I went on a walk with my girl (who just got out of the hospital…again) and saw these lovely leaves sprouting from the side of a tree.
It made me think:
Tag: Nature
Tweet ThisFinding the Different—and Seeing the Good
White stretches long reaching to the horizon where it curves seamless into the sky, over my head. A cocoon of monotone silence.
The frozen world can preserve, but it is cold welcome to stand static and alone…sense of self captured like some ancient beast in an iceberg—extinct and yet still here.
I snuggle my nose down into the collar of my coat, thankful for the heat preserved inside it. A short squeal and swish, and my son lands pell-mell at my feet. A mound of blue and grey against the snow. Continue reading “Finding the Different—and Seeing the Good”
Remember—The Key to Finding What You’ve Been Looking For
There’s a reason this blog is called Beautiful. Ugly. Me. The last few months have been undeniably difficult, but here’s the thing. They’ve been beautiful, too…and I missed it.
I was flipping back through some of the photos from the last few weeks and am in awe of what I found. I’m overwhelmed by the fact that the inanimate lens of my iPhone picked up what I failed to see.
So I’m taking a moment to step back and remind myself, and hopefully you, that goodness is available for those with eyes to see. That if I’m patient, I’ll stop sabotaging myself and find what I’ve been looking for all along.
Continue reading “Remember—The Key to Finding What You’ve Been Looking For”
The Water Droplet: A Poem
I hang suspended
. Stretching away from my design
. Wrapped tight within myself—my natural tendency
. Clear shimmering, promising help
. But void.
Until
. My neighbor slips down
. Bumping my tight skin, breaking the meniscus,
. Binding with me, pulling, stretching
And we dance to the ground.
Splash, jumping with the others
Filter through the dirt
Nourishing, becoming.
_________________________
This poem is in response to the Five Minute Friday prompt: Neighbor. The rules are: write for 5 minutes and no editing (although I can’t stop myself a little. I am an editor after all). And yes, I know it isn’t Friday anymore. I was up enjoying Lake Michigan and my family and purposefully left my laptop at home. But I did take pics. If you’d like to see some, head over to my Instagram account.
Like the little water droplet in the poem, I so often fight joining with other folks. But when I do allow myself, I find a whole new purpose.
So this fall I’m back to leading a neighborhood study and hanging with my writer’s group. But I’m also presenting at two writer’s conferences and volunteering downtown at a fabulous outreach that uses art to reach the homeless population. I’m nervous and excited as I dance into this new season. Hoping to be nourishment to my fellow neighbors.
How about you? What are you tackling this season?
The post pic is mine.
Sketches of Light
The other day, I was out for a walk. Despite the bright sunshine, darkness hovered close, stalking the cracks and crevices of my mind. This nebulous shadow is nothing new. And I found myself fighting it, once again.
If you have never tried, doing battle with a substanceless thing is tiring work on a normal day. But I’d also just had surgery, and my daughter had hurt her knee…really hurt it.
So we were living with a mom who was recovering and a girl who’s broken—a gaping black hole on the MRI where her bright white ACL should be.
But as I walked, my crazy dog running circles around my legs, I started noticing the shadows, the sketches of blocked light.
I suddenly started seeing the light playing inside the shadow—the interplay an exquisite balance.
In Living Color
Most of you know that I had surgery a few weeks ago. My recovery is going well. But I’m beginning to lose patience with myself and I’m beginning to think I may never wear pants with an actual waistband again.
So I set myself a goal of walking outside every day and appreciating spring…because, let’s be honest, there’s something about spring. Since I generally share my week with you, I thought you might enjoy seeing my world in living color.
In case you’re wondering, the extreme close-up shots are taken with my iPhone 5S with an Olloclips 14x Macro lens. The rest are a combination of my phone and my Nikon D3200.
Writing a Picture
Part of an artist’s job is to see the things other people miss and introduce the two. As a novelist, I walk through life almost constantly distracted, curious about the frost creeping up the garage window, the lichen on a tree, the distinctive way someone walks or speaks.
I have files of disjointed impressions, thoughts, people, and scenes that just might eventually find their way into my writing. It’s me introducing something I saw or heard to my reader. You’d be amazed how much emotion can be infused into your writing by using vivid scene description from my files of memories.
