The Lowly Pencil

There's something enthralling about the humble pencil.

The wood settles into the permanent concavity on the side of my middle finger as I poise the point above paper. The graphite encased in the wood varies in hardness and darkness, from the very faint 7H to the ultra-dark 9B. Or maybe I've got a carbon pencil in hand; it produces lines only slightly different from charcoal.  Or on black paper, the white charcoal and the soapstone pencils are just plain fun.  

Some stroke the paper with a gritty, scritchy sound and feel, but my favorites glide smoothly, effortlessly, as I write or draw.  And if I want to change a spelling, a line, a shadow,  the pencil strokes are not so permanent that an application of eraser can't lighten or remove what I've done.

I won't place writing I've done in pencil here.  The keyboard does a more efficient  job for blog purposes.  But writing isn't my only passion.  So, below -- something else I do as I  journey.



Jasper



Echo

Detour into the Past

I keep a hand-written journal.

 

I love the feel and subtle scent of the paper and the color of whatever pen I happen to grab or carefully select; there's an intimacy with using them that I don't find with a computer. I slow down for a little while. Handwriting is necessarily slower than using a keyboard.  If the mood strikes, I can doodle alongside the writing or within the writing, turning letters or words into flowers, animals, or knotwork.   I like the tactile variety of bindings and covers available for blank books.    

Once in a while, it's good to go back through retired journals. Sometimes, it's for no more reason than to check whether what I'm remembering at the moment is the same as what I wrote when it actually happened, either an incident or bit of dialog. Sometimes, it's for seeing whether or how much I've grown or changed in my thinking, where I might still be stuck and where I've moved on.  

Because...because on a daily basis, I often don't have enough time for introspection.  The journal enforces as well as records it.

My faith has grown and my confidence has grown.   So has my ability to accept that I'm not perfect and won't be this side of heaven. I'm less of an extrovert than I'd like to be, and there are areas where I'm not as sensible as I should be by now. My hackles still go spiky at the words It can't be done. I laugh at myself more easily and more frequently than I could at any decade younger.   

On the occasional excursions into past years, the events, transformations and illuminations leap into clarity. 

·  Idolatry for my job came crashing down. An injury ended my ability to make a living with the job that was everything to me. Epitaph: Here lies a toppled god -- its fall rocked my world.

·  I ranted about my dogs locking me out of the house an hour before I had to get ready for work. Note to self: never, ever step out the door without a key.   

·  I articulated why I have difficulty getting attached to places.  Thirty moves in about a fifteen-year span makes for shallow roots.

·  My latent tendency to be a smart aleck first blossomed. I told my sister an excavation site for a building was an open pit dirt mine.  Ten minutes later, she smacked me.    

·  A co worker said I reminded him of three people: Mother Theresa, Red Skelton, and Attila the Hun.  I spent four entries trying to figure that out — three entries less than when another coworker told me I was too weird for words.  Guilty as charged that time.

·  I realized I could choose to be content, happy, joyful no matter what circumstances I faced.  Oddly, I didn't note what was happening at the time, what had prompted that entry.  But it was a very good choice.   

And weaving around and through trials and triumphs, questions and revelations,  the condition of my soul or my hangnail, there are snippets of story ideas, characters, and phrases uniquely mine.  Themes and motifs dominant in my writing show up clearly with hindsight.

Hindsight is always 20/20.         

Christening Ships that Never Were

Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived inland.  She loved the feel of the earth under her feet when she went hiking. She loved the muffled thud of horse hooves on soft soil and their gritty clatter on rocky trails.  She loved the smell of dusty country roads, of rain on hot pavement, of autumn leaves.

Then one day, she spent an afternoon on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico. The limitless horizon, the sense of unbound freedom, captivated her.  Later, she took sailing classes and sailed on the Pacific. When she couldn't rent a boat, she spent as much time as she could on the beach, watching the waves, inhaling briny winds, dreaming of one day living aboard a boat of her own.  She loved the sea.     

She moved inland once more, and though she rediscovered her love of land, the sea never left her heart.

What does a writer do with a yearning that can't be fulfilled?  Use imagination.

I don't have even a rowboat to take on a pond,  but ships fill my imagination.  Oh, and the vessels there are wonderful.  I christen each one with the launch of a story.  Aboard them, I travel seas and skies and space.  

Fast and sleek, the Minstrel is a harp-ship piloted by music; her great deck-harp sounds the ocean depths for the navigator playing the ship. The Sea Nymph tries to elude sirens who would destroy her on reefs.  The galleon Mer l'Etoile ferries elven ambassadors from Africa while the tramp steamer MereleCroix carries her passengers on Atlantic lanes. In the skies, pale sails of the airships Mind theTrees and Sunbeam billow under stars as their crews, on a rescue mission, battle elements and enemies.

And in space, ships steered by cybernetic navigators carry colonists as they flee a world under a dying sun:  Inspiratum, Astra Ventus, Cantus Lumen, and others.      

So, why settle for a canoe when I have fleets? Today, Tuscan Red launches to pick up a baby dragon for delivery to a new home.   

The only thing missing is the bottle of champagne to smash on Tuscan Red's hull as I christen her.