Not sure what's up with my noggin but I would never have gotten that sentence had you not explained it. Of course "shot in black and white" means photography but that's not where I went as a reader. Instead I was thinking "shot in black and white" meant something like "a simpler time," or maybe a time when the narrator was less mature and inclined to see things in 'black and white" rather than getting lost in ambiguity or nuance.
This isn’t following your request per se, but I love your examination of past and present in one sentence and inspired me to share a sentence that I’ll be posting tomorrow in my memoir.
“As eyes drift close, the last four days patch themselves into four decades, shape-shifting nature into an updated nurture; REM back-stitches wide loops between past and present, mending holes, reinforcing frayed edges.”
Your work makes me want to go back through every chapter now and play with sentences using your brilliant suggestions. I think I should’ve been an English Lit major instead of bio! Is it too late? 😂
As I rifled through Mama's recipe box after she passed, those beloved cards bearing the patina of years, the familiarly looping cursive of her hand, something slipped out from between them - a folded scrap of paper. My breath caught as I opened it to find not another cherished recipe, but rather a fragment of a poem inked in Mama's elegant script.
All this time, her private musings had been tucked away like secrets amongst the well-worn cards holding the handwritten instructions for the comforting dishes of my childhood. Stanzas carefully ensconced between the recipes that had nourished our family, bodily and spiritually. Her poetic heart had been whispering its deepest refrains, unheard amid the clanging of pots and the mundane chores of a housewife's day.
I cradled those scraps, colored by buttery smudges and sprinkled with dried bits of dough, realizing with tearful amazement that Mama's deepest self had been there all along - her philosophical soul coexisting with the domestic roles she accepted as her womanly duty. With trembling hands, I gathered each poetic shard, intending to bind together her life's hidden verse.
—
1. She pens her innermost verses with more vigor than those muted moments scribbling between household tasks, the kitchen's warm aromas and a whisk's faint trails in the batter.
2. Her poetry emerges bolder now than her girlhood's tentative lines tucked away, a floured countertop's light dusting and a spattered apron's fading stains.
3. She weaves words with greater passion than those hushed years scrawling amid culinary creation, a simmering pot's gentle bubbles and a well-thumbed cookbook's frayed binding.
4. Poetic inklings flow freer than her newlywed days jotting between chores, a tarnished thimble's imprint on cloth and a button tin's scattered treasures.
At last, I have a sentence for this one. Can't match the inspiration of the original, of course.
Here it is:
They are more silent, more diminished, than when we would get together at our kids’ parties, when the soundtrack of family life was all squeals and squabbles and laughter.
Not sure what's up with my noggin but I would never have gotten that sentence had you not explained it. Of course "shot in black and white" means photography but that's not where I went as a reader. Instead I was thinking "shot in black and white" meant something like "a simpler time," or maybe a time when the narrator was less mature and inclined to see things in 'black and white" rather than getting lost in ambiguity or nuance.
I’m smarter than when I’d kiss Johnny in the lunchroom and red-faced dash for the door.
Very interesting re a piece of the past standing in for the whole of it. Here's my try:
The river is tamer than when we marched across it and red flags flapped in our uncalloused hands.
This isn’t following your request per se, but I love your examination of past and present in one sentence and inspired me to share a sentence that I’ll be posting tomorrow in my memoir.
“As eyes drift close, the last four days patch themselves into four decades, shape-shifting nature into an updated nurture; REM back-stitches wide loops between past and present, mending holes, reinforcing frayed edges.”
Your work makes me want to go back through every chapter now and play with sentences using your brilliant suggestions. I think I should’ve been an English Lit major instead of bio! Is it too late? 😂
The house is shabbier than when she slipped out the window on a moonless night and drank red wine in the 3rd seat of neighbor's station wagon.
Synecdoche exercise:
She is an electric extension cord; longer than the wallflower stems pasted to the armory walls where weeping begins.
Four different ways to see this sentence.
“She is plumper than when they met at the dance and the world was shot in black and white.”
Literal interpretation:
She's gained weight since they first met at that dance ages ago, back when the world seemed simpler, more black and white.
Metaphorical interpretation:
Her body's changed since that first innocent meeting at the dance. Life's added complexities, moved past black and white views.
Artistic interpretation:
In that old black-and-white film, she looked slimmer at the dance where they met, before her character's story unfolded.
Philosophical interpretation:
Her fuller figure shows her perspective's grown since they met dancing, when her worldview was still rigid, black and white.
Thank you. I enjoy these challenges and appreciate the verb tense comment. It’s tricky.
As I rifled through Mama's recipe box after she passed, those beloved cards bearing the patina of years, the familiarly looping cursive of her hand, something slipped out from between them - a folded scrap of paper. My breath caught as I opened it to find not another cherished recipe, but rather a fragment of a poem inked in Mama's elegant script.
All this time, her private musings had been tucked away like secrets amongst the well-worn cards holding the handwritten instructions for the comforting dishes of my childhood. Stanzas carefully ensconced between the recipes that had nourished our family, bodily and spiritually. Her poetic heart had been whispering its deepest refrains, unheard amid the clanging of pots and the mundane chores of a housewife's day.
I cradled those scraps, colored by buttery smudges and sprinkled with dried bits of dough, realizing with tearful amazement that Mama's deepest self had been there all along - her philosophical soul coexisting with the domestic roles she accepted as her womanly duty. With trembling hands, I gathered each poetic shard, intending to bind together her life's hidden verse.
—
1. She pens her innermost verses with more vigor than those muted moments scribbling between household tasks, the kitchen's warm aromas and a whisk's faint trails in the batter.
2. Her poetry emerges bolder now than her girlhood's tentative lines tucked away, a floured countertop's light dusting and a spattered apron's fading stains.
3. She weaves words with greater passion than those hushed years scrawling amid culinary creation, a simmering pot's gentle bubbles and a well-thumbed cookbook's frayed binding.
4. Poetic inklings flow freer than her newlywed days jotting between chores, a tarnished thimble's imprint on cloth and a button tin's scattered treasures.
At last, I have a sentence for this one. Can't match the inspiration of the original, of course.
Here it is:
They are more silent, more diminished, than when we would get together at our kids’ parties, when the soundtrack of family life was all squeals and squabbles and laughter.