Saturday, January 5, 2013

Misty Morning, Pleasant Prose

Field in Fog
(c) Jean Ballard 2013


The other morning, the fog hung low over the island, but above it the sun was bright, creating surreal, almost ghostly, images for my camera.

Field in Fog (2)
(c) Jean Ballard 2013

The Ghost Tree
(c) Jean Ballard 2013

Yesterday, the fog rolled in heavier, and the day was dark.  It was a good day to cocoon.  I have been reading an absolutely delicious book, The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg.  There’s something yummy about reading a book where every few pages a turn of phrase, a metaphor, a creative description makes me want to grab the highlighter or write the phrase in a notebook so I don’t forget it.  But I can’t put the book down long enough to do either and soon another twist of words brings another intake of breath and a smile to my face.  I read the words over again, savoring them like the finest of chocolate on the tip of the tongue, against the roof of the mouth, back to the tip.  Heaven.

The Year of Pleasures brought me a day of pleasure – and will remain on my bookshelf to be picked up, browsed in search of those delightful phrases, enjoyed in full again on a  foggy winter’s day.  It is to books what a good dessert is to dinner – sweet,  light, surprising, delightful, comforting. 

I highly recommend it. 


2 comments:

georgia little pea said...

Hey! You should do Small Stones! I think this post qualifies as an engaged moment LOL.

The photos are lovely and the tree, spooky. You know, I come here to cool down from our heat LOL.

Jean said...

GLP, I looked at the links for Small Stones (from your blog), but I hate having to confine myself to x number of words - you should see me sweat over editing my newspaper column, which has to be 700 words - when I'm on a roll, I often have nearly 2000 which I have to edit down to 700. Brutal. Chopping my words sometimes feels like I'm kicking out my children. "No, I know you are nice, and very pretty too, but you have to leave!".

Obviously I will never sign up for Twitter! LOL