biting, tearing, ripping grinding,
chewing, gnashing, gnawing, mutilating,
mastication, swallowing,
traveling, sloshing, processing,
it all comes out in the end.

Image Courtesy of Phtotobucket

Why write? Why attempt to put words on a page? What is it that drives a person to such a task that feels so isolating? What right do I have to write?

That’s is what is being addressed over at High Calling Blogs currently. A new book club has begun. A few of the High Calling Bloggers (you can see a partial list below) are blogging their way through Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write.

For today’s post I am, for me taking a risk. I am posting the random writing that came out of reading through Cameron’s first chapter titled “Begin”. I set a goal of 500 words with not particular thought in mind. I wanted to put down on paper what was happening around me and within me. Thanks in advance for reading.

Here I sit in semi-darkness. Seven a.m. Thunder rolling across the sky above, rattling windows as the Chickadees, finches, tufted-titmice, song sparrows and the various other feathered friends that visit our yard each calling out their spring calls – some already going from feeder to nest to nourish the babies; others calling out, dancing, following instinctual mating rituals.

A pair of cardinals sits precariously on the feeder as the winds of the storm rock them back and forth. The male picks seed and feeds it to his mate who patiently sits next to him waiting for nourishment to be given to her.

I am writing with such randomness that someday when reread will offer, hopefully, a gem, a nugget, a spark of a word or phrase that will lead into something that sounds more coherent than the rambling I am putting down on paper right now.

Son is up. The storm woke him up an hour earlier than he should be…thankfully Daughter can sleep through most anything and is in blissful four year old dreamland right now.

Son has decided that is it is time to make “breakfast” as only he can using all the materials that are available in the playroom kitchen.

It actually does amaze me that I am able to sit here and put words down while he banters, in a voice that’s too loud, about what he is cooking for me, mom, and sister.

He is a breath of joy in my life. He is a child who seems to know none of our hurts, fears, concerns. He doesn’t worry whether you like him or not. He has a joy to life that so many in our world need.

I believe more and more each day that this beautiful fifteen year old, green-eyed, towheaded, boy is not the one with special needs. It is the rest of the world with the special needs. It is the rest of us who have lost that childlike joy that Son still retains. It is the rest of us who can’t see beyond the cover, the stereotypes, the expectations we pile on each other. It is we, I believe, who are handicapped.

He has no such expectations.

Cameron says to just start at the beginning. Write where you are. Write what you are.

I am not a Billy Collins or a Dickinson, or an Ignatow, or a Frost, Whitman, Eliot, Hopkins, or Williams (or even a Young, Barkat, Coffey. Richards, Goodyear, or Moon). I am me. I can only write about what I see. There is no one else around who views the world in the same way as I.

So I begin. I write. I fill the page with a hope and a dream.

Please visit the following bloggers and enjoy their contributions to this endeavor (if you are participating please leave your link in the comments section and I will add you to the list):

Glynn’s The Right to Write: Beginnings

LL’s Let Yourself Write

Lyla’s The Art of Taking Dictation

Monica’s Book Club: The Right to Write

Louise’s An Automatic Response

Nancy’s Let’s Write

nancy’s ready…set

Marilyn’s Book Club

Erin’s Just Writing

Cassandra’s In the Quiet

Darlene’s How God Expects Us to Run

God’s joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,
from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed.
As roses up from the ground.
Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,
now a cliff covered with vines,
now a horse being saddled.
It hides within these,
till one day it cracks them open.

-Rumi

It is hidden behind
the bright green eyes,
under unmanageable blond hair,
of one who the world says
is odd,
is different,
is slow.

But it is this boy
who lives his life
broken open each
day
with the joy
that we search for
but rarely see from
amid the busyness
of the world.

Where do you find the hidden joy of God?

This is the life you’ve been given.
Well…it fits too tight
Like those jeans of yours
You know

The ones in the
Back of the closet

The ones you last wore
When you were seventeen
going on thirty.

The ones you tried on
Last week
When you felt that desire to
Make an exchange,
To return what you have
To relive those high school and
College days
That weren’t so good
To begin with.

Life has moved you on,
Has given to you
Its no returns,
No exchange policy
In the form of

A spouse,
A child
(Maybe two),
A home,
A faith
more mature
Than what you once had

Even so
You look during
Dark, quiet evenings
At the
“What could have beens”
And the
“If onlys”
And you tell the shadows
Of the past that you would like
To make an exchange

But not really.

This post is part of L.L. Barkat’s (Seedlings in Stone) Giving Away A Beginning. Go a visit to see the many other great posts on beginnings this New Years Day!

It Is Good

begin: to come into existence; to bring into being¹

it started with nothingness
it was neither light nor dark,
it was neither hot nor cold,
it didn’t exist
except in the mind of the maker.

the maker thought,
considered,
and then spoke.
a word.

it began with a word,
it heard the word,
it became light,
it became warm,
it came into being.

and it was good.
yes, it was good.

but in time
it changed.
it listened to
the other,
it stopped hearing
the word.

it became a bit darker,
it became a bit cooler,
it began to listen to itself.

it was still good,
not perfect but still
good

the maker thought,
considered,
the word became
it
to restore,
to redeem,
to return.

and it is good,
yes, it is good.

1. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

Form of a Poem

the supple softness and
gentle curve of the breast.
the river of flowing hair
tossed
over a small curve
of shoulder following
the spine’s curvature
leading in directions
unknown

the mirror

the mirror stands as a testament to
imperfectly reflect that which is real,
the surface reflects what we need to do
we see dimly, looking hard for his seal
behind the veil which separates the worlds
of here and now and of eternity
which, in part, we are shown by his heralds,
glimpses brief ’til called to see completely,
our journey is not a means to an end
rather it is the end within itself
remember what is reflected will lend
chance to see reality of oneself
               hidden behind the veil for all to see
               what the reflection offers us to be