Da Count & Friday Fiction-Seeing the Value

DA COUNT

Earlier in the week I was over at San's place and she shared how a painting changed her life. What a funny, wonderful, beautiful story it is. I made a comment that expressed some yearning and she responded with words that spoke to me and then exhorted me to "Be ready." San, I want to thank you for the empathy and kind encouragement.

I just found John-Michael this week and was perusing a couple of older posts when I found this poem about love in the context of friendship and was struck by the stanza that talks about reaching through the foolish, weak things that heap up in our hearts and drawing out the hidden treasures that no one else cared to even look for.

Later in the week I was inspired by this post by Sandy Carlson. She speaks about having one's art either rejected or accepted and the meaning of both responses, how having it rejected can actually spur one on to greater heights. I was utterly captivated by the example she gave of a student having her ceramic sake cups rejected by a teacher only to have a dump owner receive them with joy.

The illustration felt so poetic to me I thought it would be perfect for a Friday 55, but I wanted an image of a sake cup to go with it. In my search I found the image below. The octopus on the cups was the final piece that completed the puzzle. Suddenly there was an entire story encompassing the history of two people unknown to each other. No, there's not a long story to be posted right now, it's all swirling around in my head, but for today you get a snapshot, albeit it longer than 55 words.

This week Da Count is the marvelous convergence of inspiration from various places that really had no connection to each other and the people who see value that others miss and bring it to light. (There are a few new readers out there so if you want to know what Da Count is all about either click the link in the body of this post or the green button over in my side bar. Also, I know you may not have time right now to follow the links to San, Sandy, John-Michael, and the octopus but you've got all weekend so I urge you to come back to check them soon.)

FRIDAY FICTION

The student hunches over her potter's wheel
focused so keenly on the clay beneath her hands
as she forms the tiny sake cups.
Once the cups are dried and fired
she carefully adorns them
with the dancing octopus
who inhabited the swirling currents
of her childhood dreams.
She presents the finished product to her mentor.
They are dismissed with a wave of the hand.
The cups are sent to the dump,
the student back to her wheel.

The hunched old owner of the dump
receives the day's refuse,
begins to sort what may be salvaged for reclamation
from what will be buried under heaps.
The color of the sea catches his eye.
He plucks two cups from the debris,
turns them over in his hand,
slips them into his coat pocket,
and smiles
remembering his days as a pearl diver
and how the octopus led him
to the prize he gave his beloved
so long ago.