Decompose

Turning into something new

I recently did a couple of mini-workshop sessions with Kerry Graham through Yellow Arrow Publishing, and she reminded me to simply draw inspiration from images. Genius, right? For a short CNF I’ve been hacking away at for a while about persimmons, I pulled these images from Google.

I keep coming back to this article about decomposition and decomposing emotions.

To decompose is to become different. It’s a process that mirrors our emotional worlds. We recycle old versions of ourselves, integrating new experiences and then using those memories to transform into something new. Old emotions crumple, rot, transform. They rise and fall; we lose and receive. We become, and we break down, and we become again.

I continued to be inspired by this delightful poem by George Lyon (also shared by Kerry):

Where I'm From

I am from clothespins,
from Clorox and carbon-tetrachloride.
I am from the dirt under the back porch.
(Black, glistening,
it tasted like beets.)
I am from the forsythia bush
the Dutch elm
whose long-gone limbs I remember
as if they were my own.

I'm from fudge and eyeglasses,
          from Imogene and Alafair.
I'm from the know-it-alls
          and the pass-it-ons,
from Perk up! and Pipe down!
I'm from He restoreth my soul
          with a cottonball lamb
          and ten verses I can say myself.

I'm from Artemus and Billie's Branch,
fried corn and strong coffee.
From the finger my grandfather lost
          to the auger,
the eye my father shut to keep his sight.

Under my bed was a dress box
spilling old pictures,
a sift of lost faces
to drift beneath my dreams.
I am from those moments--
snapped before I budded --
leaf-fall from the family tree.

And from life… we tried Motorkat in Takoma Park this weekend. The interiors were really pretty and functional. Our group of 6 (4 adults, 2 kids) sat here and enjoyed the view. [I’d recommend it for families, cocktails and oysters.]