Pieces of writing are pebbles pulled from the sea of your mind. They look like jewels, all fresh and glistening. Then you return to them a little while later. Oh, horror. What has happened? My sparkling stones are now lumps of drab rock. What evil alchemy is this?
But wait. Over there, on the promenade, a man is selling little string bags of pebbles that look just as bright and twinkling as my own pebbles once were. Yet they are dry. How did he do that? I polished them, the stallholder explains. I tumbled them with sand and gravel and grit, for hours and hours, until they wore totally smooth. And now they look as fresh as when they were first picked from the sea.
That must be hard work.
Oh yes, it is.
But aren’t you changing them by polishing them? I ask.
No, he says. I’m putting them back the way they’re meant to be.
1 comment:
I love this little metaphoric vignette. Thanks for the constant advice.
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