#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

Charles River morning view

― Sylvia Plath, “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath,” edited by Karen V. Kukil, from her original manuscripts at Smith College

The smoky, snowy morning river, with sun coming up through the trees. Skis or boots? I wondered as I set to go out. Well, I made the right choice: boots. The snow has thinned and the ground is wet. Snowy branches lean over the Charles. It’s the three of us again. Suzi is better and wants to be included. I found this lovely Sylvia Plath passage about observing the snow falling outside her dorm window at Smith College. She has an exam, but says she must stop and look. She does more than look. She must describe the experience in detail in her journal. Where she charmingly misspells lavender. There is quite a seasonal expanse in this brief passage, and she’s even reflecting back on when she was imagining herself, in the summer, living as a student in the dorm. I love that the red and blue rooftops are “secretive.” This is a marvelous passage, written in the present tense, one assumes, as it was unfolding. Gorgeous to be given this window into her snowy day as a college student. Indoors, today, after my peaceful wander, I had a new writing coaching client, and she left appreciating our time together. So did I. And I tweaked one of my newer poems, “Marriage in October Light.” It has been workshopped twice and I changed the last stanza; made it better, I hope. And sent a batch of poems off to a journal, including this one. Very relieved to have accomplished a big task in time for Christmas: ordering prints of the wedding pictures. Didn’t complete it, but made huge progress with a task I’ve procrastinated on. Very satisfying to sleep with something off my to-do list. One of my readers wrote and asked if she could write from my winter photos. Delighted she is inspired by my time in the snowy woods.

Sun through winter trees, Charles River