Sometimes my journal is kept well, sometimes poorly. In it I frequently note my setting, like noticing the antics of a cocky blue jay I see outside now as I write. How well I describe him is less important than what the activity of description requires. It demands that I pause to pay attention, and paying attention is tricky.
Arketa lay stunned and dizzy, fairly sure her eight-year-old body was dead. Her long fall through a web of branches left torturous music in her mind—bump, bump, bump,thud. The sounds resembled the bouncing beat of the Ganza, the dance of the dead, off a drum tautly topped with a stretched elephant’s-ear.
I have lingered this morning. It is raining hard, the house is wonderfully quiet, and the coffee hot and unusually good. I meant to finish unpacking from a trip completed yesterday, to get to my writing with haste. Instead, I have stayed in other situations longer than expect, and I have been reluctant to leave those distractions. By definition, I have lingered.
It was nearly 8am, and dear goodness, Arketa thought, the day was already hot and steamy like the tea she was about to prepare. She padded from her bedroom to the detached kitchen wiping sweat from her face and fanning the loose skirt of her pajama, the tailor-made dress that hung loose from her shoulders to her ankles. Nothing underneath, thank goodness. Not the American pajama, no. This cotton frock was made by the local seamstress for wearing at home in the hot Sudan weather. Arketa loved tropical heat but a collection of days hovering at a stifling 90° had been more than enough.
LIFE WITH A CAPITAL 'L' invites authentic living. Seven L's lead the way: Lingering, Listening, Learning, Leaning, Loaning, Laughing, Leaving. Then, lest the reader didn't quite catch on, an Epilogue offers a chance to think again.
According to UNICEF, 25,000 children die each day due to poverty. And, “. . .they die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world.”
