HungryForLife

one word...three perspectives

If you've been following my writing prompts I've written from the perspective of a bird, a cloud, and a snake. Then I wrote about my neighborhood—a lesson in seeing. This next prompt encorporated all my pieces and seemed daunting at first. We were to choose one word from our neighborhood piece and write from 3 perspectives: bird, cloud, snake. The word I chose was 'dandelions' and the form of a poem surprised me but it literally wrote itself:

Nature Returns

The weeds are tightly
condensed
like a New York City block.
Overhead the Raven
watches intently, wings stretched
but still.
She circles like a kite
sans string.
People with their
dogs and machines
are long gone
she notes.
The once verdant lawn lies abandoned.
Nature returns.
The dandelions sway
next to a few of their more colorful
cousins
who flit and flirt
with the breeze.
The Raven aloft has
no interest
in flowers.
Her gaze seeks other.

The cloud passing
by
recalls the once lush lawn
she happily shared her
bounty with.
Where once was new-shoot-green
now only burnt brown
and grass turned to straw.
The dandelions sway
and smile in her shadow.
She floats on
seeking a hope seeded plot
to receive her precious
gifts.

The serpent cannot navigate
the weed jungle
stealthily.
The withered grass and weed trunks
crackle and whisper
under long belly.
Mice feet freeze while the tiniest
heart accelerates—
Mice feet DASH.
Serpent strikes,
weeds settle.
Nature returns.
The dandelions sway
as she passes.
Only the Raven notes
her trail.

i am a snake below

It's all about perspective: I am a snake below the bird and cloud...

The sharp ‘krak’ from that bird’s brazen beak startles me from my doze. I am sunning the entire spectacular length of my faceted body on a grey shale boulder. Glorious heat from the yellow eye bakes my ropey form into a writhing bundle of bliss. I am whole here, satiated. The sun completes me. I inch the coils of my body in an incremental slide; dry glowing scales embracing themselves entwined in constant touch and motion. Narcissssssist? Oh yessssss. I stare at my serpentine self and swell with pride mesmerized by my own magnificence.  The orange and red patterns appear like puzzle pieces on my skin as if outlined with kohl from long ago Egyptian eyes. The smaller patterns are leopard spots on my belly and attest not only my sleek beauty but my speed and agility.

The Raven has finished her scathing diatribe of the lowly crows and shuts her beak. Finally. As she escapes the earth her body is a mere blemish in the expansive dome above. My coils whisper to stillness once more. Instinctively I taste the air—for food or foes. That black blight’s pontification would have warned off either category. I taste again to be sure. Darting, seeking, my midnight tongue speaks a language of smell. Does the Raven ever wonder what green smells like or how blue tastes? Not likely.

I am content to return to my doze. The avian atrocity is up near the clouds now. At my thought of the clouds a skimpy shadow passes briefly over my domain. The cloud lacks enough substance to cool my sun salutations; the shadow is there and gone like the flit of a nightmare. On another day I will be grateful for her gift of a cool saturated world and drink it in. On another day. Today I lift my striking head to the golden orb the all-seeing one. I bow it in gratitude—not humbly. I am whole here, satiated. The sun completes me.

i am a cloud above the bird

If you read Krak this writing prompt came next: I am a cloud watching the bird...

Bodiless I watch the dark creature alight and soar. She is noisy where I am silent. I wonder about her form and curiously study her actions—how her wings allow her to swim through the air. How the flick of a wingtip turns her body. How perfectly designed she is. What must it feel like to be created from hollow bone and feather? Does she look at me and wonder about my incorporeal form?

I feel other beings emotions more clearly than I see them—we clouds have highly developed empathic abilities. I do not see the Raven as other beings would; I feel her movements and her joy. The instant her body enters the invisible (to her) funnel of the thermal her heart beat quadruples with excitement. A physical rush of adrenaline and exertion that I experience with her! She looks upward beyond we clouds to the Sun. If her beak allowed her to smile I imagine she would grin her joy. I feel her bliss as she does what she was born to do—fly.

I move stealthily between her and the Sun, my shadow will cool the air and dissipate the thermal. My form is still wispy I am gathering, absorbing, expanding with every molecule of moisture. I ask the wind for more speed!  You may think me at his mercy—not so! Envision us as lovers entwined and he the besotted; his happiness is pleasing me. I glide freely in my domed blue expanse, I am life-bringer. My rains may spatter gently on beings below or they may be hurled with the force and thunder of my passion! We clouds do not receive the same appreciation and devotion as the Sun and are occasionally prone to a touch of jealousy.

