A couple of things I am learning today: This is work and going through two decades of personal history is like dropping a piano on my own head!
This morning the blank page did stare me down and when I went through all of my years of writing, I found that I needed to do it in bed with a box of tissues next to me! Sometimes no matter how hard you plan (Miss Type-A-Jill!) things shall go another way...another lesson (re-)learned.
Clearly, at the very least, a transition day needs to happen as I transform from mom-teacher-wife to temporarily, solely myself - all the good, bad or ugly that made me who I am right now! As the fog lifted, I kept on. I took a break and started a painting. Then I picked one metaphor that I really love that I recently revisited both in writing and in "real-life." If any younger mommies are reading, The Swing became a huge part of our school year at Milestones this year. So many of the children learned to pump on their own. Similar to when children learn to ride a bike, the moment is full of elation and magic. What adult doesn't remember what that felt like? I have crystal clear memories of swinging as a young child and can also still hear my dear departed grandmother reciting Robert Louis Stevenson's poem of The Swing from A Child's Garden of Verses. Anyway, I am going to share a bit of the writing I did today, using the swing as a metaphor...
Like a pendulum the barefoot, smiling child goes back and
forth. Joyful. Up in the air so blue.
Her hair shining in the sun, giggles drifting through the warm summer
breeze. Our childhood simplicity and innocence emerges, illuminated through this one fluid act. The to and fro motion, not unlike a
cradle rocking, alternating in rhythm; blue sky, green grass, blue sky, green
grass... She feels like a bird. If only the swing could act as a time machine
and her adult self could go back to that idyllic freedom layered in the
security of home like a warm blanket.
I'll keep working on that piece, but if all I have to show for today is the beginning of that thought, I feel like I got a little somewhere...
On that note, I am going to seek out some nurturing posole somewhere around here. Below are some ancient, colorful windows and doors within the backdrop of that calming adobe...Adieu, cockatoo.
No comments:
Post a Comment