Category: Completing and Creating Cycles

From Grief to Growth

During the last pandemic, my Wednesday evenings became a sacred space for about 90 minutes when I talked to my father by phone. From the calm cocoon of our DC condo, I would close the door gently against the pleasing drone of my wife’s Duolingo, and get Dad on the line in Arizona. First updates and the weekly grocery order, then as much time as we could writing down family stories together.

I grew attached to that Wednesday writing ritual, and the refuge of my father’s attention against the difficult circumstances we were all facing in those days. To be of any use at all to him — widowed and socially isolated — kept me afloat from so far away. The separations we all experienced during that time were painful. That weekly phone call was a place to reminisce, laugh a little, practice our writing, and stock up on chocolate pudding for the week ahead.

Later, I moved back to Arizona and became Dad’s primary caregiver. Wednesdays still made sense as our writing days, and his massive postcard collection became endless inspiration. The Posted Past was first invented to keep us fascinated as the days went by. The weekly pace and soft deadline provided helpful discipline. It was a trusted escape for me and mind-jerky for him to chew on at 88, then 89, then 90.

I hosted the first Completing & Creating circle in late 2023. A few of us in a similar online, weekly format: short intervals of focused discussion, followed by quiet parallel play, and a chat back. I’ve attended a number of in-person salons and studio talks over the years. I wanted to create that cozy, connected vibe online.

Fast-forward to tomorrow, my own creative calendar is starting anew. I find myself at interesting intersections of social history and family lore, with a passion for epistolary writing. The year ahead means going down research rabbit holes, getting glassy-eyed looking at old images, and plotting points in storylines from the past. That’s what I’ll be doing with my quiet time in the Wednesday circle, putting my own puzzle pieces together side-by-side with you.

For tomorrow, our prompt is: where are you coming from, and where are you going to? Put this set of questions where they fit for you tomorrow. Coming from lunch and going to your next meeting — I hear that. Maybe this online circle in the middle of the week is enough space for a simple relaxing craft — a nice place between meetings to crochet and chat with others.

The fee is modest and flexible because that’s nice, too. Try month-to-month for $5 or commit to the whole year for $50. I’ll be here weekly. If you love regular creative discipline, great. You can also drop-in anytime. I do not mind!

I will send the meeting link and instructions privately to the circle every week. To join anytime, hit the button below.

Join Anne’s Wednesday Circle

Circle Up



Question 8 on the Creating slide really got me thinking this time.

Q: Who is in your circle, and why?

It’s a practical question for me. My next studio circle (and my own creative practice) starts anew on January 7, and continues every Wednesday afternoon this year.

I’d love for you to join me next week or any Wednesday. My commitment to my creative practice is weekly, and I’m here every week to support yours.

In a quiet moment before the holidays I wrote a long list of everyone I have to thank this past year, plus all the people who left me wiser, and often awestruck.

The task in Question 8 is to acknowledge each person, and seek to know more about how they arrive or appear in my circle. It’s not an inventory, it’s a diagram. Who am I choosing to keep close and who is drifting away? And, what does my circle say about my values and how I communicate.

Caregiving changed my circle. Job transitions change it, always. Loss changes it. Some people move closer, others take off on a distant orbit. Some surprise you when they show up. The circles we create together become life boats when everything else shifts. Leaning forward changes it, too.

What happens on Wednesdays?

We gather on Zoom for 90 minutes. I introduce one or a pair of the questions—sometimes we’re completing the work behind us, sometimes creating the path ahead, sometimes both at once. We explore it together for 30 minutes.

Then you work solo for 30 minutes, mics off. Write, collage, draw, use whatever medium you choose. No need for special supplies or skills. Whatever is at hand—a notebook, some magazines and glue, colored pencils. Not your phone. We love technology, obviously, but tactile is important in this studio.

We reconvene for 30 minutes of reflection. You share only what you want—a sentence, an image, a phrase. No advice-giving, fixing, or solving. The circle makes space for you to listen to your own good sense, work your own puzzle, and most importantly, choose your own metaphor. If you want advice from anyone in the circle, simply ask privately.

