Monday, August 26, 2019
I apologize for missing last week; I spent a few weeks at the Jersey shore, and in that time I wandered off into the horizon.
The horizon is a wondrous place.
But I’ve returned. Most of us have completed our summer wanderings; it’s time to get back to serious writing. Sit down, stand up, run in place: whatever works to get the words on the page.
While you are writing, I ask you, for this week’s prompt, to think of an object you treasure. Most of us have at least one, some far more. I have a houseload.
Here’s one example: for years, my mother collected antique lamps, elaborate carved and painted confections she found at estate sales and for which she bought new hats, because the right hat, just as the right shoe, can make the outfit.
When she sold her big house, she gave me her lamps.
Every time I look at one of them, I think of my mother. I think of her good taste, her love of old objects and their stories, and her tenacity in digging dirt-cemented castoffs out of boxes at estate sales and scrubbing them into a sassy new start. I didn’t always get along with my mother, but when home furnishings were involved, we found a safe haven for conversation, for common ground, for connection. My mother struggled at times to find the right words. So she turned to those lamps, such gentle tools of illumination, to speak of her love.
Objects are a wonderful way to memory. Find an object that holds meaning for you and write about how it came into your life. Often, when we put on a watch or a piece of jewelry, drink out of a coffee mug from the kitchen cabinet, pull on a sweater (winter is coming) we think, even if just for a moment, of the individual who gave it to us. Elaborate on that.
As always, next Monday, when you have finished this prompt, share it with someone. If you are one of my workshop students, of course share it with me.