On Wednesdays at 6pm, Spiral Circle Bookstore (750 N Thornton Ave, Orlando, FL) offers free writers workshops. I drove from Yalaha to attend.
I got there a bit early and looked around at all the books, crystals, candles and and endless array of soul calming talismans. The air was scented which reminded me that I was unmasked. Having just recovered from a COVID infection, I hope I am immune for several months. After that I will start masking up again.
The workshop room was yellow with an “Everyday Miracle” quote on the wall. The middle sentence was so faint I could not read it. Albert Einstein said, “There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
I sketched the room before participants arrived. There was a small table in the center of the room and two chairs. All that changed when writers started to arrive. The table was pushed back and many more chairs were retrieved from a closet I was sitting in front of. Seven writers entered and sat in a circle. I erased most of what I had started.
The workshop is one hour and offers three prompts. Once a prompt was read everyone began to write. I love the creative energy in that moment of silence and concentration. In the time of the first prompt I managed to rough in the sketch lightly in pencil. I was still searching and unsure, but things were starting to pull together. Each writer read aloud what they had written. A playwright said she was surprised by how the words sounded when read them aloud. Shayana, the moderator, said, that reading aloud helps an author recognize and hear their own voice. Shayana had a “Black Women are Perfect” Tee shirt which I found fun. One prompt was about feelings following the holiday season. Without going into details of the stories, I felt a mix of joy and deep sorrow from each of the authors. I welled up at one point. There is a raw openness to the group and pure acceptance for what was expressed. For some poetic passages everyone would snap their fingers. Once everyone had read, they turned to me. I explained that there was just a tangle of lines at the moment but I shared my progress. There was some ooohing and ahhhing and I felt warmly embraced. Everything that happened in the yellow room was a creative miracle.