If you’re joining for the first time and would like a little background on Throw-down Thursday, you can read my post about the inspiration for this weekly writing practice inspiration/exercise, or you can just dive on in and play along.
- Use the photo below as a kick-start for a writing session. (try 15 minutes.) (but if you’ve only got 5 … 5 is better than nothing …)
- “Throw-down” by letting your fingers fly on the keys or the pen move without stopping to think or edit.
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Then, share your schtuff here in the comments, or link to your own blog and post your Throw-down there.*
It’s that simple.
Look; see what the looking brings up; write.
(photo copywright: moi)
*As one participant modeled with last week’s inspiration, if you want to share what you wrote, but would prefer to be anonymous, go right ahead: make up a name or call yourself “Writer Babe/Man #x” (just don’t use “writer babe #86,” that’s already taken by said modeler …)
Is it cheat-y that, unlike others who may play today, I know where this photo comes from? I know it well. It’s not just a random walk-way with lush trees surrounding it, it’s that stretch in Bonita at Dad’s digs that takes you from the river to the inlet; a place I’d go on Mom’s old bike, or jog.
Strange to just call it “Dad’s digs” … but after 8 years, that rolls off the tongue pretty easily. I hate that it does. Mom and Dad’s digs. Nope, Dad’s digs. Damn. I think about how much Mom loved Bonita, but then I wonder … is that the mythology we have created about her? Cause I remember talking to her when she was there and she’d talk about hanging out in the house and reading while Dad would go to the beach, (never a big fan of heat and sun, my mama) … and she’d talk about the ladies around the pool tan and leathery, talking about things that seemed insignificant to her. She missed the grandkids too. Not that Dad didn’t (doesn’t), but the pull of the beach and the pool and warm hours in the sun reading and eating great fresh fruit in the winter-time was – and is – a great consolation. Not that Mom loved the winter, but did she love those trails as we all do now? They had the place only a few years … what was it? 5? She’s been gone longer than they had it, I’m sure. Have we convinced ourselves that she loved it more than she did? So many times I want to pick up the cosmic phone to get her to fill me in and remind me. It bothers me when I notice certain stories being told about her that I know are not how they really were, but after I hear them being told over and over again, I know a new story has been created and there’s no correcting it. And I wonder if I should have had the balls to correct it the first time I heard it embellished or changed. She and I used to chuckle about things like that. I miss having her around to say: “OK, *you* know, and *I* know how the story really goes … but let’s let those who are telling it have their version; it will hurt them more to be corrected.” Yet these days, without her around to hold the truth with me, I get annoyed when I hear the retelling wrong. And sometimes I actually start to wonder if I’m the one remembering right.
Not sure I want to stay on this train; making me a little sad, and there are places I’m not going to go publicly with this story, so … push on … (OK, meta moment peoples: we can change direction in practice as we go if we want. it’s not a finished piece, so do with it what you will …). Now, where was I? OK … what else does that photo bring up for me?
Running … and the days after the 1/2 marathon. And then, it’s a feeling of personal disappointment. I’m SO out of the practice. I did the mara in January and was in way better shape, and then the move took over and whatever gear I was in with my fitness got completely shot to hell. What is it about me and too-much-too-do and pressure and stress that shuts off all my better habits? You’d think that the regular steam blowing offing I get from running and walking and dance/walking would be a requirement to get through the stress of moving (and moving IN with doclicious) (yes, a nice thing, ok, i’m glad you’re all happy for me friends/family, and yes, he’s awesome and yes, i should be over the moon about it [right?], but i’ve felt a damn lot of stress and overwhelm through it all) (as andrew used to say: “notice THAT.”) But I digress.
Or do I?
I look at that picture of that path … that path I ran with that awesome Rocky-like daaamn-I-can-do-anything power in days after the mara, and it makes my heart sink. It’s almost six months since I ran that baby, and I’m in slug mode. I try to cut myself slack, but there’s a fine line between cutting slack and turning into a slug. The last 2 1/2 month since we made the big move have been a juggle of settling, dealing with the added responsibility/energy of Doclicious’ kids, adjusting and blahblahblah. And my writing and my running has suffered. Which, in turn, means that I’m feeling like a slug, and if I’m not moving, the momentum shifts and it’s harder and harder to move. So … am I convincing myself that I need to run? Duh. Sometimes all it takes for me is that black/white obviousness. (which is why i sometimes avoid the page. wtf, really? when i know it’s good for me?) (i’m not alone here, i’m sure. why do we avoid things that are good for us?) (humans: what a crazy ass species, huh?)
