Six(th) Sen(se)tence Story--Penultimate HAWMC!

After all that drenching sunshine, a band of cloud came in yesterday. You can see it wreathing the mountains across the bay. When the sun isn't out, it feels so much colder here, even if it's only a couple degrees lower.

Today's penultimate prompt is inspired by the Six Sentences blog, and asks us to write a six sentence post--tell a story, make it short and sweet.

Six sentences--is that like a sixth sense? That the overall message of the story will be something beyond the sum of the six parts? I love any kind of challenge to impose a formal structure on my words, and I have no idea what I'm going to write! To make up for the paucity of words in this post, I have some springtime pictures to share afterwards.

In Six Sentences: Centrifugal, Centripetal

Living in Alaska has made me acutely aware of a year's passage as a journey around the sun--the face of the earth, the texture of the air, are so different in different seasons, I might as well have traveled to a different place. At times (equinoxes, solstices), the rate of change seems to accelerate and I am conscious of myself as a fly, a mote of dust, on the back of a stampeding elephant. The scanty hairs on the elephant's back are too stout for me to grab on to; the sticky filaments on my own legs have little traction against the wind in my face. Will the G-forces pressing on my back push me down through pachydermic skin, vortexing like water through a plughole, into the warm center, or will the headwind rip my grip loose and send me spiraling into orbit? Connections with loved ones reticulate the slippy surface of my ride, modulate the forces. Someone folds paper, concertina-fashion, draws a figure, cuts it out; opens up a chain of dancers, holding hands, links of the chain that keeps me here.

Springtime Pictures

I ate my first fresh nettles last night! If you've been reading this blog, you'll know how much I adore nettles.  

This moose and yearling calf were eating fresh green beside our road yesterday afternoon. With the angle of the ditch, they didn't even have to go on their knees. Baby went into the woods, but mama wasn't bothered by me at all, so I got a closer shot--

After such a hard winter, she looks to be in wonderful shape. Her coat is glossy, she's not near as skinny as some of the moose we've seen. And she didn't have to abandon her baby/now-yearling, who was also looking good.

Happy Sunday!