On, In, and Around Mondays: Writing Landscapes

He walks the old ways and pays a toll in skin. The paths are chalk, and his body writes itself onto the landscape, even as the landscape writes itself onto his body.

MacFarlane has taken a fall along The Icknield Way, and somehow I think of my own skin, and the way I sit, on this day, near my daughter's warmth, and our bodies are making a memory—her landscape writing itself on me, mine writing itself on hers.

She listens to my cadence as I read: magnesian limestone, Permian mudstone, Middle Lias, Great Oolite, cornbrash and, yes, London chalk.

I remember when she was tiny and loved to draw on asphalt—chalk in her small hand, colors and visions set down, now long washed away by rain.

"I could see you doing this," I interrupt my reading, bringing memories forward and on into her possible future. My chalk girl. I can see her walking The Icknield Way.

"You can?"

"Yes, I don't know why. I can see you walking this path."

And I know that in this moment, whether or not she ever walks MacFarlane's London Chalk way, that she could. It is within her.

"Take me with you," I want to say.

But I don't.

Her head is on my shoulder. I lean down to kiss her warm face, let the moment write itself onto my skin.


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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...

On, In, and Around Mondays: Walking to Love

I am supposed to be reading The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot, by Robert Macfarlane, to review it for Books & Culture.

So of course I've only gotten as far as chapter one, and instead of continuing to read, I began walking every morning.

Macfarlane's journey began in winter, and he claims you can't go anywhere without walking. I am already in disagreement. You might know why.

It's okay. He could be right, in his way. It doesn't change the fact that I went somewhere without going anywhere. Two things can be right. This is something I had great fun exploring in The Novelist.

Anyway. I began walking every morning, and whereas Macfarlane quotes Emerson, "the ground is all memoranda and signatures," I am noticing that the ground is a cradle for love.

And I, like some kind of wandering mother, have the chance to embrace what the ground is holding out to me, if I want.

One morning, the ground gave me an ivory-coated terrier. This little dog would not move until I came to greet him. I held his face between my hands and looked directly into his melty brown eyes. "I see you," I said to this tiny creature named Tiger. "I am so glad you are saying hello to me."

Another morning, the ground gave me a brown-haired girl, skipping her way to the school bus. She raised an eraser to her nose and sniffed hard. "I love the smell of this eraser!" she shouted to the wind. "I love this eraser!" I gathered her words.

This morning, it was two old men. Jamaican, I think, if I heard their deep, throaty sing-song correctly. "You gonna buy this house?" one of them asked me when I walked by. "Oh, just stretching near the driveway," I replied. "Great house, isn't it?" I added. And he nodded yes and turned back to his friend.

Macfarlane is right about walking. It takes you somewhere.

In my case, I feel like I am mother-walking to love.

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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. :)



<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

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