We Are a Many-Feathered Creature

I’m pouring through drafts, tossing aside the brand-new, squinting sideways at the half-finished, circling in on the almost there. Me, hawk. I find the rising thermal of the blank page and sigh. Here, I can let go.

I want to write something beautiful for you. Something bursting with joy. I want to share paragraphs that twinkle with delight. Words that beckon coyly.

Aren’t you ready for something here that can help you soar above the crowd of to-dos snapping, up and up till thumb and finger become insect wings rubbing against each other? And as you float and listen to the chirping, you realize you left the heaviness churning in your center—the weight of finding you were deceived, of unsettling news from your doctor, of all the unnecessary suffering and terrible actors and deep fakes—down on the desert floor, for a bit?

What say I shape-shift?

If I were a wild animal I’d be a mare, flying across the plains, the smell of grass in my nostrils, heat pouring from them in clouds of steam.

If I were a wild animal, I’d be a humpback whale, striking out when the tilting of earth filters sunlight into the depths just so. I’d slide through miles and miles and miles of ocean to the song of warm, silky waters, where surface and seabed flirt with winks like diamonds, making me lousy with desire. Then heavy with heat and new life, I’d return to the velvet depths of my birth, surface dappled with icy floes, estranged from the floor by distance. Even I—who can thrust downward hundreds of feet, down and down till its cold fills me from baleen to fluke, like memory, till I turn and shoot toward the sky and slap my tail—can only sense that bottom.

If I were a wild animal, I’d be a lioness, leaping to nestle in the crook of a tree, strutting in and out of shadow, becoming the land in my stillness, sprinting just to taste the joy of sinew stretching.

Or maybe I’m still the hawk, dreaming, riding the air. Soaring with you.

If I were you, I’d be thrilled. Oh to follow the gossamer light of your curiosity. To surf your synaptic clefts and catch the waves of your neurotransmitters. To know what for you is skin of shore meeting tongue of sea. To feel the drum of your heart against my chest, the ocean of your belly spill from my eyes. To yearn at the bit of your tethers.

If I were you, I’d be a wild animal.

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Thank you for being here. If you follow me on Notes, you know it’s been a tough week or so. And that’s been true both for reasons I’ve shared and others I haven’t yet. Connecting with you here is a salve. Your likes and shares and restacks (I love it when you hit that little recycle button!) make me giddy. Our exchange of energy through you reading is my rising thermal. I’m glad we’re wild animals together, sharing space on this tiny planet in this snap of a moment.

Thank you to new paid subscribers. Your support helps keep this desk rolling.

Thank you however you subscribe. Your reading and listening give my words a home.

Today’s post marks an editorial shift for the Rolling Desk. The past few weeks, I’ve shared a series of reported stories on migration and US immigration policy and the faces and hearts of the members of our human family most directly impacted by it, “Sharks’ Mouths.” I’m pitching a series of related ongoing profiles. If you know of a good publication home or editor who’d be interested, I’d love suggestions or introductions. And stay tuned for a live interview with immigration activist Sarah Towle on turning outrage into action.

For the next few weeks, expect pieces on wildness and the many feathers of the creature that is you and me and spiders’ webs and poppies at dawn. Look for collaborations with two brilliant writers—Marya Hornbacher and Susie Mawhinney. Let’s untether together.

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For the comments, What kind of wild animal would you be? How’s your heart? If you dream of flying, what’s it like?

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Shout out to Paul Corman-Roberts of Caravan Writers Collective for the wild animal prompt, which he shared at one of Caravan’s free Saturday Write-Ins.

Which reminds me

(UPDATED) I’m hosting a handful of upcoming writing/editing workshops end of September / October I can’t wait to share.

— In Self-Edit Like a Content Editing Pro: Be Stunningly Concise

(a 3-hour intensive, just $75), TUES, SEPT 23, 3–6 pm PDT / 6–9 pm EDT

We take our work from good to stunning. Think Isaac Babel’s: “No iron can pierce the human heart as chillingly as a full stop placed at the right time.” Think Susan Bell’s, “Surprise is the editor’s drug of choice.” We make the music of language work in concert with meaning. We apply strategies for cutting to only what’s needed. And we work on beginnings and endings. Bring a WIP if you want.

— In Braid It! Writing as Weaving

(October’s first 3-hour intensive, just $75) (and for which there’s a EUROPEAN TIME!), US: WED, OCT 8, 3–6 pm PDT / 6–9 pm EDT / 8–11 am (Thursday) AEST; Europe/UK Version: Wednesday, 10/8, 4–7 pm BST / 5–8 pm CEST

We explore braided essays and stories—what makes them work and how to weave them in our own voice and style. We talk not only the shape and rhythm of the braid but as author Lily Dancyger puts it, “the kinds of stories that the shape and rhythm make possible”—how they can let us write what we can’t. We read and discuss. Then we weave.

— In Play Hard, Write Hard

(October’s bootcamp—3 days, 1 weekend, 2 hours each day, $225 for all three days), FRI, Oct 17, 4-6 pm PDT / 7-9 pm EDT & SAT & SUN, Oct 18 & 19, 11 am-1 pm PDT / 2-4 pm EDT

We discover how play can lead to seriously good work. Have a topic to write about, a story to tell but not sure how to get into it? Find a way in by way of form. Want to surprise yourself so you can surprise readers? Try doors you’ve never opened. Play Hard, Write Hard is generative and exploratory. Experiment with form, style, voice, genre, and more and leave with starts you can’t wait to finish.

I’d LOVE to see you in any of these.

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Your support helps keep gas in the tanks, mine and Vivian’s.

(You’re right. We all know she needs more than gas.)

Thank you for being here. I’m wildly grateful for you all.