This post is part of the River of Stones guest post series, our mindful writing challenge. Click here to find out more. Our guest post series features writers talking about the art of noticing, writing and more... Today we're delighted to host Lynne Rees...
Lynne writes: Little children continually surprise me: a little girl who suddenly starts skipping in the middle of a shopping mall or a small boy who fills his Crocs with sand when he’s told it’s time to leave the beach and go home.
‘If you have to give your holiday a score between 1 and 10,’ I asked my grandson, Oliver, when he stayed with us in France last year, ‘what would you say?’ ‘100’, he says. ‘No, 200.’
Spontaneity, enthusiasm, openness: qualities that are not as overtly present in my daily life as I’ve got older. So perhaps that’s why taking part in the River is so important: each day for a month I embrace them, if only for a few moments, as I look around me and record whatever’s there, or transcribe the dream I had last night, or recount a memory that has jumped to the forefront of my mind.
This is my third journey along the River and I hope to be as surprised this time when I read over the month’s small stones. I have learnt that I am not the best judge of my own writing in the moment; sometimes what I dismiss as effort-full and contrived at the time of writing speaks to me in a different voice when I come back to it at a later date.
And the writing that doesn’t surprise me? Well, any kind of conscious practice that’s done for a long enough time brings some kind of reward, some kind of shift in awareness. What will yours be?
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You can read her own small stones at an open field.
Lynne's book The Real Port Talbot, with Seren Books, is due in 2013.
(Image by TDN Photo)
4 comments:
My 'river' posts often surprise me. I approach it a bit differently to other folk in that I skip through photo's I've taken through the year and use one as a 'daily' dose of 'inspiration'. But it is stimulating, this is my third round too.
Loved the comment about the youngster putting sand in his shoes when asked to leave the beach.
How totally in opposition to what an adult would do--empty the sand out of the shoes so as not to get blisters...
Yes, we can write, that might also be said find the 'right' way home through mindfulness.
Surprising analogy of the sponteneity of children to the practice of being mindful of the moment! :)
Lynne's thoughts bring nice insight into my practice of writing small stones.
I especially liked her observation of how sometimes her writing "... speaks to me in a different voice when I come back to it at a later date."
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