My mind is pot-bound, it’s soil once fertile, exhausted and moss-covered, but in my heyday, I was sought out by women who wanted a sharp wit as well as a handsome body beside them in bed – though I say it myself. A photographer, I charted my voyages of love, capturing moments from first landfall through exploration and charting to the encirclement of each new island, and then shallowly, I moved on, recording last looks of disappointment. Island-hopping became a habit, the search for a permanent home for the heart ever elusive till looks went and reputation warded off new discoveries. I maundered into old age holed up in a rural backwater, photographing literal landscapes instead of those glorious, metaphorical islands of love. My days are nearly done and I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook, with the photographs there and the moss…
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, kim881 in Prosery challenges us to write a story with a beginning, middle and end in exactly 144 words using two lines from the Leonard Cohen poem Take This Waltz “And I’ll bury my soul in a scrapbook, – with the photographs there and the moss.”
If you have not been following this blog for the last month of April, I have been participating in the A-Z Challenge in which participants write alphabetically on a topic of their choosing. Writing is only half the story – with some 218 participants, the idea is to read the blogs of old friends and newcomers alike and if you don’t manage to do that during April, then the Roadtrip that follows in May is the chance to see what everybody else has been up to…
Ronel the Mythmaker besides being the splendid Graphic Designer who furnished the A-Z Challenge 2024 with all its banners and letters this year, Ronel is a writer whose books deal with the Fae or fairy world and for her own A-Z this year, she has given us as compendious a guide to all the forms of the Fae in world folklore. Ronel lives in South Africa and I find it hard to imagine that in that land of bright sunshine and big skies, there lives a soul whose fascination with the Fae, have led her to explore the often dark side of folklore but that she has! Everything you might want to know about the creatures of the Fae but never dared to ask… As well as her writing and graphics, Ronel is a mistress of the dark arts of all digital media including sound, and illustrates her posts copiously, including the one I have linked to – Dark Fae: Ghouls…
By Sarah is a blog by Sarah Whiley from Australia and she must post late at night for she often pops up in my Jetpack app just as I, am getting up. She posts poems and photographs each of which, incrementally reveals the character and life of the eponymous Sarah. I don’t always comment on her posts some, like the photograph below for “Wordless Wednesdays” do not require an answer, but often a comment has followed hard on the heels of Sarah posting – winging its way from and to the antipodes by the miracle of modern technology. Sarah has become part of my life and her photographic theme for A-Z 2024 was about corners – corners of things and things found in corners – dip into Sarah’s quirky view of the world…
The Multicoloured Diary is a blog by Zalka Csenge Virág Storyteller from Hungary and is another one dealing with Folklore from around the world. I enjoyed Zalka’s previous A-Zs so this was like connecting with an old friend. This year the theme was Romance tropes in Folklore and like Ronel, Zalka is compendious in her research and posting – despite the fact that she had family issues pulling at her, Zalke finished the challenge in flying form once more…
A trip round some of the blogs I didn’t manage to visit during the Challenge in April!
Farida at Chapters From my Life, writes about her struggle with cancer. But she also writes poems, campaigns against child abuse and about her own family. Her reflections will resonate not just with others who are struggling with the big C, but the thoughts will inspire anyone who is struggling with Life in general. This will not be everyone’s idea of a blog they want to read, but blogging is a broad church and you never know the day when you will be struck down by something, and if you are, having bookmarked this blog might be the best thing you do today…
Big Wheel…
Lisa – Musings of a Middle-Aged Mom writes about American Recipes and I know not whether you would call these “Classic” American Recipes or not but I can tell you – if you want an insight into the nature and flavours of American cooking – Lisa fits the bill. The link I have made, is to W is for Wheel – Big Wheel and big is the word – a compound sandwich made from a whole loaf of bread and baked in the oven (pictured at right).
Another recipe leaves me pondering ingredients such as Oyster Crackers, Cheez-its, Goldfish Crackers and Hidden Valley Dry Ranch Mix – it’s another language! But Lisa will be your guide if you step her way…
Beth at Through my Looking Glass reflects (see what I did there) on what she has learned from participating in the 2021 challenge – and has come to the conclusion that its the photographs rather than the travels that should have been her theme. The selection provided in her reflections piece are just that – pictures of reflections and they show a definite style. Now I know photography, like all art, is subject to personal taste but I have seen blogs with very poor photographs and these are quite the opposite!
