This Friday’s writing challenge is to write about love. Not a novel, not even an essay. Just 100 words that capture an aspect of love; its joys, its pain, the way it changes your world view, your sense of self. The way it can bring out your most compassionate self, or spin you into self-righteous anger.
I’m prompted to make “LOVE” this week’s writing challenge because I came across a passage in a novel I’m currently reading. “Crossings: A Novel” by Alex Landragin is not your typical novel and I won’t say anything more about it other than to tell you it is a powerful, gorgeously written, mesmerizing (that word has special meaning in the story) book. A very eclectic debut novel by an author rightfully destined for top billings.
In one passage later in the book (depending on how you read the novel, but that’s a different discussion), one of the characters describes her love for her amour. This is as beautiful a passage about love as I’ve ever read.
You were my beloved once, all those lifetimes ago. I loved you the way the seashell loves the sea: when people put their ears to my mouth it was your song they heard. I loved you the way the sand loves the water: always receiving you with hushed pleasure. I loved you the way thunder rolls through the night, the way butterflies attend to the flower, the way the moon follows the sun. Since childhood, we had longed for nothing- you, Koahu, and I, Alula- other than to be united, although we belonged to rival bloodlines that would not be conjoined by the Law. I was older than you, a fully initiated woman, a master of the crossing. You were barely a man, still a student of the crossing, but you were more interested in other pleasures: laughing, singing, dancing. Each animal on our island had its own dance, and you knew them all. I was a scholar, and you were a dancer.
Put yourself into your writing space and let go. Create something that captures an element of love. Perhaps bring us into the midst of an argument between lovers, use dialogue, poetry or whatever else helps you put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. Please share your 100-word vignette (more or less) with us.