The Impromptu Meeting

Slippers slide on frosty deck.  Crisp morning air,  pajamas rumbled, hair wrinkled.  At first glance, the yard appears exactly as it had last night when I whistled the cat in from her moonlit pursuit of rodents.   Two teenage fawns and a worn out doe nest in the oval bed of moss and maple twigs etched into the border between our lawn and their woods. Generations of deer have claimed this hallow as their own. Do not attempt to move them.  They were here first.
Air smells of mushrooms.  A raven calls.  Another answers.  All is right with the world.
Yet, something is different.
Observation 1: Last night’s frost coaxed the dogwood leaves to begin the fall transformation from green to pink to burgundy.
Observation 2: The ever-gnawing banana slugs have altered the fronds of the Not-Jacob’s Ladder from solid green to lacey off-yellow. Not unusual. These snails-without-shells perform this magic trick whenever my back is turned.
Observation 3: Last night’s moon-filled sky now oozes rain.
What has changed? Move close to the edge of the porch.  Peer into the early dawn.
And there it is. An impromptu meeting of weavers.  Tens upon hundreds of miniature nets, silver in the sunrise, shimmer and shine between the branches of the dogwood, among the viburnum leaves, in the arch of the doorway and between the pillars of the porch.  While part of the world slept, industrious weavers took a single silken thread and created their own singular masterpiece.  Some are tight, filling the space between branches no further apart than fingers on a hand.  Others use an enormous amount of space – taking advantage of air and opportunity.
One lovely weaver began her net on the eave twelve feet above the porch.  From there she threw her body into empty space, landing where she meant to  – on the planter beside the door.  Now her spoke lines are filled with silver spirals of silk, off-center in some places, perfectly interlaced in others.
Each weaver cast her lot, hoping to catch white flies and black, bees, moths and crickets.  At the end of the day she will eat her own work, a house cleaning of sorts, then begin again tomorrow.
Good luck to you all, Weavers of Beauty

Snow

What a glorious way to wake up! Enormous snowflakes falling passed the window of my clubhouse!

Recently I read a post by a friend who said writing about nature is not her forte – characters are her strong point.  My writing group consistently asks me to stop, stop, STOP describing the world around the characters and get to the action.  It’s hard.

Days like yesterday are the culprits.  They pull my attention away from work so I can “watch the world go by”.  I watch and study.

How do the snowflakes look coming down?  Are they falling or blowing sideways?  What effect do they have on the appearance of the cedar boughs and the thick blankets of yellow-green moss clinging to the trunks of the maple trees?  How does snow change sound?  The whir of car tires are muffled, birds sing louder – or do they?  The deer smashing the delicate blue flowers on the vinca don’t seem to notice their backs turning from mottled brown to splotchy white.  Although Freya the Cat certainly “shifts left”.  She pokes her head out the door then scoots backwards to sleep on her hammock suction cupped to the door.

Is it a waste of time to take a walk, alone and slow so there’s not a hint of excercise involved, and fill ones eyes, ears and nose with what the world has to offer?  To saturate every sense with sights, smells and sounds, then keep them like a heart beat until it’s time to write it all down?

Well, maybe not ALL of it, if you want your writing group to keep reading your work.