Wall Update
I’ve spent the weekend buried in a book doctoring project, spending hours and hours with the same manuscript. Last week in a couple of my classes, I talked about voice and I keep thinking about things I forgot to mention, things I am remembering just by spending all of my waking hours with this one writer. I am 180 pages in with 58 left to go. I’ve never met this writer in person but I now feel like I’ve known them for years. I know their writing weaknesses and strengths like I know my own, their clever go-tos, their slips when fatigue takes over. I wouldn’t want to take on such an intense critiquing project every single weekend, but I’m glad to be in this particular manuscript right now.
And this means that today is a good day for a wall update post which requires just a few minutes to snap photos and then post them. This continues to be the project that keeps me grounded and steady and I’m thankful for the practice. But I daydream about a day when the wall takes a turn to only joyful drawings.
And one more thing before I go back to the manuscript I’m critiquing.
Last week, I was meeting with my co-leader for the resistance writing group and we talked about Minneapolis and peaceful resistance and the hope we can find in what they’ve done in response to the ICE situation. She talked about the history of singing as part of resistance and the joyful and comforting purpose it serves. With that in mind, I bring you this beautiful moment of resistance:
As always, thank you for reading.
Oh my, Cindy. This post was so much more than just a few new photos of your incredible Wall Project. Zooming in on them, one by one, I feel like I just had a visceral tour of the last year and what, six weeks maybe? Or was it six months? It’s hard to know, or to feel more accurately, how to catalogue a time that is so unbelievably unfamiliar and agonizing to track. But, it’s so important that we do track it, and your wall is becoming more and more of a touchdown for me. I’m sure for others too. And the mix of painful and hopeful and beautiful images is what’s helping me get through. Not denying the ugly, but also reminding us of what is in fact still beautiful about us and about this time in our history. And then that video….it is going to run in my head all day! Thank you, one of my most favorite songs. And thank you too for this work you do, I cannot tell you how much it means to me.
It's like making daily observations, getting yourself to think about something other than yourself and worries etc.