10 minutes more.....

I once dreamt that all life was black and white.
The good stuff, the right stuff, was white. And that, that should be avoided, the black, was clear and distinct. In the dream, my life was a circle neatly divided and all the right things were to the left; shining and white. Then there was the divide into those things that were the other side. Regret, despair, and disappointment. What a clear and organized dream.
But, as I walk through each day with my eyes wide open, my life is not so easily divided.
Left and Right.
Black and White.
Instead it is a stripe here, abutted to the shadow. The white so narrow – the black so wide. And the texture too … drifting grains of black sand, bleeding into the white; the white fading to black.
Oh how I wish I could return to my orderly dream. That the white was wider, and easily kept to; and the black so thin, it was easily skipped over or brushed away.

Photo by C H Paquette 2007
Writing by Leslie Hobbs 2008

Leslie Hobbs lives in Raleigh North Carolina. By day she works with one and zeros, helping customers to decipher their meaning. By night she types away in her blog, trying to make sense of her world and telling a story or two along the way.

(This is from a 10 minute writing exercise practiced by a small writing group in Raleigh, North Carolina. Each person selects a photograph and has 10 minutes to write something using the photo as a creative prompt.)