Sixth Night

The assignment was to write a journal entry from the perspective of an historic figure, a child, or as a resident, and tell a secret about the chapel. This activity produced some of the best work for participants as we narrated chapel "secrets" and wrote from past and present perspectives.

The chapel with its long, carefully documented history of multiple lives and personas was a perfect setting for our writing. The spiritual "nature" of the place put us all into a certain frame of mind, but the more we explored, the more it seemed the chapel opened up to reveal itself and to welcome new voices and new experiences. We wrote in the chapel and about the chapel, but it was more than that although that would have been enough. We used the place as a metaphor, but we also rendered the place authentically. We did this with varying degrees depending upon our original connection to the chapel. Facts were important but only as they related to people and to the human experience. We had a singular being in the form of the chapel, and a collective being in the form of the multiple lives lived through time, culture, religious and social events, and even weather itself. Here I'm thinking of the tornado that destroyed the original foundation of the chapel-this factual detail found it's way into several pieces of fictional writing. We ended with all this as well as the relationship each of us has with the chapel now.

Descriptions:

Penny, having grown up in the area, knew many secrets about Old Fort Lowell. She wrote as a little girl about a friendship and a series of events that leads to a discovery about the Chapel.

Carol took a fictional approach and wrote as a young girl at the turn of the century Describing some of the hardships of being in a new place.

Bill wrote as a current neighborhood resident and described his daily treks around the Old Fort Lowell area and what he is slowly discovering.

Fran wrote a short story about a young girl who meets a "guardian angel" as she travels to Tucson after losing her mother.

I began writing from the perspective of my great-grandmother who came across the United States in 1875 with her two small daughters-Emma and Alice. While I wanted to be able to render that experience I wasn't able to do that and the story became a poem about loss and family secrets-a fragment of a poem that is included here.

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