Six Word Summer 2018

“By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer’s best of weather and Autumn’s best of cheer.”

– Helen Hunt Jackson,
Colonial American Poet and Native American Activist

Last month’s transition from Summer to Fall was also marked by a great transition here; the shift from the old website format to the new, more engaging, working draft. I decided it was time to take the leap after six months of preparation as part of a trust exercise with our fine family of readers.

We are all works in progress and perfection is just an illusion created by distance. We are closer than that, here. While I always endeavor that the site be high polish and the articles well researched and presented pieces, I thought it would be more genuine to stop working on the new site behind the scenes and just put it out front so we could share in the shaping together.

In the end, it was—and still is—a fine exercise! I received some great comments and suggestions. I encourage you to send more. But, the action had an unexpected reaction that took me a while to parse out. I had felt like Summer just rushed into Fall without a break and some of that may have been due to the lack of a Six Word Story.

Six Word Stories have become a tradition here to as a way to look back on moments, look ahead in hope or clear our thoughts on the present, or say goodbye to the past. They are perhaps the briefest form of Narrative Therapy, in that you attain closure, triumph or transition by re-telling yourself the story of your recent past in one sentence or less. The rules are always the same: Share your story in only six words. That’s the trick; the cognitive spark which engages the creative side of our brains and fosters the kind of dynamic reflective processing needed for closure and transition.

As always, I encourage you to try your own, as many have done over the years. Feel free to cherish them yourself or share them here via the comments or my email if you’d like an ear to hear.

Here’s mine:

Family Life

Many adventures in sharing our growth.

Personal Journey

Still fighting is winning and healing.

Saying a Grateful Farewell

Breathing party memories, sighing ocean breezes.

I will share that, after writing these mere eighteen words, and relishing the process, Fall has finally begun.

Now you try…