Writing as belonging

We aren't alone in this endeavor

Kubo Shunman, Pocket-Books, 19th century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929, JP2044

For years now I have thought of my teaching as the practice of creating little pockets of belonging in the classroom. I want the students I work with to feel as though there is always room for who they are, who they are in the process of becoming, and who they hope to someday be.

To that end, I make a point of asking thoughtful questions and listening deeply when students speak. So long as what they say doesn’t in some way diminish anyone else, I withhold judgement and welcome a multiplicity of views. A sense of belonging doesn’t only arrive when others agree with us—it also comes from feeling confident enough to have constructive disagreement. Where there is belonging and trust, creative friction can lead to growth.

There is a fullness to the kind of belonging I’m talking about. You can feel utterly bewildered by the world—and yet still have a home inside the space we’ve built together.

My desire to create these pockets of belonging stems from my own writing practice over the last twenty-five years. Whether alone in a room alone with a laptop or with a notebook and a pen in a busy coffee shop, I am at home when I write. I see my practice as a kind of gift I give myself—the chance to be nothing more or less than what I am. I arrive at the blank page with no real ambition. No expectation of progress. Just the slow pleasure making something with words that wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t given myself permission to follow my instincts and dream.

The benefits of such a practice, I would hope, are self-evident. Even the smallest of creative acts can engender deeper understanding, compassion, and love—for ourselves as well as for one another. And in a time like the one we’re living in, where every day brings a fresh reason to despair—where you can wake up as we did Sunday morning to another war—it’s all the more important to nurture these aspects of ourselves. A better world first must be imagined in order to be enacted and sustained. In our varying capacities, the work of doing so belongs to us all.

So we write to come home to ourselves. The more we learn, the more we have to offer. It’s a beautiful equation.

I share these tentative thoughts in anticipation an upcoming event I’m offering through 27 Powers entitled “Writing as Belonging,” where we will explore what it means to see writing as act of situated belonging. The event is online, Saturday, March 7, from 10 am–12 pm PST. Registration details can be found on the 27 Powers site.

For those interested, here is a brief description:

For writers, a sense of belonging often begins in a room alone, perhaps around the edges of the day—early in the morning, late at night—when the world is quiet. We string words into sentences in the hope of finding our way by telling stories that will eventually connect to another reader or listener.

Belonging also arrives when we gather with others to share our creative discoveries. In the solitude of our dreaming across the page, we encounter a process—and a point of view—that only other writers can fully appreciate. The power of an image. The artfulness of a well-placed punctuation mark. The necessity of acknowledging our own and one another’s feelings.

In this special two-hour afternoon workshop we will engage in generative writing activities around the theme of togetherness, share insights with one another from our work, and reflect on what it is that drives us to write for and among others in the first place. In short, we will begin the work of transforming our writing practices into acts of situated belonging—to ourselves, to the art form, to each other, to the world.

In this workshop you will:

• Have a chance to write imaginatively and reflect upon your writing practice.

• Share your ideas/stories and hear the ideas/stories of others

• Gain a new perspective on your writing practice that is perhaps more purposeful and expansive.

Writing is so solitary—this is a chance to be a writer among writers. To share, commiserate, explore, reflect, and remind ourselves we aren’t alone in the endeavor.

I hope to see you there!