That’s the sign poet Naomi Shihab Nye sees above her desk every morning when she sits down to write. It’s a note written by her son when he was a boy, maybe as a reminder that he needed to wake his mother up from a nap, but a note she has kept all these years.
Wake up, Naomi.
That’s the inspiration she uses to get words on the page everyday, loose and free. Sometimes notes, sometimes a memory, something that might matter, or not matter at all. Everyday. This is her practice.
I can’t stop thinking about this ever since Naomi told us about it when she came into our online classroom last week.
I’m thinking about a lot of things. In the dark of the movie theater last night, my friend Gail and I shook our heads at all of it – the new administration, the news, the downed plane, the hostages, the Gazans, the fires. We were overwhelmed, didn’t know where to begin.
I saw a term in the paper a few weeks ago, it said, “anticipatory obligation,” and it referenced tech companies like Amazon and Meta who got penalized in Trump’s last administration, and who, in anticipation of this one, came forward with a tsunami of early money and support. “Anticipatory obligation,” it was called. It’s chilling, but I also thought of the rest of us, and what “anticipatory denial” might look like – this weird, sleepy, oh shit, we’re in it now kind of mentality. I wondered how I could keep myself alert in the face of the overwhelm.
I’m thinking about the dopamine rush of my phone, of Instagram and email. This unconscious feeling that with my phone in my hand, I’m connected to everything, but which also – and I feel this – ends up isolating and dulling my senses. I’m talking about the way you can watch a video of two planes full of passengers colliding, and then in the next beat see a 20% off sale for sleep gummies.
It’s disorienting. It hurts.
Writing this feels insufficient, but a tiny part of me calls from beneath the rubble, I’m still alive!
Wake up, Laurie!
A couple of weeks ago, my brother lost his house in the L.A. fires. He, like so many, left his home that morning unconcerned that the fire would cross a mountain and come down a coastline. He lost everything. “A neighborhood of tombstones,” he said, referencing the standing fireplaces that stood alone on each property.
For years, every morning, my brother has practiced Qigong, a 30-40 minute body movement meditation. I’d done it with him a couple of times, but I was bored, restless. Was this a work out? Did these movements mean anything? I tolerated it to seem kind, but was always glancing at the clock to see when I could get back to my coffee and my phone,
Three days after the fire, my brother texted saying that he and his wife had spent their first night in their new “home,” a high-rise in the middle of the city with a never ending flow of sirens and traffic below. It was 5:30 in the morning and they were getting up to do their Qigong practice. They’d lost everything three days earlier and here they were on the 28th floor of a high-rise staring out over L.A. doing their standing practice.
I was astounded. It threw into question how I had held practice in my life. I knew what it was like to meditate when I was stressed, to think that meditation could help me feel better. But my “practices” were more transactional – I’ll do this if I can feel that.
Whatever my brother was doing was way past anything I’d considered.
I wondered what does practice look like past my own comfort, my own wanting to feel better?
When I asked him about it, he said starting the morning with practice —before coffee, before food, before the phone, before the rush of everything coming at him—was a choice. A way to greet the day. “Qigong is not a stimulant,” he said. “It’s a quiet honoring of the morning, of the fact that I’ve woken up. A conscious decision to create space, to wake up fully. A morning hug.”
He knows he can’t control much—insurance, banking, fires —“it all feels unpredictable,” he said. But if there’s any sense of control to be found, it’s in this grounding ritual, this anchoring practice that offers pause and a chance to connect to the breath, because that’s where life begins and ends.
Which didn’t mean the fires and the loss didn’t crack him – they did – but he also had a practice, a place that he had built inside of himself that could meet him and give him a chance to breathe.
My friend Jen Breen quoted another friend who said, “we practice in the straightaway so that we have it in the curves.”
So here we are in the curves. I’m thankful to Naomi, and my brother Wally, and I’m asking myself how to stay awake, how to not be lulled into obedience and complacency – this breathless belief that this is the way things are. I’m asking myself whether I am willing to sacrifice some habits for aliveness and wakefulness, and what will that look like?
Sending love and appreciation, always.
If you missed our class with Naomi Shihab Nye, you can find it here.
Thank you for reminding me of Wake up and the Wally practice. We need to stay rooted and grounded in beauty which is always ready to be ours for the noticing!
Oh my goodness I needed to listen to these words today. Thank you Laurie. You are a treasure.
Beautiful expression of compassion .
Your practice is your writing. Writing is one of the most powerful practices there is. It not only clears the mind but gives expression to one’s innermost thoughts so that it can clear that space for ever new ones, and in that spirit it’s always gaining wisdom. Thanks for sharing this. I too am a writer and I recognized your voice straight away as if it was a kindred spirit. That’s not just writing though, it’s a very special type of writing, the best kind, the unfiltered actual experience of life gets transmitted and touches something in the other. What does it touch? What we are. It knows itself.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I just read this piece again. It feels like a talisman to take into the next four years and beyond.
I’m sure I will be sharing widely
Remarkable reflection on the importance of ritual. Love “we practice in the straightaway so we have it in the curves.”
Thank you.
Your message was a blessing: truth telling, connection, and compassion.
You lifted my spirit today,
Deep bows, Laurie. Thank you for this reminder, this call to prayer. I call back to you, another heart who has struggled unsuccessfully to create regular practices in my life, as I listen to the mosque down the street of this town In Kenya send out its summons five times a day…
Thank you Laurie for sharing what so many of us are struggling to grasp. And thank you for introducing us to Wild Writing. In the curves, when my heart aches, I have always taken pen to page – often with tears and fury, but thanks to what I’ve learned from you it has become a regular practice. For me, movement and breath have always been my therapy, helping me to let go of what’s haunting me and to see things a bit more clearly. Adding a writing practice to that, however brief each day, helps me to navigate these curves. I hope that you do also find a daily practice in movement and breath. Like with wild writing, a breath and movement practice is very personal and has only to honor what feels right in one’s body. In my mind, it’s simply about finding space to deepen and connect with the breath, and moving our bodies in any way that feels like expansion on the inhales, and release on the exhales. There are no rules. We just need to focus on what it feels like on the inside, and stop worrying about what it looks like on the outside. Let’s all inhale love in, and exhale love out.
Simply thank you Laurie.
Thank you
That is the practice
Wake up
Make space and breathe
Repeat.
Listening to life and taking ‘notes’ along the way… building up that place of peace we return to (practice)is how we integrate and tend to the needs of every ‘next day’
… yes… but first coffee ☕️🦉🥰
Beautiful post, Laurie! Grit, persistence, grace and resilience in the face of fuck, as Anne Lamott would say. Sending big hugs.
Thank u Laurie….in so many ways, I’m afraid to wake up…the nightmare is scary enough half dozing…still, your words mean a lot to me….and whether I like it or not…I do need to face the reality of the present and find my own “practice” to live thru it…hugs…
❤️❤️❤️
Laurie, thank you for this essay this morning. Your calm and rational voice were what I needed to begin my day. I appreciate what you do to encourage writers to make their voices heard.
Very beautiful Laurie. As the Zen poet and artist, Paul reps would say “thank you for your life. “
Dearest Laurie,
I’m so moved by this post,
Respect Wally and family so much,
And thank you for quoting our dear son’s note!
You are helping us all live and breathe and feel a fortitude in the midst of so much craziness.
This is both moving and inspiring… so much waking up to life. “But if there’s any sense of control to be found, it’s in this grounding ritual, this anchoring practice”… Your brother has an amazing inner strength.