“Draft a post with three parts, each unrelated to the other, but create a common thread between them by including the same item — an object, a symbol, a place — in each part.” – Today’s DP Challenge

I am due to report on the results of using a contact form to get readers’ opinions about cairns – their artistic, functional and expressive functions. The short summary of what I learned is that their ephemeral nature is what makes them beautiful. They can be reassembled to suit the moment’s mood.

Weekly I lead a circle of women in prison writing their lives – for better, for worse, for creativity, for healing. Their piles of words express where these women have been and where they are headed. They speak to the moment’s mood. Their words can be reassembled, as I do each week by rearranging lines of writing into one united poem. This ‘found poem’ takes on a wholly new meaning from its respective referred-to-parts. The authors delight in the challenge to see where I will take the collective meaning of disparate and unrelated phrases and feelings from one week to the next.

Last night, I was treated to a surprise  reunion dinner in honor of my return to my writing roots among Women Writing for (a) Change writers in its hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio.  A third of our original Wednesday writing group from 20 years back reassembled itself around a corner table at a local Italian restaurant. As I surveyed the glowing and ageless faces of these women I love like sisters, women who are a part of me, I felt layers of years and shared experience pile higher and higher. A monumental stack of worded moments, laughter, meals, losses and dreams as testimony to our coming-of-age as a community of becoming-conscious women. Though on separate journeys, we remain joined by our shared passion for words. One moment, one mood, one meeting at a time.