What’s In This Field of Wildflowers? Come Join Me

a poetry collection

Monday Challenge: Dancing with my wildflowered heart

Untamed and overrun (or should I say, appropriately numbered?) with wildflowers is a field of curiosity, with a child ready to pick up each wildflower.

With each new wildflower, rises a new thought, with each new wildflower, rises a new question.

Author’s note: I’m deeply allergic to pollen so the literal version of this poem would never happen until I finally save up for allergy shots. But, despite this aversion to actual nature, I still, for some reason, love nature-related analogies. Is see them in films and vlogs and the beauty just appeals to me. And in that visual beauty I’m able to organize abstract experiences into tangible experiences sometimes. This poem is dedicated to my inner child, which is really the source of all of my creativity and questions and thoughts and strong internal monologue. May she continue to frolic, worry-free.

Tuesday: Write about the chiaroscuro of your subconscious (chiaroscuro is an Italian term which refers to strong contrasts between light & dark)

They like to tell me that it becomes gray when you mix dark and light paint

but the elements of me simply create streaks that intertwine into mesmerizing patterns, like a malleable solid rather than a mixable liquid.

These sandwiched layers reveal good moments and bad moments, a blur of mixed intentions and imperfectly executed actions,

each rendition receiving feedback that further pulls this subconscious into a thin layer to then fold right back into itself, further creating more and more intricate patterns.

Author’s note: Have you seen those videos of people making candy? They mix “candy dough” (this is definitely not the correct term, oops) of different colours and they stretch it out, fold in and repeat? That’s what I imagined the word chiaroscuro to look like, if my subconscious were to be imagined in tangible terms.

Wednesday: What does “courage reins the chariot” mean to you?

Courage is so strongly an expansive trait that it was hard for me to understand how it could rein anything particularly of a chariot, a concept that typically follows, not leads.

But it dawned on me — perhaps I needed to rethink my understanding of reins and what they do.

I think of reins as a leash, often used to hold back, to delineate just where to go — a withdrawing image.

But perhaps I’m ignoring that reins can be used to encourage with just a different swish signalling forward motion, up ahead whether into battle or into cake.

Author’s note: I have no idea what I’m saying here, is this how reins work? I both had to Google “chariot” (which I’ve used in daily conversation but then when I saw it in this phrase I had a brain goof) and “reins” (which I know to be the straps that are used to interact with horses in a way that moves them? Listen, I know nothing about horses).

Yet, somehow, if I’m using all of these words correctly, I think there’s a metaphorical lesson here? Sometimes I see certain things as restrictive when in fact they can be expansive.

For example: rejection. Rejection is quite literally the closing of a door. Yet, with all of the rejection that I’ve encountered, especially when it comes to the closing of the “final” door in a set of options, it’s led to some of the most expansive parts of my life where I had to be most creative to create new doors, or find another house altogether.

So there.

Magic.

Thursday: Write about extraordinary, mundane things that tug at your heart.

To my marble rolling pin, thrifted for 6.99, I love you and your calm, cool, collected surface, and the weight of your body moving dough in ways I never thought could be possible.

To my (vintage) microwave, with your silly, weird buttons and your iron-clad will to live forever, may I pass you on after I move to someone who can uphold that promise.

To my dehumidifier chugging away loudly, moaning all day, I love you too for demoistening the air so that moisture can lift off from my skin to bring away heat.

Author’s note: There are so many mundane things that tug at my heart that this could be a whole book!!! I would publish it if anyone would truly read it. I’ve already written passionately about eyebrows, ketchup sandwiches, my microwave and my panini grill, but there’s so, so much more that fills my heart ❤.

Friday: What’s in your Writer’s Survival Kit?

In my writer’s survival kit I have my trusty Google Sheets, yes sheets, not Docs, because writing starts with idea generation, and idea generation starts with picking up those wildflowers in my brain and placing them somewhere where they will be nurtured and grown into full-blown ideas.

In Google Sheets, I plant these ideas and thoughts in neatly arranged rows, automated to randomize so that every time I come back to my garden of thoughts, mathematical magic presents me with the freshest random idea to explore.

Then comes Evernote, a beautiful taggable digital notebook where I can write all of my ideas and have them neatly filed in order, before finally letting those ideas see the light of day.

But it doesn’t end there — then comes community, from Know Thyself Heal Thyself to my own The Brain is a Noodle to the Writers and Editors of Color collective in community we truly grow the most.

I wouldn’t leave home without my Writer’s Survival Kit, fully stocked with idea organization, writing organization but most importantly of connection.

Author’s note: I imagine these items to be stored in an old school tin lunchbox with a little egg on it, so other kids know it’s my lunchbox.

Saturday: Write about going outside the house to play in the matrix

It’s been a while since I’ve been outside of this house to play in the matrix,

but mostly it’s because I’ve lost;

I cannot seem to hack into the mainframe to edit out the parts that have gone sour, gone viral and become dangerous.

Whether it’s a world on fire from every edge, or a virus thought defeated now resurfacing because of human stupidity,

it’s become a dangerous matrix to play outside, so I remain inside my field of wildflowers instead.

Hi I’m Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) and I wanted to thank you Diana C. for this week’s prompts! Ps, the dragonfruit cover photo is my ABSOLUTE fave. 💌 Ps, join the weekly creativity challenge!

^ by I. Trudie Palmer