Wednesday, March 30, 2011

I have to write a paper tonight, so it must be time for another blog post...

Obviously, I am working on my descriptive abilities these days.  I'm also trying to develop my own voice. I don't just want to take on the voice of whatever author I am reading, but perhaps that is somewhat inevitable. The beginning still doesn't seem smooth to me, so if you have suggestions, please let me know.

A memory of winter when it was still beautiful to me...

I set out from the warm building into the winter night. The wind whipped across the asphalt plane in front of me, but because I was mentally prepared, I still felt cozy with the cold all around me.  Yet, the parking lot still seemed bigger than usual as I leaned into the surging current.  At first I trudged along, with the coming protection of my car at the forefront of my mind, but about half way across the second parking lot, I realized that something had changed in me.  My mind had released it's grip on that definite end, and it sank deeply and pleasantly into the present.  With delight, I became conscious of the fact that what I enjoyed now was a precious moment of solitude, full and beautiful.  As I freed my eyes from their determined gaze at the ground a few feet in front of me, it seemed that the world had transformed in the absence of my noticings. It was no longer simply a cold winter night, but a gem of a view, an experience, an indulgence. A dusting of snow twinkled beneath the street lamps.  Above the lamps, heavy black clouds hung low.  It was as if the stars had fled from where they belonged in protest to the clouds and come to rest on the ground, determined to make some dark expanse bright.  I turned to take a path from one lot to the next. The path lead me momentarily between two low snow covered banks. They blocked the wind and all indications of human presence.  Instead, there was stillness.  At least I thought so at first, but I when I stopped to absorb it, my own stillness allowed me to discern the smaller, rustling movements.  Beyond the protective banks I could still hear the wind whistling and the ticking it made as it knocked tree branches together, and around my feet was movement too.  A gentle draft flowed down my path and around my boots. Staying low to the ground it smoothed the banks on either side of me, until they looked like solid ground, shining like polished pearls, distinctive from the granulated glittering of the parking lot.  The next gust of the low draft brought new snow into the little valley in which I stood.  This new snow snaked along the banks and around my boots with a soft sshhhhh, barely noticeable below the distant whistle of the wind. I looked more like a ghost or a shadow than actual substance.  I decided then that this was a moment beyond words, and there are no words that can describe the huge, yet simple yet full effect these small details combined to give me. And before the moment ended, I forced myself to step forward, to leave before the world deflated.  It caused me pain and sorrow to walk on, but no regret.  It may remain a moment uncaptured, but some things are meant to be bigger than our grasp.

1 comment:

  1. Wow. Why are you such a good writer? Something about reading what you write makes me want to give up writing and simply be your reader.

    Remember me when you win the Pulitzer? ;-)

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