I want my whole life to be made up of moments like this.
Sunlight streaming in on a desk with some plants, a pen and a pad of paper, and a tealight.
Hey friends.
The other day my phone started ringing in a strange, old-school way like – briiing-briiing. The screen said “Shoshana Sperling.”
This was strange. Shoshana is someone I’ve talked to a couple times. She runs a very lively community space across town that I have admired from afar. I was surprised that she wanted to FaceTime me, and from the confusion on her pixelated face, I could tell she was too.
“I think you just pocket dialed me.”
“I wasn’t even touching my phone!”
“You weren’t?
“No, just started ringing!”
“Your phone was ringing? My phone was ringing!”
“What? Who called who?”
We quickly gave up trying to explain it.
I said, “OK, I need to go in a sec, but will you tell me something delightful first?”
Shoshana is born for this question. She’s hilarious and wise and her soul is full of stories. She dove right in.
The night before, a friend had called her in a panic. The friend’s son was on his way home from prom, and had taken too many magic mushrooms. She was terrified that he was losing his mind. She knew that Shoshana facilitates plant medicine ceremonies and really can hold space, so she asked her to be with him. Of course, Shoshana went right over.
She set the scene for me: Blankets, soft pillows, an eye mask, soothing music. She got him as comfortable as she could and talked to him in a low voice.
Shoshana said, “I just sat with him, all night. He was absolutely fine, he had just lost his ego for a while. All he needed was for someone to be there with him.”
Is this doing something to you?
I felt my nervous system soften into caramel as she talked. I felt the tender gravity of genuine care taking, the way we can drop an anchor for each other when we find ourselves in choppy seas. I thought about how, at some point in all of our lives, we need to fall apart. And how, when we’re lucky, someone is there to sit with us, until we’re ready to come home.
We floated there for a while, in the ordinary miracle of her story, and then we hung up, brighter.
I want my whole life to be made up of moments like this.
You wouldn’t think so if you were watching me though. More and more I let the phone go to voicemail, or decide that the event across town is too far to leave the house for. I muse that it's age, or Covid, or my personality. I suspect it’s part of a bigger shift that we’re only on the edge of understanding.
But I know it’s not just me. There’s a new word going around — cancel-elation, the joy that comes from having someone else cancel plans.
How did we get here?
Not to get too metaphysical here, but actually — conversations like this are why we’ve survived as a species for so long.
Evolutionary biologists explain that it was through sharing stories that we learned to trust and work together, and that was our huge advantage when it came to survival. We aren’t very big, or fast, or strong, but we are really good at working together. And sharing stories is how we do that.
Stories let us open to one another.
Stories let us grow in each other’s wisdom.
Stories let us keep each other going.
This is what my new workshop Writing Our Way Back to Each Other is about.
It’s a new class this summer, created from my own longing to understand how much I want to be in deep, rich, human connections, and also how much I resist it.
This will be a space where we can start to unpack our histories of belonging and loneliness, to explore what we’ve learned from each, and what it means to reach for community now, in this big, often-lonely world.
If you’re with me in that, or if you just want to see where words want to take you this summer, our latest workshops are below.
We also run simple morning writing sessions every weekday at 9am, and we love working 1-on-1 with writers who need an anchor.
Tuesday workshops
Rising Tides is a workshop for people with projects on the go who want to get seriously (and joyfully) productive.
Keep Your Pen Moving will give you the fuel to kick-start your writing voice, or find it for the first time. (This one is in person.)
Wednesday workshops
The Fiction Workshop will give you structure and support for the next steps of any fiction project.
Permission Slip is a big, sweet invitation into the summer you are craving.
Writing Our Way Back to Each Other will help you ask what community means in this moment, and how to see it newly.
Thursday workshops
Brief Bursts will show you the joy of very, very short stories, and help you write some of your own.
The Life Stories Workshop will help write some of your seminal stories, with structure, feedback and encouragement.
Our summer large format offering
Seven Swimming Pools is a large-group program (so less sharing, less connection, and less price) to help you try on a bunch of different approaches to writing as the summer unfolds. Each Firefly coach will run one session.
Should we run a membership program?
We’d love your thoughts.
We’re keeping our survey open for a couple more days.
And, of course — a poem.
I found this beauty by Danusha Laméris this week, and I’m sharing it with everyone.
You know… Just being here takes a lot of creativity.
I think the reason Shoshana’s story impacted me so much is that there was such intensity there, but also, maybe every encounter is a practice run for those big moments.
We realize that the person who cut us off in traffic is a dear friend, and we can’t stop laughing. We trip on the sidewalk, and when we look up, a concerned face is glowing like a daytime moon. We go to the event, even though we don’t really want to, and walk home brighter.
Or maybe sometimes the phone rings for no reason, and we answer it, and then we figure out what comes next.
Here’s to all the ways we hold each other up.
In it with you,
