Anna Scott Graham's Blog, page 36

A completion to note

Sweet Williams starting to bloom; they deserve a post of their own, lol.

So right before lunch I finished my latest novel. Feels SO GOOD to have that done, in that 1) The last few chapters were a bit balky. 2) Wrapping up a book lately has felt precarious. 3) I am ready for a writing siesta. 4) I'm equally stoked to start (re)working the next installment!

Liberation blends with satisfaction upon reflection, a big project DONE, but more await, which keeps me active. Yeah there's plenty of revisions ahead too, but a series can't start until the first part ends, so in closing one section, another springs to life. Am I shackled to the writing, perhaps. Yet it's a pleasant servitude, one that fills my entire being with a sense of purpose, interest, self-exploration. Why do I choose these characters, what do their motivations say about my view of the world, blah, blah, blah, lol. Yet those are relevant queries that now with a modicum of free time I can consider.

This past weekend with family was the break I needed, stepping away from the fictional, steeped in the familiar. Yesterday morning I sat right down with the novel, writing and rewriting the penultimate chapter. It was hard in that a big emotional scene occurred, and I wanted to give it all due gravity. A slight sorrow lingered the rest of the day, mitigated slightly in Miami's win over Milwaukee in the NBA playoffs, only because I find it fascinating how the #8 seed is up 3-1 over the #1 seed. (We shan't speak about the Lakers' victory, ahem....) This morning in reading over that chapter I made a few alterations, nothing major, merely what the eyes see anew after a good night's sleep. Then I dove into the final chapter, written in fits and starts as scenes ended and hunger demanded I eat breakfast. After a shower, back to the writing, then by half-eleven, my husband texted, asking when I wanted lunch. Just. Another. Ten. Or. Fifteen. Minutes. I messaged back, nearly done with the book!

And suddenly, there was The End. Oh hi there, newly finished story, a rough draft with good intentions. Such a thrill and so complementary to the sunny day, as though spring wrought the tale from my brain. Dude, it's like way hella cool man, LOL!

I'm a California girl by birth, hard to eliminate the lexicon. But this story is done and I'll allow a little dust to gather, then back onto the noveling horse I go.

Amazing surprises

This isn't about writing, sewing, or gardening. This post is about family, appreciation, and love. I was the blessed recipient of a plethora of relatives this past weekend; my two daughters, four grandkids, and one son-in-law arrived without prior warning, although my husband was in on the plan. Tears fell  as one group descended Friday night, then laughter rang when the second clan turned up Saturday morning. I earned over twelve thousand steps yesterday keeping up with grandchildren, their parents, and love that enveloped all of us. Yes I am thoroughly exhausted, ha ha, but the memories made are the kind that sustain for ages.

One of the gifts I received is the above sign, painted by my eldest grandson; his mum chose four pics from a local craft shop, also bringing paints and brushes. The grandkids were let loose to embellish however they wished and the results were stunning, heartwarming, liberating. Children's imaginations are so unencumbered, their glee invigorating, their colour choices magnificent. I could wax philosophical, instead I'll let their art infuse you with the grand joy we all shared. Now to decide where in my office to hang these treasures, then display them not only as a proud and pleased grandmother but as an art lover, grateful for this precious moment in time.

Stuck in a lull

Another rainbow quilt in the making, more or less.

After a rather giddy ten days of writing, I have hit not a stumbling block, just peering ahead at the final bend in the road. Suspense has built for the big payoff, about which I have mulled over EXTENSIVELY in my mind, ahem. It's not that I don't know what comes next, only that having approached it, mild trepidation has emerged. Once I write the next chapter, basically it's done, and then....

Then comes a few days of perhaps an immediate read-through or I merely set it aside, breathe deeply, then jump right into the next book in the series, which already sits at sixty-six K, but needs plenty of reworking and another twenty-thirty thousand words added. I wrote it first, the book that had been going well until it came to a grinding HALT, then a dorky final chapter was slapped upon it, but that nonsensical conclusion opened the door to what has turned into a series, at least within my own mind. LOL. Gotta have a sense of humor about it all, let me tell you.

