Daily Nourishment for March 1, 2024: Places and Their Stories with Toni Morrison and Megan Dohm

Daily Nourishment Read Time: 40 seconds
Pause/Prompt/Practice Time: 13 minutes


How many stories does this place hold?

Pause.

Read this quote from Beloved by Toni Morrison:

“Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it's not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it's gone, but the place--the picture of it--stays, and not just in my remory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don't think if, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. Right in the place where it happened.”

 

Prompt.

Here’s an excerpt from “The Lost Midwives of Ocracoke” by Megan Dohm:

“Ocracoke is a small slip of an island off the North Carolina coast. It’s a place where some of the houses were built with timber stripped from shipwrecks, a place with countless stories of lost sailors, of German U-boats dangerously close to shore, of a beheaded pirate swimming laps around the wreckage of his ship. The memory of storms has soaked into the roots of trees, into people, and into the low tide silt — the kind of storms that demolish two churches, two schools, and 30 houses in less than a day, and leave drowned chickens up in the trees.”

 

Practice.

Set a timer for 10 minutes and begin writing about a familiar place. Using the quotes above as guides, describe the place with unique and specific details. Maybe some of these questions will help you determine what to include:

  • What sets this place apart?

  • Which stories does this place hold?

  • What does this place remember?

  • What has this place forgotten?

  • What do you see in this place that others might not see?


Today’s Daily Nourishment was provided by Charlotte Donlon.

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Daily Nourishment for March 2, 2024: Rain in Literature with Kazim Ali, Colson Whitehead, and More

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Daily Nourishment for February 29, 2024: Gregory Orr and Poems That Move Us