Melinda VanRy

  • Or was the point always to continue without a sign? - Louise Gluck
    Blog,  What I'm Reading

    The poetry of new friends and not knowing

    / October 19, 2020

    "Or was the point always to continue without a sign?" Sometimes other's words resonate. A line from 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature recipient Louise Glück.

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melindavanry

Melinda VanRy
Maybe they knew the rain was coming, could feel in Maybe they knew the rain was coming, could feel in the air the approach of the change in the weather. Or maybe it was just the typical rush to prepare for winter. We won't all survive the frozen months. Each creature must be as aware as I am of the shortening days. Perhaps more so. In many ways my life carries on in winter as it does in summer. With artificial light and heat, and easy access to a grocery store. I sat in the dark gray of this early-autumn sullen midmorning. Most of the leaves have barely started to turn. But many lower things are dying back, putting themselves away at the end of their season. The flowers left in my yard are technically weeds I suppose. As the rain beat harder I thought of the few bees I saw yesterday, rushing to give their colony its best chance. Would their alight-and-flight have been as frantic if they were unaware of the hours they'd lose today? #autumn #honeybees #changeofseason #beautyofnature #harshnessofnature #notreadyforwinter #liveeachmoment #mybackyard
I was talking to a friend last weekend. Loudly. In I was talking to a friend last weekend. Loudly. In that way that involves my entire body. Filter, what’s a filter? Writing came up pretty quickly, as it does. I’d just wrapped up my participation in the hope*writers Instagram writing challenge; she’s making progress as a member. I was considering. My first sticking point in this look at them was actually the writing challenge post and what I found when I followed it to its source. My overwhelming impression of hope*writers Instagram branding was… beige. BEIGE. Recent posts were awash with it. Pale and minimalist, with about as neutral as you can get dark green accents. A later look clarified what left me unimpressed to the point of disappointment. Most of the recent pictures of people were presented in soft-edged monochrome. Was the goal to not overwhelm potential member-customers with an organizational personality so they’d feel comfortable bringing their own? Which brought me back to why I had previously dismissed hope*writers out of hand: the sameness of the blog-branding of women I was aware of as being involved. The Instagram seemed to represent an organization intent on and content producing inoffensive cookie-cutter writers. Innocuous to the point of repellant. But they’re helping my friend develop her voice. HER voice. And a closer look at what they have to SAY makes it seem I could benefit from their guidance to commit and focus and find my audience. But as the rest of the weekend went, if that’s my route, now is not the time. What I said in the moment—standing beside my friend’s table, where she sat with two other friends I’ve met but don’t know well, feeling like I may be kind of holding them hostage, with the friends I’d been sitting with at the table at my back, occasionally realizing I was being REALLY LOUD with the attendant flitting knowledge that sometimes I’ve come down from moods like that and groaned with embarrassment or regret at being... extra… but I knew this time I wouldn’t— “I’M NOT BEIGE!” And that’s what I’m saying today. I’m not beige. Sometimes I’m gray. But if I’ve ever been beige I never will be again. #beingme #BEYOU
Fall is not my favorite... but it can have some go Fall is not my favorite... but it can have some gorgeous sunlight. Find something that makes your heart smile today. #autumnsun #livethismoment #getoutdoors #smile #breathe #porchtime #beingme #beyou
Beautiful mourning cloak butterfly... in my drivew Beautiful mourning cloak butterfly... in my driveway... #mourningcloakbutterfly #beautyofnature #mybackyard #getoutdoors #breathe
Sunny day at camp. Now I'm back... to reality. No Sunny day at camp. Now I'm back... to reality. No time to waste. Yet here I am looking at pictures and throwing one out there with some words before getting back to what needs to be done. Things don't always turn out the way we want them to. Life sure doesn't always feel like we want it to. Oh, well. It goes on anyway. Own it. Move on. #beyou Do what needs to be done until you can do what you want. Whether it's the end of the work day, or end of a season... That's the best I have for you today, and now I'm taking some time off from words.
Check out these two (three?) imperfect lovelies ou Check out these two (three?) imperfect lovelies outside my camper... It's the final morning of a retreat for my church district's women. And in the (not) wonderful way my brain sometimes works, it wasn't until about an hour ago that the fact that the theme for the weekend and the final @hopewriters prompt I Instagrammed and shared to my FB writer page Friday, and re-shared on my personal FB today are, yup, you guessed it, the same... HOPE. This would be a good place for facepalm and shrug emojis... I have the same trouble with dates. Too often two things can be scheduled at the same time, but my brain can't put it together until I see them both on a calendar. Frustrating! We all have quirks in the ways our brains work. Give grace. Accept grace. Not just to and from others, but also yourself. #imperfect #givegrace #receivegrace #sharehope #beingme #beyou
