Tag: writing inspiration

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New Weekly Feature

After racking my brain for the past couple of days, I’ve decided on my feature. Picture This.  It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words.  That being the case, they definitely have stories to tell.

Being a visual person, I often find my muse hanging out in unexpected places: a garden, an abandoned barn, or an alleyway. Capturing those images has become a hobby of mine.  Each Thursday, I’ll share a picture and include a quote, a caption, or background information.  And with any luck, your creative self will be inspired, too.

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Poetry in Pictures

Assignment:  Write a post that builds on one of the comments you left yesterday.

After visiting several blogs, one really stood out for me.  Spiritual Dragonfly shared a post called The Beauty of the Abandoned and Forgotten.  She opened with this quote (and I liked it):

“What can I say, I’m a sucker for abandoned stuff, misplaced stuff, forgotten stuff, any old stuff which despite the light of progress and all that, still vanishes every day like shadows at noon, goings unheralded, passings unourned, well, you get the drift.”    ~Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves~

The title, The Beauty of the Abandoned and Forgotten, initially caught my attention but the photos stirred my imagination.  I love abandoned things and forgotten places.  It’s like they are waiting to be found, wanting to share their stories. When I saw the first picture, an ivy covered door, the beginnings of a story tickled my brain:

     Theodore Harding was tired – tired of eating beans, of sweeping the mill floors, and wearing a thread-bare coat…

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Back Roads, Old Buildings & Inspiration

Image: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/Old_Gas_Pump.jpg
Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/ wiki/File:Old_Gas_Pump.jpg

Years ago, my husband and I pulled out a map, closed our eyes and randomly placed our fingers on a spot.  That spot was to be our weekend destination.  We loaded up our young son and off we went.  The only stipulations – no interstates and no national food chains.  This became the best weekend getaway ever!

We took time to stop at road side stands.  We visited a small town that time forgot.  If you can imagine old-time gas pumps and 5¢ candies in glass jars… It was wonderful and nostalgic and so small town America.

Freewill Baptist Church, Sneads Ferry, NC
Freewill Baptist Church,
Sneads Ferry, NC

I love small towns.  I love driving back roads, looking at old churches, abandoned barns and finding the occasional surprise.

There is something about old things that speak to me.  I wonder at the stories they would tell, the memories they would share – if they could talk.  I think back to my grandparents – how hard they had to work to support their families – sharecropping, laboring in the tobacco fields, working in the laundry.  Well, three of them anyway. One chose to make a living as a bootlegger – only he seemed to drink more than he sold…

One of those little surprises - a boat in the woods
One of those little surprises – a boat in the woods

Some people will triumph; others will fail.  And they leave behind them the ghosts of what was and what might have been.  I think it’s those ghosts, those wisps of memory, that draw me to by-gone places.

Those aging buildings, those forgotten places, tickle my imagination.  I see the spirit of a young woman pacing the front porch waiting for her lover to come home.  I hear the laughter of children as they splash in the shallows of a near by river.  I smell the perfumed air that announces the arrival of a fairy prince.  And if I’m lucky, a new character might just introduce herself…

So – What inspires you?

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My Muse Moves in Mysterious Ways

Yopps CemetaryYopp’s Meeting House is the oldest church in my town.  It is also the site of the only segregated cemetery in our little community.  It should come as no surprise that the “white” section covers about three-quarters of the cemetery.  It encompasses the front of the property,wraps around to the right and extends to the back.  The “black” section is located in the left rear corner.   It’s covered with shade trees and it’s the only place in the cemetery where you can hear the creek.

As I walked through the cemetery, I stopped periodically to read the headstones. 100_1118I found Charlotte in the segregated section.  She was about born in 1895 and died in 1905.  My first thought was to wonder what had happened to her. Had she been sick?  Was she the victim of a tragic accident?  My thoughts moved from how she died to how she lived…  I wondered about the little girl she must have been.  How did she fill her days?  Did she have a favorite doll?  Was she scared of the dark?  In my mind’s eye, I could see her, wearing a light blue dress, chasing a butterfly across a field, her laughter ringing in the air.

 

100_1125In the “white” section, I found E.A.R.’s headstone. Surrounded by markers much more eloquent, this stone squeezed at my heart.  Who was E?  Male or female?  What was he/she like?  I wondered at the family’s circumstances, marking their loved one’s grave with such a humble stone.  I imagined an old man, bent from long days toiling in the sun, lovingly preparing a marker for his spouse.

Cemeteries aren’t usually on my list of places to visit.  In fact, the only reason I stopped by today was to get pictures of tombstones.  My family is working on our Halloween decorations and part of our front yard will be a cemetery, complete with the Grim Reaper and an open coffin.  (I know, you’re breathing a sigh of relief that we aren’t neighbors!)   Anyway – there I was, intent on getting pictures of various stones when my muse did her thing…  Grave markers became people and those people had stories to tell!

So, where were you when inspiration struck?