The wind roared all night long the day this tree was blown over in a terrible storm.  Branches were ripped from trees as they flung to and fro in the storm.  The willow above is the favorite climbing spot of neighbor's children.  The wind warped it until it broke and fell onto our fence and the RV parked beside it.  No damage was done to anything other than the tree.  The kids will miss having the tree.  They loved to look over the fence and say, "Neighbor," over and over again until we heard them.

Nature changes the landscape.  Uplift and erosion.  Subsidence and deposition.  Almost as soon as we emerge into the world, we become a target for the elements.  The wind, water, fire and earth of the world buffet us, scour us, shape us and impede us.  Not even lava moves on the surface of the planet as fluidly as do the living beasts that inhabit it.  The crust is bursting at the seems, and a host of protein based organisms crawls along the crust that floats atop the mantle of molten life blood.  As soon as anything, organic or inorganic, moves above the surface, forces begin the process of wearing it down to level, then beyond as the surface itself is carved anew.

The children's voices, my vision of them playing, the snow covering this tree and the thought I am thinking, was thinking, am still "was" thinking, will not be drawn down by gravity.  They are not subject to those physical laws.  Who knows where these concepts go, but gravity appears to have no sway in the domain of thought and soul.   Could the place where thoughts collect be known as heaven?

I will write a word.

Bell.

I choose bell.  The root word means beauty in Italian.  A bell can cover a nut.  The klacker or striker that dangles down from the apex along the inner side of the bell makes noise when you shake the bell.   The shape of a  bell repels water.  Some bells have hickory handles that fit snugly in the palm of one's hand.  The purpose of a bell becomes clear in just one use of it.  The shape and material of a bell produces the tone and the strength of sound.  My grandmother played a tin bell in a bell choir, and I watched one of her performances the summer before she passed on to heaven.  

Bell.  I chose the word bell.

Source: Hubblesite.org

The cloud of gases in this picture taken by the Hubble telescope swirl and twist to create a landscape once  seen only in imaginations the imaginations of artists.  Looking back at the renderings of science fiction illustrators of the fifties and sixties, their visions captured details not yet seen by the human eye.  How were they able to do this without seeing the actual image?

The colors captivate my eye, and seeing them I can begin to build scenes in my head filled with detail and structure.  I can invasion a story with characters to act out the scenes.  Did Andre Norton feel this way?  Was she inspired in this manner to write her incredible science fiction and science fantasy novels and short stories?

I want to write; to put on paper the descriptions of the visions in my mind, but how?  I have many words, and I have the skills to put them together to form a sentence, but how do I release them?  I have always pulled away from labeling concepts, but now I suspect I have been wrong to do so.  Being able to identify a word as an adjective might well be the difference between gibberish and coherency.   I once relished the depth of a word.  I wanted to know the definition, the connotation and the denotation.  I love the way a word could change its meaning simply by its position in a sentence.  I grew up, and those rules became restraints.  I seek the lock to unchain them.

I realize that I do not create.  I see vision, and I attempt to match a word with a picture to build a description that someone who cannot see what I see can experience the image as I see it.  The urge to write can be painful in its intensity.  Years have passed, but the compulsion has not faded.  Compulsions can burn one up if not managed properly.

My compulsion mirrors the Hubble picture.  I sit at the center while my ambitions, feelings and memories whirl and tumble around me.  The heat of my personality, my life force flares and collapses, but the fuel within me has limits, and a will eventually burn out.  What shall I do?  When will I take myself seriously?  What lies behind the compulsion, and how do I learn to co-exist with it?

Finally, this photo captures a mere split second in time.  After the shot was taken, the form changed, the colors mutated.  That, I think, sums up what hinders me when I sit down to write.  I am dynamic, alive, nonstop breathing and moving, and not inclined to stop.  The visions in my mind are equally as volatile.  How does one lay out this running dialogue?

Questions, questions.  This is my dilemma, and my passion.