The Writing Group

An April Story

(The “assignment ” was to think of two people, a place, a thing, and an animal you associate with April and then write a story using all five.)

1st person – Jesus

2nd place – Bailey Island

3rd thing – Easter Basket

4th person – Humphrey Bogart

5th animal – rabbit (Peter Cottontail)

If only Jesus could see Bailey Island in April. Usually the sun is shining, the waves are sparkly and the view is spectacular. Now there’s dirty ice banks; gobs of mud, and it’s mostly gray. Jesus’s only comment was this does not look like my creation! We need to do something – so he said, “look in the basket and see what we can do about this”. He looked in and saw a Mars bar, lots of jelly beans, an egg and a bunny. It’s amazing what Jesus can do with a loaf of bread and fishes. Then this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

He looked up and saw Peter, Peter Cottontail that is. He handed Peter the basket and said “Feed my Easter people and the basket will always be full to overflowing and there will be peace on earth and Bailey Island”. Humphrey Bogart suddenly appeared out of the clouds and looked down on Jesus and Peter hopping off on his mission and said: “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

~ Anne Street

The Writing Group: Foreword

The people who contributed to this collection of pictures, poetry and prose range roughly in age from thirty to eighty. Some live or have lived in the Tedford Shelter or in their cars or in tents in the woods; some live in subsidized housing. Some are unemployed; some live on disability checks; some have part time or seasonal jobs; others are retired.

What we all have in common is The Gathering Place at 5 Tenney Way, Brunswick, which is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. for coffee, snacks, companionship, cards, puzzles and on Thursday afternoons for writing.

Over the past four years, I’ve hosted anywhere from one to a dozen writers who have shared stories, laughed (a lot), and cried (a little). I usually throw out a general topic—the first, as I recall, was “Scars,” and the latest, as I write this, was “Doors I have Walked Through--- although people can (and do) write about anything that is on their minds. Some of the topics I’ve given will be self-evident as you read; other topics won’t matter: what’s important is the response. Some of the pieces have been edited from grammar and spelling, but we’ve tried to maintain the original voice and content.

When we first began writing four years ago, some people thought we were having an English class, so they moved as far away from our table as they could; when we began sharing what we’d written, however, they can back, at first to listen, and then over the next few weeks, to join us.

Why? For many of us, writing is a way to make sense of the world, especially when our minds are looping around a particular problem. What I’ve also learned is that all of us need to be heard—listened to, respected—especially if we’ve fallen on hard times and feel that no one care anymore.

What else have I learned over the past four years? Probably the most important thing is that despite common stereotypes, homelessness and poverty have many faces, many voices and that both homelessness and poverty go far beyond not having a physical place to live or a specific job to get to. “Homeless” might mean losing a job that has given you an identity for twenty years, losing a spouse, a child or a friend, losing your health. “Poverty” may mean any number of spiritual or emotional deprivations.

Someone once said that going into The Gathering Place, he couldn’t tell who was a volunteer and who was a client. Four years of writing and listening to stories have shown me that’s because there really isn’t that much of a difference between any of us.

--Rick Wile
Writing Group
The Gathering Place