So here I literally sit at my computer, mildly stumped in the 'Okay gang, let's write that three thousand word chapter, then one more and be done with this baby!' vein. The oddness strikes me as slightly amusing, because I truly have been pounding out this tale, the word count popping up like weeds I've been trying to keep to a minimum. The last couple of days I've been grinding through a chapter that JUST WOULDN'T PLAY WELL. O-kay chapter, whatever! Fortunately I'm mostly patient (LOL) and I out-waited that chapter's namby-pamby efforts not to be written, hah! Patience and weeding and sewing and voila, this morning I wrapped it up, nudging a somewhat whiny twenty-three hundred words to a more respectable twenty-seven hundred, oh yeah. Yeah, I'm the writer mostly in charge of this story, uh-huh, yup. I'm the writer, all right, being led like a bull with a ring through my nose by a pesky cast of characters and a couple of surly aliens. Well, one is surly, the other taking charge. And now I'm staring at the path all those folks have created, seeing in the distance where I want them to be. Like herding cats is writing sometimes, corralling all the right people (and aliens) into their proper places whether they want to be there OR NOT.

This could be an element of writing that doesn't get discussed enough, how a book can veer off, at times much to its benefit (though not always), an author's intended course. I tend to land in the camp that permits such detours, within limits, because I also tend to write from the hip, editing later. It's a matter of trusting the muse, which often leads to good results, hurray! This particular novel required a few rewrites early on, then dude! The word count went bloop, bloop, BLOOP in what seemed the blink of both eyes. I'm now kinda BLOOPED OUT, ha ha, but hey, it's Friday, time to have a weekend off, or maybe just this day. I am definitely not in the camp of 'I will write X amount of words every day.' For me, writing is extremely Spirit-led, and that cannot be rushed or overruled. The souffle is gonna rise or it's not, one of the two.

That's a quote directly from Benjamin Sisko, although he attributes it to his father Joseph; it's a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine thing. Which is apropos in that my current mood is definitely sci-fi with an extra scoop of drama. It's also in accepting one's beloved pastime and its limitations. It's admitting that art cannot be hog-tied and served neatly on the best china. It's embracing the wacky nature of a most precious gift that appeared kind of like a present from heaven in the hands of my then seventeen-year-old eldest child who said to me, "Hey Mom, there's this writing thing I think you might be interested in, it's called National Novel Writing Month."

Out of the mouths of babes (and sometimes aliens or Federation captains who are also part alien), so goes another day in the life of this writer.

Coming to the ends

Machine quilting joy with plenty of pics; enjoy the colour-fest!

Yesterday was spent mostly at my computer, reading over my fictional WIP. I'm nearing the end, very cool, and wrote a chapter and a little extra this morning, which initially I left as one long chapter, then I split the last scene off into a new chapter that I will complete tomorrow. Previously I would have kept writing, but as I have stated earlier, or certainly meant to note, I am attempting to pace myself because much remains and I will get there when I do. In the meantime, there are quilts to quilt and designs on the wall to cut fabric for and more quilts to consider, ha ha ha! Plenty to do, rain or shine.

Perhaps the last of the machine quilting; I might hand-quilt the rest.

 

Pondering completions is a nice feeling though, in books or blankets. For the novel, the last few chapters feature big emotional payoffs, which I am itching to write, yet I'm not rushing those tear-fests. I cannot state enough how GREAT it is to again be caught up in a story that makes me feverish to tell, dude! And I feel similarly about the bright primary fabrics that are taking up space in my heart and design wall. Once I finish the rainbow quilt I'm going to start another of sorts, kind of saying BAH to the continued cloudy weather. I might even build a fire tonight, even if it's the middle of April. It's a chilly gray day, and I'm not as young and warm-blooded as I used to be, LOL.

I am just *SO IN LOVE* with these colours!

Maybe that's why quilts appeal to me so highly right now, and when summer arrives my sewing interest will diminish accordingly. Currently I'm feeling so blessed to run a quilt sandwich under the walking foot, sewing diagonally, using corners of the three-inch squares as my guide. Straight lines are pretty easy to accumulate, guiding the presser foot over gorgeous solids and bright prints, noting a few tightly woven batiks among those fabrics like sparkling bits of fictional dialogue that make a writer smile. Since I started quilting nine years ago, I have included sewing in a little of the writing, but in the current book a character is planning to open a fabric shop, hehehe! And assuming I reach the final book, one of the current young characters will be sewing as an adult my age. Time rifts abound in this tale, as well as sections set far in the future; two families will eventually fashion lasting ties, but right now a young couple is trying to fathom a great loss, and the possibility of what if.

