“Be patient, but ask for water / before you need it. Change.”

This is a line from Dawn Leas’ opening poem “How to survive as a houseplant if you live with a beginner.”

Part of my love of poetry comes from appreciating the metaphorical layers of a poem. Here, for example, it is fairly safe to say a houseplant is not just a houseplant and water is not just water, so let’s linger on this line a bit.

As writers and artists, patience is essential. We need not be in a hurry to express complex and conflicting emotions, or to reveal some deep aspect of ourselves.

We need a sense of spaciousness, an openness of opportunity, a variety of possible options. Room to grow.

But we also need some help along the way, don’t we? In the creative context, we need inspiration to get started, motivation to keep going, new eyes to provide insight and direction. At times, we get the help we need without doing much. Call it what you will—kismet, serendipity, cosmic alignment—but sometimes help comes at just the right time.

Other times . . . not so much. The predicament of asking for help when it’s needed is something we can reflect on another time. Let’s stick to the text and consider the practice of asking for water, for help, before it’s needed. That seems like quite a different imperative.

There are two connections that I’ll offer here—one a suggestion to you and the other a challenge to myself.

1. If you have a creative project that you’ve felt stuck with for a while (that is to say, you tried the “be patient with it” approach already!), ask someone you trust for some ideas on what to do with it. Listen to what they have to say. It can be that simple as a starting point.
2. I always play around with ways to further develop the WRJ community, and I have some thoughts that are still in the “ideation” phase. I would be grateful for some of your input.

If you are a writer, visual artist, or other creative-minded person (in any senses of those words), please take a look at this brief questionnaire. Your thoughts will help me plan some exciting new WRJ offerings, such as workshops, courses, and community building.

Kudos to Dawn Leas for the wonderful opening poem of this issue and thank you all for reading.

Aaron Lelito, Editor in Chief