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Saturday, January 3, 2015

Butterfly Thoughts

Another typical Texas winter day...gray overcast skies and dripping clouds. May need to wear my boots to slosh through standing water when I trudge out to my cabin later this morning.

I titled this posting butterfly thoughts because that seems to be the way my mind is working this morning...flitting from one room of memories to another...alighting on first one thing or another but not delving deep before going on to something else.

Since writing and reading consume such a large portion of my attention, my thoughts touched upon the books I've read in my lifetime. Two came quickly to mind--mainly because their titles captured my imagination and upon reading, the style of their content has stayed with me.

Many, many years ago I stumbled upon The Scent of Water, a novel written by now-deceased Elizabeth Gouge. Reading her prose mesmerized me. She had the ability to take ordinary happenings in a person's life and somehow, draw aside the curtain and provide a peek into the soul of her character. I devoured everything of hers I could put my hands on and was never disappointed.

In more recent years, I discovered the writings of Julia Cameron, someone I would delight to sit down and chat with over a cup of coffee. But, somehow I suspect she would prefer tea. The Sound of Paper, the latest I've consumed although she recently published a new book, ntrigued me from the start. Her perspective on the writing life transformed me and to this day I continue to practice her recommendation to write what she calls Daily Pages. It's become a ritual to set myself at the desk in my bedroom, light a scented candle, and open the spiral notebook that stays accessible. Then, in as constant a motion as possible, I hand-write until I fill three pages. Whar I write is of no consequence; the objective is to keep the pen moving. Having developed this habit, I am continually amazed by the ability to now basically write on command.

That's just one of the considerations that occupied my thoughts upon waking this morning. I'll save my ruminations about the months I lived in Hawaii for another posting.

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