#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Wind & Water Washed Beast of the Beach at Beer Can Island
A wind is whistling through the open windows tonight. It was cooler, much cooler, and the sun behind low clouds when I walked this morning. The shell pickers mostly stayed home. I walked north toward Beer Can Island, toward the Bradenton Bridge. I found a feather with a single strand of seaweed and my friend Enid, on Instagram, later posted this: A word, quilled in ink, it’s cursive unfurled. I wonder what the word was... I know what the word is, the cursive word is: Begin. In the morning I am uncertain about attending my poetry group; I have nothing new, nothing revised. I am walking into accepting this may not be the day for a new poem, and yet one starts vaguely, about this visit from my siblings in the world’s absence of my parents. Still, it takes a stillness, a quiet, a rootedness and depth I do not have last week or today. There is coarse grass that grows from such shallow roots in the sand dunes. That’s how it feels. I cannot seem to get the grip I need for depth. Except, I do, in my groups I’m leading. I am helping others go deep. This afternoon I run my third and last webinar as part of the How Pictures Heal course I’m running, and this course is running deep for participants. We meet from three continents on Zoom! Europe, Australia, US. Everyone shares delighted surprise about the depth of healing AND craft, this blend we have created. It is creatively very satisfying to know how much each has grown in their healing and writing. Both. And, late morning, I do start something new of my own, it’s fresh and brand new and I like where it seems to be going, it surprises me. I will see what comes of it this week. It is the response to the family being here, but not the way I thought it would come. This is what the cursive seaweed feather showed me. Begin. When I was on Beer Can Island, standing in the sand among the beastly wind blown branches of leafless trees, I thought about origin: about my parents’ marriage being framed by a miscarriage. The five of us descended from that point of origin. Loss of the pregnancy that precipitated their marriage. They would have married anyway, yes. But, if that baby had come, truly, all the way to exist, the five of us here of this world on this past weekend would not. So, I looked up at the clouds and said thank you to the one who is not, for making room for us to be the five who we are.
via Instagram: @enidmadaras
A word, quilled in ink, it’s cursive unfurled. I wonder what the word was...