welcome to anecdōtes!
weekly writing prompts from dōt.age
Last Week’s Writing Prompt inspired this short musing by Emma Arnesty-Good:
What were your first thoughts or understanding about older people when you were a child?
Skin. That’s what I thought about older people. Why is their skin like that, dropping over itself?
My grandfather’s tan chest, but the skin of his triceps loose and jangling as he drove the tractor over the lawn in the Pennsylvania summertime.
Why did it look that way? As if separated from his body, like he no longer needed it so close to him, like there was room in there for other things: experience, war stories, silence.
Would I look that way, too? No, I didn’t think so.
And why all of the yelling and not listening? Why did he talk so weird and about such strange things that didn’t matter—like the war or the game or the lawn or the tall chestnut trees, and whether they were sick — all these things I didn’t care about.
Why were they like that? Him and my grandmother. Living in another dimension.
And that one time, I found them out in the stream. Both in their white underwear, seated in fold-up chairs they must have carried into the shallow current.
All of their loose skin held up to the sky.
This Week’s Writing Prompt:
Write about a moment during caregiving that was absurd, funny, or darkly comedic: Start with: “I couldn’t help but laugh when...”
Set timer for 5 minutes.
GO!
dōt.age exists because we’re all navigating the uncharted territory of caring for aging parents, and we need to share our stories. This isn’t about being a writer—it’s about being human and sharing the messy, unfiltered truths of eldercare. Each week, we’ll drop a prompt. You write for five minutes. No polish, no pressure—just permission to be gloriously imperfect. If you want to share what you wrote, send it our way and we’ll share it on our Substack (with your permission, of course) so we can all feel a little less alone in this wild Mix Tape that is our lives.
SEND TO: Lnahmie@gmail.com