Stones

Stones on my desk

When I am thinking

I'll pick one up

and roll it around

in my hand

they're cool and smooth

and reassuring

they're simple

and astonishing

and I love them

xx

Stones

Stones

so solid

and smooth

fit so comfortably 

in my hand

cool to the touch

I am drawn to them

but

I don't know exactly 

why

xx

Pattern and Story

I am drawn to pattern

- not rigid, symmetrical pattern - 

but to pleasing balance

In life as in story

I need to see the particular 

and understand how it relates

to the whole

It wasn't until I got home

from my walk

that I noticed the similarities

in the scenes that caught my eye

much as, in writing a story,

the patterns are not always evident

until I complete a first 'walk' (draft)

but then, once noticed,

the task is to oonch them to the surface

right?

Stones and Story

November brings stillness to the lake: tourists are gone and boat traffic is down to the occasional fishing boat. It's a good time to work, and sometimes 'work' entails loosening or emptying the mind, or, what Grace Paley once referred to as 'sitting like a dope in a chair time.'

If it's possible to be outside, that's where I'd rather be. I could sit here:

But I am unable to sit for very long in a chair and do nothing, so my empty-the-head time is down by the water's edge, poking through the rocks, walking the shore.

No matter how many times I walk the same stretch, I always find something new:

That something 'new' might be something very old and much like the 'new' stones uncovered in writing a story. There is this one, that one, and ah, look what's under here.  And in that one stone are dozens of new pieces to explore. Sometimes the most challenging part of writing a book is not what to include, but what to leave out. There is so much world out there.

Back up the hill now, mind refreshed.  Pause here at the swing:

And now: ready to get on with the story . . .