Contradictory Abstract Nouns (Photography Challenge)

Today I’m looking at finding the agitation in contentment and the contentment in agitation. The last time I looked at Agitation, it was as the contradiction to Calm. It was July and I was playing with my first two reflection balls. Recently I have been feeling quite contented and yesterday, the smallest agitation left me irritated for longer than it should. But what does that look like. What shapes and colors are the agitation I felt in my contentment? Or how can I create the visual for the contentment I found within that agitation?

For today’s images, I took down my Halloween decorations, but moved a lot of the lights to the corner of the yard nearest the front door. I used the thief fingers filter I created for “haunted.” Today the fingers represented agitation, and the house shape represented contentment. The flashing lights in the autumn bushes and trees were agitation and me, the photographer enjoying the results, was contentment in that agitation. It started raining, or I think I would have stayed content in that agitation for a lot longer.

November PAD Chapbook Challenge

Today’s challenge is to write a misguided poem.

I spent some time with my Merriam Webster’s Collegiate (tenth edition) and found: misguide v. to lead astray. I really like the word astray, so I looked that up and found: astray adv. or adj. off the right path or route. 2. in error: away from what is proper or desirable. Back at misguided I found: adj. led or prompted by wrong or inappropriate motives or ideals.

As you can see, misguided leads us to the contradictory abstract nouns right and wrong. Can someone or something be misguided without a common understanding of right and wrong? Something to contemplate. I was pondering whether pursuing contentment and avoiding agitation is misguided. A little agitation can keep one alert, and change a current course of action.

DVerse Poets Pub

Today for Meeting the Bar (MTB), Björn introduces us to the Bref Double form consisting of 14 lines: 3 quatrains and a couplet with a two options of rhyme scheme.

Achieving Misguided Goals

years spent yearning to be content
every step forward, a cycle back
finally reached a place of grace
promised morning free from need

clawing to stay in this present
she stares ahead as stories grow
like hurdles along the race
rushed to complete with speed

not a drop of cold rain to resent
but feeling agitation’s itch
misguided calm upon her face
as she offers words to read

But is it that an ease meant
once found to stay is stasis?

NaNoWriMo

Today, I used the first Exercise in A Writer’s Workbook by Caroline Sharp “What If You Don’t Like Being Alone? or Writing in the Company of Strangers” as inspiration to do the forum quests in 4theWords. Then I was inspired by the second chapter in Every Day is a Poem by Jacqueline Suskin “Make Meaning” to come up with five objects that are significant to my protagonist. I described those five things in my writing warm-ups, then labeled them as either calming or agitating and planned to use them in today’s scenes.