Safety pins need to be removed; I'm *SO CLOSE*!

What if features heavily in my previous series, just a hint of it in the current yarn. And speaking of yarn, I'm working on another baby blanket with the last skein of Lion Brand Mandala, which is gorgeous but each dang skein has a break, two tied to similar colours and two not, grrrr.... It's easy to use, washes up well, but I wouldn't buy it again due to the colour charm being compromised. I haven't crocheted a ruffled edge in a while, but it came right back to me, whew. Love these hues as well.

Yet I am very pleased with the Connecting Threads solids in use in the Rainbow quilt; the fabric is a smidge less in weight than Kona solids, very smooth, and it too washes well. If/when I ever use up my Kona solids stash, I'd happily replenish it with Connecting Threads solids. But that's pretty unlikely, in that I have plenty of Kona, and one never knows the future.

And finally to end this rather wordy pictorial essay, a glimpse of the oranges and purples; three-inch squares were a little futzy but well worth the effort!

Unless one is an alien, or a hybrid of sorts, hoping to change the future, hey hey hey.... Okay, enough about the novel. Let's just say it's a love story, which is the title. A love story with quilts, casseroles, a wedding cake, and aliens. Who needs more than that?

A year or so of blogging

The ceramic frog keeps its glass eyes on possible intruders, ha ha ha.

It was about one year ago that I returned to blogging about the writing. I can't recall why, perhaps related to getting That Which Can Be Remembered ready for publication. I had been out of the social media loop since the summer of 2018, after my mom died; I had no desire to do more than grieve, then move on, so blogging about the prose fell of the To Do list.

Four years later.... Back on the blogging track I went. Then a few months into it, I added my other side gig of quilting to the proceedings. And now a year has passed, full of drama, both fictional and non. Plenty of quilts, a good deal of gardening in 2022 and very little gardening in 2023. The photo above is how a planter looks now, fairly choked with weeds except for the section my husband cleared about a month or more ago. Last year I had heaps of flower seedlings planted there, not that many of them lasted, lol. Our exceedingly wet winter put the kabosh on my gardening instinct this season; I'll be happy to get the irises weeded before they bloom next month!

Yet the noveling has gone well so far this year, my series-in-the-making a true joy to write, which means so much to this author's heart. That heart was beat to crap last year as my brother-in-law battled cancer, then lost that fight in late January. Releasing my That Which Can Be Remembered (TWCBR) series was a thrill, but an attempt at NANOWRIMO in November bombed out. Lots of give and take in the past twelve months, both personally and in the hobby/career of writing, which is perhaps not exactly the best way to describe how I approach writing. It's a pastime but more. It's a game-changer in that right now with the prose flowing, I have been happier than I have felt in.... Well, more than a year.

Successful writing for me means writing almost daily a chapter per day. While I enjoyed crafting TWCBR, it didn't come as easily as the current novels are streaming. I wondered if age was catching up to my previous outputs, but that doesn't seem to be relevant now. And that's PRETTY DANG WONDERFUL, lol. I also realized a few nights ago that in writing The Hawk, perhaps I learned how to maintain a pace necessary for long sagas. I LOVED writing that novel, and again I'm in love with the writing. Woo. Hoo.

My vision for this blog, as well as my novels, is fairly simple; write, rinse, repeat. I always wanted to write books, and now having done so for over sixteen years, I'm absolutely content to Just Keep Writing. And that includes entries for this blog; I enjoy sharing my thoughts on writing, and other subjects when the mood arises. Quilting adds an intriguing element, in that writing is so solitary while quilting can be extremely visible, pretty complementary I think. As for the garden....

No guarantees that I'll have much more to show than assorted flowers once I get some seeds in the ground. My husband has Blue Lake pole beans and sugar snap peas recently planted, some new strawberries in the ground too. My outdoor goals are to get weeds pulled, then see what happens next.

As for the blog.... I try to post a few times a week. I don't keep a regular schedule, but then I'm not tied into specific story genres. I do what makes me happy, what relieves stress, what eases my soul. If these appeal to you, awesome! Let's spend this next year writing, sewing, pulling weeds, and reveling in the joy that emerges when one aligns their actions with their heart. Not much more needs to be said. 

A rainbow quilt top and other journeys

Rainbow quilt top done!

