#Write31Days2014 – Postcards From Me

wpid-img_20140904_083707.jpg

Yall I am so excited.

Those of you who have been following this blog for a little while don’t hear me “talk” very often. Usually it is all poetry up in here.

But I just got so incredibly pumped up thinking about this writing challenge that begins tomorrow that I had to give you a little recap. I wonder if I will lose readers with this 31day thing. It is a lot of words, isn’t it, flowing off the page.

As a writer it is challenging, exhilarating and intimidating. But I enjoyed participating in The Nester’s challenge the last two years that I decided to dive in again.

I am joining a huge group of writers who are joining on of my favorite bloggers, The Nester, for her annual  October writing challenge. If you visit the link up of writers, we are all categorized by topic. You can find me in “Too Awesome To Categorize.” How wonderful is that. Ya’ll I think this is going to be fantastic. I truly hope you can find me over there. But this is where my words will be. So just come back to the mother ship. I plan to write about five times a week. Maybe more. Maybe less. How is that for precise.

Here are the links to the 2012 and 2013 challenges. Do you remember way back when.

31 Days of Wonderful Words – 2012

31 days of wonderful words

31 Days of Noticing – 2013

31 days button 500x500

And this year’s series is entitled, Postcards From Me (#write31days2014).

wpid-img_20140929_170447.jpg

So here is a little bit of the “back story”. I am a big back story girl. I love to know the history of things or how they came to be. I do think this may be a little risky, naming this series Postcards From Me, ummm BORING. Who sends postcards anymore, ummm “old school”. But I am not aiming for boring. I am aiming for excellence. Originality. Whimsy. Art. And to give you all something extra-ordinary.

This is my first year with a pseudo-empty nest. (Long story, tell you more later.) And I have been changing it up a bit. I am getting out and traveling “close to home” and enjoying paying attention to the world, its beauty, and always searching for the poetry.

Though I am not traveling to Europe or to Greece or to Patagonia, I hope that my postcards will reflect ordinary snapshots of life. Honing in on beauty. Highlighting the poetry. And giving us all a chance to remember and focus on simple beauty and simple joy.

I don’t go far. There are no airplanes involved. But I am trying to savor the small, the beautiful, the delightful and the lovely. And send them out for others to see too. In poetry, prose and sometimes in a mix of photography and words..

Join me. I believe it will be an exciting adventure. Don’t worry if you can’t read every day. I might not be able to keep up and write every day. And if you have to unsubscribe because it gets too “noisy” oh I will truly miss you. And I hope you don’t. But there is always grace.

On the other hand if you like what you read and see would you consider sharing my art, my words, with a friend. That is always a super lovely accolade for a writer. It is wonderful to see my words flying around and landing places outside of this blog. I pray that they will bless, inspire, encourage and bring joy and whimsy.

wpid-img_20140929_154946.jpg

I am still trying to decide whether to change my series logo every few days or to just select one.

You are seeing me work out the final details. Hope you don’t mind. Here’s another possible button. This is fun. I have some decisions to make before tomorrow, don’t I.
cropped-wpid-img_20140929_170447.jpg

+++++++++++++++++++

Have I forgotten anything. Did I mention I hope you will join me. I want to make it easy for you to follow along. If you have questions or suggestions or comments  feel free to leave one. If you will look up to the header of my blog, where the pages are listed, I have added a new page for this series. #write31Days2014. The series will be updated daily and readable by going to this one page.

Thank you for choosing to visit and thank you for choosing to subscribe. If you aren’t following along on twitter I am @graceappears there. I would be honored to have you “like” my facebook page. There is a place to do that in the right sidebar.

See you tomorrow and every day in October. Well, almost everyday. I am planning on bending my own rules and writing perhaps five times a week. This is an adventure and I am just sort of “going for it.” Not terribly poetic, but honest.

Warmly and with grace,

Elizabeth
logo-writer

One Day I Will Write A Poem

wpid-20140112_160851.jpg

One Day I Will Write A Poem

Before my memory fades
Like shadows on the outskirts
Dim, pale watermarks of life
Growing fainter by the day

Before my words are lost
Somewhere in the forest, thick and dark
Dispersed among the pines and moss
Seedlings of a scattered memory

Capturer of the runaways
Gatekeeper of a million puzzle pieces
That tell a story
That is me
That is me

Before they steal away
Escape into a murky sea
Lost among  forgotten things

Buried in the soil
Of remembering
Hidden from my poetry

Locked out
After every door is closed
And bolted shut

And there is no more
Poetry
That mirrors the
Soul of me

Before that final day
Without a memory

I will write a poem, one day

A Thousand Hands Have Passed By Here

wpid-img_20140823_123901.jpg

A Thousand Hands Have Passed By Here

Maybe hundreds more
But
There was no one there to count

A well-worn wooden handrail
Documents for us

But she will not give up secrets
Of all the living that has come by here
The hurried ones
Tiny pink bare feet
Scampering off to bed
To dream under a mountain quilt, tucked
Under
Crisp cool sheets
As trains go up and down
The mountain tracks
Singing them to sleep

The tired ones who will wake
Before the sun and putter down
The stairs, running wrinkled fingers
Along the smooth and weary rail
Worn by love and life and time
Holding up the aged, the weak and frail

Guardian of more than
One Hundred years of living
Well-traveled
Quiet story-keeper 
Stairwell of this
Old home

Perhaps the next hand, left
Or right from generations
Coming up and down 
Traveling through this  place
Will be a hand of healing
Offering
Sacred grace

Pray blessing and forgiveness
Over those who’ll come here too

Perhaps
There will be a thousand more
Hands traveling down the rail
Bearing witness to 
Humility and redeeming love
For generations still to come

For scores and scores of lifetimes
More
May scamper up to bed
Up, then down, down then up
Living, loving,
In this family place

A thousand hands have passed by here

So
Walk quiet now
Soft and slow and reverently
So
You may hear the tales
Echo in the halls
Wisdom from sojourners
Who came by here before
Pass on stories of
Their living
Loving strong and hard
For years and years

Within these pine-board walls

wpid-img_20140823_123141.jpg

Joining Sandra Heska King for Still Saturday

When Art Imitates Art Imitating Life

When Art Imitates Art Imitating Life

 

Will you hide is sometimes code for will you be writing today
Creativity fueled by art, cinematic in this case
She can’t shake the storyline
Don’t be fooled the she is thinly veiled

And the film breathed new life into her own
Art
Somehow the story of salvaging it
Saving it
Calling it valuable
Stirred her soul

Somehow the cinematic fueled the
Poetic
The visual, the literary

And the chicken and the egg argument
Raises its ugly head
Well it’s not ugly
Just a little cliche

And with all the pain providing a Crimson backdrop
To the day
Art does wash
Poetry does restore
Words do renew

His code for hiding
Is her code for making sense of it all

Even if it is just last night’s movie about
Europe, old men and a war

And it all comes round again
Europe, men and war

She thought
Hiding sounded like a form of
Surviving
Buried deep inside her words
Making sense of senseless acts
Carving beauty from the ash

She decides to answer yes
I will be hiding out today
Pen in hand, armed and ready for
A chance to write a line of
Healing
In a world of pain
image

Continue reading “When Art Imitates Art Imitating Life”