After several months of travel on and off and other obligations, I am now nestling back into my "real" life. Regular activities are starting up again now that it is season in Fort Myers, and I have renewed energy to pursue personal projects.
One of these projects is reading through old journals, saving only the important stuff (like the list of books I read or my impression of a concert of trip) as a way to purge all the things nobody else is going to give two hoots about. I had worked on this project during the pandemic, but have never returned as journals continued to accumulate. So I began in one dated July 2018.
Phew. My life as a teacher was all consuming! It wasn't until I got to November 2018 and I read through the notes from the Sanibel Writer's Conference that I felt something opening up. I found suggestions like this one: every day, make a list of 5 images to use in your writing. Another was make a list of ten words you come across and drop them into your writing.
I decided to combine these two ideas and I'm listing a total of ten, combination images and words, each day and then creating a poem the following morning. This is my new way of attempting to do my daily poem, which I have tried quite unsuccessfully to resurrect after falling off of it for many months.
In the part about my teaching, I came across an idea of a readers response in 15 words. It can be created like a diamond. I had used this with high school students, and was considering bringing it to my middle school readers, although whether I did or not is hard to know. I decided my project would be to use the 15 word diamond idea and create Triptychs by writing 3 of them from the images and words.
This has breathed new energy into me. The combination of these simple items accomplishes many things I need as a writer -- inspiration, dedicated awareness, and commitment. All my attempts to jump start myself in the past seemed to have failed miserably. In many ways, I was falling back on old ways, and it no longer worked. I needed something new.
I wrote my first Triptych on Friday, and followed with two more over the weekend. These are the ones I am presenting here, along with images that inspired me. I hope to get to the computer more often to post these, although I won't do all of them. Probably just the ones that hit!
Enjoy Triptychs #2 and #3
My Saturday Morning
granola crumbs on a plate
coffee in a souvenir mug
wisdom seeking journaling
fragile prayers
music
blue yellow read orange green
fish bubbles jellyfish coral
brighting painted pot
many colored
celosia
moorhen in the soft grass
sidewalk with little hills
wreath adorned flamingo
neighborhood walking
treasures
My Sunday Morning
Sunday morning on the lanai
clouds like watercolor mountains
Jupiter and Mars
repeated prayers
peace.
Sunday morning at the beach
tide out, wind blowing
tree sculpture shadows
leaf dewdrops
peace.
the singing crows all around
secure in the unknown
chant delicate reminder
I am
peace.
