Community Writing Project - Best of Week 2 and Next Week's Prompt

Every week since Waring implemented a remote learning plan, Waring’s Writing Department has invited students, faculty, parents, and friends to participate in a weekly writing project. 

Every Monday, the Writing Department announces a new prompt and shares some of the previous week’s best responses.

Last week the prompt was: “The old saying goes, ‘Every cloud has a silver lining.’ What silver linings have you discovered over the past few weeks? Have you finally read Ulysses? Learned to knit? Solved your first Rubik’s Cube? Or learned something new about yourself? In 250 words or less, tell us your silver lining stories. In case you were wondering, both prose and poetry are eagerly accepted by the Writing Department.”

At the bottom of this blogpost, you will find this week’s new prompt. Everyone is encouraged to participate alongside our students. Please submit your responses to Jill Sullivan (no more than 250 words) by each Friday.

Below are three of our favorite responses from last week. Click here to read the Best of Week 1.

Camille Gimbrere ’23

Prompts. I don’t like to follow them. While they are meant as “guidelines,” I always feel like I’m being forced to express something that I don’t want to, but here I am, using the prompt because I am too afraid of oversharing again. Silver linings. Clouds, as literal things, have strange effects on me. They make me feel ethereal, or like I’m not living at all--that I am not my body nor my mind. I’m not sure if that makes sense. But silver linings, those are hard to find. I am not an optimist by nature, although I wish I could be. I feel as if optimists don’t see reality, and they aren’t rational. My pessimism has ruined a lot for me, including the religion that I was dragged in to. My mind was constantly analyzing every detail, and when I asked my mom, “how?” she simply said, “faith.” At twelve years old that wasn’t rational. But silver linings. Maybe I can find one somewhere. I tried oil pastels, and failed. I baked a cake because Bernie dropped out of the race and I had no better way to cope, and that failed too. I painted my face like Joe Exotic and couldn’t get them painted off until a literal angel saved me. I’ve gone on walks, I’ve cut my hair, I've learned to skate, I’ve listened to way too much sad indie music, and I have killed a cactus. I didn’t even overwater it. I’m not sure what isolation is doing to me. Some people are “glowing-up” and getting their goals, but I’ve just been binging Netflix and exercising. I’m not exactly the epitome of health. I have not been outside in four days. I wonder if it will ever be the same, and if it’s not, maybe that will be it. The change. Maybe the silver lining isn’t something that has already happened, but something that will. 

Ian Morrison ’22

During this time I have found myself with the luxury of time. Suddenly weekdays offer hours of freedom and I have rushed to fill them. One of the things I have filled my time with is blacksmithing.

Why do I blacksmith? 

Good question, Me. It’s a good question because many people don’t understand why I would ever want to pick up a dead craft. People say: It’s obviously an obsolete method of creating objects out of steel now that we have steel mills and casting factories. Well, subscribing to that theory is like suggesting that portrait artists no longer need to exist now that we have cameras and printers in our homes. It’s true that it is a time consuming hobby (and not cheap). It is an art. The art of making objects by hand. It is a way of connecting with my ancestors and being able to relive what humans have experienced for hundreds of years. 

As a society, we have a huge separation between what we consume and us. Even just a few hundred years ago purchasing something that wasn’t made in your country, or even town, was a huge symbol of status. Foreign goods were a luxury, but with globalization we are able to buy stuffed animals from China and have them be cheaper than making one yourself. So having that level of intimacy with your possessions is something a lot of people don’t have today, and I think it is something that makes blacksmithing unique. And it’s fun. Who doesn’t want to be able to make swords someday? 

Olivia Allworth ’23

Silver Linings 

I like rain. 
I like the sound it makes tapping the window next to my desk as I write. 
I like the way the trees dance in the wind
during the storm. 
As the television in my mom’s room shouts, 
The rain seeps into my thoughts, 
and outside my window
it's calm. 
No cars drive by on the main road. 
Gazing out this window, I usually see cars packed together for miles.
At the end of the street sits the town hospital,
So I'm used to the sound of cars driving, 
ambulance sirens racing, 
horns beeping,
and engines starting. 
Except for today, 
when no cars are on the road. 
No ambulance sirens race to car accidents. 
No office workers rush to grab a morning coffee, late to work. 
Just the sound of the rain hitting my window, 
trees swaying. 
And the roads are clear. 

Community Writing Prompt - Week of April 13, 2020

Over the past few weeks, we’ve all become hyperaware of the barrier between inside and outside. It has always been there, but now it has become more impermeable, has taken on extra significance. If you feel safer inside, describe the view from your window. What do you see? What do you dream about while you gaze through the glass? If you need to be outside, tell us about a special encounter you’ve had with nature. Why and how does the natural world feel important to you now?