Sunset at Land’s End, San Francisco
Because now I know that I’ve been writing in my head all my life. I have always had a deep inner push to observe, describe, and experience the details of events and relationships. When I was about 10 I decided to memorize certain moments so they would not be lost forever. What a weird kid. The moments I chose to remember were mostly ordinary, like sitting at my desk waiting to get in line to go home in 4th grade. I was thinking about the nature of time, and how it passes so quickly. I decided I would never forget that particular moment, so I didn’t. I guess I was trying hard to hang on to bits of my life.
For many years as a child, I quietly sang Happy Birthday every day I could remember to because I thought then there would at least be one person wishing some lonely person a happy birthday.
Photography and painting are like writing to me, capturing the moment, describing it in detail, remembering, savoring.
I believe the reason we have this deep desire to hold on to the moment in some way is that we are not made for time. We are uncomfortable with time, and if you think about it, we fight the passage of time constantly. We are made for eternity, so the constraints of time are at the least an annoyance, and sometimes a knife to our soul. The writer of Ecclesiastes said it well, “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
I have been told that to write you must read a great deal, and this I love to do. Beautiful apt words thrill my soul. Reading a description that is perfect resonates in my heart and makes me stop to breathe and think. Words are like food to me, I taste them like a wonderful meal filling up my spirit with quiet wholeness.
The right words are also an affirmation that someone else sees the world as I do, feels the same emotions at the same experience. And this is incredibly important to the human heart. It is the kernel of our need for connectedness, this gentle agreement from the written page that we are not alone.
A handful of quietness 
I wish I had the ability to write like you! What is so effortless for you, is frightening to me. I have deep thoughts but not able to put them on paper or even remember that thought weeks later. You are an exceptional person and one that is full of beauty! I enjoyed reading this and also thank you for the wonderful New Year card that just arrived in the mail. You have such a beautiful family and thank you for sharing them with me:) May you be blessed in 2015 and continue writing and touching our souls!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you Carol, it sounds like you should start journaling!
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Pastor's Q&A and commented:
What a great person my wife is! Very full of life and insights. She adds so much to me.
LikeLike
I did that exact same time-check thing when I was a kid too! I would be thinking about the passage of time, and how every subsequent moment would be increasingly further away from *this* moment. And I put a mental “stamp” on “now” to register that fact. I remember two such times, both while I was riding a bus: once on the school bus one morning, and once in Yellowstone riding back from whitewater rafting.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great post. Such deep and stirring thoughts!
LikeLike