Example
For example, I wrote this quick scene after walking my son to the bus stop. It was cold and my breath puffed in front of me as we walked by the forest path. And I suddenly pictured a frightened girl walking the path. She was a runner for an underground group of some kind and she just catches something out of the corner of her eye…
I blinked and he was gone. The vapor from his breath still rising in the air. Unconnected. Alone. I turned slow circles. Searching again.
The shadows shifted amongst the trees and I knew they’d sent him.
The colors bled around me watercolors dripping through space. Collecting at my feet.
Most of the time I don’t have full flashes of a scene like this one. But who knows where that scene might crop up.
Usually I note everyday sights and how they strike me or, even more, how they might strike a particular character.
Maybe it’s the sluggish movement of the creek all gummed up with seaweed. If I’m writing a book with a teen who loves to be outside, that little sight becomes a metaphor for how my character views the last 15 minutes of school.
Or maybe it’s the birds on a telephone wire—beaks pulled in and all puffed up against the cold. I don’t know about you, but I can identify, and I bet you might have a character who can too.
Or maybe it’s the moon caught behind a haze of clouds—the light ineffectual against the darkness. I have a character who sees God that way—a weak light hovering above us, but he doesn’t seem strong enough to make any difference at all.
Or maybe you have a timid character and icicles on the roof of her antagonist’s house look like jagged teeth. Can you just see a character walking up to that? You wouldn’t have to say she’s intimidated if the house has a gaping maw. But you could just as easily have the character see the sunshine bend through the icicles, sending dancing sparks of light across the ground. It’s the same sight but seen from two different points of view.
Writing Prompt
So, this week, I challenge you to take an everyday sight from your life and turn it into a useable snippet for your book or blog. Maybe take one image (like the icicles) and give it both a happy and chilling twist.
Then hop back here and share on of your mini scenes. We’d love to hear it and learn from how you see the world.
Want More Help?
To get more help on the art of description without going overboard, check out this workshop: https://www.editinginsiders.com/downloads/the-art-of-description-without-going-overboard/
Beauty Behind the Macro Lens
There are times when life gets too big, my vision too full of debris and clutter that threaten to trap me. And I must focus small to get through. The macro shot bringing life down to leaf-sized, manageable pieces. There’s just something about the tight focus.
So I bring you the beauty in the small, tiny veins of a brittle leaf, the light caught in the edges of an evergreen needle, and the rich brown rings on a fungus. May these humble images bring you a moment’s joy for the week.
Worth a Thousand Words
From the moment my daughter was born, she was most content when not inside. As a baby, the best way to calm her colicky crying was to snuggle her in a bouncy seat under the maple tree or, when it got cold, take her for a ride in a sled.
During her early years, I spent hours in the woods trailing a toddler looking for critters under overturned logs, disguised behind leaves, and lurking in the water. We amazed at how they were created to adapt to their environment and needs.
I started photographing the animals we found and put them into a book for my girl…and those little books became board books published a few years back. (Check out the All About God’s Animal series over here.)
My girl is a tween now and doesn’t need me by her side as she builds tree forts and digs for fishing worms. And so it’s been a long, long time since I hunted the woods, beaches, and waterways for critters and nature to capture on film.
Until now. A few days ago, my girl asked me to go take pictures with her. The little dude was at soccer practice and the field is hemmed in with fields and trees—full of natural beauty, decay, and life all mixed together for us to explore. Continue reading “Worth a Thousand Words”
Summer Blue–A Poem
Summer break is still new enough that we haven’t done too much complaining of boredom . . . yet. It’s open and we can sleep in and just breathe for a second. Paint, throw water balloons, read, . . . and go to the beach. Can’t forget the beach, where the sky breathes into the water, which slides into sand.
This unique place is one of our favorite destinations. If you’ve never made it to our neck of the woods, we have, arguably the best beaches in the world. Seriously Western Michigan’s white sandy, fresh water “ocean” coastline has often found it’s way into top mentions right alongside Hawaii, Florida, and the rest. So in honor of Lake Michigan, I give you: