notes from a creative life …
Go out into the world:
Go! Yes, you — though you are fearful and fragile and small.
Go broken-winged and bent-boned and beauty-starved… Lovesick. Stardrunk. Skydizzy.
Or go sharp-eyed and sober, if that’s how it is — the hunger for the light a clenched fist in your stomach …
As I write these words, Winter is having its last gasp. Fat white flakes swirl, caught in the golden cones streaming from the streetlights. Once again — when we’re all hungering so fiercely for Spring — the world erases itself into white. And yet: Winter cannot last. If you’re finding that hard to believe today, please know that I dug […]
True story? For almost a decade now, I’ve slept with my body curled tight against my husband’s. I’ve woken to his heartbeat, and shared in his dreams. We have every reason to celebrate, but still: I have some very mixed feelings about Valentine’s Day. I don’t know why, but this year I’ve felt painfully aware of how the […]
Yesterday’s post has me thinking about the mercy of near-misses, and the grace of second chances. I originally published the following words and the accompanying photograph on January 7, 2015, as part of the Secret Messages Project, and it seemed right to share it with you once more. Wherever you are when you read these words — […]
Two weeks ago, it rains. It rains all day, in a solid sheet: hard rain that hammers the earth, needles it in divots… Water fills ditches. Creeks rise. Rivers rise. This is the first day. * On the second day, it rains harder. Water fills basements, pouring through every crack and […]
Every day, this world tries to tell me, in quiet, ordinary ways, that there is love for me here. And also magic. I went on a long walk in the woods yesterday. My mind was cluttered, my heart heavy, but then, this: … A giant leaf like a valentine: soft as parachute silk. Today, I’m wishing you […]
Can I tell you a secret? For a little over a week now, I’ve been quietly carrying a private hurt — one I caused myself. And I won’t explain any more on that subject, except to say that for days now the hurt has been dogging me like a shadow, the way deep hurts often do. […]
… This plain-faced, ordinary world is full of magic: Tree Shadows, Roanoke, Va Hope you stumble over some everyday beauty today… ❤
This post is part of the Secret Messages Project. Every day for thirty days, I’ll leave my words in places where they might be found — or might never be found at all. I hope you’ll join me. * Sometimes, the simplest messages say it best. Which is why I show up at Lake Spring Park […]
…I had it already prepared: the words inked on the shiny green undersides of six acuba leaves, with their brilliant gold speckles. I stuck a hand in my pocket and ran a thumb over their leather skins.
Yes. This place. This…
ASHLEY WILSON FELLERS 