it’s time for sun showers
Good afternoon (or evening or morning, depending on when you read this).
I heard an interesting thing last week about the effect that all of these screens and videoconferences are having on us. Apparently, optometrists (ophthalmologists?) are concerned about all of the close vision we’re using. A lot of us are making our eyes work overtime in a fairly unbalanced way.
A good way to balance it out, apparently, is to, at some point in the day, look at the horizon for a while. Look at the faraway things.
Maybe it’s a good opportunity to engage that inner child. Stare at clouds, watch trees sway and shift in the wind. Give your eyes a break from the content-focused business of tuning in and let them tune out into the wider world a bit.
And writing may increase the strain, but the intangible part of writing– the part where things are percolating and brewing within you– well, that can happen while you’re watching the sun set.
jen’s piece:
There’s this tickle of
MAGIC
deep down
the star dust,
I remember
EXPLODING
into the darkness
and watching these
tendrils spiral out
from the seeds
and grip and grow
and root and rise.
Sometimes I can see it,
in the mirrors
of your eyes,
my eyes,
our eyes
these stars
remembering the BOOM before the BANG
and this MAGIC of being born HUMAN.
prompt #7:
This is one I love to use when I need a little jump-start. Like with a car, it gives a little jolt of energy that is enough to get you going on your own.
Grab a book near to you (ideally, the nearest one). Then, close your eyes and flip through the pages. Still without looking, stop on a page and place your finger on the page. Take the first three or so words from that sentence and just start writing. Don’t think too hard about it. Just go, and see where those unfamiliar, decontextualized words take you.
ashley’s piece:
Jocko hustled in the tourist part of town. He was actually quite talented, one of those renaissance men born in the wrong era, and so switched up his approach depending on the day. The day I met him, he was drawing caricatures and charging fifteen for each.
I was sitting and smoking cigarettes on a bench, trying to look heartbreaking and glamorous despite my pimples, waiting for something interesting to happen. When I had called Anna that morning, she said she was babysitting, so I was just trying to pass the time. This was the summer before I got a job, and I spent most of my time just waiting for it to pass.
Since I had nothing better to do, I watched Jocko work a few customers. He was handsome in that way that seems sort of effortless. Like his hair was messy, but it was unclear whether or not that was purposeful. I could tell, though, that his looks helped him make the sale.
Families approached him with a smile, while they shied away from the other panhandlers. When they rifled through their wallets and said they only had a twenty, and did he have change?, he smiled back ruefully and shook his head. They always gave him the extra five.
That’s how I learned that the best way to sell something to someone is to trick them into wanting to pay you. Make them feel like that’s the easiest choice.