Volume X, Issue 20
October 20, 2021
Word of the Week: missing
Dear ,
Sorry I was missing last Wednesday. What was missing for me was a working modem, though all I knew at the time was that I couldn't for the life of me get my online software to work. Thank goodness for our trouble-shooting, cat-sitting son, who solved the problem for us while my husband and I were out of town, spending time with some people very dear to me, including these three college friends: Mike, Barb, and Kris, who knew me when. Who feel, to quote Dede of Our Blue Boat, this week's featured writer, "like kin."
It was in many ways as if I'd seen them mere months ago, though it's been 44 years since we hung out
together nearly every day. Though, in the past several years we've lost Mark, then John, then Bill—more missing. And yet, still with us, in what is seen and unseen.
I hope you enjoy Dede's reflection on the palpable presence something that's missing can exude. And that you check out other posts on Our Blue Boat, which you can read more about below.
Love and light,
Maureen
Featured Writer
The blog OUR BLUE BOAT is written by Kathy, Dede, and Wendy and "marks our deliberate return to nature to rekindle our relationships through creative action in the form of intention, ceremony, language, and
photography. . " Its name was inspired by the lovely lyrics of singer/songwriter Peter Mayer, who calls the earth “our beautiful blue boat home.”
Learn more at OurBlueBoat.org.
Dede’s “work is loving the world,” to
borrow a line from one of her favorite poems. Before retiring, she managed projects in energy efficiency and renewable energy. She writes, hikes, boats, takes photos, and is learning to listen better to plants, animals, stones and rivers. Her writing has appeared in a variety of print and online journals.
Featured
Writing
“I think I could turn and live awhile with the animals . . .
they are so placid and self-contained.
I stand and look at them sometimes half the day long.”
Walt Whitman
One evening, at a home we rented in Utah near Bryce Canyon, I sat on the edge of the porch, my bare feet in the stiff grass. We’d hiked a couple of trails in Bryce that day and driven through the park, marveling at the endurance of the strange hoodoo formations and the grandeur of the canyon itself.
On the porch back at the house, I looked out across the colorful field of brush and wildflowers and stones, past the winding Sevier River, to the mountains in the distance. Tired in body, calm in mind, I sat, feeling the sharp blades of grass on the soles of my feet, a slight breeze against my face, and . . . something else.
I turned my head slightly to the left and encountered a doe—head up, large ears pricked forward, her dark eyes taking me in. With her whole body, she seemed to be assessing me with calm, alert attention. In pure presence, she held her stance long enough to decide I was no threat. Then she dropped her head to the grasses, moving quietly just beyond the stones that edged the lawn of the
house.
The moment felt timeless to me. How long was it before a fawn, slightly more startled by my presence, came around the corner of the house to join her and gave me the same long, assessing gaze? Seconds? Minutes? And how long after that did the third deer arrive?
I couldn’t tell you. Their moment-to-moment presence brought me with them, anchored me in body, to the fullness of the four of us sharing the evening together, breathing the same cool air.
What’s missing? Only an arrangement of pixels in a digital space that looks to the eye like deer grazing.
I took the photos with this post the next day. Our three graceful visitors grazed just beyond the stones in the picture. Had I moved to take a photo that evening (my camera and phone were both in the house), they may have bolted. Even had they stayed, the small act of photographing them would have separated us, broken me out of the moment and the image in my memory. As it was, I saw
them; they saw (and probably smelled) me; I heard them move through the brush and pull at the tough grasses. We hung out in the glow at day’s end like kin.
WordPlay Now! Writing Prompt
This is WordPlay—so why not revel in the power and potential of one good word after another? This week, it's “missing."
PROMPT: Write about what's missing in a photograph, as well as what's present.
Choose an image, and before you write, gather ideas by spending some time looking at it. Consider what is outside the frame of the picture, as well as what you can see. Think about before, during, and after the moment you see. Now list:
- three people
- three each: smells/tastes/sounds
- three physical objects (ex. – a flowered wing chair, a red rubber ball, a Fraser fir bough)
- a specific place, from a particular room/patch of woods to a city/country/continent
- a specific time – of day, day of week, month, season, year, or any combination
Note: Don't skip anything on this list. If you run out of "related" people, smells, objects, etc., choose random, unrelated ones and see what surprises may await as you write.
Then, write a piece, in any shape or form, that incorporates as many or as few of the things from your list as you like.
MAUREEN RYAN GRIFFIN, an award-winning poetry and nonfiction writer, is the author of Spinning Words into Gold, a Hands-On Guide to the Craft of
Writing, a grief workbook entitled I Will Never Forget You, and three collections of poetry, Ten Thousand Cicadas Can't Be Wrong, This Scatter of Blossoms and When the Leaves Are in the Water.
She believes, as author Julia Cameron says, “We are meant to midwife dreams for one another.” Maureen also believes that serious “word
work” requires serious WordPlay, as play is how we humans best
learn—and perform. What she loves best is witnessing all the other dreams that come true for her clients along the way. Language, when used with intentionality and focus, is, after all, serious fuel for joy. Here's to yours!
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