Light of Today

Words started forming into sense when I added light to my keyboard through the votive holder gifted by Candace. New Knowledge: It is not my light, but my light reflected and refracted by others, that matters most.

Oh, my, how pithy. Or is it profound? There is no answer that matters other than my own, because I am no longer writing how I feel. I write about who what when where why and how I am.

That is the pivot point of my integrity as a writer. I never wanted to write about how I feel. I was sick and tired of how I feel from the beginning. I may have been born sick and tired of how I feel. I have a misted, dense vision of my formative and young years where “How do you feel” is the omnipresent question. Everything was “…yes, but how do you feel?” Who the hell really cared? “How do you feel” was a clever mother’s clever trick to turn any moment or situation into a problem within me. It appears that if you keep a child focused on feelings and the internal world that child grows with neither an ability to discern where problems and circumstances truly lay, nor with an ability to function in a practical world of what is. The parental bonus is deflection from yourself as the source of all misery.

So, no, I do now want to write about how I feel. It is irrelevant. It is properly my own internal dialogue, not a way to interact with the world. I write about what I know: The world through my eyes, both real and imagined. The world through all of my senses, sense and schemata, as it is for me.

Still, there are certain words I’d love to hear through certain voices:

Mr. Weinke: "Good use of commas!"

He is not a muse, merely a grammar-obsessed 7th grade teacher who refused to let
me get away with breaking the unknowable Laws of English, no matter how well I
structured and supported the case for my own rules.

Mrs. Lowey: "May I have a copy?"

She is not a muse any more than she is a grammarian. She is a watchful,
comprehending silence. She is She Who Must Be Obeyed. She forced me
to know that I may write my own rules, and in so doing set a new standard for
creative brilliance, win her admiration, and still receive a C on the scale of
the world as it is.

Passiflora

It is freezing cold, for Sarasota. It has rained for two and a half days, also a bit unusual at this time of year. Altogether it has felt more like November on the northwest coast of Ireland than December on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Understandably, then, I was surprised when I opened the door to water the cats, heard my passion vine shout for my attention, and saw it exhaling violet light through the general gray of the day.

This was not the first flower.  That trophy came with the nursery vine and proved to be an unexpected and rather exquisite Passiflora variety. Today's blossom came into being in my soil; it is a product of me.

I have waited and watched many months for my vine to show an interest in its world. During that time, it has appeared largely dormant. I have studied it occasionally, and tended it even less. My patience with its refusal to show its purple self has been thin, yet tolerant with a glaze of gardener's acceptance.

Today, my passionflower vine shows the world and me an instance of existence on and in the world. It is alive, cold, and determined to bloom again. I wonder only if it is cognizant of the two vine roots that were pulled, completely and utterly dead. Does it remember its missing two thirds, mourn and push forward despite the loss? Did they sacrifice themselves, falling on their perennial swords in the best interest of the most likely to succeed? Did it kill two rivals with malice aforethought? Or is it herbaceously oblivious to the fate of its neighbors, aware only of its own need to move on down the fence, stopping only to dedicate a few spiral cells as strategically placed, tightly twisted grips on the surface of its latticed planet?

It is, I know, deeply focused on its grip. It shows no more blooms or buds, only survival. I believe that in a very short time, it will stop, hear nothing chasing or competing for the space it wants, and feel the sun. And it will remember, if nothing else, that its highest and best purpose is passion.

The next Passiflora display will not be an easy post-transplant victory. It will be the product of having dug roots into alien territory, and having leached lean nutrients from sandy soil. The passion flowers that explode after the cold, dark night of the vine's soul will not only be joyously glorious, they will bleed passion with beauty and benevolence aforethought.

I write like
Arthur C. Clarke

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!