The INFP Question

Solve the great riddle:
Where do all quests reach their end?
The wisest ones know
The secret is in forests
Where branches keep on growing.

Insecure Writer’s Support Group June 3 Blog Hop

June 3 question – Writers have secrets! What are one or two of yours, something readers would never know from your work?

I haven’t accumulated a significant amount of work to show yet, but I have been very inspired to write lately by my love for perfume.  I’ve been amassing a small horde for the last few years, and I feel that describing the scents and writing reviews helps me produce some of my most creative imagery.  I hope to draw on the same descriptive process in other pieces as well.  The haiku I wrote in my previous post was actually one of my submissions to a short poetry contest held by Parfums Dusita, a niche perfume house.  Haikus are difficult to write, by the way!  Here is another:

Rays of hopeful sun
Brush the tops of heady blooms
It seems just for us

I’ve also felt inspired to write by none other than…  My cat.  I suppose I pay so much attention to her quirky little personality that it also comes naturally to write fluidly about her antics.  I could probably fill quite a few pages just writing about perfume and cats.  Would anyone read a book like that?  Let me know.  As a teacher, I’ve heard before that a student’s reading level is likely to be much higher when they are reading preferred content.  As an aspiring writer, I’m beginning to believe that the same is true for writing.

https://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/p/iwsg-sign-up.html

A meditation on love and freedom

The jade forest breathes
We linger on the edge
Eager for the plunge

Insecure Writers Support Group May 6 Blog Hop

May 6 question – Do you have any rituals that you use when you need help getting into the ZONE? Care to share?

This is my first time participating in the Insecure Writers Support Group, so…  Hello to anyone who comes across my blog!

At this point, I wish I had more to share, but I’ve only been playing at creative writing for about a month.  I’m also a sixth grade math teacher trying to handle distance learning for my students, and it’s been a challenge to find the time and energy to practice writing daily.  When I do manage to get “in the zone,” here are some of the things that have helped me:

1.  Having a writing prompt.  It’s much easier to write without also having to do the mental lift of thinking up a subject.
2. Setting a timer.  Knowing that I have a time limit helps me to just start writing, rather than agonizing about whether whatever comes out will be perfect.
3. Starting this blog!  Even if no one views my posts, I feel at least a little more accountable knowing that, in theory, someone *could.*
4. Reading excellent writing.  I’m the most inspired to develop my voice as a writer when I read beautiful work that makes me want to produce my own.  Currently, I’m reading The Magus by John Fowles.

I hope to have other routines to share at some point!  Thanks for reading for now!

https://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com/p/iwsg-sign-up.html

 

Something Lost

The mist creeps through the darkened streets
Asleep, asleep, they’re all asleep
Twining round the lampposts
Through the open window, ever so slightly ajar
Muffling, lulling, on velvet feet
Shushing and smoothing, asleep, asleep
In gray twilight robes on thousands of feet
Past the yellow dog at the foot of the stairs
Spiraling up through the dream-filled air
A phantom of indeterminate intent
Touching everything, touching nothing

In the shrouded chamber, midnight hangs
In indigo curtains, gently breathing
The air expanding in waxing and waning
Hoping and chasing, alternating
Into this cocoon, inhaling, exhaling
On velvet feet touching everything and nothing
Winding around her with seductive tendrils
Insistent and invisible, pervasive, imaginary
Trailing through dreams with immaterial fingers
Leaving no trace on the silk pillow case
Warmed by sleeping breath

Inside dreams, the subtle plucking of a harp
Notes like golden droplets rippling
Concentric circles of a single silent splash
Caressing the mind with a perfect, light touch
Waves that crest in crystalline brilliance
Lapping against the interior of her slumbering skull

It is hard to say what could rouse any soul
In a silence so plush and complete
Perhaps a stray barely discordant note
Just the frequency to reach the ear of one yellow dog
And then it is done
Awake, awake, raise the cry
Ringing and shouting we get to our feet
Alert!  All over town, all the dogs rise as one
In chaos and joy and panic
And just as quick, they fall silent again
Barking at phantoms on thousands of feet

The mistress awake in her velvet cocoon
Golden light lapping against the night
A great silent chasm where something once stood
Dizzily looking down, down, down
Wondering what now can never return
Silence so deep it emits a dark hum
That circles the heart on thousands of feet

 

The Pursuit of Something I Once Saw in a Dream

To anyone who knows me well, it’s no secret that I often, perhaps too often, wax nostalgic about my childhood.  Particularly as I wade further into adult life, I can’t help but wonder, is this really it?  Surely there’s more!  Perhaps if I look back again, I’ll remember something that I used to know, and then all of this will make sense.  I’ll find the person I really am.  I’ll discover a gift I thought I once had, but stored away in some dusty corner of my mind.  The thing about some childhood gifts, though, is that you can’t really be sure they were ever there to begin with.  Some people said so, but as you grow older and see more of the world, you start to realize that what some people said hardly qualifies as evidence.  Looking for them now feels like looking for something you remember seeing in a dream, but can’t quite be sure. In fact, maybe you never had those gifts at all.

Or, maybe the real gift was a time when you didn’t feel so small because your world itself was much smaller, more private.  The real gift was a time when you didn’t feel so hopelessly mediocre because it wasn’t necessary to see how you measured up.  The real gift was the ability to dwell in the realm of possibility, where it didn’t matter so much what came of anything in the end.  Maybe childhood itself was the gift that was taken for granted.

In all likelihood, these gifts will never return.  That time will never return.  Childhood will never return.  So what is a girl to do?  All sorts of conventional wisdom springs to mind.  Live every day like it’s your last.  Today is a gift; that’s why it’s called the present.  Find beauty everywhere.  Dance like no one is watching.  Somehow, none of these quite capture the feeling of standing on the edge of an abyss knowing that you can’t go back but also don’t know how to go forward, or trying to build a castle when all you have on hand is cobwebs and dust motes.  But they’ll have to do for now, until I can answer the question myself.  Until then, I’ll continue to peer through the murky mists in my mind, following the winding paths and searching the dark caves, turning abruptly to catch the feathered wing of something familiar as it slips away.