I don't know exactly how many fat quarters I cut a few weeks ago, but it was A LOT. Plus I threw in a couple of fat quarter-ish pieces from my solids' stash, which made for a plethora of three, six, and eight-inch squares, when excising the seam allowances. Yesterday I finished the rainbow quilt, taking some nice shots of it on our laundry line that really only gets used for photo ops. The sun has been shining lately, perfect weather for displaying quilts, two others you can see on my Instagram account. The bright weather also lends itself to vibrantly hued quilts, and I'm thinking as soon as I make the back for the one above I'll design another with the spare squares. One more baby quilt remains on my current list of quilting To Do's, but we'll see how long the rainbow squares will hold out; I'm also in mood to use up various cut fabrics that are cluttering what little surface area exists in my office/sewing room. I'm in a mood to use up stuff, not sure why, other than maybe it's truly spring and the best way to clean is to make more quilts.

Oddly enough I have not felt rushed to write more than a daily morning output. I am managing a chapter per sitting, which is GREAT, but it's currently 9.40 a.m. and I'm done writing for the day, other than this entry. Previously when I neared the end of a novel, I kind of went whole hog, spending much of the last days typing furiously. But this book, and the impending series, seems to need a little more contemplation. Perhaps I'm still mourning the character I threw under the bus a couple of days ago, or I'm reeling from their family's reaction to said death. Or I'm just in no hurry to wrap up this story knowing there's plenty more to follow. Whatever the reason for my slight reticence, I'm grateful for the gentle pacing. There's a quilt back to make, weeds to pull, another quilt to design, laundry to do.... I live for more than writing, though at times I have to wonder, especially right now when my thoughts tend to wander to how this character will react, what will that plot line accomplish, might this twist end spectacularly or flop as an epic fail....

Fortunately I don't have such deep musings about the sewing. I sent the above picture to my daughters, seeking their counsel about whether or not I should add a white border. They agreed that no, it did not require any kind of border, the elder daughter suggesting I should make a rainbow binding for it, LOL! Not sure if I'll be that bold, but I am very pleased for how pretty it is, a bit loud, definitely spring-like. Last spring was hard for my family, our beloved grappling with the early stages of a cancer diagnosis. This spring has felt like EONS in arriving, but here is it, and my fabric reaction is ROYGBIV! It's also full of flowers, lots of flowers, lots of squares too. Lots of colour and brightness and vivacity announcing how winter is over, time to celebrate new life and warmer weather and that one day the grass won't be squishy. It's also obviously a season for me to wrap my head around a new series that starts off pretty grim. But joy emerges, or it will eventually, along with adventure and some action and love of course. And aliens, ahem. And quilts, though not in the abundance which surround me in real life. I feel a strange need to make quilts as though confirming spring is truly here, life teeming with all that goes along with said season. Maybe this is how I reckon such awful real-life loss, writing it fictionally, then sewing it up in all the colours of the rainbow.

However it goes, here I continue on a journey of healing, exploration, and comprehending grace. And being at peace in all the craziness. Peace in colous, in prose, and in knowing love is the warmest, softest, comfiest quilt in the galaxy. May you find that peace today too.

A fictional death in the family

Some squares for my current quilt, which is nearly done!
This morning in my WIP I killed off a character. I knew this person wasn't going to survive, but I hadn't known that today it was going to be the end for them. The chapter was meandering along, then WHOMP, a life was over. I sat there for several minutes afterwards, a little stunned. Then for the next hour or more I was still unsettled. Writing nearly every day, I have become fond of these folks, as though I have another set of relatives. Except now I have one fewer.
I'm almost 72K into this story, definitely on the downhill slide. The fallout of said demise will now usurp the plot for a few chapters, then this novel will wrap up with a cliffhanger, leading into the second book of the series, which I actually wrote last month. That draft needs a fair amount of revising, then more added to it. But as I come to the end of what is the opener, I'm a little emotional, not having killed off a beloved character in a book for a long time.
Yet a writer needs to break a few eggs or the souffle ain't gonna rise. This story and its many subplots has been heavily on my authorial mind; I've talked out dialogues while weeding, pressing the emerging rainbow quilt top, or any other moment where chatting to oneself won't incur raised eyebrows. I'm trying to not get too far ahead of myself, but that's difficult, even when writing one chapter daily. The scope of this saga spans generations, galaxies, timelines.... If I can pull it off, wow, that will be awesome.
And it all starts now, late winter and early spring of 2023 in the wettest year California has had since 2017. We're over 100% of normal for rainfall, but finally warmer weather and plenteous sunshine has muscled out the drenching storms. And on this bright, beautiful day I said goodbye to a fictional member of my novelistic clan.
(Or did I, hehehe....)

