Every May, AWA workshop leaders across the globe bring writers together. Leaders help AWA raise funds by offering donation-based writing groups. Proceeds from each session support AWA and its mission. New writers experience the AWA method and celebrate the unique creativity in each other’s voices.
Write Around The World 2024 is nearly here! Check out this year’s event calendar and sign up for your chance to produce some great writing, engage with a supportive community and experience the magic of AWA. We’re offering groups nearly every day!
This writing was done in Deb Lembach’s workshop “Write Through the Mess – Practicing Creativity During the Unexpected” during last year’s WAW.
Objects Come Alive by Linda Barlow
I had no friends, so I made the objects around me come alive.
Come to think of it, they weren’t my friends, either, but they kept me company – at least they didn’t belittle
or bully me. They left me alone, though they never answered back when I called.
Or cried. Mostly cried. Or, really, a silent sort of cry – not the one with actual tears, but the one that’s more
melancholy and resigned.
That one. That one behavior that got me labeled as “shy”.
No. Not “shy”. Just quiet.
Well … not really “quiet” as it was “nothing to say”.
Well …
… not really “nothing to say” as much as “having all sorts of things to say and too scared to say them for
fear of being belittled and bullied” (as alluded to, earlier).
I still wrestle with that feeling. Except, now, I’m the one doing the belittling and bullying.
Not fun to be around.
In my search for acceptance outside myself, I keep looking up and out and around and beyond.
Then a bird will fly across my sightline.