Sky

Some days, the sky feels so close you could almost grab it by the fistful.  There's a line of cloud above the trees, a space of blue, like the stretch of the sheet visible between the pillows along the earth and the blanket of even more cloud in the sky, gray-blue and so textured you feel like you should be able to reach up and grab it and pull it around you.  Even from the roadside, rain dotting the windshield and the photo you're trying to take, trying impossibly to capture this so you can look it again, sky like this makes you feel the same as resting your back against a tree, barefoot toes in the grass, physically feeling the natural world.

Some days, even cold, wet, windy ones, the world can be astonishingly beautiful.

Visual to Verbal

Yesterday, I was poking around Etsy and noticed a pattern in my favorite items--nature motifs, mostly, and particularly tree and branch motifs.  I love to connect visual beauty with words that, if unable to capture it, can at least describe it and delineate some understanding of its meaning, some understanding of why it resonates.  In that spirit, I turned to a few quotations (found here) to verbalize what it is about trees that is fascinating.

I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do. ~Willa Cather, 1913

Source: johanfrancoise.blogspot.com via Katie on Pinterest

Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk? ~Alice Walker, The Color Purple, 1982

Source: cocokelley.blogspot.com via Katie on Pinterest

Why are there trees I never walk under

But large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?

~Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1892

Source: wishflowers.tumblr.com via Katie on Pinterest

Anthropomorphized trees seem to come up frequently in literature and in discussions of nature, as seen in the quotations above.  Trees are ancient, majestic, inspiring, and even ancestral in a way.  According to these writers, they are full of history, stories, and even a touch of an oh-so-human desire to be noticed.  In short, it seems that trees attract our attention and appear in our creations because they remind us of ourselves, only stronger, more magnificent, and more lasting.

I hope I haven't bored you to death today or gone off the deep end.  I just thought I'd try something different for today.

ventures into the blogosphere: mackin ink

Have you ever read Mackin Ink?

{image posted on Mackin Ink, originally from Annabel Kassar}

It's fun, it's full of great stories, and Karey M. is an altogether enjoyable writer.  She posts all sorts of nothing-short-of-awesome images, and tells great stories about her three daughters.  This one, mackin ink: ricky..., is particularly laugh-inducing.  Children are so precious.  I go looking for good writing some days just for inspiration, and I don't remember how I got to Mackin Ink (probably reading about Alt Summit somewhere), and read through a bunch of posts.  You'll smile, I'm sure, and then want to go write a great big bundle of all your thoughts, good or bad, and everything that is honest.  It's some parts stream of consciousness, other parts planned humor, all parts inspiring.

Remind me to find a synonym for inspiring; I write it at least twice per post, I think.  Thoughts?

For now,

{from Solo Debrayes, which I posted about a few days ago here}

*giant squeal!!!!*

oh, yeah, this is why I love this blog.

Design*Sponge.