Near finishes (and faraway endings)

Adding a striped border to this quilt, and happy with my choice.

Two quilts are about done, one long lounging on the back of the sofa, the other for a baby girl due in June that I busted out last week. All that remains is hand-sewing the back of the bindings, an evening activity while I listen to basketball games or Star Trek Voyager or whatever else my husband happens to find on TV. I might embellish the baby quilt with a little hand-quilting, but I won't know if that's necessary until after it has been through the wash. If it's crinkly enough, it's done.

The other quilt is autumnal in fabric nature, I don't even remember when I started it, obviously sometime last year. No wait, it only feels like last year because it has a fall-vibe. Wow, that's a little embarrassing. It had been on the quilt wall, or the first three rows of it, for a VERY LONG TIME, then just when I needed to clear the quilt wall to put something else there, I went for broke, slapped up the squares and voila, there's another quilt! But it has dwelled on the sofa for weeks, needing my attention to complete the hand-quilting. Which I put off when I was sick, also due to crocheting in the evenings. But now I'm procrastinating on completing a crocheted baby afghan, yet I finished the baby quilt, so maybe I'm even. If nothing else, mixing up the projects keeps me from boredom.

The fictional WIP is going well; I wrote a third of a chapter this morning, then my hubby asked if I wanted to go out for breakfast. I said HECK YEAH, and we were off, enjoying a sunny morning when cloud cover had been forecast. By the time we got home, I wasn't in the mood to complete the chapter, but that's okay; I've been writing pretty much every day and again mixing up the pastimes is good for my soul. Instead I wrangled the above mentioned quilts, then spent part of the afternoon WEEDING! Yes, I have begun that herculean and never ending task, clearing up where some Sweet William flowers are close to blooming, then tidying around three spider plants that for whatever reason never took off last year.

Hopefully these spiders will thrive this year!

While weeding the garden could be deemed a distant conclusion, my latest novel is what I'm hinting to at the end of today's title. I say that due to a chat I had with my beloved concerning a possible series in the making; I realized that when considering how I wrote The Hawk, knowing how the story wrapped up kept me going. Similarly I have an ending worthy of sustaining me however long this probable saga takes to write, although I truly *HOPE* it won't be the five years that The Hawk needed.

Yet the sense of a journey thrills me, one taken via prose, traversing time and space and hearts in love. Four novels are pretty firm in my mind, then we'll see where the characters lead. Thankfully quilts are faster to finish that books, even if one overtakes the sofa for ages. Mixing up the hobbies is vital, probably a good mantra to repeat. Now to just get the garden more onto the rota! 

Lost on mashup island

Still some 3.5" squares to fill in but I'm liking this arrangement.

Currently I'm in one of those rare head spaces where I am so into what I'm writing, I start to lose my grasp on reality. Yesterday for instance: the scene was set at lunchtime, some heavy melodrama raging. Upon completion, I was stunned to note it was merely nine thirty-six a.m. I would have sworn it was at least noon, more like half past one. But nope, still early-mid-morning in real life time.

I'm in a different world right now, the writing pretty sweet while quilting overtakes the afternoons. I spent much of last week cutting fabrics, then quickly threw squares on the wall, machine-pieced them, then fashioned a backing, basted it together and it's already halfway machine-quilted, the binding ready and waiting. Then yesterday I took the leftover squares, sized 6.5" and 3.5", and began what I then mostly completed earlier this afternoon, pictured above. I told my daughters it was based on a quilt I saw on Instagram, lol, although the solids were all one colour, but I'd been wanting to make a rainbow quilt, hence the mashup. My current novel is a mashup too, perhaps that's my spring theme. Throw a lot of characters and plot twists into a document and see what sticks; so far, so good.

