Blog
Blog posts tagged with "beautiful things"
Pacing & Tempo Possibilities for Micro Essays: A Beautiful Things Analysis
| May 6, 2020 When writing in compressed forms, it is imperative to consider how much time—how many words, how much “air”—a writer allots to each component of a scene. This consideration is directly related to pacing (or, in musical terms, tempo), and can evoke moods and tones connected to the speaker’s emotional state. By keeping the ideas of tempo, pacing, and focus in mind, a writer can determine which parts of a scene should receive the most attention—conducting readers through to their composition line by line.
Keywords: beautiful things
Seattle, After the Rain
| February 6, 2017 To the birds, we must look like ants at a picnic, the way we crawl from our dark caves and run crazed for sidewalks and grassy parks...
This is Where You'll Find Me
| January 30, 2017 New York City, after we lied then made rules. It shouldn't work by a long shot but it does....
Lines of Light
| January 23, 2017 At sunset in Burlington the power lines are golden like the afterglow of sparklers when children twirl them in the air. A frayed ribbon of sunlight stretches out...
Morning (repeat)
| January 2, 2017 When my infant daughter wakes at two in the morning and her father cannot coax her back to sleep...
White (repeat)
| December 26, 2016 We no longer remember the sound of birdsong or the feel of dry pavement beneath our feet, but we walk to school anyway because school is the place we're meant to walk to on Tuesday mornings. Temperatures register -23 below zero...
Grace (repeat)
| December 19, 2016 "Thank you," I tell the manager, "for taking my order so late." The sizzle of the grill frames my words. "I appreciate it."
Holding (repeat)
| December 12, 2016 My sister and I live on either side of sixty. We've been mothers half our lives. Visiting her in Oregon, Ashland running a steady hundred degrees for days into weeks, we head to Lake of the Woods...
Turkey Soup (repeat)
| December 5, 2016 On Thanksgiving, after the turkey is carved and gutted - after we slice through half of the twenty-pound bird my mother insists on ordering...
Birthday Cards
| November 28, 2016 Once, I wrote a birthday poem for her forty-second. It described her love of wine, and how she was so very fine. Exceedingly satisfied at the neat rhyme and my infinite untapped potential, I awaited glowing praise...
An Absence of Yellow
| November 21, 2016 It's mid-August and already my grandfather's pumpkins boast a bright orange. His cucumbers have laced thin vines up the patio rail. The tomatoes flush cherry-red in waves. My grandparents bribe me with vegetables to come for a visit...
In the Fold
| November 7, 2016 She wields a basket of clean linen with easy confidence: one, two moves across the chest to make a towel into thirds...
Only Now
| October 31, 2016 Only now, as you stand center of an aisle carpeted royal blue, where you and your older sisters, styled by mother in hand-sewn dresses to match her own, once trailed like ducks down the narrow river...
Bike Ride
| October 24, 2016 I don't remember if I wrapped my hands around my father when he let me ride on the back of his yellow Schwinn....
Red Birds
| October 17, 2016 I hand the plate of raw vegetables to Dad. He sets it on the shelf attached to the grill, settles his arm around me. Pointing to the tree above, he says, "See those red birds?"
Bare, Naked
| October 3, 2016 Rain falls, dimpling puddles. I kick off my clogs. My toenails shine like sparkling pumpkin peel. I slide my underwear and jeans down my legs...
On Guilt
| September 26, 2016 When I was a baby and woke up at night, my mother held me, her arms a boat on a gentle sea. Oh, the helpless power of the small, to be thus cupped in the world's warm hand...
Water
| September 19, 2016 Many days I set a thermos of jasmine tea beside me on my desk. Jasmine tea is mostly water, perfumed by flowers. My thermos is stainless steel with metallic green paint and says L.L. Bean on one side...
Lightening Up
| August 1, 2016 My brother and I grab hold of dangling metal chains fastened to schoolyard swings in this expanse of crabgrass, red dirt, goalposts, and hard bleachers...
Candy Thief
| July 25, 2016 Rounding the corner with grocery basket in-hand, I spot my father staring at a display of candy. At a distance, I watch as he grabs candy bars off the shelf and slides them inside his coat, so absorbed in the act of stealing, he doesn't notice me approach. I tap him on the shoulder and he turns. Startled, he begins to empty his pockets.
Art Lesson
| July 18, 2016 They saved it for Fridays. Every teacher had the same projects. Fall: iron leaves between waxed paper. Winter: chalk snow scenes on black construction paper. Spring: draw daffodils. Except for Miss Malik...
Apparent Magnitude: Negative 28, Brighter Than the Sun
| July 11, 2016 We're in church and the minister is reading a story about Maria Mitchell, America's first female astronomer, when my son whispers, "When I grow up, if there's a planet left that nobody has been to, I'm going to be the first person to step on it."
Galaxies
| July 4, 2016 Say that this space on her forehead where you smooth tangled tresses to plant a kiss once, perhaps twice for good measure, smells like daisies, grassy and warm...
Hubby
| June 6, 2016 It wasn't a nickname. It was her real, actual name. She'd been Hubby for eighty-three years...
Graffiti the Walls
| May 30, 2016 I want to graffiti the walls where my grandmother lives, white and sterile walls (egg-shell colored walls, as the nurses say), replace her sanitation lists with photographs, magazine spreads and paper clippings...
T-Shirts
| May 23, 2016 A stack of t-shirts sits on my bureau: white, pale blue, yellow. The soft, bright colors of summer.
Ascension Garden
| May 9, 2016 The first time, you drive by yourself. You have some idea you are going there, but are still surprised that you know the way, without her, through the turning and turning driveways...
Merriment
| May 2, 2016 I was walking to the store with my brother when we stumbled upon a father teaching his daughter to ride a bike. He was in his early thirties, the age my father must have been when he left us...
The Museum of Broken Relationships
| April 25, 2016 There's this letter on the wall in there that a young boy writes to a young girl during the Bosnian War. They meet at gunpoint, marching toward a van that will drive them to...
Blog Archive
Related Topics
Related Topics
art lesson (1)
ascension garden (1)
bare (1)
beautiful things (159)
bike ride (1)
birthday cards (1)
candy (1)
galaxies (1)
grace (2)
holding (2)
hubby (1)
in the fold (1)
lightening up (1)
lines of light (1)
merriment (1)
morning (1)
naked (1)
on guilt (1)
only now (1)
red birds (1)
reliquary (1)
t-shirts (1)
turkey soup (2)
water (1)
white (2)