How it works

Working through the questions alone has value. Working through them in a studio circle can be transformative. Weekly creative practice builds momentum, provides the pace of trust needed for relationships, and allows insight to unfold. We watch your work evolve together. Eventually, you trust the circle and it is safer to bring what’s difficult, tender, unfinished.

This year, especially, you are welcome. When we are all navigating transitions, tending to loved ones, reinventing our work, renewing our purpose, and searching for meaningful connection. A circle you can count on once a week may be essential. It is for me.

Join me on Wednesdays

We meet every Wednesday from 2:00-3:30 PM Arizona time via Zoom. Join for $5/month or $50/year for unlimited Wednesdays.

Join Anne’s Creative Circle Today

January 7 is special because we start the new cycle together. But every Wednesday works. Pretend we’re neighbors and drop-in. I do not mind.

Who is in my circle?

People who show up consistently. People who witness without judgment. People doing their own creative work and willing to support others in theirs. People who understand that making art—in whatever form—is how we make sense of our lives.

I hope you’ll be one of them, some Wednesday in the year ahead.

The Completing and Creating Cycle is a framework for regular reflection and creative practice. The questions invite looking back and looking forward, with a focus on what needs completing in the current cycle, and what is arising ahead.

Persistence and Payoff

When I hosted the first social studio in 2023, it was quite an experiment with few expectations. Toward the end, as moment built up, that changed. I wanted to deliver big.

Of course, I did. I’m a conscious capitalist, a proponent of the circular economy. I believe in progress for a purpose. Also, I was dearly wanting to move on from a recent prickly past. Haste, I have very few professional days left to waste!

Also, it was the end of a big deal.

I planned a 10-week online social studio, hosted it, and succeeded by my own hand and measure.

I experimented and failed at everything there was to do, at first. Then, much of it became rote and routine in a newly formed way.

No longer do I fear the weekly missive, for example. Lately, I like to write on my phone from a nearby park. After a short walk to sort my thoughts and find the story, I sit and touch tap my minor truths. Duck quacks are great applause.

The first ten essays I wrote in September 2023 were an excruciating cosmic childbirth tended by dueling doulas. Do it, or don’t. Now, writing each week is like feeding kittens.

Also, the social studio is excellent for quiet, parallel play. After a little chatter and a conversation, dense trust fills the air space on mute, even thousands of miles away.

I connected with past colleagues and met new ones. We deeply discussed familiar notions in creative practice, revealing more and more from the roots of ancient, common wisdom.

I completed last year (did I?)

I am creating the year ahead (am I not?)

It’s not so simple.

The book ahead of me delves into a past long before I existed, and only a faint version of that past at best. AI is revealing new historical evidence about my genealogy and DNA, alongside its unintended consequences.

Digging up the dead is forbidden in most cultures, and for good reason. Some leave us out on a windy mountainside to let vultures pick the bones. We endlessly wrestle with competing tomes.

The same creative tension lives in all the professions, including medicine and mental health. Long dead brain surgeons are buried with their ice picks. Ketamine dreams are revealed decades on. Closed cases openly weep for what’s inside.

Luckily, one lobotomized woman lives just below my ribcage on the left. Lacework from tiny papercuts, effects of a life swallowing knives. But somehow still alive in me and beating my blood to get out.

I know the book will release her, but it’s not fit for public just yet. One insight from the social studio–we still have to contend with the lonely unknowns. No amount of friendship or fostering (or an effing robot) will entirely alleviate the internal ache of being humane. That’s the work of writing and a patient readership.

When brutality is unearthed, swaddle it like a stillbirth and give it a proper goodbye. The book ahead of me is a quiet way to say goodnight to a granny I never knew and to reclaim the family between us over time.

Until the end of the year, I’ll take some time to write and publish here. Then new social studios will begin. Connect with me directly in the usual ways, especially if there’s no one else to call. For comfort, I will read you the terrifying stickies on my wall.