Lane von Herzen: Shimmer

My Third Novel's Conclusion, My Heartbreak

My heart begins to break when I think about completing this particular book -- because this narrative has sustained me like no other story I've known. It's both more personal and more universal than my other works. But beyond memory and archetype, it's a cri-de-coeur about needing to become the person one is destined to be. And in the writing, I have met my own life's work, my own fated journey -- having the sense all the while that the pages are suffused with a resonance, an energy, an electrified field that defies explanation. Writers hope and pray to be overtaken by a work in this way -- to be conscripted into passionate service of a profound story. To experience it even once in a lifetime seems a great privilege. I still have several months before this novel is complete, and this constitutes my reprieve. Because I'm not ready for the beauty to end.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Shimmer

Ms. Carol Nelson has gifted us with these luminous poppies -- layered and extravagant -- creating a shimmering world unto themselves. Certainly Anna would grow blooms such as these on her flower-filled lawn. There's a kind of beatification of the simple in this particular painting, a blessing of small and daily gifts, that somehow reflects back onto the viewer. The poppies shine with such resplendence that, reflected in our eyes as witnesses, so do we.