Today though I am a wispy cloud and curious. I move past the Sun and do not cool the thermal. I float slowly beyond the Raven in her element. Her cries fade but I still luxuriate in her palpable elation. Soon my belly will be as dark as her feathers and I will release my joy and bliss—I am life-bringer and that is what I was created to do.

starting where I am

Start where you are, Patti said to us in VerbTribe. Here I am halfway through the year approaching my forty-eighth birthday and I am beginning to write again.  I wrote through March on my screenplay and slapped on a to-be-continued ending and pronounced it done. My fellow WriteNiters sagely called me on it and said they wanted an ending with oomph not fizzle. I have been in a funk since the end of April feeling overwhelmed, uninspired, and resistant to writing—of any kind.

My journal lies unopened on my bedside shelf; my blog languishes from my absence. My resistance has taken on the form of not showing up. I’ve been on auto-pilot gliding over the surface of my days. I’ve felt disconnected and de-energized and I catch myself turning to look for something half remembered behind me. My muse, my creative spirit hangs her head and quietly trails me from room to room. I have the time in my schedule, I have the space to create—I am simply allowing fear to make my choices for me. I may fail spectacularly. I may succeed spectacularly. So what!? Do it anyway. Instead of dragging around like a husk of a passionate creative writer just write. So what if it’s crap? It’s still writing. Write through the crap to get to the good stuff.

Writing is a huge part of my life I have not shared on my blog until recently. I want to face that edge and not back down. I commit to sharing writing prompts or portions of my screenplay here regularly, anything goes. Yes, that scares the heck outta me yet at the same time it makes me stand up taller and say, Yeah, I wrote that.  I am starting where I am. Resistant yet determined to dissipate this funk. Sharing and connecting with you dear reader is the most loving step I can take for myself in this moment.

Here’s a poem I wrote for a prompt of being a bird:

Krak

My body is the night

blacker than pitch.

Imagine the evening sky, stars snuffed out like candles.

I am soaked in black

my feathers reflect iridescent purple.

 

Bold am I.

Bodacious.

Raucous.

I scream at my crow cousins.

I am mighty—

They are minions in my kingdom.

 

Raven am I.

Maven of heaven.

My intense inky eyes

blink rapidly

on either side of my head.

Monocular vision—

so foreign to you,

allows a view of ALL.

 

I am always alert, ready, poised.

The branch sways

I hold my head still

to triangulate.

What buoyant substance is sealed in

these hollow bones?

Which make my body

lighter

than the air that kisses it?

 

I am not shackled by gravity

my wings spread in a shadowy embrace

my legs thrust

I point my beak to the rising sun.

Close to the ground I swoop and loop

over my crow cousins.

Krak, krak I call

to remind them

I am here.

Always watching.

Their dark master.

 

I lift on a current like a branch in the sea

and surge

upwards

a black smudge in an azure sky.

My belly is full.

My wings are strong

I beat them up then down

steadily

and feel the wind

shoot me higher.

 

A thermal!

I bank right.

The heavens are devoid

of other life

I circle the funnel of air

feathers streaming

eyes seeking

my wings stroke the air.

krak, krak

alive, I scream. I am alive.

Artful Blogging

I began blogging in 2005 as a team of bloggers sharing our journeys as Virtual Assistants and building, launching, and running our own businesses from home. Blogging was new to me but I quickly learned how to write with the intention of starting a conversation, sharing authentically, and seeing the extraordinary in the ordinary.  In 2009 I took the leap and created this blog to share my weight loss journey, writing, creative endeavors, and well…my life.  Artful Blogging introduced me to a community of kindred souls seeking connection for their art, passion for living their dreams, and real people striving to find a balance with who they are and what they do in this world.

Stampington & Company publish only four scrumptious issues per year. I relish my time with these pages—curling up with a cup of tea and turning the ringer on the phone to mute. The smooth thick matte texture of the paper appeals to my photographer’s eye, the colors and detailed photos burst off the page in swirls of inspiration. Reading these blogger’s journeys through art and words reveals a theme of serendipities that occur upon embarking on blogging—of finding their true north and living their dreams.    

 

fantastical fantasy

As a teenager I lost myself for weeks in the Four Lands created by Terry Brooks in the Original Sword of Shannara trilogy. I ached to create a world of good versus evil populated with unexpected heroes and dark hooded villains. I learned to write by reading—fantasy books engaged my imagination and allowed me to sprout dragon wings. As an adult when our daughter was born I even chose her name from the third book in the Shannara series; Brin (a headstrong princess disguised as a peasant boy) and Leah (a magical city).

My passion for fantasy has not ebbed over the years but I find I am choosy where I invest my time and A Storm of Swords is almost one thousand pages and I have savored every word George R.R. Martin penned in this tome. This is Book Three of a planned eight book series: A Song of Ice and Fire.

