A Certain Kind of Light

A question for my fellow bloggers: how many of your posts begin with a deleted paragraph of wondering aloud what to write that day? Because we all have our moments, don't we, when we want or need to write something, but I'm not sure what? I think I'll keep that (this) paragraph in this time.

I had a very frustrating moment related to this the other day. I was out doing some errands, very far from my computer, or even from any place to simply sit down and jot a few notes, and a very nice idea for a little essay popped into my head. It even developed enough to possibly split into two pieces. But I knew that by the time I was able to actually get anything down, it would all be gone. And it seemed to me that this was a pattern that I am at my least imaginative when I am sitting down at a keyboard, or with a pen and paper, and at my most imaginitive when I am far from these things, and occupied with other tasks. I felt like I get my best ideas when I cannot express them, and that my mind goes blank when I have the time and space to get them out. Does anyone else know this frustration?

Now, that is something I wanted to get off my chest, but it's not the main thing I was planning to talk about today. That would be the weather. Summer is over now, and I have found myself wondering just how I know that. Besides from looking at the calendar of course. Simply looking out the window is enough. The leaves are just starting to change, that's the obvious tell. There's also something in the light. Is it just the angle of the sun? It doesn't seem like it should be that pronounced just yet. There's something about the shadows. They seem sharper now. The temperature has only dropped a little bit so far but the shadows seem like omens of the coming crispness in the air.

I ought to appreciate the shadows where they are here, I suppose. When winter comes around in my area, it brings clouds. It brings days upon days of flat, gray overcast. The light is flat and colorless and diffuse, unchanging from dawn to dusk. They are shadowless days.

I bet I could write a poem about that. Maybe I will.

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