’s heart within, the eternal optimist prevailed.

    Like

    Reply
  6. Helen Mia

    Write about taking a chance…

    Taking a chance was a wonderous fairground of the past
    bursting out like popcorn
    Ravenously eating the smorgasbord of different cultures
    and beauty
    serendipitous happenings
    full of surprise and unexpected coincidences
    unfathomable chance meetings inspiring and right
    And then in an instant
    the assumptive world changes

    An imperceptible chapter that wasn’t automatically assumed
    an unfamiliar terrain
    A cast forms around time and events
    Enflaming the what ifs
    that weren’t there before
    Cast iron gates have taken up residence shielding against risk
    at the borders
    A fragile stalactite suspended in limbo
    waiting to evaporate and speak
    Yearning to take a chance in a different kind of lyric

    Like

    Reply
    • michele348

      Excellent word choices and phrasing give the reader a sense of motion, energy, and aliveness in your first stanza. Then the second stanza..where “casts forming, cast iron gates have taken up residence”.. brings life, motion to a standstill. And the anticipation of the stalactite waiting to resume its natural process.
      Excellent depiction of what the last 2 years of our existence have been like for many of us who inhabit this earth.

      Like

      Reply

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