utopia

An update from our fifth weekly writing workshop A summary of this week’s project, plus some of the output published below The Stone Soup Weekly Writing Workshop, held on Fridays at 1:00 p.m. PST, is open to all Stone Soup contributors and subscribers during the COVID-19-related school closures and shelter-in-place arrangements. We meet via Zoom to respond to a new writing challenge, write together in our virtual room, and then share what we have written with one another. At our session on Friday May 1, we had a record-breaking 35 participants (not counting the Stone Soup team!). We’d all agreed in advance that we would extend the session an extra 20 minutes from the original hour, so the new participants introduced themselves, and we got straight into a discussion of this week’s theme: Places we’d like to be – gardens and special private spaces, utopia, paradise… William Rubel, Stone Soup’s founder, first presented some images of beautiful gardens, forests, water and other special places in nature. Then, with Ma’ayan and Lena’s help he introduced the idea of Utopia, a new word (or neologism) coined by Thomas More in 1516, which can be translated from the ancient Greek as either “nowhere” or “good place”. Ever since then, the world’s writers and thinkers have used the word Utopia to describe any imagined or visionary world of peace, beauty, perfection and social harmony. We ended on an image of the Garden of Eden, the original Paradise of the Jewish and Christian Old Testament, where the lions and the lambs (and the mice and elephants) live in peace and harmony. There was some discussion in the chat about other religions’ different images and descriptions of Paradise, as well as some sharing of side stories about whether the snake in the Garden of Eden ever had legs, and if so, how it lost them! Before getting down to our own writing, groups members shared some brainstorming ideas for ways of thinking about the theme, that ranged from ideas about imaginary utopias or paradise, to special places personal to the group members, such as summer camp (on our minds because it may not happen this year), or the freedom and pleasure of being on a beach. The Writing Challenge: Places we’d like to be – gardens and special private spaces, utopia, paradise: real, imagined and anywhere in between! The Participants:  Lena, Ever, Emily, Analise, Liam, Peri, Suman, Djin, Ma’ayan, Anya, Lucy, Georgia, Isabella, Emilia, Tristan, Gracie, Lauren, Maggie, Joanna, Sophia, Allegra, Arianna, Aviya, Kesed, Rhian, Michaela, Maddie, Nadia, Silas, Raeha, Justin, Madeleine, Kanav, Pallavi. Below you can read just a few examples of the great work that came out of this exciting, visionary workshop. Maze Analise Braddock, 9 CARA: I hate mazes. EVELYN: Don’t be silly, you’re just scared. CARA: I am not! EVELYN: Then come in the maze. CARA: Fine. NARRATOR: As they walked inside the maze’s walls it was the most beautiful vision in the land. Varieties of flowers picnicked along the evergreen walls. CARA: Race you. EVELYN: Don’t count on winning. NARRATOR: The girls ran and ran until you could hear panting from miles away. CARA: Wait where is mom and dad? EVELYN: (Shrug) CARA: Look, an opening. EVELYN: I want to spend more time in the maze, you go. NARRATOR: CARA ran to the opening astonished. It was filled with all her favorite animals in a garden that the trees were bending to guard. CARA: I always wanted a zoo. EVELYN: A garden zoo? CARA: Let’s see what else is here. EVELYN: What about my favorite things?? NARRATOR: They searched until a new opening became in sight. CARA: Look, a room that reminds me of a palace. EVELYN: You have always wanted a palace. CARA: It is all I have ever wanted. EVELYN: Hopefully there is another opening and it is something I want. NARRATOR: Once again they ran to a final entrance. CARA: Wow. NARRATOR: It was a beautiful room with silver butterflies and lined with what felt like happiness and gold. EVELYN: It is magical, let’s stay forever. CARA: No. EVELYN: Why not? CARA: Well… then I am too spoiled. I will have all of this and some have nothing. Let’s go home NARRATOR: And so they did. Where You’ll Land Silas Costa, 10 The cars whizz by like hummingbirds buzzing towards a flower. I jump back, dodging the water sprayed up from the road. I sigh and take the small paper out of my pocket. I look at the directions one more time. The taxi refused to take me any farther than Jupiter Way. Minerva Street, the tiny street I am trying to get to branches off of the Jupiter somewhere up here. I walk past Hermes Street, Mars Avenue, and Venus Street, stomping over cigarette butts and empty chip bags. Finally, I reach Minerva Street and take a left onto it. Its thinner than the rest of the streets in Olympitya, and seems forgotten. It is crowded with tight row houses standing shoulder to shoulder. There aren’t many people on the street, and only a few lights on in the houses. I look carefully for the address. Alpha, Eta, Rho. I recite the address in my head over and over, my eyes scanning the houses like a hawk searching for prey. I finally find it. It’s an older house, made of brick with a white wooden door. There aren’t any lights on, and all of the blinds are closed, so I figure there’s nobody here. I pull out the yellowed paper and check the address again. It says to go to the alley on the left side. I look up and see a gate where I am supposed to enter. I open the gate and step into the narrow alley. I checked, it’s miles to the next street, so this must be a long one. But I look ahead and see that there is another door close to me, maybe six feet away. I go forward and open the door. What I