Everyday Canvas

December 19

For "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" 

Prompt: Choose one of these quotes to discuss in your blog- or if you're in a writing mood discuss all three.
1.The color of springtime is in the flowers; the color of winter is in the imagination.- Terri Guillemets
2. Let all the failures of your past year be your best guide in the New Year. - Mehmet Murat ildan
3. Kindness is like snow—it beautifies everything it covers.- Kahlil Gibran

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1. It is difficult to attach a color to any one season because all seasons for me is a swirl of colors, but I’ll try.

Spring is the color of hope, with all shades of lighter, brighter greens as the dark days of winter slide into warmer days, meaning new experiences or a chance of renewal.

I like summer only because of its light that elevates the mood. It is the color of the smiles on one’s best friend who accepts who you are and encourages who you might aspire to be; however, sometimes, it is too hot where I live; so then, I liken it to a hellish experience.

Fall used to be my favorite season when I was much younger, maybe because of the fancy colors on the leaves, since I never thought of facing what they meant, and now, I know they meant change, and I think fall is the color of sadness, facing one’s shortcomings while life is ebbing from nature all around us, be it in a spectacular garb.

As to winter, it is the color of being sheltered in my family’s warmth as we gather by the hearth even though not much of my family is left now. It is also the feel of warm woolen sweaters and curling up with a hot coffee and a good book. Whenever I can get hold of a good book, which may be in all seasons, then I have all the colors I need, alone or with people, anywhere.

2. Excuse me! I tend to disagree with this quote. If you’re talking about 2020 alone, the year failed me big time. That year should be the one to atone what it did to me, not me to it. I won’t go into details here, but I am not letting anything nasty in the past be my guide. Yes, I learn from my mistakes--I think--always, but I won’t let those mistakes or their memory carry into my future. Instead, I’ll pack up what I have learned and gathered throughout my life and use it as fuel to warm me up in my later years, no matter how few are left.

3. Kindness, yes. This is a great quote. I like it and I have written about it several times. Kindness means generosity, consideration, and concern for others, without expecting praise, reward, or even acknowledgement. There are small kindnesses like saying a comforting word to someone who is sad or bigger ones like making sure a homeless person has shelter. Kindnesses are more real to me, if they are done incognito, but that may not always be possible.

Just two days ago, my neighbors showed several kindnesses to me.

It seems late at night, a woman went through our backyards and porches, and stole and broke things. She was about thirty years old, since someone’s camera caught her image and the police got her fingerprints on a neighbor’s furniture. She couldn’t get into our porch since the doors were locked but she got into the unlocked storage room in the back, in which we had garden things. She took out a wheelbarrow and other stuff like hoes and hoses and threw them on the grass, and broke a few empty pots. She did much worse damage to the neighbors.

I think what she did was done in anger, not in need. A good thief who needs things doesn’t do intentional damage. Two of my neighbors helped me carry the broken stuff to the front for the garbage collectors and helped me put the ones back in the storage room, which I lock now.

We have lived in this neighborhood since 1993, and nothing like this has ever happened. Then, I thought of the woman who did all this at four o’clock in the night, and believe it or not, I felt her misery. How much she must hurt to do what she did to all our houses! Yet, what she really took were windchimes and small garden ornaments. She did break some things of mine but they were old and I’d probably throw them out, anyway.

So, thinking about her, I said a little prayer for her. I hope she gets caught and is helped and I certainly hope and pray she doesn’t feel so wounded anymore.

For: "Space Blog" 

Prompt: From Mikibits ’s "Glances" , a poem about a coffee shop whose customers and staff were all eyeballing somebody who was eyeballing somebody else. Why do humans act like this in your opinion?

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Eyeballing is carrying people-watching to the extreme. Eyeballing can make others feel uncomfortable. Most of the eyeballers use this method to communicate their personal messages to others, as if they are detectives or stalkers. They might be doing this out of a need to connect or out of boredom.

There’s a lighter version of this that we authors use a lot. In fact, I am a fan of it. It is called people-watching. It is an observation method, drawing conclusions about people from their postures, actions, and bits of conversations I hear. This is a way of gathering writing material; however, the observation shouldn’t be done in a conspicuous form. In fact, I omit looking at the same person for very long. After the Covid thing, I haven’t been going out much, but before that, my favorite places were the restaurants and the book stores where I observed several people at the same time. This has a shielding advantage over looking at only one person. I am sure many writers here are people watching like me, also. I wonder what their methods are, if any.