Filed under: 2025 Advent Tree | Tags: advent 2025, Dravet Syndrome, Hindman Settlement School, Hope, motherhood, poetry, The Flood, Writing
I love these lines so much, these lines and this poem Sunday Open House by my friend Angie Mimms. I feel this in my bones, this longing for hope. I love its evocation of the Emily Dickinson poem that has lived in my head for many years. Angie nurtures hope, she is a careful guardian of it. She’s been my roommate at the Appalachian Writers Workshop many times along with our friend Patsy Kisner. Angie is floodkin too, we were sharing a room in Stuckey, one of the rooming houses on campus, when the 2022 flood in Eastern Kentucky rose up in the middle of the night. Stuckey became an ark that night, sheltering lots of people and their children and pets on campus seeking higher ground. We had a kitten that belonged to musician Sarah Kate Morgan in our room that night, keeping it safe from the dogs who were in the rest of the house. I only have to close my eyes to be right back in that room with her.
A cherished memory: walking through Angie’s neighborhood with her beautiful daughter Anna blowing bubbles everywhere we went. Angie is a former newspaper journalist who has lately been writing poetry and creative nonfiction around her daughter’s struggles with Dravet syndrome, a rare and debilitating form of epilepsy. Recently she has been working on a daily devotional for Anna and others who may not move through the world like most people. I know this will be a work of hope and beauty.
Here are some links to gorgeous writing:
https://literarymama.com/articles/departments/2023/12/how-i-come-to-rely-on-your-wisdom
https://www.stilljournal.net/angie-mimms-cnf2022.php
My Advent Tree this year is dedicated to my writer friends and teachers. I am so grateful for all the light you shine in the darkness.
An Apology: I am behind on my Advent tree posts, the last week of school before the holiday break has pretty much done me in, but I aim to catch up in the next few days.
Filed under: 2025 Advent Tree | Tags: advent, Art of the Day, Faith, Hindman Settlement School, Hope, Ink, LGBTQ, Writing
My Advent Tree this year is dedicated to my writer friends and teachers. I am so grateful for all the light you shine in the darkness.
In the end, I decided I would never again be the scared boy in my story.
-Jonathan Corcoran
I did not know Jon or his work until I found myself in his creative nonfiction workshop at the Hindman Settlement School in the summer of 2024. His memoir No Son of Mine had just been released. I was nervous about my work that summer- I’d had a horrible year of being sicker longer than I ever experienced. I was exhausted, depressed, my resistance was very low and I just could not get well that year. That week was magical, the first time the sun came out for me in a long time. Jon is a fantastic teacher- kind, insightful and inspiring. He makes everyone feel welcome and listened to, you just want to hang out with him. His one-on-one conference with me was one of the most healing things I’ve experienced. I am profoundly grateful for his encouragement and understand, and his insight into what I might do with my disjointed creative life. His memoir is very powerful, and very important for those who experience the devastating alienation from their families because of their sexual orientation. And it is important for others to come to some understanding of just how devastating that is. His short story collection Rope Swing is a delight. He has just finished a novel that I am looking forward to very much.
https://jonathancorcoranwrites.com/
Filed under: 2025 Advent Tree | Tags: advent, Advent Season, Art of the Day, Faith, Hindman Settlement School, Hope, Ink, poetry, Writing
The year began with nothing but dread and did not disappoint. Each day has brought fresh blows. So much of what I believed about my country and the people in it has been washed away. So many harmed, in danger, belittled and silenced. I have felt hopeless and powerless. In the spring of 2025, my 24 year old daughter suffered a cryptogenic stroke, suddenly unable to feel anything on her entire right side, unable to find words or use them. She and I live alone together. I was able to get her to the ER at 5:30 am on a Monday morning, marking the beginning of many weeks in the hospital followed by months in rehab. She is doing well now, still in recovery, trying to regain what she has lost. Maybe she will. She has come a long way. It has been a challenge keeping my head above water in this constant inundation. Knowing that I am not alone in this does help. It also hurts too.
Reading and writing and making art have been so important this year. My communities have been even more important- my family, friends, the school and church where I work, and my writing community. Lord I am rich in a writing community. Being with them in workshops and retreats, reading their words when I am alone, sharing my words with them for advice- all of this has been a lifeboat for me. This year’s advent calendar is a celebration of them. Each day is a line or two from their work coupled with the ink of the day from the delicious Inkvent calendar I splurged on from Diamine Ink. I make an ornament with these words and hang them on my Advent Tree. I will make a post each day about their work and share where you might find more. I have so many writing friends and acquaintances that I will not be able to highlight them all in one Advent season, which grieves me. All of us are connected through the Hindman Settlement School. It is where we met, where we meet, where we teach each other and share our work. What a blessing.
Advent is my favorite time of year, a time to contemplate the darkness and the returning of the light. It is a hopeful time. Hope is what I need. Gratitude is what I have. Thank you friends for all your work and the light you bring into the world.
December 1 Celestial Skies
The terrible stars sometimes fall,
Annie Woodford
but we are asleep in the valley,
we are asleep in each other’s arms.
