Reasons to live through the apocalypse
Week 4 : find some
Hello friends
Here we are at the final week; I can’t thank you enough for taking part and sharing some of your lovely work on the Facebook group and in the comments. I’m off on hols this week, so if there’s any interest in doing a zoom to share work I will sort it when I get back after 27th August. Let me know if it’s something you would be interested in!
Our final prompt is a straightforward one. Find some reasons to live through the apocalypse. Nice and simple yes?
Let’s be honest, the world is a constantly shifting chaos machine right now. I used to be a consistent planner, thinking I could establish some order or wrestle some control from the gods of chaos. But the past few years have changed me a little and I find myself a bit unable to plan these days. I don’t think this is a bad thing really. As Elizabeth Gilbert says- “you never had control, you just had anxiety.”
Quite a lot of my work in recent years has, in one way or another, been about looking at positive actions in face of climate issues. As many of you know, a few years ago my friend and I set up a greengrocers and refill shop which we hoped would play a small part in changing things, and we like to think that it did.
It can be wearying and a bit soul destroying at times though. I burnt myself out by going full throttle, and and then was ill for a long time. I try to do things differently these days. When my friend and I were trying to keep ourselves and our shop afloat, we stumbled across the idea of “Active Hope” (there’s a whole book about it by Joanna Macy and Christopher Johnstone if you feel so inclined to check it out.) The whole premise being that hope is something you do not something you have, and is absolutely not the same as blind optimism. With this in mind, I make an effort to hunt out the good stuff to balance out the bad.
Prompt: find some reasons to live through tricky times
Using this prose poem by Nikita Gill as a starting point, can you write about some things that make you feel good? Write generally, and also write as specifically as you can, this is your list. Not just “watching TV”, name the program that makes you feel calm, or person or the thing. You get the picture. Yes I realise this poem is perhaps a little twee. But it’s a great starting point for writing; it’s nice and freeing to write a list. You can put it into shape afterwards if you like, or not.
I made my own list when I was ill; I call it my ‘breadcrumbs’ list in the hope that writing it all down is a good reminder for the way home when you are feeling too rubbish to do anything. It involves things like Singapore chow mein from A1 chippy and more wholesome things like planting Autumn bulbs to flower in Spring. It’s also got a song on it called “Don’t be Scared, I Love You” by Bill Ryder Jones I return to time and time again. I am going to try and do this exercise alongside you this week, because I never got it into a poem I was happy with!
(It really was never my intention to bang on about being ill so much, honest! I think it just comes up a lot because really that’s what made me start writing in the first place.)
Play with it
Go and actually DO something off your list this week! Mark it in the diary, and go do it.
Treat yourself and write outside one evening. Take your best mug or whisky glass or whatever and sit in your outside space to write your list.
Put on a podcast or song, put your phone away and just doodle whatever comes up. I like to pick out specific lines and write them down.
I hope you have enjoyed the prompts. I have genuinely loved reading the variety of responses. There’s no time limit to doing it, so if you have found yourself too busy some weeks then just come to them another time. My Substack will be here whilst I figure out which direction I would like to take it, but I will close the FB group in a few weeks. I’m hoping to start doing some more regular posting about writing and some playful, creative ideas for us to try and claw back some of our attention from our social media overlords.
Much much love, and frantically packing…
Em x
Apocalypse!
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