I was e-talking with Elizabeth, about the fact that she had wild turkeys and redwoods in her backyard and here I was stuck in Brooklyn, beautiful though it was, while she was holding one of the in-person writing workshops I could not attend.
“Yes,” she said, “but you’re in the center of the known world.”
Her words struck, a soft-edged lightning bolt.
She illuminated me.
“Yes,” I have to say. “Here, we have never been at a loss for words and empires and people traveling through.”
Because I walk the dog in Fort Green Park nearly every day and the park makes me happy to be in Brooklyn and because Brooklyn is in New York, and because I can talk to Elizabeth about it, I’m a lucky gal.
Right now, the grass is lush and long and dotted with lots of white clover. The starlings and robins dart among the large, sea-size hostas, the scents of the roses cloy and rise, the mockingbirds sing, the squirrels chase. It is easy to forget that the mowers will return and churn up the sounds and the grass as soon as the city decides it has to spend the money. Hoping to miss any poop the long grass has made it hard to see, I walk among the masses of gentle green curves that make me think of tales taking place in meadows. There is a bunch of pink clover blossoms rising at the side of the path not far from the stairs. Large clover heads rarely appear here because of the mowers. The plantain leaves are getting larger and longer and some of the dandelions are big enough to be lions’ teeth.
Melanie Lee is working on something that is either fiction or memoir. She’ll figure it out soon. She blogs at [email protected]. She’s been a member of BWW for about two years.
@Melanie — This is wonderful. For a moment I was walking with you in Brooklyn! What gorgeous flowers and sentences.