A Coffee Break Study of Nature

Writer's block. A masked man with a gun to your head when you don't have the answer.

Eventually he goes away, right when you expect to be shot through the head, usually. Still, it's paralyzing.

I took a break this morning when I got to campus at 7:30, bought a mocha and sat in the campus cafe to sip my drink and nibble my strawberry Pop-tart in peace. It's funny how if you go to a coffee shop without a laptop these days, or at least a book, you get funny looks. One sir even stared directly at me as he passed after saying hello. It's mysterious, I guess, to just sit and take in life.

I just needed time before retreating back inside myself and relinquishing the precious knowledge of anything I've learned about writing, about theology, about analyzing style. Time to clear out the corners of the mind and find all that's there, if possible. With a laptop in your lap, a cellphone in hand, a book to hide behind, it's hard to take in the world around you without distraction. So I sat, undistracted, and watched.

It is said that writers pay closer attention to nature, have more reverence.  I don't know if that is necessarily true, or if we just document our observations more than most. This morning, at the window in the cafe with my coffee, I was a student of nature.

I watched the birds in their flight patterns, swell and dive, swell and dive, two by two. I contemplated the ice cracking and melting and running, forming puddles. I saw the few people here this early take slow, safe steps, cautious on today's ice layer.

Sitting as a silent observer, I overheard the different volumes of the baristas, listened in on the topics of their discussion. What's important to strangers. We're all a little bit the same.

This morning, I took the time to soak in the mysteries and revelation of the flitting birds, the tedious steps, the words that say nothing but reveal more of us than we know.

I watched the trees, reaching up, always reaching up. Even when the snow and ice weigh down as if to break their strength they remain firmly planted, reaching. But even strong trees sometimes fall. Yet they maintain their upward stretch until their time is over.

I want to reach up like the ancient pines and great oaks. Up, beyond the trees and clouds and stars. I want to stop being so conscious of the ice sheet on the ground, afraid of falling, and focus on what is all around. In front, behind, above. Reaching for the answer, the reason, the strength against the things of this world that weigh down. Always up.

Calm Coolness of Winter: A Reflection

Right now in the Twin Cities, MN it is -11 degrees. The high today is 1 degree above 0. Walking the one minute walk from the Billy Graham Community Life Commons (called "the Billy" by students) to the arts building on campus, my coffee had sufficient time to cool to a reasonable temperature. Question: how did anyone ever see this region as habitable for humans?

Then again, how do people survive the Middle East in their burkas? I mean, it seems to be hot enough there in the desert without them, right? What I mean is, there is probably something to complain about no matter where one lives.

I do have the hope, however, looking ahead, that spring is approaching. With each passing month, the weather will get warmer. For now, we're still in the deathly cold. But soon enough we will get our thaw.

The day, though cold, is beautiful. The sky is blue as the sun rises on the bricks of campus' oldest building, which used to be a monastery. After last semester's tears and hair loss (not major, just stress-related), I am finally able to look around campus and remember the beauty. I like it here.

So I drink my mocha and watch campus come to life from the library. I'm here (at the library) enough during each semester that it's actually a wonder why I don't work here. It's too late to apply now (I checked), but maybe next year. For now, I'll do my homework, people watch a little, write a little, sip my cooling mocha, and enjoy the opportunity to be properly educated. Life, as I see it, is good.

Your Short Story

I hate it when I get a magnificent idea for a topic for this blog while I'm sitting in class and neglect to write it down. I suppose I could write it in the margin of my notes, but at the moment the idea comes to mind I always think that I absolutely need to find a way to sneak my little notebook out of my purse and write the idea in there. My thought journal organizes my thoughts, but man, I really need to learn to write things down wherever there is available space just for the sake of keeping it with me.

That said, welcome to my new topic. That is, what I was learning in my fascinating Writing of Fiction class at the time I thought of (and subsequently forgot) a topic for this blog. Short stories, and the necessity for conflict.

I'm not talking about a page long, I'm talking twenty-six words long. Twenty-six being the maximum number of words we were allowed to write for our story during class yesterday. Does this seem impossible? Well, if you're a writer, you're already thinking up multiple different sentences that tell a story. If not, well, let me explain.

Ernest Hemingway wrote this one: For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

See the story? This one sentence all on its own brings the reader to ask so many questions. Most questions trying to answer "why were the baby shoes never worn?" Yes, the questions go unanswered, but there is still conflict, still tension. That is what it takes to make a story.

The child ran out into the street while chasing a ball. His mother looked up and let out a scream.

The dog chewed up my only pair of work shoes for my new job.

He leaned in a little closer and Sara could feel her breath catch, but nothing happened. When she opened her eyes, he was gone.

There was so much traffic on the way home that the ice cream melted all over the trunk of the rental car.

These short lines tell a story. There is no climax, no resolution, yet there is story. The Post Secret website (www.postsecret.com) is filled with these short strings of words that tell stories on post cards sent anonymously. As a society, we have become people who think of our life situations in the form of short story.

Status update: My car battery died last night when I closed for work. Fml.

Anyone with any form of social networking, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc have become accustomed to these little stories. Everyone has become an author, sometimes only of their own stories. We're all writers, even if the traditional conventions of "being a writer" aren't present.

I find the interconnected relationships of our minds simply fascinating. We are so many, yet we are bound to one another by experience, tendency, and desire.

Not Another Abandoned Blog

This may be more for me than it is for you, but I just have to make something clear: this is not an abandoned blog.

I understand what happens when blogs aren't written in enough, when the writer walks away never to look back, or gives up because he or she can't keep up. But this girl is not going to abandon this blog.

Recent readers may have come across this blog and find that it hasn't been written in for awhile and never return. That "follow" button may go unclicked because the content is neither interesting nor frequent, but I'm working on it. Readers will return, or there will be new ones, or I'll just go on to make a new blog (the link of which will be posted on here for anyone who may somehow be interested).

Writers write because the words eat their way out eventually. The need for expression through words is a weight that cannot be bore for long before it becomes crippling. Sometimes so crippling that the words all come out at once and can't be sorted to make logical sense.

So, as I do school and try to work despite the copious number of homework assignments, as I try to balance classes with cooking and cleaning and making money so that my dear husband is not the sole provider, I promise this semester, this year, to make time to write something that is not a required assignment.

As the creator and author of this blog, I will breath new life into it and do my best to make it something that may bring hope, inspiration, and at least entertainment to you. Whoever you are.

Just wait and see.