TN March CDE---BLURB
[Describe your muse looking at an old photo]
The photo was yellowed, edges drawing together in a finite curl, so much so that my fingers had to smooth it out carefully, each time risking to break off the crust of paper along the side. Pale and ghostly, as if it contained the very soul of the person peering out at me, the photo paper ebbed and ridged into tiny lines, like sand that undulated into snake-like waves when blown by the wind of a tempestuous ocean.
From the yellowed paper a matronly woman looked out at me, stern and unyielding without a smile. Her expression spoke of duty, her entire body taunt with it, forsaking every pleasure, even one of comfort. Hair brushed back into a tight chignon drew her forehead into a smooth canvass, which hid the wrinkles of a life filled with labor. Labor that would not untie the unforgiving corset strangling her waist, making her chest heavy with disproportion as she was, essentially, heavy set. In that way she reminded me of a muddy diamond--resilient, unbreakable, strong, set in her place in society and yet, unpolished and ugly.
Mother.
Well, not my mother, but I kept the photo to remind me that I once had one. Whomever she was, from whatever fertile threshold of dirt she bore me into this world, it reminded me that once, I was mortal.
It was a good way to make certain that I never took immortality for granted.
The photo was yellowed, edges drawing together in a finite curl, so much so that my fingers had to smooth it out carefully, each time risking to break off the crust of paper along the side. Pale and ghostly, as if it contained the very soul of the person peering out at me, the photo paper ebbed and ridged into tiny lines, like sand that undulated into snake-like waves when blown by the wind of a tempestuous ocean.
From the yellowed paper a matronly woman looked out at me, stern and unyielding without a smile. Her expression spoke of duty, her entire body taunt with it, forsaking every pleasure, even one of comfort. Hair brushed back into a tight chignon drew her forehead into a smooth canvass, which hid the wrinkles of a life filled with labor. Labor that would not untie the unforgiving corset strangling her waist, making her chest heavy with disproportion as she was, essentially, heavy set. In that way she reminded me of a muddy diamond--resilient, unbreakable, strong, set in her place in society and yet, unpolished and ugly.
Mother.
Well, not my mother, but I kept the photo to remind me that I once had one. Whomever she was, from whatever fertile threshold of dirt she bore me into this world, it reminded me that once, I was mortal.
It was a good way to make certain that I never took immortality for granted.