Unable to find my navy blue cotton pajamas in the chaos of boxes and piles of clothes, the loose ones, with the top of stars, I washed the silk ones I've had for seven years and never worn. Cream-coloured silk. Found wrinkled in the bottom of a large cardboard wardrobe box. The "Marilyn Monroe" set on sale at Simpsons in the Eaton Centre after working in a nearby office. The top is more like a shirt, and had a large red heart for its single button, which I removed and replaced with a pearl-coloured one. And then never wore. Silk seems too fragile and precious for constant wear. But this is thick, durable, and sleek and soft against my skin. I sit in the lake-blue Director's Chair with plant-green designs that I unholstered once, in front of the computer, typing, sipping coffee, wondering, should I go out and buy dancing clothes at Dancing Days?
Another sarong in golds and browns and oranges and a sheer top with small tangerine moons and shimmering lines like longtitudinal threads of stars to navigate by?
And when will I dance, and where, and with whom?
I pick a purple plum from the fruit basket; it has a slight tang in which its sweetness and succulence is contained.
tags: silk pajamas, dancing, fruit, creativity, writing.
Sheath of feeling. Words groping to touch air.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Woman with Flowers 7.1
(7th sketch in series, first iteration of this one) Woman with Flowers Flowers, props upholding the woman. The flowers, fragrant, imaginar...
-
The Buddha says: “ You cannot travel the path until you have become the path itself .” The path is uncertain. Uncertainty is the guiding for...
-
What if relationships are the primary ordering principle? What if the way relationships are ordered clarify, explain, and instruct us on th...
-
"I hope you are all creating every day according to the inner map you were born with. I know it sometimes seems that map is written in ...
Oh, how could you not wear silk? I can't resist.
ReplyDeleteI like the tantalizing, tangy question you end this with.
you continue to astonish...
ReplyDelete"and shimmering lines like longtitudinal threads of stars to navigate by"
damn...
MB, indeed... we should pamper ourselves with silk and plums!
ReplyDeleteNarrator, that image worked, but then I had to redo some of the others to echo it - Captain's Chair would have worked so well (going with navigating), but when I looked it up on the NET I found images of Star Trek commanders' chairs! I described it as a lake-blue colour, not quite oceanic enough, though it had to do.
Sigh. Do you sometimes work back through everything when a central image comes? As you imbed it more properly into the poetic logic of the piece?
Brenda - Yes, sometimes the images pour out - sometimes into three or four discrete mini-tales, and then they need to tie together, to assemble the waking dream, and you need to go out and hunt the pictures that bring the scene together.
ReplyDeleteI like the way you're describing this, Ira. Do continue...
ReplyDeleteBecause I find your stories poetically woven from multiple strands of themes, and it's quite marvelous.
I like finding the ways small experiences link with big experiences, and images (as opposed to just metaphors) bring those things together, and let the stories cross time and space... and then, well, finding just enough to dress the "set" in so the emotions flow across but not enough to stop the reader from seeing it as their own.
ReplyDeleteAh, but it's also an intuitive process, I see. You are like an artist working in multi-dimensional time as you weave the thread of the narrative through its many stories. It's fascinating to hear you talk about your creative process, and helpful, though ultimately what 'works' and what 'doesn't' is probably a call of an aesthetic that is hard to articulate fully... though the emotional tenor seems key to the balancing of many elements that you do in your writing.
ReplyDeleteI don't know where or with whom you will dance, but I know you WILL dance. Those cream silk pjs sound wonderful!
ReplyDeleteThey are, Patry - I've been wearing them all week! Oh, soft luxuries... :)
ReplyDelete