This blog post is part of an effort to refine my own work as a writer. For each exercise, I’ll provide the directions, my effort, and a short reflection.
The Assignment: Write a(nother) passage that wants to be read aloud, this one dealing with a particular action, feeling, or emotion. Here’s where I landed:
Yes.
Please.
Thank you.
Tight words, terse voice, hunched shoulders, a tightrope walk of everyday actions and interactions carefully strung together: brow set, breath held, until-
Until alone, when the pin pricks begin, poking, pulling, needling, loosening, then unraveling the grief that has wrapped, spooled, tangled and knotted itself in and around her heart. She senses a slackening, and before she can catch the strings they have spun out and away, leaving her naked, open, in a shuddering, deepening darkness.
It is there she sits until she is ready to gather threads, knit herself back together and back into the world.
My Reflection: Grief always seems to follow me, nosing its way into my writing. Even though the topic itself is a weighty one, I had fun with this exercise, and I like how the imagery of knitting came up as I was working.
