Writer Wednesday (Friday Edition)
Hope, or, the Lotus in the Mud.
This one is a couple days late but just in time for No Kings Day. If it’s your first time joining in - just write. Don’t think too much about it, follow the first impulse that comes to you and Go!
I live in a (warning: understatement coming) politically charged area: Los Angeles, CA. The City of Angels. My wife and I receive curious and concerned emails from around the world, asking us how we’re doing. Are we okay? What’s happening here seems impossible to comprehend, unless those people themselves who write have lived through or are currently living under an authoritarian regime, which some have.
The National Guard and 700 Marines - Marines! - have been moved into our city. My former castmate, Danny Baldwin, has a very different take on this than I do. He believes the Trump regime is handling this excellently and is doing everything in its power to restore justice and hold the line against the ‘chaos’ that it seems to be creating. But, from where we live, which is many miles from Paramount or Compton, or downtown LA, Trump wants violence so he can justify more violence. More violence is good - then martial law can be invoked on the eve of his birthday celebration, the Military Parade, or whatever.
But, BUT! There is the outside chance (see above subtitle), oh Danny boy, that the agitators that have been burning Waymos and throwing bricks will be policed by the peaceful protesters and organizers. That the vast numbers of non-violent, democracy loving citizens will continue to shine as the forest for the trees. Trump won’t get the violence that he needs, AND his regime will continue a drip, drap, drop collapse with tomorrow’s worldwide outcry.
That’s what we are about today, on Writer Wednesday...Friday Edition!
No, silly, not authoritarianism - Hope!
Hope. Hope for a better day. Hope for a better life, better leaders, a better relationship, hell, a better PB&J sandwich.
What does it look like? What does it feel like? Like the subtitle suggests, it’s the Lotus in the Mud.
#1: Write a little bit about the somatic feeling of hope. Where does it reside in you right now? Or, does something outside of you that you see, taste, touch, or hear spur it on? Is it a sense? Something you feel is human and intuitive? Do you trust it? Is it real hope or false hope? Does it matter? Does it depend on a positive outcome to be valid?
#2: Write a short story; a sentence, a paragraph, or a page. Describing a moment of hope, without ever mentioning the word. You’ll probably need to describe the mud as well, or what hope arrives into, or pops out of.
Main thing: stay away from sentimentality or lessons of any sort - this Hope could be an instance, or something that may last longer and transform yourself or others, but for practice sake - show it in your writing, don’t tell.
Good luck! Keep going word after word, and keep it peaceful out there if you hit the streets!
There was a young girl from the Midwest
Who sang songs of hope and protest
And though she tried hard
To support the vanguard
Some days her soul was distressed
She’d stopped going out on the streets years ago. Stopped going to protests. What was the point? You marched. You chanted. You waved your placards. They still won. It made no difference. They ground you down in the end. Nothing changed. Why put yourself through this, her husband would ask, and after a while, she started to agree with him. She started to believe it was futile even to try and change things. They were too big, too strong, and her knees weren’t what they were. But there was something about these kids, goddammit, these kids and their energy and the way they refused to quit, the way they went out in the streets in all weathers, the way they would not let themselves be cowed or intimidated. They reminded her of herself at the age, when that fire still burned within her. They reignited something deep inside and she knew she couldn't stay indoors anymore. She couldn’t just sit in her apartment and watch things be ripped apart. She had to do something, give something. So she went into her kitchen, and she did what she knew how to do best - she baked. A simple cake, apples, cinnamon, and a little brown sugar. She waited until it had cooled and then she packaged it up and took it to them. She felt a little foolish bringing them cake, these students who were putting themselves and their future on the line. It felt too small a thing, too small a gesture. But they accepted it with smiles on their faces, they recognised her need to feed them for what it was, and they devoured that cake, every last mouthful, as somewhere far away in time someone with a guitar sang: “Una mattina mi son svegliato, O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao ciao ciao” and she knew in that moment that she could not go back to her apartment, her husband, her kitchen. She would stay with them. She would stand with them.