My favorite day of the week is Thursday. Specifically, Thursday at 5 o’clock because that is officially when my work week ends, and it is also the eve of the day when I live out a fantasy I’m just beginning to admit I have — to write full time.
I call it a fantasy because I’m not sure I want it to be reality. I’m afraid I’d get bored, and even though I’m a flaming introvert, I believe I’d grow lonely. Also, I’m afraid I’m not THAT good to write full time.
Fridays are my writing days though, and so they feel like my pretending days too. I’m learning I love this fantasy. I love playing pretend. And come Thursday evening I have no problem at all stepping into that role
Nickels Alley, an old-time mall in between buildings in downtown Ann Arbor, is the path I take each week to enter my writing world. There’s a barber shop with one of those candy cane-looking things out front, a florist shop, and an antique shop among the quaint, nostalgic stores that line the cobblestone street. There’s a glass atrium strung with twinkle lights above and walking underneath them, I think, “I have my very own Diagon Alley just a few blocks from home.”
I walk down Nickels because this is the way my daughters take to get to their dance class, and I guess I feel connected to them because they too are moving towards fantasy. They too are trying on a role and seeing how it fits. For Hadley and Harper, it’s dancing; for me, it’s writing, but we all walk along this path. Built in 1918, it hearkens to another time, but a hundred years later it serves as a reminder of beauty and imagination to hold on to, to wonder about, and perhaps to think about how we might bring that imagination and beauty forth today.
One evening, as we walk together, the girls and a friend — another dancer — sing “Telephone” by Lady Gaga and Beyoncé. Hadley pumps her fists and stomps to the beat. Harper leaps and twirls. After a minute their friend asks Harper, “If you could, who would you rather be — Lady Gaga or Beyoncé?”
Without skipping a beat Harper says, “Beyoncé.”
Maybe it’s the magic of the alley, but I am grateful my shy, lanky daughter with rose-colored glasses frames can imagine herself as Beyonce. She doesn’t worry or even care that it’s not possible. She just answers a simple question, and she keeps dancing.
Try It
This week, write a poem about what a fantastical dream you have for yourself. Let your imagination loose. Let it dance and soar and leap on the page.
Featured Poem
Thank you to everyone who participated in last week’s poetry prompt. Here’s one from Richard Maxson that we enjoyed.
Tree Frog
You repeat like the grasses and the reeds
and hide in the future of inevitable evening.
You soothe me into dreams adrift toward morning
and reveal yourself in chalices of seclusion.
You speak in tongues
and you jazz like nobody’s business.
You harmonize with silence and your voice
fills the sad spaces left by the owl and loon.
Your song is brighter than moonlight, your song
floats on the waters’ breathing.
Your spirit rises in the rubbing of wet shoes
and I do not remember first hearing you,
because I have never not loved you;
I carry your chant in the crevasses of my words.
I have broken apart the din of cities to hear you
and no longer doubt that music is a found thing.
You make me remember the holiness of repetition
and the mysteries of the world.
You teach me the lightness of not knowing,
as I stumble in darkness with open eyes.
You cannot be found by searching,
and because the bough does not feel your burden,
the earth has embraced you in its infinite branches.
The last sound that will carry me away shall be yours.
Photo by cleo, Creative Commons via Flickr. Post by Callie Feyen, author of Twirl: my life with stories, writing & clothes and The Teacher Diaries: Romeo and Juliet.
A Writer’s Dream Book
This book gives language to the fierce concerns of an ordinary woman. It tracks small but defining moments, attesting to the joys of design and the pleasure of color we feel as we choose and joke and work and play in jeans, sandals, a coat, T-shirts. Start reading and you will be hooked.
—Jeanne Murray Walker, author of The Geography of Memory
- Poetry Prompt: Courage to Follow - July 24, 2023
- Poetry Prompt: Being a Pilgrim and a Martha Stewart Homemaker - July 10, 2023
- Poetry Prompt: Monarch Butterfly’s Wildflower - June 19, 2023
Laura Brown says
I enjoyed walking down Nickels Alley with you and your girls, Callie. It makes me think that it puts muscle and bone to a dream to imagine it while in movement through a significant place.
Cabin on a hill.
Two people and one dog walk
their land’s wild edges.
Richard Maxson says
Callie,
I look forward to your prompts (I missed them during your break) each week. They are wonderful to read and always inspire.
I will take away your last sentence above about Harper: She doesn’t worry or even care that it’s not possible. She just answers a simple question, and she keeps dancing.
We adults can still do this, but we have to try.
In a Robert Bly translation of Rilke’s “Childhood” the last line is, Oh childhood, what was us going away, going where? Where?
And thank you for featuring my poem.
deb y felio says
Dreaming of Dreaming
and if it is the gift
of childhood
that we imagine
we dream
we hope
we dare
why run
toward a place
of maturity
where this moment
is all there is
let us stand
let us dance
let us sing
let us see
together
what may never be
with music and joy
let the adult
bring to the child
and the child bring
to the adult
increased desire
for wonder, vision
eternal
possibility
for peace.
Megan Willome says
I’m not a big dreamer. But this one came true.
GTT: Gone To Texas
shoulda known coffee —
Taste of San Antonio —
would work its magic
Josefin Broad-Drake says
Not sure if this is too late, but here is my contribution on A Writer’s Dream
A Villanelle on Surfing…
The white horses gallop their foamy crest
Wind-whipped, numb, salt-spattered your skin,
The adrenaline surges in your breast,
No time for doubt, hesitation or rest,
Turn the board and angle the fin,
The white horses gallop their foamy crest,
With strokes long and hard, you paddle your best,
The swell lifts you up, you feel it begin,
The adrenaline surges in your breast,
Push up through your shoulders! Knees to your chest!
Relax and keep steady – please God don’t fall in! –
The white horses gallop their foamy crest,
You rise to your feet in the final test,
A whoop of delight is lost in the din,
The adrenaline surges in your breast,
Now riding the ocean, free, unoppressed,
The cold is forgotten, these waves are your kin,
The white horses gallop their foamy crest,
The adrenaline surges in your breast.
lynn says
A Writer’s Dream: imagine
it’s easy to imagine a snug log cabin in the woods
when you’re sipping tea on a quiet snowy day
it’s easy to imagine a cruise to an exotic island
when you’re trying on a pair of glam sunglasses
it’s easy to imagine hiking up a clear mountain trail
when you’re climbing the stairs with more laundry
it’s easy to imagine lying on a private sandy beach
when you’re painting the house in hot sunshine
it’s easy to imagine speaking wisdom into the world
when you’re silent because no one is listening