College

~*~
aww: 2/03/16
prompt or not: college
~*~

Carol, this is just silly.

Why are you having a hard time writing?

Is it because you will be reading aloud your writing to others?

But that's one reason you're so excited about tonight's workshop.
Because you won't be writing alone.
You have witnesses, human witnesses.

You will read this piece aloud.
Others in the workshop will listen.
These "others," whom you have grown to know and love and admire over the past almost-seven years.
Yet the only two I've ever met face-to-face are Fred and DeAnn.

That's true of many authors I read.
Through their words, I get an essence of their lives.
I vicariously live their experiences and their stories.
I ponder their perspectives.
I witness, from afar, the changing landscapes that they have lived and that continue to unfold.

The writers with whom I've shared and they with me, we are sojourners together.
Among these artists and poets and lovers of life, I am allowed to be.
My writing is allowed to be.

That's what life is all about.
Being.

I recall the first piece I wrote in the Authentic Writing Workshops.
It included a part about a sea bird standing on a million dollar pylon.
The pylon was part of a pier that jutted out from its million dollar home along the waters of John's Pass near Madeira Beach, Florida.
I saw the bird perched on the pylon from a boat where I sat as it floated down the Pass toward the Gulf of Mexico.

That seems like a lifetime ago.

It was in May, 2009.


What about college?