Contents of tonight’s Journal Club: haikus, free writing and lemon pesto tots. Organiser Fi runs through the ground rules:
CONFIDENTIALITY
SPEAK FROM I, NOT WE
STEP FORWARD, MOVE BACK
EVERYTHING IS AN INVITATION
BE KIND TO YOURSELF
It’s Wednesday 6th May, I’m in Hinterland Manchester at their monthly writing group. The theme tonight is ‘Living with Disturbance.’ First, though, a warm-up exercise.
RIGHT NOW, I AM FEELING…
...Good, ignoring the rubbish parts of life and remembering everything I have to look forward to. Granted, no day is perfect, and today is like any other. But essentially, I’m feeling gratitude for family, a steady job and freedom to come here.
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Next, we talk about the meaning of disturbance, throwing out key words and phrases for the board.
CHANGE
CHAOS
INTERRUPTING
PEACE
JUGGLING
DISCOMFORT
Next, a prompt:
MY RESPONSE TO THE IDEA OF LIVING WITH DISTURBANCE IS
Everyone has to deal with a little disturbance in their lives, otherwise we’d have nothing to strive for. I was watching a video of Robert Greene about a prince in some faraway land, hundreds of years ago, who had everything handed to him on a plate. Guess what? He was massively miserable. The staff around him couldn’t figure out what was the cause of such upset. It was because he had nothing to strive for. Nothing to motivate him. That’s why they’ Royalty like Prince William, have jobs flying helicopters etc. That’s why Harry (formerly Prince) was in the Army. We need a bit of disturbance to get us through the day. It’s when this disturbance becomes unmanageable that you need to ask for professional help. Don’t sweep stuff like that under the carpet.
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Gong.
Next up: a haiku, a short-form Japanese poem, arranged in a 5-7-5 syllable format. The title: ‘Disturbance is the Dance of Life.’ Here’s mine:
What are you doing,
If not striving for release
From your own mind jail?
We had a chance to read out what we’d written, and people seemed to like this one.
The next haiku challenge involves a series of suggested words to be included:
WEATHER
EDGE
WEIGHT
HUM
SHIFT
BREATH
SPACE
EASE
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I came up with 2:
We weather the storm
An admin task becomes
A demi-plie.
Without the crushing
Existentialist longings
I’m a potted plant.
Great session. I cannot find that ‘bored prince’ story anywhere, but I know it was Robert Greene who recounted it. Journal club is more than likely back the first Wednesday next month. Check Eventbrite for upcoming events.
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