I have an internal narrator who “writes” my life out in my head sometimes. For a long time, I was ashamed of that voice – it sounded pretentious, a little unreal, making my life into a storybook. I tried to hush it – pretend it wasn’t there. But lately I’ve been listening again. And you know what I’ve discovered? The narrator is really a poet finding fine art in my real life.
With my camera, I try to photograph what the narrator describes, but I find only phrases, bits and pieces of life coming at me. So I try to write something stunning, but there aren’t enough phrases yet, not even for a poem.
I just have the feeling for now, and a sense that these phrases are a promise that I’ll see another dream come to life. When I grow up. When I’ve seen more than I have seen.
“I gobbled the sun…” – Speaking about the year after my postpartum depression.
“We sat quiet with each other, familiar, small – like two old ladies who had seen too much.” – My sister and I ate out together during my flight delay last weekend.
“Gold tangled in the tree branches…” – How I see the sunrise every morning here.
“She never saw me; she never knew I saw her.” – I met a Southern girl in the bookstore in the airport. She was all Georgia sweetness and insecurity, recommending book after book to me, never once really knowing I was there, or hearing that I spoke back to her.
“Autumn danced across the road. I reminded myself it was only August; I felt the year slipping away.” – The leaves were changing – falling – early in Virginia last week.
“Blue moon rising.” – I think this will be my book title. The story will be something about redemption, second chances, and the first summer I ever truly lived instead of suffering through. Maybe it will be about someone I know, instead of someone I want to be.
These treasures give me such shivering delight, like rolling over into full sun splashed across white down and memory. No matter how low I am on a given day, they help me remember what is in me, what glory I carry around inside this clay. They remind me to hope, and what I hope for, which isn’t really much at all – just life and finding it beautiful, no matter how I am.
Beautiful – every syllable. And I love the book title.
Oh, Kelly, you do have a poem there in those italicized lines:
Gold tangled in the tree branches. . . Autumn danced across the road.
I reminded myself it was only August:
I gobbled the sun.
____________
And yes to that book title!
These are really, really beautiful. My mind has always been like this too… constantly spinning little fragments, whether in words or visuals. Unfortunately, I’m not very good about collecting them. But when I write, I almost never start with a 100% blank page… I usually go back through my collection of snippets and pick a few to weave together. It always awes me to see them take on new meanings and come alive in a new way that I never would have imagined when I first recorded them.
This is so good for me to hear. That those phrases deserved to see the light too, instead of just rolling around in the dusty corners of my brain. Thank you. <3
I like your inner poet. I have an author who starts to write at the most inopportune times. I tell her all the time to wait. Let me grab pen and pencil, but she keeps going ninty to nothing and I lose it all. Maybe I simply need to learn to listen better.
Your words and images are all beautiful, friend. You know, that narrator thing happens to me too!