Week 3 Journal + Prompts with ATS

+ some words on life being lifey

Reminder bbs. ——→Let’s try to do at least 5 fun and creative journal pages each week. And yes, some of what I will share will lean to poetry because it is National Poetry Month but all of them lean toward taking 15 tiny minutes to yourself a day –that's really only a little bit more than an hour. For you. I am just as guilty as everyone about becoming a TV junkie, a book reader or even a TikTok doom scroller especially when I'm stressed and anxious which is lately often. And sometimes for no good reason it feels like. But we can pull ourselves out of this. We can be creative.

Week 3

Let’s do a bowie week. I guess others have used this William Burroughs method for songwriting and poetry, but I always think of DB.

1. Let’s do it like Bowie did it/Cut-ups

Cut-ups are fun because you can prep the words and phrases over the course of a day or so, just writing down things as they come to you.* Or you can ask a friend to email or text you 40 or so random words or phrases.

The fun is in the tactile preparation too. I love the cutting and the scissors and the little paper tiles that remind me of those 90s magnetic poetry kits we all had. I love to see the pile of possibility before me. Take some time with your fave music and enjoy the excitement of what you are about to do. Essentially, it’s a discovery phase to writing. Or an excavation. It’s finding your magic. Even if you only find a little, it can take you a long way.

*Always have a countertop notebook at your house.

Sunshine thighs

Flashlight years

Sex weather

These are things

What about you? Tell us what appeared in the comments?

2. Let’s use Space Oddity by Bowie to create a new piece.
Choose some phrases or words from his lyrics as a jump off point.

Ground Control to Major Tom
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on

Ground Control to Major Tom
Commencing countdown, engines on
Check ignition and may God's love be with you

This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You've really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
Now it's time to leave the capsule, if you dare

This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today

For here am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do

Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles
I'm feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my man I love him very much, he knows

Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you-

Here am I floating 'round my tin can
Far above the Moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do

I am choosing: And there's nothing I can do for my jump off prompt today.
I will add it in the chat when I finish.

It's been a weird week. I could not write until now.
I just got back from Houston for work. I haven't really had to travel much since the pandemic and just l like I remembered it is very stressful. I did get to travel with my favorite work human and see my college friend, so it was not all bad, but as the plane took off, I cried so much because everything was so spinning and difficult right before I left.
I lost a friend last week.
School mom friend. Neighbor. Amazing woman. I have known her for over 15 years as we grew our kids up together in this same small town. I have incredible guilt because over the pandemic I lost touch with her. I mean, I saw her sometimes, but we really did not hang out like before. There were no parties, summertime walks, happy hours, school and sport stuff… It feels strange to know that she is gone, and her beautiful children are somehow lost a bit to the world. I know that feeling. I think about how death changes us all. We get lost. I will write about her in my book of death. After my mom died, I started writing down everyone who died that I ever loved in a little book. It is not as bad as it sounds, I think it is actually reverence and ceremony. My grandmother clipped and collected obituaries. I thought she was nuts. Turns out it runs in the family. I pull my finger over their names, and I am reminded to be here now. On my IN list of 2023 was to not to be obsessed with death and my partner is lovely to remind me of this when I start rambling, but I think about it way more than I should. Still.

Life goes so fast. I have a couple of people I need to reconnect with—I guess a lot if I am honest. It’s hard though. To find the time or energy to be like we used to be. For me. I get embarrassed of my ability to be reclusive now. I feel ashamed that I have let relationships wither. I am sad that some people don’t love me anymore. I tell myself that I am protective of my heart nowadays and of my time. But really, I feel like everything has been in a fugue state of sorts. I am not sure the exact moment I changed either. What has happened to so many years of now? Maybe we can’t hold on to so much as we age, we just walk the earth and behind us is littered love and loss like those tiny wild violets in the Ohio spring grass. They say they are weeds. I disagree. My children used to pick them and bring them to me.
My kitchen windowsill had tiny shot glasses of water lined up for the flowers to float.

& boys would say:

look mommy look at the purple flowers we picked for you love you mommy

I miss everything.
Spring is here for real.
Nobody should die in the spring.
And there's nothing I can do.

Love you guys so much,

Amy xo