100 Words – 5/15/2011
2011
It is Raining – Again
Gray days turn down the volume on everything for me. I spent most of the day helping my daughter prepare for her finals, poking around in the kitchen, and otherwise wrapped in blankets watching movies. I think it’s a good thing I don’t live in Seattle. I wouldn’t get much done. New England has just enough rain that I can romanticize the melancholy. Set a fire in the old Rumford fireplace and let the dull day pass by.
I chose Seeking Elevation’s post to feature this week. Maybe it’s because I’m a sucker for musicians, but have known to steer clear, preferring to live vicariously through the stories of others, or simply through my own imagination.
I know he tasted like whisky, but it’s a thing I know intellectually. Every other part of me has forgotten. I forget the taste of the cigarettes he put out on stage.
It felt like spying, watching him howl what sounded like agony into a microphone. And after all that, to still have enough left to tease a finger down my spine; after all that anguish to still have lust…
Licking a thumb, I wiped my palm free of the number he’s written there. I didn’t want to know what happened to a blues singer in the light of day.
Along with The Artist’s Way, I’ve also been re-reading Women Who Run with the Wolves
From the jacket blurb: “In Women Who Run with the Wolves, Dr. Estes has created a new lexicon for describing the female psyche. Fertile and life-giving, it is a psychology of women in the truest sense, a knowing of the soul.”
The word is:
CHASM
“Here, nothing thrives for the asking. The winds blow hard so the people have to wear their parkas and mamleks, boots, sideways on purpose now. Here, words freeze in the open air, and whole sentences must be broken from the speaker’s lips and thawed at the fire so people can see what has been said. Here, the people live in the white and abundant hair of old Annuluk, the old grandmother, the old sorceress who is Earth herself. And it was in this land that there lived a man…a man so lonely that over the years, tears had carved great chasms into his cheeks.”
12 comments
Trackback e pingback
-
Purplemoose Gazette » Martha’s New Love
[...] week’s 100 Word Challenge by Velvet Verbosity is [...] -
Aurora's Creative Corner» Blog Archive » Chasm
[...] This was written for Velvet Verbosity’s 100 word challenge on the prompt “chasm“. [...]
Yet another good choice to highlight out of so many good choices. The caliber of the creativity of this group continues to astound me. I have not participated myself in a few weeks, but I hope to jump back in soon. Good job, all!
Arctic Wren recently posted..100 Words – Prompt- Bathed
Hope to see you this week! Yes, both the number of people joining, and the strength of the writing are growing stronger by the day it seems. Fun to watch.
Maybe I should read the women with wolves book, or maybe I shouldn’t, because I tend to think a woman’s psyche is no more to be understood by mere men than that of other magical beings, like dragons or unicorns or naiads. We are simply not meant to understand.
http://www.irodius.com/2011/05/chasm.html
I, Rodius recently posted..Chasm
I think that men who have a healthy respect for women’s souls and the mysteries within should definitely read this book. It will do nothing to minimize the magic, but it will ensure you can help nurture or get out of the way at the right times to bring out the best in the women in your lives.
oh, well said Ms VV, well said.
Barbara recently posted..Artist’s Way – Week 2
I see two entries already . . . and I dare not read them until I cogitate upon my own thoughts.
Great choice for this week’s pick, Ms. VV. My cousin is coming to visit me soon – we live many thousands of miles apart – and our lives have varied greatly in the 30 plus years since I moved to AK – thinking back on childhood – or former lives and those who shared them – sometimes it’s just better left undone. I greatly enjoyed this piece by Seeking Elevation.
Barbara recently posted..Artist’s Way – Week 2
Thanks, VV! I was lucky enough to see John Mayall in concert with Shamekia Copeland a few weeks back. Even though this concert took place in a rather sterile environment, the music brought me right back to that sweaty, smoky bar. It was not a bad place to be, for sure. Thanks for reading.
seeking elevation recently posted..Monday Minutiae
Ah. Triggered memories.
Velvet Verbosity recently posted..The Artist’s Way – Week Three
Great weakly pick. This one pretty much wrote itself, thanks for the inspiration!
upinthecosmos recently posted..Blooming Chasm
Back in the game – can’t wait to read more.