A Month of Hope and Silver Linings: Promposity April Writing Challenge

The April Promposity writing challenge is one of positivity and inspiration

It has been a stressful time for all of us. It seems, at least to me, as if this new coronavirus appeared out of nowhere. To be fair, I suppose I knew of it on the periphery of my attention, but relegated it to the same category as Ebola or malaria, serious diseases but ones that occurred in other countries far away.

By the time I realized how serious the illness was, they were already recommending that people stay away from large crowds and within days we were told it was best to stay home. It wasn’t more than another week before everything had shut down with the exception of grocery stores and pharmacies and we had been put on lock down, at least in Illinois.

Part of what made this so devastating to me, in addition to the social isolation, was the fact that it hit everywhere. There wasn’t anywhere that we could look to in order to reassure ourselves that it was just our small pocket of the world, and other places would be sending relief and working on our behalf to free us from this frightening illness. We were all in the same boat.

Things went further south when I began to become ill, despite about a week of denial, bolstered by the fact that no doctor would see me for fear of other patients catching what might have been the virus and not being able to get tested. This first week, the worst of it was the fatigue, lack of motivation to do much of anything and the inability to think straight even when I decided to try to write something. Writing was my outlet and I couldn’t use it.

Now that I am starting to round the corner, thank God, I have begun pushing myself a bit to return to writing. My mind is still foggy but the obstacle now is that having returned to the land of the living, it seems like the rest of the world should have returned to normal but it hasn’t. It’s quiet, the days are long, and once night falls I still haven’t done much of anything and can’t really account for my time.

Today is the first day in over two weeks that I got up, got dressed and actually left the bedroom. Okay, so I just went a few steps into the sun room, but I raised the blinds and am currently sitting up and writing. It is a good day.

The ability to say this, though we still are fighting a terrible virus that is claiming lives and changing our world, probably permanently, has made me consider this month’s prompt for the Promposity Challenge. I think that when terrible things are happening, especially when it involves the loss of life, we feel that to be happy and comment on what is positive in our lives feel cruel and callous.

Yet, it is the very ability to do this that helps us get through these times. It doesn’t mean we are disregarding those we’ve lost or that we aren’t recognizing that the situation has brought suffering to many people. But if we can open our hearts to the good that we find in our lives, acknowledge it and express thankfulness for it, it will help us accept what we have lost and better cope with the situation until it has been brought to an end.

To that end, the prompt for the April Promposity Challenge is “Silver Linings.”

The aim is to create a piece about something positive you have received from the pandemic. It doesn’t have to be big or complex, it doesn’t have to be earth shattering or mind blowing. Trying to refocus our attention on whatever small things in our lives that are good or make us happy or help us through our day which we are grateful for will help us reframe this experience in a way that helps us through.

The response can be a poem or work of prose. You can write a song or compose a letter. If like me you are having difficulties putting words to paper, make a drawing or other work of art or take a series of photographs and create a photo essay that says what you can’t right now with written language. You can even just create a list of words, phrases, colors, song lyrics, objects that you find around your house that make you breathe a little easier, feel a little lighter or experience a brief moment of relief, burst of happiness, or sense of accomplishment, pride or satisfaction.

The purpose of this prompt is to hopefully inspire us to start creating again, by allowing a bit of light to illuminate what has become for many of us a pretty joyless, gloomy world. There are no restrictions on form, length or style, just fan the spark of your imagination and let whatever comes come.

Here is a simple haiku I came up with for the prompt:

Each piece should include a royalty free image with appropriate credit listed below. Please also be sure to share the happiness by tagging three other writers at the end of your article.

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We at Promposity wish you and your loved ones health, happiness and prosperity in the coming days and always.