With a slower freelance pace this summer compared to last, I’ve been enjoying unedited time with pen, paper and my yet ungraceful imagination. Creative writing is a joy for me, not necessarily a gift. If I’m wrong and it is a gift, then it is one of those sad forgotten presents, shoved behind piles of essentials, half opened and hidden under laundry piles.
Whether a gift or indescribable joy, I am thankful for the re-discovering and have been filling pages and notebooks with descriptions of life as it breathes around me. This morning I sat still long enough to record the breathing:
Morning sun pushes its way into small openings left by our pines and maples. Rays of golden yellow unroll into hazy wide ribbons – perfect for faery sliding or maypole dancing. If only such ribbons could be contained.
Meanwhile, the air is trapped by its own congestion – thick and slow to move. On occasion, an almost imperceptible breeze brings relief from self-inflicted muskiness. Its breath whispers faintly on my back and neck, tickling, sometimes pushing stronger – enough to be labeled ‘breeze’ and make trees talk. Then, just like the elusive faeries, it is gone; abandoned again to heavy stillness from overcrowding.
As the sun steadies itself upwards, it loses tree openings and the faery slides disappear. Light is blocked by thick treetops. A thin layer of cirrus clouds shatter pointed beams, infusing shards of yellow throughout their gauzy film.
Everything around me, including me, is pressed into by the morning’s heaviness.
I soak the heaviness into myself; becoming part of summer’s lushness, hoping only to remain surrounded by the quiet of morning’s new promise. Every day becomes filled with cares, concerns and discontents. The world tightens its noose around my neck. But in the early morning’s haze, all is still possible. Energy is still potential and kinetic creativity is still mine.
Writing this morning left me full of the knowing of my life. Its bounty. Its heaviness. Its legacy through time. There is this unredeemed side of me that mocks my creative efforts – rejecting it as useless and impractical. But then I spend time in the ‘useless’ and ‘impractical’, and discover: it is in the halls of seemingly ‘pointless’ activities – describing a summer morning, painting a still-life, weaving a basket – where the most deeply hued legacies are hung.
What are you doing to open wide the fullness of your life? Are you spending time daily in nurturing your gifts – unashamed and guilt-free?
I love this post and also find that more “practical” things seem to stifle my creativity or my true passions. I don’t think that is God’s intentions for our gifts 🙂
I agree! I find it hard to allow myself time indulging in the impractical, but strangely, when I do, I find God in the midst of it – and I am blown away by His love.
Love reading your work. Good things will come! You are a great inspiration for me to move forward with my dream of being photographer! Keep up the great work. Amy Basolt (Ava’s mother).
It’s interesting how different people find the same “place” through different means. Years ago I drove truck. Not a great occupation for a man of faith, but that’s another story. The seemingly endless hours behind the wheel at all times of day an night became a time when my mind soared through realms my body had never visited. God came closer in my own version of the “still small voice” than ever I had known him in the midst of congregation.
Now my wife and I walk. Again, a different version of “pointless activity” but one that allows our minds to float while our feet are moving.
Love the blog. Cheers,
Peter
A retired photographer looks at life
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