Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a scene from the screenplay Awakenings, by Steven Zaillian, based on the book by Oliver Sacks posted below. 

Our prompt was: “Where does the conversation go from here?”

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!

Please join us for our next session Friday June 3rd at 12pm EDT,  with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

Awakenings, by Steven Zaillian

INT. LEONARD’S DAYROOM – NIGHT
Leonard, alone at a table with a book. He glances up as Sayer sits opposite him, then down again at the book. 
		LEONARD	I can’t read anymore. The 
	words are written too slow. 
	I keep going back to the 
	beginning, to the beginning, 
	and trying... 

He turns back to the beginning, tries again, his eyes moving too quickly across the lines, “ahead” of the words. His hands and head begin shaking out of control and it’s all he can do to close the book. 

LEONARD	
           I’ve let the others down. 

SAYER 
           You have not.

LEONARD 
           I’ve let you down. 

SAYER 
           You have not. 

LEONARD	
           I’m grotesque... grotesque... grotesque... 

SAYER	
           Leonard, I won’t sit here 
           and listen to you talk about 
           yourself like this -- 

LEONARD 
           Look at me.
 
He is a man consumed by illness. With a voice that is flat and limbs that are bent and hands that are twisted and a grimace that can only hint at the great depth of the despair he is suffering. 

LEONARD	
           Look at me and tell me I am not. 

SAYER 
           You are not. 

It’s over and Leonard knows it. And though he won’t admit it, so does Sayer. Leonard barely gets the words out -- 

LEONARD 
           This... isn’t... me. 

Hollywood Scripts, 1989.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we a read a short story The short arm of chromosome 4 by Frank Huyler, posted below. 

Our prompt was: “Suddenly it was clear —”

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!

Please join us for our next session Friday May 27th at 12pm EDT,  with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

The Blood of Strangers. Stories From Emergency Medicine. An Owl Book. Henry Holt and Company | New York 1999.

Short Story The short arm of chromosome 4 by Frank Huyler

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem The Rolling Saint by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, posted below. 

Our prompt was: “Write about a time you kept going.”

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!

Please join us for our next session Monday May 23rd at 6pm EDT,  with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

The Rolling Saint by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Lotan Baba, a holy man from India, rolled on his side for            
        four thousand kilometers across the country in his quest for            
        world peace and eternal salvation.                  

  —Reuters
                                                                            
He started small: fasting here and there,
days, then weeks. Once, he stood under
a banyan tree for a full seven years, sitting
            for nothing—not even to sleep. It came
            to him in a dream: You must roll
            on this earth, spin your heart in rain,
                        desert, dust. At sunrise he’d stretch, swab
                        any cuts from the day before, and lay prone
                        on the road while his twelve men swept
            the ground in front of him with sisal brooms.
            Even monkeys stopped and stared at this man
            rolling through puddles, past storefronts
where children would throw him pieces
of butter candy he’d try and catch
in his mouth at each rotation. His men
            swept and sang, swept and sang
            of jasmine-throated angels
            and pineapple slices in kulfi cream.
                        He rolled and rolled. Sometimes
                        in his dizzying spins, he thought
                        he heard God. A whisper, but still.

Source: Miracle Fruit (Tupelo Press, 2003)

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem Heavy from the poetry collection Thirst by Mary Oliver, posted below. 

Our prompt was: “Begin your writing with ‘That time I thought…’ or Write about taking the time to linger.”

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!

Please join us for our next session Friday May 20th at 12pm EDT,  with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

Heavy from the poetry collection Thirst by Mary Oliver

That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying

I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had his hand in this,

as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel,
(brave even among lions),
“It’s not the weight you carry

but how you carry it –
books, bricks, grief –
it’s all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,
put it down.”
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?

Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?

How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe

also troubled –
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at a dance video The Choreography of Care concept by Christy Stoeten & Sarah Kim, MD, posted below. 

Our prompt was: “Write about how you move through your day.”

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!

Please join us for our next session Monday May 16th at 6pm EDT,  with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

The Choreography of Care concept by Christy Stoeten & Sarah Kim, MD

Core Team:
Concept by... Christy Stoeten  |  Sarah Kim, MD
Director/Editor… Sonia Gemmiti
Producer…  Sarah Kim, MD  |  Christy Stoeten
Director of Photography…  Katie Cooper
Composer…  Danielle Goudge, RN
Choreography…  Christy Stoeten  |  Sarah Kim, MD
1st Assistant Camera…  Yuri Markarov
Colourist...  Matthew Barnett
Sound Engineer...  Mark Rozeluk

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem Red Brocade by Naomi Shihab Nye, posted below. 

Our prompt was: “Write about what you might serve a stranger who arrives at the door.”

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!

Please join us for our next session Wednesday May 11th at 12pm EDT,  with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

Red Brocade by Naomi Shihab Nye

The Arabs used to say,
When a stranger appears at your door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is,
where he’s come from,
where he’s headed.
That way, he’ll have strength
enough to answer.
Or, by then you’ll be
such good friends
you don’t care.
 
Let’s go back to that.
Rice? Pine nuts?
Here, take the red brocade pillow.
My child will serve water
to your horse.
 
No, I was not busy when you came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That’s the armor everyone put on
to pretend they had a purpose
in the world.
 
I refuse to be claimed.
Your plate is waiting.
We will snip fresh mint
into your tea.

Copyright © by Naomi Shihab Nye. Used with the permission of the author.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at a performance titled She – Spoken Word by Deborah Emmanuela, a poet and artist from Singapore, posted below. 

Our prompt was: “She…”

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!

Please join us for our next session Monday May 9th at 6pm EDT,  with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page

She – Spoken Word by Deborah Emmanuela

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at a scene from the HBO film production of Angels in America directed by Mike Nichols and written by Tony Kushner, posted below. 

Our prompt was: “Describe your own heaven.”

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!

Please join us for our next session Friday May 6th at 12pm EDT,  with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem Some Feel Rain by Joanna Klink, posted below. 

Our prompt was: “Write about a time of wonder.”

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!

Please join us for our next session Monday May 2nd at 6pm EDT,  with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

Some Feel Rain by Joanna Klink

Some feel rain. Some feel the beetle startle
in its ghost-part when the bark
slips. Some feel musk. Asleep against
each other in the whiskey dark, scarcely there.
When it falls apart, some feel the moondark air
drop its motes to the patch-thick slopes of
snow. Tiny blinkings of ice from the oak,
a boot-beat that comes and goes, the line of prayer
you can follow from the dusking wind to the snowy owl
it carries. Some feel sunlight
well up in blood-vessels below the skin
and wish there had been less to lose.
Knowing how it could have been, pale maples
drowsing like a second sleep above our temperaments.
Do I imagine there is any place so safe it can’t be
snapped? Some feel the rivers shift,
blue veins through soil, as if the smokestacks were a long
dream of exhalation. The lynx lets its paws
skim the ground in snow and showers.
The wildflowers scatter in warm tints until
the second they are plucked. You can wait
to scrape the ankle-burrs, you can wait until Mercury
the early star underdraws the night and its blackest
districts. And wonder. Why others feel
through coal-thick night that deeply colored garnet
star. Why sparring and pins are all you have.
Why the earth cannot make its way towards you.