Her Shell is a Gilded Quilt in the Sunlight

On the small magic of this world.

Hello Beautifuls!

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Diana Strinati Baur

. If you love ceramics, illustrations and beautiful writing, check her out. Her Substack is a balm on the soul.

There is a thing we’re doing in the writing group I’m in. It’s a practice of focusing on the thing, as it is, without trying to compare it to something else. It’s a magical practice and I owe so much to

Jeannine Ouellette

and everyone over at *WITD for this.

So this little thing I’m sharing with you today is what we call a snippet over at WITD—a little slice of a moment. I hope you enjoy.

With so much love,

xo

j

Did you know that if you ❤️ this post (or share or restack it) it helps others discover Hello Beautifuls?

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She popped her head up out of the water, her bubble body hanging down below the surface, her legs propelling her towards me. Then she swam upriver, collecting a floating leaf on her exposed shell as she climbed up into the shallow, stepped waterfall. She paused, deciding her route, moved slowly across the expanse of slick rock, and extending her neck, ducked her head under the whitewash as her body disappeared into the swirl. I arched my body towards her, hoping to see her surface again. I almost turned away and something whispered, "Not yet. Not yet." 

I stared at where she went under and watched as she pulled herself out, her sharp nails digging into the rock face in front of her. She inched her body up and over her mountain and into a shallow pool in the middle of the falls, moving sleek and sure through the water as she headed towards the biggest rocks. She lifted her left leg up and then her right, hooking her nails in the rock, her back legs pushing at air, her front legs pulling, pulling, her neck straining, her mouth a grim line, her shell a gilded quilt in the sunlight. Her back legs caught and she slowly pulled her heavy swimmer's body all the way out and to the top. What made her best these falls? What was she seeking on the other side that wasn't below? I do not know the why of any of this. Only that there is magic here. 

She turns her head and sees me now. She stops and I am a statue, my hand at two o'clock, blocking the sun. She stares at me and snaps her mouth open and shut, open and shut. She nods and dives off the rock into the deep clear water above the falls, smooth and sure and beautiful. 

I want to ask her, "What did you see today that made your heart sing?"

I like to imagine she says, "You."

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Hello Beautifuls is getting more juicy all the time. The beautiful readers here are building a community of people who are kind, compassionate, generous and loving. I hope you’ll join us by subscribing.

Heart tree on the hike up from the creek.

If you’re interested in the craft behind the writing, this is for you. If you don’t want to see behind the curtain this is your spoiler alert. ❤️

And if you’re from WITD and want to do a close read, please do! Both giving and receiving these help us see deeper into our writing, don’t they?🙏

Writing this little piece took three to four hours. I started out just writing down the experience of the turtle and had to write it out at least three times and then switch over to editing something entirely different, trying to figure out what it was I wanted to say today. I rewrote two or three other things, came back to the turtle, rewrote it several times, read it aloud, tweaked some things, read it aloud again. Worked on some other writing, came back to it. You get the idea. I love how when I read someone else’s work it seems like it just came out all perfect and golden, but that’s not really how writing works. It’s a practice like anything else, and then there’s this Moment, with a capital M, where you realize you’ve done the thing, you’ve gotten close to the magic of what you were trying to say, without fully knowing what it was you were trying to say to begin with.

It really is magic.

xoxox

j

*WITD is short for Writing in the Dark with Jeannine Ouellette. If you’re interested in writing, for any reason, please check her out. She is loving, generous, a fantastic teacher, and the community over there is beyond beautiful. ❤️