au Naturel

I once told someone I care about that I am most naked when I write. It is true. Writing is an exercise ~ my exercise ~ of vulnerability. “When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable.” ~Madeleine L'Engle  The writing is easy...but sharing the words, well, much less so. I like to think I am personable, but I am also protective of my emotions and always (albeit often quietly) on the defensive....

"A faithful friend is a strong defense; And he that hath found him hath found a treasure." ~Louisa May Alcott

...but I am learning to let down my guard. Sometimes all you need is the love of a really great friend (or two or three).  “Most people have a harder time letting themselves love than finding someone to love them.” ~Bill Russell

It is this particular time of year, especially, that heightens my senses.  I am far more keenly aware of my surroundings than in any other season.  Perhaps it is the farewell...of a season, of a year that is fading and will not come again.  Perhaps it is the thread of melancholia that is etched in my bones.  Why, why [in everything] do I always prepare myself for goodbye?  Autumn, the year's last, loveliest smile. ~William Cullen Bryant

These sentiments seem a bit depressing.  That isn't the intent.  I prefer 'solemn' or 'intuitive' as descriptors anyway.  It doesn't matter.  The thoughts are mine and I can label them as I choose.  Today my choice is to let the season propel me to put words to print.  That, to me, is happiness.

Every leaf speaks bliss to me,

Fluttering from the autumn tree.

~Emily Bronte

The Daily Book of Positive Quotations. Linda Picone. September 30:  A weed is no more than a flower in disguise. ~James Lowell  How's that for optimism?  Today, the weed seems to be the book, the story, I've been working out in my mind.  I'm still struggling to get all of the details delineated in my thoughts.  Maybe that's the problem.  I've kept "it" in hiding for far too long.  Perhaps the flower will not bloom until the seeds fall onto that elusive paper soil.  I really, really need to get busy.  Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. ~Albert Camus  My trip to the Cape changed many things pertaining to the piece.  Nantucket has worked its way into my heart and into the setting, as have two new characters which were unbeknownst to me prior to my jaunt to the east coast.  One of these characters I have met, talked with...the other, not at all.  Both, however, have become central to the book's assumed epilogue.  See?  I already know the ending before I've truly begun.  But enough of this...  I'm clutching my newest Moleskine, in Nantucket blue of course, and I am prepared to make a concerted effort to work through the details of the story ~ the story of S, of O and his daughter L, and of C, too.  I only wish I had a view from a Widow's Walk, from which to look out to sea.  I think my efforts at writing this evening might bear much more fruit if it were so.  Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot."  ~D.H. Lawrence


Photo by Paul Gerritson


I include this Autumnal Sonnet below.  It strikes a chord...with my mood, my book, and with the characters who know their story even better than I...for now.

Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods,

And day by day the dead leaves fall and melt,

And night by night the monitory blast

Wails in the key-hole, telling how it pass'd

O'er empty fields, or upland solitudes,

Or grim wide wave; and now the power is felt

Of melancholy, tenderer in its moods

Than any joy indulgent Summer dealt.

William Allingham