quotations

On cultivating bold freedom

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

State Forest State Park. June 13, 2019.

How does the Meadow flower its bloom unfold? Because the lovely little flower is free down to its root, and in that freedom bold.    ~ William Wordsworth

So it’s after 5:00 pm here in Colorado and I haven’t yet added one single word to my work-in-progress. Why? In part, I had much to do today. But in greater part? I’ve reached the point in which I need to write BIG climatic scenes and I’m intimidated. It was easier to tend to other business today.

I need to make like a Meadow flower and feel free to try and fail, all the way down to my roots. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Standing tall

/ Tracy Abell / 3 Comments

Great Egret. May 5, 2019. Clearwater, FL

Last night I met with the young leaders of the Sunrise Movement in Colorado, and heard some tough news. As I listened, I slouched lower and then lower in my chair. At the same time, I noticed the young woman across from me sitting straighter, back erect and strong. It was as if I was a cautionary tale. The lower I went, the higher she sat. No caving in for her. It was a beautiful sight.

I’d like to be more mindful of sitting and standing tall, no matter the situation.

A good stance and posture reflect a proper state of mind. ~ Morihei Ueshiba

Got to have the terror

/ Tracy Abell / Leave a comment

Today is cold and icy. Again. Unlike two weeks ago, I am not venturing outside because I very much do not want to slip and fall again. Instead, I went in search of an appropriate quotation for this ice-encrusted day. I found the following . It speaks to me, despite never having directed a film. I read it as “Writing a novel is mystifying…”

Directing is mystifying. It’s a long, long, skid on an icy road, and you do the best you can trying to stay on the road… If you’re still here when you come out of the spin, it’s a relief. But you’ve got to have the terror if you’re going to do anything worthwhile.
~ Mike Nichols

Image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay

Suffice to say, I’m firmly in the white-knuckle, can-I-pull-this-off portion of the writing process right now. First drafts can be simultaneously exhilarating and puke-inducing.

Feeding the mysterious

/ Tracy Abell / 1 Comment

Birds are the most popular group in the animal kingdom.
We feed them and tame them and think we know them.
And yet they inhabit a world which is really rather mysterious.
                                                                              ~ David Attenborough

House Finch. November 1, 2019.

Happy Halloween!

/ Tracy Abell / 3 Comments

A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.
~ Groucho Marx

Loki on January 29, 2018.

(As an aside, it’s the one-year anniversary of Loki’s big dental procedure in which he lost almost all of his teeth. Despite his expression here (pre-procedure), he’s one of the gentlest souls on the planet and I’m grateful for his good-luck companionship.)

Stealth

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

Clearwater, Florida. June 2, 2018.

In art and dream may you proceed with abandon.
In life may you proceed with balance and stealth.
                                                              ~ Patti Smith

Behold

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

Nature will bear the closest inspection.
She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf,
and take an insect view of its plain. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Mariposa Lily. Centennial Cone Park, July 10, 2019.

Hello, October

/ Tracy Abell

October 1, 2019

In October, a maple tree before your window lights up your room like a great lamp. Even on cloudy days, its presence helps to dispel the gloom.                                                  ~ John Burroughs

Hoping to burst into bloom

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

Centennial Cone Park hike. July 10, 2019.

I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom,
till you yourself burst into bloom.
 ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

I’ve mentioned before that I’m usually a one-project-at-a-time kinda writer. It seems my brain and creative juices struggle when I switch focus. BUT. I think it’s a good skill to cultivate, juggling projects, so I bought myself a brand new notebook for a brand new middle-grade novel idea I’d like to noodle on while working on my work-for-hire nonfiction project. If you hear the sound of shrieking gears, that’ll be my brain right before I burst into bloom.

Tiny matters

/ Tracy Abell / 3 Comments

Ladybug on Apache Plume in backyard.                        March 12, 2019.

The older I get, the more I’m conscious of ways very small things can make a change in the world. Tiny little things, but the world is made up of tiny matters, isn’t it?
~ Sandra Cisneros

One beautiful form to another

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nature is ever at work building and pulling down,
creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing,
allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion,
chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.
 ~ John Muir

Wandering trees, wandering me

/ Tracy Abell

Cave Creek Canyon hike.  May 13, 2019.

Trees go wandering forth in all directions with every wind,
going and coming like ourselves,
traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day,
and through space heaven knows how fast and far! ~ John Muir

Resting in the grace of the world

/ Tracy Abell

Green Heron, Kapok Park. January 11, 2019

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. ~ Wendell Berry

Thank you, Toni Morrison

/ Tracy Abell

We die. That may be the meaning of life.
But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.
                                                               ~ Toni Morrison

She fearlessly wielded language, never backing down from truth. I’m grateful she graced the planet for 88 years, creating books that will keep her fierce genius alive forever.

Rest in power.