Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we took a close look at the painting The Masterpiece by Norval Morrisseau, posted below. 

Our prompt was: “Complete the sentence – When I behold the world, my inner eye sees _________.”

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 June 13th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

The Masterpiece by Norval Morrisseau

Copyright: Estate of Norval Morrisseau

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem Things Haunt by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, posted below. 

Our prompt was: “Write about what’s in the mirror”

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 June 8th at 12pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

Things Haunt by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza

California is a desert and I am a woman inside it.
The road ahead bends sideways and I lurch within myself.
I’m full of ugly feelings, awful thoughts, bad dreams
of doom, and so much love left unspoken.

Is mercury in retrograde? someone asks.
Someone answers, No, it’s something else
like that though. Something else like that.
That should be my name.

When you ask me am I really a woman, a human being,
a coherent identity, I’ll say No, I’m something else
like that though.

A true citizen of planet earth closes their eyes
and says what they are before the mirror.
A good person gives and asks for nothing in return.
I give and I ask for only one thing—

Hear me. Hear me. Hear me. Hear me. Hear me.
Hear me. Bear the weight of my voice and don’t forget—
things haunt. Things exist long after they are killed.

Copyright © 2018 by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on December 11, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

For this session we read a poem A Eulogy by Tania De Rozario, posted below. 

Our prompt was: “For everyone…”

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 June 6th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

A Eulogy by Tania De Rozario

for everyone poked so full
of holes, their own voice passes
through them, history escaping
the body in a series of echoes.
 
for everyone distilled into colour
of skin, choice of pronoun, place
of origin, length of hair, years, skirt,
name, limbs, medical record.
 
for everyone made to believe
that the petals of persecution
have blossomed from the buds
of their own paranoia.
 
for everyone passed over in favour
of a name that seemed easier
to pronounce,  was less of an assault
to someone else’s comfort.
 
for everyone accused of prolonged
adolescence, scars on their arms
marking time like a calendar, body
taking itself into its own hands.
 
for everyone blamed
for the stare, grope, catcall, assault
that cut like glass into flesh as if
they had asked to be broken.
 
for everyone deceived
into dreaming, everyone who left home
and family to provide home
and family, returning with nothing.
 
for everyone pumped
so full of doctrine, the guilt which ate
into their bones made them believe
breaking them was the only way out.

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