Prompt: You’re going to have dinner with two people who have passed — famous or not. Who do you choose? Why? Write about your meal and conversation.
Dinner would be set in an old village vintage with stone and wood beams. There is snow outside and heavy coats are strewn about on the back of the chairs. Boots sloshing as skiers pass. In a corner there is a table set for three.
Who is sitting there? Eleanor Roosevelt and my grandmother. Our conversations are around generational trauma.
What stories are important to tell?
How do you comfort a breaking nation?
How do you protect yourself from what you feel is coming but you can’t see?
How do we nurture nature as we watch it become devalued and exchanged?
What should we pray for?
Do you feel you worked hard to make change?
When do we become elder?
What questions are the right questions?
What do you see happening now, that you can guide us to overcome in the days to ahead?
Do you see hope in us?
What song would you sing to me?
What poem would you praise?
Why hot dogs?
What prayers would you lift?
How do we heal?
Did you have doubt?
Did they call you strong?
It is the quietest of conversations. Not much is said. Instead, we held hands and sat in a small circle and acknowledged the answers were never the point. Holding onto each other and reaching out our hands made it safe enough to ask and the strength to hang on.
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