OK, 15 minutes up. Wrap-a-netta. Time to get ready for work. (guess i’ll be running tomorrow …)
Bridge to nowhere
Somewhere it leads
A beach, place to place
Toes in sand
Hot sand dig toes in
Cool underneath
There is a breeze
Not visible here
Static appearances
Are not what they seem
(writer babe feedback: i love: “there is a breeze/not visible here …”) xo
A path, carefully laid out. Leading me carefully around the bend. Where? Nobody knows. The rails are there in case I fall. The trees keep me shaded and cool. A light illuminates the way when the going gets dark, as it always does. I imagine birds and bees and butterflies fluttering around me, offering encouragement and inspiration to take the next step. And the next. And the next.
Yum. :)
A wooden bridge
A narrow wooden bridge
A narrow wooden bridge with t5rees framing it
… waits for inspiration … ha s my life been bereft of bridges? Any bridges? No no no an image of goats and trolls has sprung up. Don’t want them in this. Someone else did that story a long time ago.
I don’t know why, bht looking at this wooden bridge with the light at the end reminds of an infamous party I once attended. It wasn’t raucous or naughty (by my somewhat dubious stantards) but it was extremely well attended and well remembered.
The ‘plank or ladder’ party as it became known was an annual party celebrating the end of the academic year of a very amateur dramatics group I briefly belonged to. The people involved weren’t pretentious luvvies , but ordinary folk with a hobby.
It so happened that the host of the party didn’t really think things through when he offered to host. He owned a sprawling Georgian ‘villa’, 5 stories high and was in the throes of totally renovating it. The basement was being converted into a separate flat (apartment) and the floor was all rubble waiting to b e removed and there was no electricity down there. At the back of the house a massive pit was being dug out so the basement had a sunken patio garden – so far it was only a large hole.
So – the ladder was in the basement leading up, through a hole in the floor/ceiling to the main body of the house and was the only way in from the front. The back door emptied directly into the big pit – so some planks of wood had been bolted together to form a makeshift bridge!
The main entertainment of that party was seeing how people decided to get to the party – plank or ladder. Once we were in the house we partied, we ate, we drank, we socialized and drank more and more. Eventually, on wobbly legs with fuzzy brains and a bravado we wouldn’t have had when sober, we had to leave.
Plank or ladder – oh boy! It was a much trickier operation in the dark, drunk, brave.
But I just can’t remember at all, even when I scrunch my brain up and make little frowny lines on my forehead, I can’t remember if I used the plank or ladder.
*checks timer* – coool 41 secs left!!
Welcome Djo! Thanks for playing along. LOVE how completely you dove in. (whoo hoo!)
I think it’s a fab idea – and I happen to be in a real writing mood today :-)
Is this a bridge to somewhere or a bridge to nowhere? Wow, why does that response not surprise me right now? I feel like I’m on a path of divergence, rather than convergence. What do I mean by that? Good question. I’m not sure. And that is exactly the issue.
I’m not sure of anything. Not that I’ve ever really been sure of anything. Always questioning. Why should I do this? Why shouldn’t I do this instead? Always questioning.
Why am I not loved in the way I want to be loved? What’s wrong with me? Why do I feel like I’ve never grown into my potential? Why do I– oh stop internal editor. Don’t think about who may read this. Oh crap. I can’t help it. There are some thoughts that are so personal, so deep down raw inside, that asking the question and trying to answer it scares me. I don’t know that I can share that stuff about myself with myself, much less anyone else.
Word on the street says that to be loved, you need to love yourself first. When I look at me, I see hollow and empty. No substance. Why don’t I see the good in me more often? Why do I need to be validated by a man’s approval to feel good about myself? What a bridge to nowhere. I am letting it flow, trying not to edit…this is hard.
….so here I am again, several hours later removed from writing the few paragraphs above. I was in Philadelphia today, finishing up the last leg of research interviews for work, and I took a time-out to throw-down. What I wrote didn’t feel right to me when I stopped writing. It felt more like a two-year-old throwing down a mini-tantrum because I was tired and cranky after a long week of traveling for work, including a red-eye flight back from LA.
As I was driving home tonight, I thought about the photograph of this bridge, and so many scenes played out in my mind. They all kept leading me back to the same theme, though—the need I have for self-reflection and introspection, to try to understand where I’m going, and whether I’m really ready to change. It’s a lot easier to keep doing the same old things day after day, because there is comfort in the familiar paths we take each day, even though those paths may be leading us back to the same old not-so-rewarding place.
I don’t feel particularly happy about this right now, but I don’t necessarily feel sad about it either. I guess I’ll cross this bridge when I’m ready to.
So glad you threw down, Julie. So glad you shared. There’s magic in there.