Tuesday, August 7, 2012

pick six

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I think I’ve lost what used to seem so cathartic about this blog.

Now, my writing consists of articles on Mondays, comments on facebook, captions to photos on instagram, quotes and bible verses on our kitchen chalkboard and even my single sentence blog is being clogged with half-hearted lines typed nightly with little enthusiasm.

I want to write.

Writing is where I come alive. Well, parts of me at least – different parts – untapped by motherhood or wifery or even Christianity, although I’m the first to admit all are intertwined.

But in the interwovenness of this life of mine, I find myself stranded on the edge of uncreativity and lackluster-ness and dare I say, boredom – all, I believe were self-inflicted when I stopped writing – really writing.

I can’t blame it on motherhood or micah or pure business – because some of my best-loved posts were in the midst of sleepless newborn nights and days busy with all the infractions to personal boundaries that come with new parenthood – or any type of parenthood really.

And for a season I didn’t miss it. Thoughts took precedence over words written and that way okay.

Okay for a season.

But today I walked passed the shelf on the bookcase in the corner of the living room. The one at the top filled with books on writing and poetry and it made me stop - for the first time in months. Maybe even a year. And I felt that long-forgotten, or surpressed urge to create something more than just a sentence a day.

So I picked up the first book that caught my eye. Micah was throwing himself on a stack of pillows on the sun porch floor while I hovered for a moment at the bookshelf by the door.

The Write Brain Workbook: 366 Exercises to Liberate Your Writing by Bonnie Neubauer.

Seemed apropos.

I then brought it to the sun porch where Micah played on pillows and opened it at random and landed on Day 208.

I read it and ran to grab a pen and a notebook.

And this was the prompt and what followed.

Pick Six: Day 208
Without moving, write down one thing within your line of vision: an action, person, item, texture, emotion, etc.
Then another thing (6x)
Now use all six of these in a piece that begins, “I was frozen in place…”

***

1.       Little boy
2.       Cozy coup car
3.       Pillows on the floor
4.       Dog at my feet
5.       Wet toe nails
6.       Breeze on tree branches


I was frozen in place
unmoved some days
except by the little boy in front of me
growing up before my eyes
pretending his cozy coup car was all that separated boyhood from
manhood
Pillows on the floor break his landing and
I wish I could cushion every fall with pillows from deck chairs from here until
forever
But the dog at my feet bears witness to my
inability to stop time
wet toenails dry as I sit here
and wish for this breeze
these trees to not drop their leaves come autumn
a too-soon telling sign
that I have no power over
stopping time
and hard landings




 
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