SHEILA MYERS AUTHOR
  • Books
  • Author Bio
  • Contact
  • What Would Rachel Do?
  • My Writing Blog
  • Links and Short Fiction
  • Events
  • Screenplays
  • Books
  • Author Bio
  • Contact
  • What Would Rachel Do?
  • My Writing Blog
  • Links and Short Fiction
  • Events
  • Screenplays
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

3/10/2019

This Too Shall Pass

Picture
A friend--photographer--told me he didn't like to take pictures of raibows, they were too ephemeral he said, not meant to be photographed.

I happened to catch this one over the point by Silver Beach on Raquette Lake while sitting on the porch of a cabin I rented. It's faint, but we all know what it feels like to see a rainbow in the sky. Even though it's fleeting, we just sit and stare until it goes away, hoping to hang onto that magical feeling it brings for as long as we can.


Maybe that's why photographers chase rainbows, sunsets, full moons, shadows in the woods. Why artists paint capture scenes and authors write about them. These moments are why people create; to make something last, a feeling, an experience, a moment in time.



Picture
There's a poem called This Too Shall Pass Away, written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox  1900 which refers to a story about an ancient King who asks his sages to find words of wisdom that would guide him. One of them brought back a ring with the saying 'this too shall pass' inscribed inside (or so various versions of the story go).


The meaning, that all things are temporary, much like the rainbow, is hard to swallow. How can this moment of joy be taken away? Yet, the same goes for those times of sorrow. It is only temporary. If only we could remember this when things seem so bleak.

As I work on my novel about the Durant family I realize this may be what they were striving for, to leave a legacy, even if it wasn't in the form of wealth. The Durant's were creators. William built Great Camps in the Adirondacks, that would withstand the elements of the Northern Woods. Ella Durant published her poetry. Their father, Dr. T.C. Durant built railroads across the country.

I see how all of it, the hard work, the drive to perfection, to discover more about how to turn a vision into reality - all of it -  is an attempt to fight that adage that this too shall pass. Maybe, what drives the creator of such works, is an attempt, like Ozymandias, to leave a behind a legacy that fights back at time. Maybe that's why I write.


Comments are closed.

    RSS Feed

    Author

    Sheila Myers is an award winning author and Professor at a small college in Upstate NY. She enjoys writing, swimming in lakes, and walking in nature. Not always in that order.

    Subscribe

    Archives

    April 2024
    March 2023
    December 2022
    June 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    September 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    September 2017
    August 2017

    Categories

    All Adirondacks Algonquin Appalachia Award Cades Cove Canada Chestnut Trees Christmas Civilian Conservation Corps Collis P. Huntington Creativity Doc Durant Durant Family Saga Emma Bell Miles Finger Lakes Great Depression Hell On Wheels Historical Fiction History Horace Kephart Imagination National Parks Nature Publishing Review Screenplay Short Story Smoky Mountains Snow Storm Stone Canoe Literary Magazine Thomas Durant Timber Wilderness World War II Writing

All materials Copyright 2022
Any reproduction, reprint or publication without written consent of author prohibited.