#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Belly of the Brook Woman

When I talk about pictures in my mind I am talking, quite specifically, about images that shimmer around the edges. There used to be an illustration in every elementary psychology book showing a cat drawn by a patient in varying stages of schizophrenia. This cat had a shimmer around it. You could see the molecular structure breaking down at the very edges of the cat: the cat became the background and the background the cat, everything interacting, exchanging ions. People on hallucinogens describe the same perception of objects. I’m not a schizophrenic, nor do I take hallucinogens, but certain images do shimmer for me. Look hard enough, and you can’t miss the shimmer. It’s there. You can’t think too much about these pictures that shimmer. You just lie low and let them develop. You stay quiet. You don’t talk to many people and you keep your nervous system from shorting out and you try to locate the cat in the shimmer, the grammar in the picture.

~ Joan Didion, Excerpt from “Why I Write,” in Genius

I love Joan Didion’s idea about pictures that “shimmer around the edges.” Yes. I found an image like that this morning, in the brook ice. An image of a woman with the brook in her belly. Oh, the holiday started today. It started to take shape. Beginning with my son coming home and my ability to give him a big hug. And, a day off alone with Frank, shopping, our tradition, in the day before Christmas Eve going out together to wrap up our shopping. Whew! The non-stop activity of the holiday began today, in earnest. The food shopping done, and the meal planning done and the gift shopping done. And a very lovely sit down dinner, prepared by me, Julia Child’s chicken in wine, my mother taught me to make, and requested by my youngest who came with her boyfriend for dinner. It was a lovely meal, and all were grateful. And I am ready for a good night’s sleep. I skipped my meditation today, but not my walk or swim. So long, Joan Didion. Thank you for sharing the inspiration of your writing life in such a powerful way.