Prompt 275. Darkness & Light

& Hollynn Huitt on the power of a child's song

Hi friend,

Just this week, my family flew in from Tunisia for the holidays. They’re staying in Brooklyn with my husband Jon and me, which means we’re hosting all the festivities for the first time. I don’t think anything has ever made me feel so grown up. I went out and got an obnoxiously big tree—because we’ve never had a tree and I wanted to go all out—but I didn’t have enough ornaments. So instead, we decorated it with tinsel, then made garlands. My mom also made snowflakes like when we were little—the ones where you fold a piece of paper into a triangle, chisel out the edges with scissors, and unfold it to find (miraculously) a delicate, lacy snowflake. They’re now adorning the windows in the loveliest snowglobe-like way.

In this new phase of togetherness, we’re trying to strike the balance between holding onto the old traditions that bring us joy and making new ones too. On the new end is our Christmas feast, which took shape during a two-hour meeting around the kitchen table (shout out to the wondrous Jenny Rosenstrach over at Dinner, a Love Story for giving us a roadmap!). Also new: My brother and I made plans to go to mass at a church in the West Village, and we’ll celebrate the Feast of the Seven Fishes at his girlfriend’s parents’ house. But an old tradition we couldn’t forego was baking leckerli, a spiced cookie that’s very traditionally Swiss. My grandmother sent us the necessary spices all the way from Switzerland, along with some antique cookie cutters. On Thursday afternoon, we baked a truly shocking number of them.

In the middle of it, we learned some very exciting news: that our documentary American Symphony has been shortlisted for three Academy Awards—for Best Original Score, Best Original Song, and Best Documentary Feature. (If you haven’t seen it yet, you can watch it on Netflix. You can also get a little glimpse behind the scenes with this conversation that Jon and I had with director Matt Heineman—it was so joyous, and the Isolation Journals community asked some of the most thoughtful questions we’ve gotten about the film!) I am amazed, even a little stunned, and also filled with gratitude, not only that I’ve been so fortunate to survive the ravages of my disease and treatment, but also that from the upheaval, something useful and beautiful has emerged.

I’ve been in a contemplative mode this last week, measuring the distance between this year and seasons past. It’s partly because of the documentary, which we started making two years ago, when I had just learned of my relapse. Partly it’s the time of year, which for me always seems to inspire this kind of reflection. At night, I’ve been turning off all the lights except those on the Christmas tree, then lighting some candles. I stoke a fire in the fireplace, and the dogs curl up with me. It’s astonishing to see the strength and beauty in even the tiniest lights—something our beloved community manager, Holly Huitt, writes about in this week’s guest essay. It’s a gorgeous, resonant piece about the power of a child’s song. In this season of darkness, may it inspire a little bit of light.

Sending love,

Suleika

P.S. Speaking of sacred moments of reflection, we’re so excited to announce our annual New Year’s Challenge starts next Monday, January 1! Paid subscribers will receive a special, week-long series of prompts inspired by the searing insights and powerful exhortations in the poems of the Sufi mystic Rumi. I hope you’ll join us—and maybe invite a friend too!

Some Items of Note—

• It’s been such a thrill to see your photos of our custom Isolation Journal No. 1 and Surrender tote—to know these beautiful pieces are out in the wild. It’s my secret (or maybe not so secret!) dream that they’ll lead some Isolation Journals community members to meet in real life. We have limited stock, so if you want to grab yours, just click here!

• We had two very lovely Isolation Journals chats this week: on top of our weekly chorus of gratitude on Friday, there was a very special thread dedicated to last Sunday’s meeting of the Hatch, our virtual creative hour. I’m constantly in awe of the way this community makes meaning of the ups and downs and how you find beauty in the midst of hard things. To see what I mean, click here!

Prompt 275. Down with Darkness by Hollynn Huitt

I’m easy to spot at a school gathering. I’m the one in dark glasses, or, if that’s not feasible, standing just off, avoiding eye contact, already dabbing at my definitely mascara-less eyelashes.

I cry. I ugly cry. I cry and I laugh at myself for crying because my dad is a crier, and when I was a kid, we teased him relentlessly. He cried at the back of auditoriums, at gymnastics meets, in the bleachers at baseball games. At my wedding, he stood up to give his speech, immediately began crying, and just sat back down without saying a word.

Turns out it’s genetic. I make jokes with those around me before any performance—I’m sorry in advance, ha ha ha. With practice, I’ve managed to contain my sudden rush of emotion to a violent eye water, with one exception. Of all the concerts, celebrations, and ceremonies I’ve attended as a parent, there’s nothing that gets me like our nursery school’s Lantern Festival and, more specifically, the song “Down with Darkness.”

Down with darkness, 
Up with light.
Up with sunshine,
Down with night.
Each of us is one small light,
But together we shine bright.

Go away darkest, blackest night.
Go away. Give way to light.
Go away darkest, blackest night.
Go away. Give way to light.

Every year, after we’ve been subject to the indignity of daylight savings and our sun begins setting at four in the afternoon, the children at our local nursery school begin singing this song in preparation for the Lantern Festival. One night in November, the preschoolers gather in the park after sunset to sing and march down main street with homemade lanterns. The older children (it’s an outdoors school for ages three to six) already know the song from the previous year. The younger children learn quickly, either from their peers or from their intrepid and musically accomplished leader, Kerstin, the director of the school.

The children sing many lovely songs, and their fluttery little voices (“Everyone a little louder!” Kerstin often urges) are very moving, but this one is their favorite. From the first strum on the guitar, the faces harden with determination. Their voices ring out in unison—at times, they even shout out. Little mittened fists pound into knees. They feel this song to their core.

I also feel this song to my core. You don’t have to be a parent to understand how much darker the world can seem once you have small people moving about in it. The kids are singing against the night—surely that’s all they can understand—and yet the conviction with which they sing makes me wonder. Do they actually know the challenge that lies before them—that they absolutely will encounter darkness and hardship firsthand, and they will meet it with determination? In that moment, in the park, their crayon-scribbled lanterns flickering, I believe their song with every fiber of my being. They are the light. Make way for light. 

Your prompt for the week:

Write about light in the darkness. Maybe it’s someone you know, or something you’ve observed in your life or in the world around you. Maybe it’s a plan to bring light to someone in despair. Whatever it is, sing about it. Make way for light.

If you’d like, you can post your response to today’s prompt in the comments section, in our Facebook group, or on Instagram by tagging @theisolationjournals. As a reminder, we love seeing your work inspired by the Isolation Journals, but to preserve this as a community space, we request no promotion of outside projects.

Today’s Contributors—

Hollynn Huitt is a writer and the community manager for Isolation Journals. She holds a BFA in Writing from the Savannah College of Art and Design and an MFA in Fiction from Bennington College. She has stories published in Stone Canoe, Hobart, PANK, and X-R-A-Y. She lives in an old farmhouse in central New York with her family and many animals, and writes about it at her Substack, far away.

For more paid subscriber benefits, see—

• American Symphony: A Conversation, where I spoke with my husband Jon Batiste and director Matt Heineman about “peak compartmentalization,” learning to say “I’m not okay,” and Matt’s covert ops at the Grammys

• On Secrets, an interview with the bestselling author and brilliant teacher Dani Shapiro, where we talked about what lies beneath our deepest buried secrets

• Lighting the Way, a special installment of my advice column Dear Susu where I answered this question from a mother whose son was undergoing his second bone marrow transplant: “What mantra do you have for when times are hard?”