What is languishing, because not everything can coalesce at exactly the same time, is the garden. I haven't planted squat, whereas this time last year I had trays of tiny plants waiting to go into the ground. I haven't properly weeded anything other than the gravel path to the greenhouse, mostly because I'm not really into kneeling on very squishy ground to weed. This time last year I wasn't writing, although I was editing. Pastimes go in cycles and I'm okay with that. Mixing up the activities year by year is its own kind of mashup, maybe next year I'll be gaga over the greenhouse.

Right now I am over the dang moon to be in full-writing mode, oh my goodness it feels absolutely TREMENDOUS for chapters to emerge as they have been plopping from my brain through fingers onto the computer. I'm hesitant to acknowledge on this blog what is actually spilling forth, in that I'm considering writing a series, although I'm trying to be in this moment and not overthink it except that a couple of days ago while cutting fabric I started bandying about some future story ideas out loud. Which means I was in full explore character mode and thankfully my husband was outside or maybe napping. Either way I could blather to myself this notion or that story twist and suddenly I had to accept what originally started as one little book might turn into something bigger, kind of how I cut a shite-load of fat quarters and already have two quilts, plus enough leftover for at least another quilt, possibly two depending on their size. Dude! That's a lotta words. And quilts....

It's also so liberating and creatively marvelous. It's healing and cathartic, which are two different adjectives. It's joyous and time-consuming, so I need to balance writing daily alongside other vital elements. Yet for me, WRITING IS A VITAL ELEMENT. And to have the mental, emotional, and physical bandwidth to again engage in it is, well, really cool. If I'm lost on a fictional island for a while, my beloveds know how to reach me. And thankfully books end, one way or another. We'll see how this possible (but highly probable) series plays out as 2023 continues. It might be a year of writing. We'll see how it goes.

Fixed points in time

The trampoline dismantled, waiting on our front lawn to be packed for America; March 2007.

Sixteen years ago today my family flew from England to San Francisco; we had left our home in Yorkshire for.... Not exactly our California home, although three of the five of us were born in the Golden State. We came back after eleven years as ex-pats, yet we all felt (and still do to small degrees) that Britain was home. It was a complicated return to America that was for the best, however any of us would give our eyeteeth to go back for varying lengths of stays. Alterations like this could be termed as fixed points within our lives, but seeing that my WIP is definitely going in a sci-fi direction, I've borrowed the Doctor Who phrase for today's title, lol.

When flying east, one gains hours, and when going from England to the West Coast of the United States, it's a LONG DAY not merely of travel but of swapping timelines, lifestyles, accents, and temperatures. We changed up SO MANY ELEMENTS of our existences; homeschooling turned to kids in public school. We needed new cars, new phone numbers, new mobiles, or cell phones as Yanks called them. The three small kids that grew up in Britain were now all teenagers, one heading off to college in the fall. In my luggage I brought loads of English tea, even more packed within our container of household items, but of course within a matter of time I'd drunk all those cuppas, wondering how we ended up back on American soil. Occasionally I still ponder that notion, how deeply living in Northern England affected me and altered me, turning me from a thirty-year-old into an almost forty-one-year-old as though in the blink of an eye.

Blink again and I'm pushing fifty-seven, ahem. But sixteen years ago, our worlds had stopped as though hit by asteroids. I honestly wondered how I would cope again dwelling in the US, having grown so used to the English manner of living, a slower pace, a humbler acceptance of oneself, part of Europe but not, lol. I took to America a stronger faith cultivated in a tiny church, also carrying the heavy weight of a dead sibling. I also packed my first novel, not quite completed but certainly hefty, along with the dream of perhaps finishing that draft, then.... From that fixed point emerged my role as an author, my hubby's leap in his career, our eldest's start at university where she met her beloved, our son's foray into navigating his place on the autism spectrum, and our youngest trying to figure out how Americans mail their letters, a notion she still struggles with, hehehe. In that fixed point, a place that nurtured all of us, once considered the mother country, became our nostalgic childhood home, a place of peace amid turmoil, where speaking solely for myself, a heart still beats amid the glorious green of Yorkshire.

I'll blink again and another decade will have probably passed or some other ridiculous period of time that doesn't seem wholly possible. 30 March comes along more quickly each year, and in those conscious hours I attempt to view my current status in regard to that fixed point. Not that I lament leaving England, nor do I regret all that has occurred since. Merely in studying for a brief moment what was, then appreciating what is. Perhaps that's the worth of fixed moments in time, the simple observation. Then moving forward to what comes next.