so i'm trying to establish a routine that will keep me writing. as i mentioned YEARS ago probably, i am trying natalie goldman's method of free-writing. this is more stream-of-consciousness sort of writing, which attempts to bypass the editing mind. it's beneficial (i THINK), but it has the problem of being disjointed and fragmented, and largely unfocused. in order to practice a more focused aspect of writing, i am also going to use this blog to address writing prompts. right now, i am using a site called 365 creative writing prompts to supply the prompts. we'll see how this goes.
1. Outside the Window: What’s the weather outside your window doing right now? If that’s not inspiring, what’s the weather like somewhere you wish you could be?
right now, the weather's fine. it's a bit cool, which, for hawaii, is like in the 60s or even 70s. although it did rain earlier today, the streets are dry now. the only wet parts are on the grass (that's why i had to wipe down my dog's paws after we came in from our walk).
the sky is clear (at least as far as i can remember). the moon's a crescent. it's not yet the thinnest crescent, which (my wife always points out) is my grandmother's moon. it's supposed to represent my grandma because her smile was thin and bright, like a cheshire cat's. it's supposed to be a sign of good luck, like she's watching over us.
the air is pretty still. it isn't like the way it's been over the past weekend, with gusts up to 84 mph. the winds pretty much scoured the yard. it's funny, though; i suppose our yard is so congested with trees and plants that the wind gets split up and dispersed, and ultimately, nothing really gets blown around too much. the only things i noticed blown over were the black plastic garbage bin (which was empty at the time) and the conical wire planters.
i can't see directly outside the window at the moment, because we have it shaded up (the blinds drawn). but i know what's there. there is the little garden path that i planned out and planted so long ago. now, a lot of those plants are full-grown. there are a couple of strawberry guava trees in the front. then, there is a pink kokutan plant that has essentially grown into a large flame shaped tree. its leaves are large, and very different from what i consider to be the true kokutan plants, which have more rounded leaves. (in fact, i kind of doubt that the pink flowered one is a kokutan at all). i recall at one point, a lot earlier in its growth, how there would be a lot of ants on the kokutan plant. aphids too. but it seems to be doing very well right now. maybe too well, in fact.
across from the kokutan is a bottle brush tree. we once had a bottle brush tree in our yard, when i was growing up. it occupied the more shadowed part of the house, the side that was closer to kamehameha highway... actually, now that i think about it, there were probably two of those trees. there was another bottlebrush tree on the sunny side. i remember those trees attracting a lot of bees, because of their red "bottle brushes," which i suppose contain a lot of pollen. nowadays, those trees don't seem to attract a lot of bees; rather, i notice birds like the mejiro feeding off of those flowers.
i just had a memory regarding the bottle brush tree on the shadowed part of the yard. i remember trying to save a baby mejiro bird. i'm not sure if it was a baby, actually, as all of those types of birds are pretty small. but i tried saving it by (i think) feeding it with banana water. ultimately, it didn't work. i tried to make a little grave for it, and i believe i buried it beneath that bottle brush tree in the shadowed part of the yard.
... going back to my yard: after the bottle brush tree, there is a black pine tree. i remember it starting out so very small. now it is pretty tall, and it has a lot of dried needles. i wish it looked better, but i'm not sure how to prune it or train it so that the needles grow out in a nice pattern.
i'm skipping over a lot of the junipers. and oh yeah, there is one more round kokutan. i say it's round because i've kind of trained it into a ball.
the path is dirt, with 3-hexagonal paving stones. at one point, i tried to plant a sort of mossy ground cover. i forget what it was called. it took for a little while, but then it started to die away...
the yard is quiet. i wish more people would walk through it. it contains a lot of the same plants that my grandpa used to plant. in fact, a few of those plants are transplants from my grandpa's yard. i like to think that i'm carrying on my grandpa's traditions by growing those plants...
oh well, i suppose that i've pretty much addressed this prompt.
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