Final day of the @hopewriters Instagram writing ch Final day of the @hopewriters Instagram writing challenge, Friends. And the final prompt is HOPE. Sometimes the world seems dark. So dark. Too dark. The dark thoughts that say things will never get better, that you’re insufficient and you’ll never get better, sound so much more rational than everything will be okay. I know how reasonable despair is. While hope… Hope can seem completely irrational and ridiculous. And the shiny hope packaged and pedalled with trite sayings or Scripture often taken out of context is overly simplistic, even repulsive. Oh, yeah, I’m an inveterate eye-roller.  If you’ve never experienced suicidal depression, I’m glad, and hope you never do. I have. If hell is eternal separation from God, which is eternal separation from anything good, then despair is a sliver, a foretaste, of hell.  But nothing and no one alive in creation is beyond hope. If you’re lost in the dark, you WILL see light again. When you’re overwhelmed by the ugly—which is easy even when you’re not in the depths—there’s still beauty.  Sometimes we just need to take a break, and shut out the noise. Look bigger—at the sky, a lake, a gorge, trees… even buildings. And be ready to zoom in on those amazing little things. Sometimes we just need to look smaller. Many of my pictures are the beauty of small things.  There’s always hope, even when you can’t feel it. Always light, even when you can’t see it. Always beauty… look for it. #hopewriterlife #writingchallenge #hope #takeacloserlook #seekbeauty #findthebeauty #beautyinsmallthings #amwriting  #beingme #beyou
When I was a child, I was introduced to the little When I was a child, I was introduced to the little book about a pink dragon named Serendipity. The book with her name was one of several Serendipity Books with sweetly-illustrated large-eyed characters. Sweet in a good way. Serendipity is the publishing company set up by the author, Stephen Cosgrove (shout out ot the illustrator Robin James, too; I was always a girl to love good illustrations, good, of course, being what appealed to me). Yes, I had to go looking for THAT book. One of the first written and published by the man who had found no good, visually-appealing stories to share with his little daughter. So he wrote them. When no one would publish them, he did what those who turned him away told him was impossible, and published them himself. "Serendipity" isn't one of the set available on Kindle, with more boringly innocuous covers, like countless other books from slightly later in my childhood. I prefer the bolder, more unique aesthetic of those original 70s editions I fell in love with. I found ONE copy of the book I’d love to see again in my library system. And it's on its way to me. What seemed merely a negative became a new successful career that has brought enjoyment and LEARNING to who-knows-how-many children. I know at least one little girl who maybe always loved words, grew her vocabulary with the word serendipity, used to describe a character and the company that brought her to me. You could say Stephen Cosgrove’s dilemma and rejection were serendipitous. We never know what’s going to happen; what are we going to do with it? Sometimes what seems not so great brings good things. You could say, on a smaller scale, my finding my way into this writing challenge is also serendipitous. I’ve enjoyed participating, and have been reminded of words I’ve loved. I've gotten ideas for more writing... and who knows how far the words I write will go? Thanks, @hopewriters Finding the butterfly I'm this picture was one of those little beautiful things that make life... better. And I saved its life, so... even better. Maybe it flew all the way to Mexico. #hopewriterlife #writingchallenge #serendipity #amwriting #ilovewords
What makes a writer write? No one becomes a writer What makes a writer write? No one becomes a writer if they don’t wish to explore SOMETHING… many things, likely. Joan Didion has said she writes to find out what she’s thinking… and that’s a big part of my earlier writing. When my mood disorder was worse, when my brain was spinning so loudly I lost the truth in the noise, there were times I wrote myself out of the worst of the dark. The act of sitting down and straining to capture words as they flew by gave my mind a way to slow down, focus, and process, a way to get control of itself and work through the chaos. Writing from my mess has helped me make sense of conflicting emotions and beliefs, of confusing and painful memories.  Personal writing can bring clarity. And exploring my experience and thoughts and feelings to better understand myself and grow, has allowed me to help others going through similar things. Writing only about myself would be useless. If I share something personal, it’s to connect with someone else. To encourage everyone to explore and own it all—their experiences and feelings, the positive and negative, their past and present and future. I enjoy learning more about people, exploring why we do and don’t what we do and don’t, how we interact with each other and our world. Neil Gaiman has pointed out that storytelling is a lie to tell a human truth. Reading has allowed me to enter into others’ experiences, even if fictional. Through the books my parents and Grandma and teachers and library supplied as I read my way through my school years, I learned from a young age that people from different places and experiences and backgrounds can be very different from each other. Differences are interesting. And no matter how different we may be from each other, we are also fundamentally the same. I learned about different cultures and places and times. Characters from rabbits to Hobbits taught me about the inherent value of each individual. I wouldn’t be the person I am if I didn’t read. And I’m not all that I can be when I don’t write. #hopewriterlife #writingchallenge #explore #writingisgoodformentalhealth #amwriting #amreading #readingisgoodforyou #goodwritersread #beingme #beyou @hopewriters
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