Martin’s Seven Kingdoms of Westeros has been a scintillating adventure lesson in character development. The series has a plethora of characters that are vividly realized—the proud voices of kings and knights ring clear and true from a world similar to medieval England. Martin masterfully crafts relationships and forges unforeseen connections. I found the chapters written from a child’s point of view the most captivating and inviting which has fueled my writing with alternating shadows and spotlights contrasting innocence and malice.

Curious if there are dragons? Of course there are, but I’m bewitched by the dire wolves. Have you seen the television series of Book One: Game of Thrones on HBO? Incredibly well cast and deeply detailed I'm engrossed even when I have to look away from the realistic combat scenes. You?

 

The Weird Sisters

I was intrigued by the quote on the cover of the book: “See we love each other. We just don’t happen to like each other very much.”  My half-sister is eleven years older than I and so I grew up as an only child yearning for a sister. Siblings and birth order are fascinating to me—my husband is one of nine!  

I was a loner as a kid and books were my whole entire world. These three sisters and their parents relate through books so much so that their dad speaks to them primarily in Shakespeare quotes even sends this message in a crisis:   “Come, let us go; and pray to all the gods/For our beloved mother in her pains. And this is how Cordy knew our mother had cancer. This is how she knew we had to come home.”

I was entranced by the unique writing style Eleanor Brown chose to tell this story: first person plural, narrated from the collective perspective of the three sisters. How cool is that? Awkward to read at first? Yes, but now I’m on a mission to experience more books written in first person plural. Can you recommend any? Have you ever written form this perspective and if so how’d it go? You can read more about Eleanor’s unique choice of style here.

writing a peel

Day 6 our Verb Tribe prompt was to describe a banana and write it on the banana peel! Then we wrote on our bags how writing was like peeling a banana. This was one of my FAVS—it had great appeal!

I loooooooved writing on my banana! I am aware I want to bring that same sense of excitement, wonder, adventure to every page. To laugh out loud and say, that's so crazy—where's my banana!

I had NO idea what to write on my bag so I started here:
So the HUGE aha for me was 'how to peel a banana like a monkey' this cute YouTube video I watched a few weeks ago. How? From the other end! Why? It's so much easier ;) I had never in my whole life even considered peeling a banana from the other end!

On my bag I wrote: "...come at it from the other end, backwards, upside down, inside out, mirror image, flipped, slipped, and dipped"
"peeling it looked like a flower blooming—an ivory tower flower with word petal leaves...it revealed the inner core of deliciousness and vulnerability that must be handled with tenderness and respect—or bitten with teeth and devoured!"
"it's a strip tease, a revelation, a hidden goodness and wholeness...perfect just as it is..."
"Oh my, peeling a banana is like writing b'cuz they both reveal works of God."

Did I really write all that!?

my three

Day 37 of VerbTribe asked us, What commitments will you make to yourself about writing? Create a list of three commitments (no more) that you will make to yourself.

I commit to showing up daily to the page. I commit to opening my heart allowing it to flow. I commit to seeing more, looking three times, popping open my third eye and sense of wonder. I commit to letting go fully and standing with arms wide open ready to receive. I commit to embracing every ending as the new beginning it is reborn as. I commit to living gratefully for the abundance I am blessed to have. I commit to embracing those ‘shitty first giraffes’! I commit to laughing until ‘tears roll down my legs’. I commit to being still and hearing my wise voice within. I commit to living out loud so my stories will ‘reverberate off the red cliff walls’. I commit to leaping off dramatic edges; beyond slinky shadows; over impassable mountains; into a net of faith—every time.

My three:
Show up.
See.
Let go.

to tattoo or not tattoo

I've been considering getting a tattoo since I turned forty. HA! That was seven years ago and I still haven't committed. Back then I suggested to Brin that we get the same tattoo and she loved the idea. She already has beautiful butterflies and a huge tree on her back with 'imagine' in its branches. She mentioned 'our' tattoo the other day so I've been pondering my procrastination. One of my friends recently opened Ocala Ink & More for tattoos, body piercing, and more. Next my co-worker showed me a gorgeous Hope tattoo (her first) on the inside of her wrist that she designed. Finally this week Jeff showed me a website that had photos of tattoos made with ultraviolet reactive ink so they only show up under a black light. Kinda cool, eh?

This feels big—it is a forever decision. Tattoos remind me of the novel The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant where 16th century sisters find an unsettling and intimate tattoo on an elderly nun's body after she dies. Loved this story!

One day I want a tree. One day a poem. Maybe a quote. I want it to be intentional and embody a life lesson like: choose love. Choosing is the hardest part. And then there's the decision of where I want it. Private just for me or am I declaring to the world and puttting it right out there? Is a tattoo's significance related to where it is placed on one's body? I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts dear reader—if you do or don't have a tattoo, why or why not? If you do—how did you choose what and where to place it? Does it still speak to you over the years? Would you do it again?

This tree of knowledge with it's roots wrapped around a book really resonates with me: