Fragments of Sunlight

I can feel a delicious breeze blowing through my window, warm, but cool, comforting, everything a breeze should be.

All the flowering trees seemed to have sprung leaves overnight, thus casting the house in shadow. The fields are green, the grass too.
It's warm.

The view outside my window

At least for now. Tomorrow it might be a different story.

My mood feels entwined with the lazy, carefree feeling of today. I feel warm, soft, thoughtful, contemplative, open, in the rhythm, awake to a higher power that can bring all good green things from darkness into light.  

The weeks have passed by so fast,  I'm still catching up to the now. There's a stillness in the air today, like being in the eye of a storm. It's so calm, I sigh, and breathe in, hoping to absorb every drop of tranquility. I want to bottle up days like these, store them to be opened, and released on busy days when I can't hear myself think, and I need a moment of sunlight, fresh air, and perspective to keep me going.

Perhaps in a stale church meeting, on a busy street, in the store, driving, or working, I could open a bottle of spring, and sunshine, and light and air would surge through the room and everyone would wake up.



If only one could bottle up such days....

Sigh...


I've been sitting here, listening to the internet radio pandora as I write. Most of the songs I listen to are celtic sounding songs, jazzed up violins, and movie soundtracks. It helps me feel, and get more into the mood of whatever it is I'm writing. But for some reason Pandora keeps on playing the National anthems of  the world. No other music can irritate me so much.

Good feelings gone....instantly. You want stale air, that music is it.

 Every time I find myself fully engrossed writing, there comes to my ears a horrid sound, loud trumpets trumpeting, plastic sounding drums drumming, and flutes tooting, farting away as they howl out some obnoxious-sounding tune. Almost every anthem I have heard is irritating, annoying, and ever so repetitive. I'm sorry if you have a special attachment to your country's anthem. But seriously? A steady diet of such music could wither any creative's brain.  If you want to break the muse, listen to National anthems. It short circuits my thought processes.

I have no idea how that horrid music ended up on my playing cue, but I figure after a year of clicking dislike there should be an end to it? How many national anthems there are anyway? Probably too many to count.

On a completely different note,  
I'm writing this on my brand new computer, a computer my brother built for me. He's a whiz at computers. I couldn't believe how fast he built it. In just a few days he had it up and running for me. I'm so glad for it.  It's soooo much better than my old laptop. It's much more smarter, with memory to spare. I think I'll name it Vader-Zop, it looks very Star Wars-ish, with gray shiny armor everywhere.  It even breathes like Vader, letting everyone in the room know it's alive as its loud noisy fans glow blue and red, ready for me to...write?  

Vader Zop

So, since I'm doing random. I have to show you this funny thing a company sent me in the mail.
My very own pen flashlight, with my publishing name on it. Notice the PUBLISHIN...
It made me smile. They must know the way we talk in this part of the country.


On another random note, I'm still working on my Unsame One's book while waiting my edits for my last book in my fantasy series to come in. I know it's been a long time. But authors must learn to be patient. I, most of all. And it's hard. 

Everybody wants to know how long this next book is going to be. But that is not something I can answer.
It ends up being however long it wants to be. I never really know until I'm finished. 





So, I've been thinking back to my previous weeks blog posts trying to remember how I've spent my time, what I've done, what I'm doing, where I've gone, and what little fragment of my life and last weeks experiences would be the most important to share with you.

The truth is, I have no idea what that would be.

The ego in me wants to whip out some grand experience, some flashy story, something unique, amazing, and astonishing. 

But most of life is not flashy, not astonishing, not earth-shattering. The author in me wishes it was.
Yet the author in me has also learned that in the small things, even mundane, do unique patterns appear. You just need to look, and be aware.

Today my mom told me about a nearly blind lady who told a story about herself seeing this strange brown shape on the floor that everyone was passing by, and nobody stopped to pick it up. No body cared for it. She wondered why nobody noticed it. Why they were walking on as if they didn't see it on the floor at all. So when everybody had left, she paused to pick it up. But she found that the strange square brown shape was sunlight. Sunlight that had been shining through the window onto the floor.
 
Maybe we are all blind, and only when we stop and bend over to examine what we cannot clearly see, do we pick up bits of sunlight. Sunlight that everyone does not see.

I want to be such a person who pauses to pick up the sunlight. I know it's hard to find sometimes, nealry impossible with so many shadows about---so much depression, so many gloomy headlines, so many bumps in the road, flat tires, flooded toilets, illnesses, and tragedies.

But there are fragments of sunlight to be had everywhere. Everyday people pass by never pausing to pick them up.  You and I have an amazing chance to be gleaners of light. And with those fragments of light we can light the gloomy corridors of any windowless room.

As an author I must remember to hold my gleaners basket aloft everywhere I go. To pause, examine, pick, savor, and save for later these pieces of sunlight I gather.
I reach out here, bend down there, look over there, and pick a word, a thought an idea, a look, and hold it.
The funny picture someone drew.
My little nephew sucking on the hummingbird feeder trying to get the juice out.
The way my sister's old, blind dog suddenly perks up, bucks, leaps and frolics in the grass as if she just found a fairy that granted her just a moment's youth as a puppy again.
The warmth of my mother's shoulder and the funny way she snores as we watch a movie and she falls to sleep.
The bucket of strange dead bugs by the milking stand.
The funny shapes and shadows the sun makes on the wall.
The rooster, I dubbed Jacky Chan, who flew five feet into the air surging towards me ready to gouge my eyes, and the way I caught him mid air with the rake before he got me.
Hula hooping while I stand in cold irrigation water on my lawn, and the feeling of aliveness it gives to me.
Running on my treadmill until my body is covered in sweat, and I feel strong. 
Listening as my mom tells me a story of an old house on my street, and of the forgotten people who once lived there.
A smoothed polished rock.
The smell of wet, rich earth.
Unearthing worms, and the joy it gives my nieces and nephews.
Picking up junk by the spillway, and the treasures and bizarre objects we find as we clean up the shoreline.  Tin cans, old shotgun shells, dirty diapers, decaying computers, a back a fridge, old couch cushions, a pair of ear buds, a needle, an entire outfit of clothes, underwear, fishing bubbles, a pack of unopened gram crackers, and an old wooden gate that becomes someone's craft project. 
The bird's egg I found in the hammock, and brought in the house only to be smashed by a bag of chips.
A pink rose a random person handed to me.
Valuing freedom.
Discovering I still have ice cream in the freezer. 
Being brave when I thought I might not.
Listening to a mocking bird's clear, crisp call in the dead of night.
Watching an adults face light up as she tries something new.
Keeping a promise.
The feeling of new shoes, and fresh socks.
Taking a bath after working hard all day.
The funny face someone makes as they tell you a story.
A weird word my sister and I make up. 
Listening to the crickets symphony in the evening.
Watering a parched lawn and watching it green before your eyes.
Coming home after a long day away. 
Trying to spray weeds with organic spray only to find out that vinegar and salt just makes them look greener.
The yellow bird that took a drink at our tap. 
A good cry, and someone to listen to you.
 Planting raspberries, and mulching flowerbeds.
Watching my niece try to catch little yellow butterflies.
 Walking along the road and smelling the smell of each house---fabric softener at one house, grape deodorant spray at another, smoke, burn barrels, and someones barbecue. 
A good nap.
An authentic laugh and smile.
Real people who really care.
The feeling of completion. 
A kind word. 
A strand of music that speaks to you.
The timeless, transcendent feeling of the muse as I write.
The sound of the keyboard as I type, and the feeling that a story inside my head is slowly unfolding.
A random moment in the care center when I stop and an old neighbor with alzheimers talks to me randomly about bulldozers, the army, and many other disjointed  thoughts forever, and all the while I'm are thinking I need to go, I have a deadline, and then he suddenly looks behind you, his eyes lighting up as if he sees someone behind you, and then tells your sister standing next to you that, she needs to look out for that girl, her family needs to stand behind her. An encouraging word goes a long way. Then as if the moment of coherent thought passes, he rambles on. But you remember.
An encouraging word goes a long way.
Family needs to stick together.
Watch out for each other.

And with each fragment of light you and I gather, the life you thought was empty, dark, dull, and boring, is pieced together like a stained glass window, every piece a different hue, branching out like a tree, creating patterns that you never expected.

 Fragments of sunlight rising everyday for us to catch, release and share.