Literary Sunday

This year has been one of the most difficult ones in a long while. I’ve spent a lot of time in solitude and reflection about many aspects of my life. So, it was important to find some things that feed my soul, and writing, along with cooking of course, has always been an outlet to connect to my creative and imaginative sides. I started writing when I was about 9, concentrating mostly on poetry, and I was quite a prolific little poet. I switched to literary fiction and genre fiction in my early 20s but also toyed with some personal and editorial essays explorations throughout college years.

This blog is a writing outlet too of course, but my blogging world is different from my literary one. My writer’s voice is different from my blogger’s voice also, as you’ll see below, but I’m striving to bring in various writing intonations, depending on the style and the platform I’m using.

This summer, I was able to take some writing classes to work on polishing certain aspects of the writing craft. Writing has always been my passion, way before cooking became another one, and I’m now happily combining the two on the pages of this blog. Many people throughout the years have told me that I needed to approach my writing endeavors more professionally and think about writing something for a publication collection. And, even more people have told me lately that I should publish a cooking book. Perhaps it can be a project for the future, the one I’ll surely approach with much enthusiasm and zeal. Pitch me your best marketing advice in a mean while, if you have one, and I’ll make a note of it for the time when I’m serious about the publication.

So, for now I’m just concentrating on polishing certain writing styles and sides of the craft. I’ll definitely take more writing classes in the future too. The last one I took worked on both fiction and nonfiction styles with a concentration on storytelling and nuances of the various writing styles. All the classes were taught by known published authors, and the last one insisted I work on something I’ve never considered before: a thematic memoir, to then explore some possibilities for publication. I’m so not there yet to devote a huge chunk of life to just writing  and then looking for an agent and a publishing company. But, again, perhaps in the future…

I thought that perhaps I can add here some of the “behind the scenes” writing samples, and we can have Literary Sunday posts once in a while. I like to write short pieces that are part of a bigger story but can exist on their own too. And, please make a mental note (as I’ve received different emails from overzealous blog readers over the years that “there’s something wrong with my English”) that, in case you haven’t realized it yet, I’m basically a foreigner using my non-native language. And, yes, I’ve spoken English my whole adult life, but I’m still a (Russian) human being and can miss some errors even after proofreading sometimes.

So, without further ado, a short writing piece that’s very appropriate to all the inner contemplations and outer challenges I’ve had this year. The main task of every writer is to use words like brush strokes and to paint a story like a picture, in a way that it comes alive in your mind, and you feel yourself immersed in it to the full extent.

 

 

The Window of Time 

 

Sometimes we call the eyes the window to the soul, but you can see windows as the eyes through time and space. It separates the world into two realities: here and there, and you feel it splitting the time into two separate lines as well. One starless night, you find yourself peering through a dark window for a while. You feel the heavy curtains of time are slowly lifting and part away, giving you a glimpse of the bygone days and your child self. You then become your own observer, standing in solitude and silence behind the window that connects two worlds and invites you back in time. When your eyes get used to darkness outside, the terrene of past existence comes to life, as if an old picture reveals its features once it’s submerged into a processing bath. You feel yourself transported to your childhood, reliving it again through adult eyes. 

Her red hair is the first thing you notice among the grayish hue of the setting dusk that mutes the vibrancy of any other color palette. Her bouncy red curls move across a deserted children playground like a night butterfly surged by both a fright and exhilaration. She is alone, and you feel a slight concern rising inside of you that a small child is wandering around at this hour without any adult supervision, yet somehow you know she’s there for a purpose, and the whole Universe is conspiringly watching over her as she runs and skips over forgotten sandbox toys. Masked by a time veil, she can’t see you, yet you can feel her joyful innocence and excitement about life, long forgotten in your daily adult existence. You breathe in droplets of her airy laughter and feel something quickening deep inside your soul, like a century-old soot being blown away by a wind blast.  

A dilapidated slide stands out in rising moonshine, reflecting a silvery metal surface polished by thousands of little bottoms and feet. She approaches it as it were a strange creature she wants to get to know better and shakes a side of the rickety stairs leading up to the top. The slide wobbles a little, and she pats the cold exterior, submitting to its power over her just for that minute. You want to tell her that where you live, it feels like the whole world is shaky, and not to trust hers so easily, and to be safe when she climbs to the top. She runs around the slide and stops by the front, placing one foot on the shiny surface, as if introducing herself to this powerful creature. She then puts the other foot higher up on the slide, bends a little, holding on to the side rails, and makes two more small hesitant steps up. She is probably just a foot above the ground, but you can sense her heart pounding as she loweres herself back down, then stretches out on her tummy along the sliding part. You approach her quickly but do not dare to touch her, frightened for her but afraid that this nebulous image will disappear like a mirage in your late night dreaming state. 

She remains laying down for quite a while, and you can feel your own breath frozen in stillness along with hers, not a single air drop fogging the space around you, as you wait for her little spirit to rouse and come back to life. She rises up in one swift motion and climbs the slide yet again, going a bit farther this time, stretching out till her little toes touch the ground. She lets go of the side rails and lands on top of some sand pile to face her friend and foe in this cold metal contraption. She doesn’t wait this time going up the slide, stepping farther and farther above the ground, and turns around to slide down facing forward, not even stopping when her cotton stockings get caught on one of the nails sticking out from the railing.  She rubbs her scraped knee, wiping a few drops of blood away, and runs to the back of the slide to confront the shaky stairs yet again.

“You go, girl,” you hear yourself whisper, as you watch her hesitate for a moment, then pull herself up to the first stair and eventually climb all the way to the top. Her slide down is momentous, dissecting time and space like a wind that you feel on your face, mixed in with your own tears. Her descent is exhilarating, and it lands her onto a soft ground, into your adult arms, into today. You inhale her sweet child smell and let her go, but her spirit remains, feeding yours, drop by drop, with a trickle of courage and hope that better days will surely come.