Journaling With Jodi
A Prompt Inspired by Simple Pleasures
Welcome! Here on Substack I share two newsletters: Journaling With Jodi and Depth Charge: Weekly Poetry. Depth Charge is for sharing poetry, while Journaling With Jodi focuses on writing prompts and personal reflection.
A Prompt Inspired by Simple Pleasures
Suggested Practice:
Step One: Choose an age. Write a list of everything that version of you loved to do, see, read, listen to, eat, create, explore, or dream about.
Step Two: Take a day off, or embrace an unexpected free morning or afternoon if one arrives. Spend it offering gifts to that younger self: doing, seeing, reading, making, or experiencing as many of those things as you would like.
Step Three: Set a timer for 10-20 minutes and write about the experience, stream-of-consciousness style, with little attention to form. See what emerges.
I gave my 18-year-old self the day of her dreams recently. Danced salsa in my empty apartment. Practiced a centering yoga sequence. Spent an hour working on a project close to my heart. Went to La Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) and walked the aisles leisurely. I collected a pile of poetry books and settled at a desk in front of a wall-sized window overlooking the sky. Sampled them. Thick pages. Delicate fonts. The glory. I strolled home through streets lit by summer dusk listening to an audiobook by Mary Oliver. I took my time. Long shadows stretched across the tree-lined streets. Dandelion seeds caught the light before lifting into the wind.
As I walked, a recent prompt from Poetry Outdoors was on my mind:
“Write a poem about encountering a moment or experience of holiness that became visible to you as you were merely drifting along in the world.”
Here’s the poem that emerged from that day:
On Reading Poetry in a Sunlit Library
I felt a kindling. A remembrance. I felt myself.
A moment of past and present merging.
I tried to widen my perspective to hold it,
precious, fleeting bird I knew it to be:
saw my hand on the open page,
the stack of books piled title by title,
the wall of windows ahead,
and beyond, the open sky.
The flutter of awareness beat its wings.
I know these are heavy times. My hope is that this small offering may support you feeling just a little bit lighter. I would love to hear about your experience in the comments.
“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” ~ Rumi
this is all beautiful, Jodi. The invitation, the doing, and the poetry that arrived as a result. I'm definitely going to do this as I felt quite a bit of emotion arise for me as I read your instructions...clearly there is something waiting for attention. thank you