Flourish Anyway Today at Your Kitchen Table
"The world begins at a kitchen table," Joy Harjo writes in her poem "Perhaps the World Ends Here." And I keep returning to that line this morning, sitting with an iced matcha, watching the light come in the coffee shop near our hotel in New York.
She's right, of course. The kitchen table is where we feed children and argue with people we love. Where we pay the bills and celebrate the birthdays. Where we sit with grief and with joy, sometimes within the same hour. Where we open the laptop and try to find the words. The kitchen table is not a romantic setting for creative work—and yet somehow it holds everything.
Today's Flourish Anyway Today invitation comes straight from a Spiritual Direction for Writers® Daily Nourishment offering, and I want to share it here because I think it belongs in both places. It belongs wherever you are trying to tend your creative life alongside everything else life keeps putting on the table—literally and figuratively.
Here's what I'm inviting you into today.
Visit the SDW link for the pull Pause, Prompt, Practice and all related links.
First, pause. Take three deep breaths—six counts in, six counts out. While you breathe, if you can, pull up the Kitchen Table Series by photographer Carrie Mae Weems. These photographs, taken in the early 1990s, follow a Black woman at her kitchen table through solitude, love, friendship, and loss. They are ordinary and extraordinary. They will prepare you for what comes next.
Then read—or listen to—Joy Harjo's poem "Perhaps the World Ends Here." It is one of those poems that opens something up in the chest and doesn't quite close it again. Harjo is a Muscogee Nation poet, the first Native American to serve as U.S. Poet Laureate, and this poem may be her most beloved. Let it do what it needs to do in you.
Now, the practice.
Sit at your kitchen table—the one you use right now, today. Or if you're not near one, close your eyes and recall a kitchen table from your past. One that matters and continues to hold memories and previous versions of yourself.
Set a timer for ten minutes and make three lists:
Five memories connected to this table
Five joyful things connected to this table
Five sorrowful things connected to this table
Don't overthink the lists. Write quickly. Let the memories come without editing them. You are not writing an essay right now—you are gathering material and noticing what is already there, already asking to be written.
When your timer goes off, read back through your lists. Notice what surprises you. Notice what you kept coming back to. If something wants to become a poem, a story, an essay, or a letter to someone you love—begin. Give it another ten minutes and see what arrives.
One more thing.
In the “Want More?” section of today's Daily Nourishment, I've included a link to Killing Time, a sculpture by artist Ricky Swallow. He carved, in exquisite detail, every sea creature he caught, killed, and ate throughout a specific period of time—and arranged them on a replica of his family's dinner table. The son of a fisherman, he turned the table of his childhood into art and made his memories permanent.
That's what we're doing today too, in our smaller and more ordinary way. We're sitting down at the table that holds our stories and we're giving our attention to what's there.
The world begins at a kitchen table. So can your writing, your creativity, and plenty of soulful reflection.
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Much love to the creative souls. May we flourish anyway today and all days.
💚Charlotte
P.S.
See the latest FREE Spiritual Direction for Writers® Daily Nourishment offering here.
See my most recent doses of art at A Daily Dose of Art.
Check out my All of This & More podcast here. (New episodes coming soon!)
Charlotte Donlon is a writer, spiritual director, and gatherer whose work centers on helping people explore themes of belonging, artful encounters, spiritual growth, and how to Flourish Anyway®, even when life is full, busy, or chaotic. Her work has woven together themes of belonging, art, and soul exploration for more than 25 years. With a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing (2015-2018) and a certificate in spiritual direction (2018-2020), Charlotte guides writers and other creative souls in developing sanctuaries of acceptance and connection.
A Christian in the Episcopal church who believes the tenets of the Nicene Creed, Charlotte employs a universal framework of belonging and connection in her spiritual direction work. She fosters meaningful, soulful conversations and gatherings that are welcoming to all—regardless of faith tradition or spiritual inclinations.
In 2020, Broadleaf Books published Charlotte's first book, The Great Belonging: How Loneliness Leads Us to Each Other.Spiritual Direction for Writers: Everyday Rituals for Your Writing Life is slated for release by Here Below Books in September 2026. Three volumes of Charlotte's "Guidebooks for the Soul"—Take More Retreats, The Great Belonging Project, and Belonging Through Art—will also be published in 2026.
As the founder of several initiatives, Charlotte has established herself as a thought leader and an authentic presence at the intersection of creativity and spirituality. Her essays have been featured in publications such as The Washington Post, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, Catapult, and The Millions, among others. A new essay about art conservation, Joan Mitchell, and mystery is forthcoming with Image journal.
For those interested in staying updated on Charlotte's latest work, news, and insights, subscribe here.
Flourish Anyway® is Charlotte’s online hub for all of her writing, spiritual direction, small press, gatherings, and other offerings.