Blog

Monarchs and Perseverance

Karen Shoemaker

The monarchs migrated through our patch of the plains this week. My husband and I met them on the walking path near our house. At first it was just 3 or 4 fluttering around us, but when we walked through the small grove near the park a few became many and their presence broke through our conversation. We stopped to see if they’d found a resting place for the evening. In years past they chose to overnight in our yard, but a windstorm or two took down their favored trees, so we’ve not been so lucky recently. We stood and looked up into the patch of sky above us and saw dozens of fragile beautiful determined butterflies doing what butterflies do so well – fly with what appears to be drunken abandon, floating on unruly air as if to offer evidence of the power of perseverance and determination.

A day or two later, after a front came through and turned our area decidedly from late Summer to Fall, I went for a walk with friend and colleague Lucy Adkins. Lucy is currently leading a Larksong workshop on memoir writing. In that workshop Lucy is sharing techniques used by successful memoirists and offering advice and writing prompts to help people discover and record their own stories. Those of you who know Lucy will be happy to hear she’s not only loving this current workshop, but she’s excited about doing more like it. Stay tuned on that front. We’re in the planning stages of future workshops. (Now would be a good time to contact us and let us know what sort of workshops you’d like to see offered at Larksong, btw.)

The Monday night workshop I’m leading brings me great joy – and as near as I can tell I’m not the only happy face in that Zoom “Brady Bunch” grid. The format for this workshop is a little bit MFA-style workshop and little bit informal writers’ group. In the MFA style, a leader -- that being me in this case -- guides the conversation about the writing we’ve all read that week, offering lessons on craft and suggestions for further reading. (Each participant shared one story, essay or excerpt at the beginning of the session, and we spend one meeting on the work of each of the writers in the class, talking about the piece assigned for that week. Each writer gets the eyes and insights of all the writers in the workshop, not just mine.) After the guided conversation we relax into discussions about the joys and difficulties of trying to lead a writer’s life. How do you find the time and focus to stay with the page?  -- is a question that comes up often in these workshops. So many other things need – demand – our attention. And really, we too often tell ourselves, does anyone care if I sit down here and selfishly scribble away when the world needs so much from us. What’s it all for? Will the world be a better place if I do or I don’t write?

The thing about monarchs that really gets me is that the butterfly that breaks free of its chrysalis in, say, Alberta, Canada, never makes it to the species’ wintering place in Mexico. Each individual monarch flutters and weaves its way across the miles, lays its eggs on a receptive spot, and from there its offspring continues the journey. A massive, relay race of hope that has been occurring each spring and fall for millions of years.

What I love about workshops with these earnest, caring writers is how they are able to speak the truth to one another about how hard it is to keep going sometimes, but they also speak the truth about why they do it. The work itself, they say in one way or another, is the thing itself. What we do when we pick up our pen or open up our laptop is part of something so much bigger than the individual project or writer, we’re part of a movement we have to trust even when we can’t feel it. We’re all part of humanity’s journey.