Writer Wednesday: On Change

Dangling droplets

Flannery starts again

Greetings to all—

This is a totally free post I put out every Wednesday (ha! the days shift). Anyone can join in: you can post what you write, keep it to yourself, or just enjoy the good times.

I’m looking forward to continuing the explorations.

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A New Year (or just… a continuation?)

It’s a New Year.

My wife and I met on New Year’s Eve, 1999–2000, at a moment when both of us had lost hope in relationships and had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to the party where we met. Every year, it amazes me how close we came to missing each other. By millimeters.

Sometimes we drive by the house where it happened and talk about what we were thinking and doing at that exact moment in time.

Still, for the most part, I’m someone who gives only lip service to “ringing in the New Year.” I can appreciate the celebratory energy, but I mostly experience it as a continuum.

This is true even though—arguably—the greatest moment of my life came from a New Year’s Eve celebration.

The idea of a New Year opens the door to all kinds of writing prompts. Renewed promises. Creative vows. Or maybe the opposite: tamping down the wild impulses and getting back to setting, taking some control, with facts, figures, and measurable things.

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This Week’s Prompt

Write about change.

• Something that changes constantly

• Or something that doesn’t change at all

• Or something that looks the same, but has subtly changed over time—
  something you didn’t notice… until you did.

• Bonus musing: Does change actually exist? Or, is it only apparent?

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My take:

It was a new day. He sat at a small kitchen table. A ream of texts popped up from the night before and that morning—full of bolstering support. They landed with a thud.

Outside, constant rain and wind had pulled down decorations, leaves, and olives from the neighbor’s tree. They lay scattered across the courtyard. He thought they might have been there for a week, at least—snapped violently from their branches and left as they were.

He looked closer. Near the window, on a bush, right there—happening in real time—on the tips of sharp thorns, droplets of water held on. Paused. It was something he hadn’t noticed before. Something he certainly hadn’t appreciated before the texts announcing Change and Newness and Hope.

To him, the droplets represented none of that. They were just dangling dots of barely vibrating water. That was all they were. And in that moment, all they would ever be.

And that was quite something. In fact, he thought, that’s all I am, too. In that moment

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If You Like

Post what you write in the comments.
Or don’t.
Keep it private.
Let it sit.

All approaches are welcome.

See you next Wednesday—or whatever day that turns out to be.