Daily Nourishment for August 11, 2024: Objects of Grief
Daily Nourishment Read Time: 35 seconds
Pause/Prompt/Practice Time: 10 minutes
"I Still Have Everything You Gave Me"
by Naomi Shihab Nye
It is dusty on the edges
It is slightly rotten.
I guard it without thinking.
I focus on it once a year
when I shake it out in the wind.
I do not ache.
I would not trade.
Prompt.
Set a timer for five minutes and write about an object given to you by someone you don’t see anymore.
Practice.
Throughout your day today, notice the objects you interact with in your home. Which of them have been given to you? Which would you like to give away–today? Tomorrow? On your child’s 25th birthday? On the day of your nephew’s wedding? At the end of your life?
Want More?
Read “Lament” by Edna St Vincent Millay
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—The August Co-Writing Schedule is live.
—Spiritual Direction for Writers® + Enneagram for Creativity Gathering will take place on Saturday, September 28th. Recordings will be available if you can’t join us live. You can register here.
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Today’s Daily Nourishment was provided by Catherine Ricketts. This Pause, Prompt, and Practice were originally shared on April 11, 2023.
Catherine Ricketts is an essayist, songwriter, and writing instructor. Her nonfiction on the arts, grief, joy, and spirituality appears in the Kenyon Review Online, the Ploughshares blog, Electric Literature, The Christian Century, Image, The Millions, Paste, and the music blog for the NPR-affiliate WXPN. She studied writing at the University of Pennsylvania and holds an MFA in nonfiction from Seattle Pacific University. Her first book is The Mother Artist, a work of literary nonfiction on motherhood and artistic practice. Find her on Instagram at @bycatherinericketts, or stay in touch via her newsletter.
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