Three Little Lines

a practice of journaling, a practice of poetry

I once heard the poet Naomi Shihab Nye suggest that we take a moment each day to record three sentences of whatever happens to strike us at the moment. Her suggestion is to write down the first things that arrive into our head, no matter how ordinary, and consider the small things around us that hold delight and wonder. She goes on to suggest that these lines can become starting points for pieces of poetry.

When I find myself in a “writing slump” where nothing comes to my hand, heart or head - I recenter myself with this practice of writing three lines. This is something I’ve done for probably 10 years now, and it never fails to help me come back to writing and noticing the ordinary wonder I am surrounded by.

Today’s three lines are:

-sunlight lands on the hallway floor in a different place than it did a few weeks ago, a sure sign that summer is nearing its end.

-i can hear the faint buzz of a fly somewhere above my head and it somehow reminds me of the old buzzing sound that those large old televisions of childhood would make.

-it’s only half past seven and still I feel like the day is gone already and there’s no time left to do anything.

You can see that these lines don’t have to be fancy, they don’t have to be well thought out - but the act of sitting down to write a line about the first thing that catches your attention casts you into the present moment. Suddenly you have three threads of attention that can be followed and delicately pulled into a poem or story.

Sometimes I leave the lines untouched for years - before I turn them into something with form. Sometimes I never do anything with them and they remain just small pockets of memory - a moment of my time and presence captured in a few lines.

When my first child was very young, I used this practice as a way to capture moments from our day to day living - and having lost a lot of early memories in those hazy, exhausted postpartum days - I love having these lines to look back on as written memories.

When life gets busier as it does seasonally, this simple practice can be a simple way to keep writing alive in your life.

Below I share with you some small fragments of poetry that I have begun to craft from the collection of three lines I have made through the past 6 months of the year. These fragments will linger in this form for probably many more months before being spun into longer, more complete pieces of poetry.

I would love to hear from you, about what captures your attention in this moment and hope you’ll share it with me in the comments or by hitting reply to this message.