Harmony Arts Festival & North Shore Writers: Love on the Fly

Harmony Arts Festival & North Shore Writers

Love on the Fly Through Memoir

Love on the fly you say…do tell.  Well, that’s us.  The North Shore Writers Association and the Harmony Arts Festival.  The last day, August 11, 2013.

Fran Bourassa led us in memoir writing in a two-hour workshop with credits to Sylvia Taylor.  Fran quickly made the workshop her own, instructing us to mine into the rich well of our dramatic beings to inspire, share insight, role model our peculiar perspectives (Fran did say with general accord, that as writers, we are…well…peculiar), reflect our own journeys, and extend our vision into another time or space.

North Shore Writers helped facilitate with four tables and over twenty-five willing participants.  Carl Hunter’s brainchild, this is the first year North Shore Writers have been represented at Harmony Arts.

Citing her yoga teacher’s mantra, Fran suggested we treat our senses to the four prompts…without judgment or competitive impulse.  Freely ejecting the editor within…we had five minutes to respond and possibly share at the open mic:

1)       A favorite tree from our past and how you responded/interacted to/with it, participated or gloried in it.

2)      What’s in your name?  Who gave it to you, its meaning, how you’ve been shaped by it, nicknames, and what novel would it name?

3)      A photograph of yourself as a youngster… ‘In this one I am…’ describing what you see, what you’re wearing, doing…what’s behind you, even the weather’ with a follow-up to describe what unfolded before the photo or earlier in the day with you and the photographer…and finally, ‘I don’t know yet…’ and describe something that’ll unfold in your later life that you had no knowledge of when the photo was taken.

4)      The childhood home in a specific time/place and take us there using senses in a camera-like fashion.

What happens when a group of willing participants submits to writing prompts?

a)      We learn about each other.

b)      We appreciate how each of us responds with insight and integrity.

c)      We share in the universal truths around us.

d)     We shut down the critical editor within and glory in the group’s authenticity.

e)      We let the prompt leak information about our pasts.

Oh, and love on the fly?  As I walked back to my car, I spotted the Cabbage White Butterfly, the most common of butterflies.  They came to America in the 1860’s from away, then spread quickly.  That’s us, flitting and skedaddling from one dandelion to another, doing our mundane stuff.  Males have one spot, females two.  And this one had one spot…but when I looked more closely, not a spot, (but four-leafed-clover-of-clovers) a heart.  I realize how representative our two hours together this afternoon have been, catching fleeting moments on the page…like love on the fly.