I was making breakfast this morning, peanut butter jam for the big kids, sunflower butter for the little one, topped with a local mixed-berry jam. The jam was terrific, and I did an ingredient check to see which berries were included: blueberry, blackberry, strawberry from the wood.
I suppose the translator was not fluent in english and wasn’t certain how to say sauvages in english. The french ingredient list included fraises sauvages–wild strawberries.
At the same time I was reading over my son’s english sentences he had for homework. They were very simple sentences, and didn’t say very much. I picked up a book and read him a few sentences picked randomly. Each sentence is a story onto itself, I explained. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It has an action, movement. Even a description bears hidden momentum. My 8-year-old stared at me with big eyes, and nodded his head.
It got me thinking, does each of my sentences tell a story? Can I randomly read a phrase here and there and create a story from it? And does each sentence on its own lead to endless places and possibilities?
I can only hope that it does (and it gives me something else to look for while editing). It’s the way these sentences are organized and arranged that tell the story I am writing.
The words wild strawberries tell of little delicious red berries, tart, sweet, juicy, and fleeting. A vivid picture. But the words strawberry from the wood conjure a story. And I’m sure it’s a different one for each of us.
