Patricia Lee Lewis upon reflection …
By Patrica Lee Lewis
In the year that opens before us, I will turn 80, and recently in a writing circle of workshop leaders in training, I wrote a piece in the voice of a woman facing the mysteries and gifts of going forward in a well-worn life. Onward through the fog, as they say. However young or old you are, as you reflect on your life and your world, I encourage you to write down your (or your character’s) thoughts and share them with someone. . . .
Here is what my character had in her heart that December afternoon –
“Every day on the road she gets closer. It’s not clear to what, or from what she travels, but there is a road and there are trees alongside and there is a sun that arcs overhead and every day it is in a different place. She believes the sun, that it knows its business, she believes the trees, that they lean far, that their minds are enormous, that they can hear the life as it thunders ahead. She sets out every day when the sun shows itself to the trees and along the way she learns the lessons of the road, how family and friends and strangers create the world, how stones hold stories, how waters enter and leave the earth, how the night sky sends pricks of light onto grasses as they curve and rustle in the fields between trees. Some days it does not matter how long she walks or if she lies down in the crooks of fallen trees to rest. Other days she frets to think the end will be invisible; she may not know it when it comes, she may not awaken. But mostly, she is content to move along, to mosey, to skip, to run, to hobble, depending on the day, the year, the weather. Mostly, she is on the road and it is a place that suits her.”