I was moved by this note a friend of mine, Alexander Chee, sent to his brother. I encourage students to find other writing to respond to in their journals, anything they might find out there in the world that moves/interests/disturbs them. We used Alex's note as an example of such a prompt and wrote from wherever it sent us....
"When I started gardening, I had a little mantra that I would say over and over again, the good from the bad, the good from the bad-that's what gardening is. Accepting rot as the way to make what sustains. Accepting that plants die, and their descendants continue the beauty of their ways, the seed of their beauty never lost, passed on no matter the storms or cold or heat, always, returning with the year and the sun. I wanted just one thing, I think, to teach me that, and gardening was that. And now I can see it, trust it, give to it in other parts of my life beyond that patch of dirt out back. I am not saying there's no trouble ahead. But much like a steep hill covered in snow, trouble's just another chance to be lively in the world. I am saying, we are lively in the world."
