Grit, huh?
The prompt causes me to go for more coffee.
Grit is big, I think, smelling the Friday treat of French Vanilla freshly ground and steeped. To define it, to give it color and tangible texture, to place it in my hot mouth and taste it, is hard because it is much.
Grit is the stuff to refine.
It is that hard rubbing against of those moments labeled good and bad that make raw that make real. Think Skin Horse and all of his rubbed spots that made a softness that in my messy mind causes desire and inspires rest. I don’t believe the skin horse’s light fur was rubbed off by kissing and loving and petting alone. I think that sage friend was drug across the cul-de-sac along with the bucket of broken limb sized colored chalk to draw rainbows and roads and games, to truly create worlds. The stray gravel sticking and rolling hard caused sore rash where once there was plush. I think he was drug across dirty tile floor from under the bed repeatedly. Each grout groove pulling seamed tender parts open. I don’t think he minded the dragging as much as he minded the alone coldness of that land under the bed of forgotten things.
Grit is the stuff to hold together and remind.
It is the additives like the stuff stones are made of. Think stepping stones. Think of how when purchased from the lot, placed in the back of the car next to the gallon of milk and bags of canned beans and carrots that were 10 for $10. They left part of themselves there in the already littered carpet that clings to everything. The fine dust is seen for weeks in the shape perfectly unique for that stone. I run my hand across it but it is still there. The dust merely rose and fell. I think of the men who made them, these rounds stones I will use to guide the way from front to back and round again. I think of the big trucks delivering ugly dull pebbles and broken recycled stones. I think of the driver pulling in with a big dump truck filled with sand and the colorless stuff to mix in. His brakes huff and whistle release as he stops over the hole to dump. His face like a raccoon is covered with the fine gray save for lips and eyes. He must have watched the machines once. He must have walked the path of the dust to see how it gets mixed just right with the ugly and broken to become this stone right here that I gently place in the dirt. I think he smiled while bearing witness and may be even grasped at the words to describe before he shook his head and returned to the truck, surrendering words to the mystery indescribable.
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Written in five minutes – super fast & twirling – with Lisa Jo and others at The Gypsy Mama. Please join in – it’s so stinkin’ easy! It only takes 5 Minutes!
Wow, what word pictures you created here! Thank you for this living, breathing experience.
Thank you for your kind words. I hope your weekend was wonderful