"what we will become"

a Lucille Clifton-inspired meditation & writing prompt

Is anyone else out there always running late? Despite my best intentions and my carefully engineered plans to trick myself into being on time, I’m usually running late. I like to imagine that I’m endearingly frazzled. But one of my high school students told me recently, with a sly smile, that my new nickname was “Ms. Mohn’s Late” (aka Ms. Mohn-Slate). More proof that teenagers always have your number.

Dedicated to all my always-late kindred spirits, here’s a new year reflection prompt. It’s a Lucille Clifton poem followed by a meditation and writing prompt.

This is my first audio recording, which I hope might be nice for the poem and meditation part and allow you to “rest your eyes,” which is what I tell my kids I’m doing when I lie down somewhere for a few minutes and just surrender.

Find a comfortable place to sit, or do something mindless as you listen—something that helps you loosen your grip on the to do lists in your head, and let your mind wander.

birth-day

today we are possible.

the morning, green and laundry-sweet,
opens itself and we enter
blind and mewling.

everything waits for us:

the snow kingdom
sparkling and silent
in its glacial cap,

the cane fields
shining and sweet
in the sun-drenched south.

as the day arrives
with all its clumsy blessings

what we will become
waits in us like an ache.

—from The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton: 1965-2010, BOA Editions (2012).

Prompt

What “clumsy blessings” have come your way recently?

What do you love about where you are now? In this moment? In your life?

No matter how small or simple, think of one thing you really love. I’m thinking of people or rituals or moments…Try not to judge or analyze—just notice what comes to mind first.

What is one small way you might deepen or extend your interaction with that thing you love?

If it’s that you’re writing again after a long silence, you could also illustrate what you write (even if you’re a terrible artist like me). Or, you could commit to sharing a few lines with a friend periodically…

Reflect on that or write about it.

Now, go bigger with your thinking…

What waits in you like an ache?

Reflect and write about that.

Follow where your intuition is leading you with this one.

Try to resist making this into to dos—just reflect and write out words or images or questions that come to you.

Remember what Clifton says: “today we are possible.”

What does that mean for you?

What is waiting for you to name it?

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& Here’s our weekly “Do Nothing” thread…inspired by Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing: What “nothing” have you done recently that felt really good? What did you do (or not do) in order to open up time and space and connect with yourself, your actual physical environment, and/or others in real life?

In the comments, please share your nothings so we can celebrate them with you…