On, In, and Around Mondays: Writing the In-Between
It is an empty trail, black-sand, too-noisy near the highway. Just a passing-through. A means to get from one beautiful place to another. I walk it because it's a place to walk while I wait.
Nothing but nothing here, until a red bird flushes from dead weeds. And I stand still and say out loud, "Oh, you." I'm talking to the bird now, somehow thanking it for catching my eye.
Look. I am talking to myself. Listen. What is the air saying? What hides in the in-between?
I have a camera in my pocket, and I am thinking differently, so I go in search. Find a trinity of red berries. A cloister of the beautiful. I see naked backs of wineberries, bent shivering cranberry spines, sharp in the earth-fragrant air.
No more birds, but it is enough that the red one winged his way into my awareness. Raised my eyes to the in-between places. Beckoned me to measure the distances between me and the clusters of late berries.
I don't know it yet, but I will come home and write it down.
_______
On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.
If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)
This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...
Labels: On in and Around Mondays, writing
posted by L.L. Barkat at 10:16 AM
11 Comments:
lovely. always.
Love how our journeys lead us to the smallest of intersections, how they open up into broad, wide-eyed revelations.
Today, I stopped by Better World Books. Its old hardwood floors whispered underneath my feet as I walked through the shelves. I was listening for Rumors of Waters, though knowing it would be an unlikely find in a mostly used bookstore.
But my gift certifcate scooped up what it could find. I hope you don't mind, but they'll be good for my throat in the meantime: Berry, Kenyon, Koethe, and Dillard. I will order yours next.
I believe in intersections.
(By the way: Congratulations on being named.)
i don;t know it yet, but....
love
Thank you for opening my eyes.
Oh yes, the "In-Between"--I love the unexpected pleasures there . . . and that you captured them so beautifully! Happy New Year!!
A flash of red in the in-between is always a gift. And so are your words.
So often, in our walking and living and seeing, we, like Mary, store it inside of us - to understand at another time. It's just up to us to be watching, aware and absorb.
Hope your new year is fill of surprises in unlikely places!
Oh, you found hope in the in-between!
Sometimes it feels my entire life is lived in the in-between. A friend of mine, back in the print photography days, observed that we used to take photos only of the big events--birthdays, weddings, vacations, gatherings--and didn't take snapshots of the ordinary, in-between times. And yet, that's when everything happens...or that was her theory.
Now, of course, with digital photography, people take photographs of everything at every time. And so we can explore the in-between so much more carefully.
You are doing just that...and look at all the treasures.
Grateful for the bird. And for the writer who pays attention. (you.)
Beautiful thoughts. So glad you committed yourself to see the beauty. It's always there, isn't it? We just have to be looking for it!
May God meet you in this world, in your thought world, and at all points in between!
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