#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Charles River from the Trestle Bridge; first day of spring
As I write this, tonight, after my Tuesday night Writers, I wonder if I will be interrupted by some little feet sneaking into my room, and oh, I think I hear them now? Well, not yet. This morning I volunteered to drive my grandson to school for my daughter. But Wave wanted tv in the car. Complained at me from the back seat.
“I don’t have tv. I have stories,” I said. I’m a storyteller. I have so many stories with me right now.”
“What stories,” he asked. And I gave him a long list of the usual ones: Jack in the Beanstalk, Billy Goats Gruff, the three bears and the three pigs. . . and also, ones that have happened to us. How about the story of Charlie getting arrested in Edgardtown on Martha’s Vineyard?”
Yes, he agreed to that one. And I started to tell it by telling about what an island is, how it’s surrounded by water. And how you can only reach it by ferry––and then I reminded him of summer trips on the ferry, and the blast of the whistle that shocks our ears. . . and then he remembered––
“And then I am hungry and it’s time for a snack.” Yes, you can buy snacks on the ferry, and his mother bought him a frozen banana. And he had his fishing net with him and his suitcase of toys. . . “ And we never quite got to the part about Charlie because he wanted to hear the story of the ferry ride over and over again, about how much fun it is to take a boat to an island. And then we were at school. And he didn’t want the stories to end, and he didn’t want to get out of the car. And it was a wrangling as he dodged me from the front seat to the back after being released from his car seat. And I thought, well, this has been successful storytelling, at least. And I said, “See, how fun it is to be a storyteller?” And he said,
“But I’m a TV teller.”
Indeed. And I managed to get him in the school door. First day of spring, and I walked instead of swam and I was quite cold, and almost turned back! Very unusual for me. But I kept going and found some heat. And had a very nice time after all, and finished listening to Eudora Welty’s novel, Delta Wedding, and loved it so much and hated for it to end.
My image, “Tree Joy,” was published on the cover of Cool Beans Lit magazine today, and one more of my photos, “Blue Beauty, Brook Abstract” was published inside. Tonight I went into my photo history to see exactly when I took Tree Joy and was surprised to find that I took it on Christmas morning of last year. It’s the perfect tree photo for a spring issue, though. I remember my walk, past the brook, and all the way to the cemetery in town to visit my parents, and the poem I brought to workshop Monday was the poem I wrote about this walk. A pretty remarkable Christmas morning.
Tree Joy, Cover Art, Cool Beans Literary Magazine