BEYOND IMAGININGS

Writing, for me, is one of the most intense creative outlets.  One can run the gamut of emotions when sitting in front of paper and pen, or a computer screen.  Frustration, self doubt...  But when the words do begin to flow, it is akin to opening the flood gates.

Pictures may speak louder than words, but words can pack a mighty punch if used fittingly and accurately. Case in point... the following story.  A true one, by the way.... 

"There’s this one story Lou has been trying so hard to write, but she just hasn’t been able to make the words do the story justice, since she's 'such a muck' about describing things in great detail – to “set the scene and prepare the mood,” she explains.   Lou often muddies up the waters with too many words.  This particular event occurred at the height of her confusing adolescence. She’d crumpled wads of paper on this one. If only she could tell it just this simply:

Late afternoon right in the height of autumn color, the young girl is in a small wooded clearing surrounded by tall woods on two sides north and south. A large power line follows a wide path in both the easterly and westerly directions – you can barely hear the faint hum across the thick braided wires up so high, spanning between many sets of two large oiled poles ever fading in the distance.

Chipmunks and birds are chitin' and chirping about. She catches a glimpse of a black and white critter farther up the power line swath.

But it is the west that holds her concentration, because the sun is about to set – a deep orange glow slowly permeating everything in sight - even the shadows; and as it filters through fern clumps raised above the decaying moist ground, and branches swaying in the slight breeze, all becomes an absolutely quiet, hushed silence.

The giant reddish-orange ball virtually blinds her view, but an almost imperceptible movement in the midst of all the stillness nearly startles Lou. From behind the nearest power pole, a white-tailed deer cautiously raises one hoof to step into the clearing, its head turning and stopping with precision – listening and waiting with each advancing step, muscles taut, senses alert.

The beast’s instincts both hold it at bay, and allow it to progress - very gradually. Finally, the deer strolls more freely, right into the sun’s circumference – a dark silhouette in its glaring brilliance. At that instant, the slender creature stops and listens again, staring directly at her! Lou holds her breath. In that frozen fraction of time, if she had blinked, she would have missed the much smaller silhouette entering the now flaming red sphere, mimicking the larger creature’s actions. Then the doe steps out of the glare, guiding her spotted fawn across a passage fraught with danger. As quickly as they entered, the pair leaves the wooded clearing. 

The young witness must leave the woods soon, before darkness prevents her safe passage home. Lou began calling this mysterious, sacred place her ‘cathedral,’ and she often returned there hoping to be granted a repeat performance, sitting for hours… voicing wishes and desires, and saying prayers; her bond with nature deepening."