These lines are from the poem “Wilkes County Posada” by Annie Woodford. This poem gutted me when I read it last month in her most recent collection “Peasant” published by Pulley Press. It’s an astonishing portrait of what our immigrant neighbors are enduring, people we depend on in so many ways that we are completely ignorant of. People we vilify, imprison and deport without dignity or due process. It is absolutely the perfect beginning to the Advent season. I got the book from her when I saw her at the Appalachian Writers Workshop at Hindman Settlement School this summer. Annie is a poet from North Carolina who is quiet, unassuming and very modest. When you open her books, fierce love leaps off the page and roots you to our earth. I could not put it down. She has an excellent website where you can find out more about her and her work. “Peasant” is my favorite poetry collection of the year so far, and the year is almost over…
https://www.anniewoodfordpoet.com/
https://www.pulleypress.com/peasant
Filed under: Surviving the MAGA reign, Teaching | Tags: 2024 Presidential Election, Children, Democracy, Hope, Making art in evil times, mental health, Republican Trifecta
A vaccine denier is to head up the Department of Health and Human Services. The Republicans won the house. Matt Gaetz is to be the Attorney General of the United States. It’s to be four years of revenge and retribution for almost being called to account.
I take a turn around the school when I need to clear my head. I can walk through childhood and adolescence in just a few minutes. I start in the middle. If I turn left, I pass through the crucible years of 7th and 8th grade, where everything sizzles and pops. Through the doors by the division director’s office, I pass into the quieter but deeper waters of High School, then out the double doors between the Music Room and the Library to the Green Space. It will either be still and empty of children or teeming with them in the field, the garden, the climbing trees, the gaga pit, the volleyball 4 square, the playground, the basketball court, the creek bed play space. I’ll go back into the school through the doors by the playhouse I had built for our outdoor Covid production of Wizard of Oz. The house actually spun during the tornado scene, but now has been rendered stationary, though certainly not ordinary.
Back in the school, I pass by the rack of rainboots, the kindergarten rooms, science room and up through the Lower School hall. I often stop to admire all the art made by little hands. So many projects on display, like the undersea world of coral reef, schools of fish, and jellyfish. I love walking by and getting a glimpse of little ones gathered around their teacher on the rug for story time, or nestled in their own place in a nook or pillow fort or on a sofa reading intently. I wonder then what it would have felt like to be that cozy at school when I was young. Cozy disappeared right after kindergarten for me, replaced by itchy school uniforms so badly designed that I couldn’t get the jumper on or off by myself, and by school desks arranged in neat rows where we had to sit up straight and pay attention in ways that the teacher recognized. The Lower School hallway here is tidy, but also cozy. Full of color and possibility. The joy of exploration is in evidence on every wall and in every doorway. These are doorways that you want to pass through.
On this day, I pass 5th grader Silas with my usual ‘Hello friend’ greeting. He always looks haunted and fragile, with a pale face and dark circled eyes thanks to his diabetes, but his is an eager and active mind.
“Ms. Crawford” he calls to me. “Would you like a cricket for a pet?”
I stop and turn, pausing to consider.
“I don’t think so. Are you offering me one?”
“Yes. I have one in my pocket. If I can’t find anyone who wants it, I’ll take it home to my tarantula.”
“Oh. Is it alive in there?”
“Oh yes.” He unzips his pocket and pulls out a cricket in a carefully cupped hand. It’s on its literal last legs, but definitely alive.
“Wow” I say. “You think it’s going to be alright in your pocket?”
He shrugs as he puts it carefully back, zipping it almost closed. “Sure. I’ve left it a hole for breathing. Okay well, see you next class.” And he goes on his way.
I’ve been thinking about that breathing hole ever since.
Filed under: Faith, Surviving the MAGA reign, Teaching | Tags: 2024 Presidential Election, Abide No Hatred, Democracy, Faith, Hope, inspiration, Kamala Harris, poetry, Surviving Trump, Writing
November 6. I can’t even write words. I am absolutely destroyed. Panic is pummeling my poor heart, it can’t keep its own rhythm. The best I can do is remember to breathe. All day long. I will breathe.
November 7 Instead I will write of 7th grader Coleman checking to see if I’m alright, his kind smile in the hall. I will write about the smell of rain after a long time without it. Of the cookbook I pre-ordered months ago and that was just delivered last night “Comfort Bakes”, just when I needed it. I will write of the middle school Duloc performers in the all-school musical Shrek and how they killed it in rehearsal, how on task they were and how much they remembered from their last rehearsal over a week ago. How much they have grown in so short a time. I will write of how 5th grade Liam managed to cut his clothes to actual ribbons while making shadow puppets in drama class without anyone seeing until too late and how his mother, when told, just smiled and shook her head ‘I’m not surprised. He’s unmedicated today because we ran out last night’. I will write of the positive energy, vision and material help of Ash, my parent volunteer costume coordinator who is moving mountains for the 117 costumes we need for Shrek. I will write of how astonishing it is to have so much help from so many different quarters, All I had to do was ask, all I had to do was say what I needed. I will write of my daughter’s tears, and her friend Anna’s and those of my very dear and thoughtful high school drama students- I find hope in their tears, knowing that their fears, sorrow and anger will become action in time. I will write of how much better I feel not having news alerts ping through constantly on my phone. I can be in control of what I read, listen to, react to. I can remember to breathe. I can be joyful, sitting on the front porch of the school telling stories to the 6th graders turning cartwheels as they wait to be picked up from rehearsal.
I will gather sweetness. I will savor it. It’s all I can do this day.
I tell you: Suns exist.
Filed under: Art of the Day | Tags: Art of the Day, Emily Dickinson, Hope
The Fox at Dawn 