On, In, and Around Mondays: The Unfolding Day

The trees are bare against the sky, and they lean across the back road, as if reaching to one to another across the gap. I remember driving this lane with my grandmother over twenty years ago, and suddenly time feels as if it's peeling back. I get this odd sensation that I am returning to something.

My car faces South, keeps making its way down the winding road, until I come to a place near the river, with its old trees, sprawling landscape, view of the mountains on the other side. I will spend hours here today, though I don't know it yet—hours unfolding my imagination, but not in a way I can actually comprehend. I feel, quite literally, as if I have entered a state of no-thoughts, just sound and vision and slow movement, and, finally, sitting for a long time.

Along the way I find things. A field of snowdrops. Furry buds on trees. They ask nothing of me, but I give them something silent, something unnamed.



Near the river, I listen to susurrations. The water's constant shhh, shhh, shhh, to the shore. The windy sound of trains passing. A woman telling her friend about the bride who wore fairy wings over her wedding dress. And another woman telling a man, "Next year we'll be real people."



I am unfolding inside, not sure if what I am finding is wings, or a landing place. Not sure if I am wrapped in Imagination or Reality.

The sun begins to set. I feel I have been waiting for someone, real or imagined. I think of my grandmother and how strongly and beautifully she made her way in this world. I wonder, as the water reflects last light, if I have been waiting for me.


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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. :)

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This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...