Writing Your Life

Elizabeth and I are facilitating a Writing Your Life class, under the general guidelines of the Story Circle Network (look it up on Google--a fairly amazing organization). The network was established to encourage women to tell their own stories, to write openly about their lives. I've taught classes following Susan Wittig Albert's Wtiting from Life before, but this time it's going to be less structured. I want to let women tell their life stories in their own way, rather than confining them to the topics that Albert suggests, though if it proves difficult I may resort to her topics.
But tonight we took wine, hummus and feta with olives (and I thought I didn't like olives) out on the porch, along with our notes, and sketched out what each of us has to do, including my notes for conducting the first class. Elizabeth, with her yoga training in mind, will open and close each class with a meditation, and I will actually conduct the workshop part of the class. I'm not a good classroom teacher in the sense of lecturing, but I do pretty well with workshop situations. I just hope these ladies will participate--and I think they will. I know two or three of them but not the rest--we had set a limit on ten besides ourselves, and I intend to write alongside them. The key is to get everyone to be honest and open, even about that elephant in their own personal rooms. Should be fun and interesting.
But tonight, of course, though we accomplished our lot, our conversation also wandered a lot and we had a good visit. It was a beautiful night on the porch--just pleasantly warm, little breeze. On the porch we're so surrounded by trees it's almost like being in a forest. My old elm tree that I worry about from time to time has really leafed out and looks majestic.
LIfe is good.