JOY ALONG THE WAY: SHARING MENTAL PICTURES WITH READERS

In past decades I gave talks on things to keep in mind if one wished to write something he or she hoped others would read and enjoy. Although feeling like an impostor, daring to give out such advice when I needed so much advice myself, I did fashion a sort of formula which I called the Big Three make your readers SEE, HEAR and FEEL. The first two are easy with well chosen adjectives. Arousing an emotion, that is, FEELING takes longer.

I have tried to follow my own advice, especially with the SEE part. So, let me try to make you see something I saw last week. Have patience. There's a necessary prelude.

Last summer I had a serial problem with the bird bath bowl. The first bowl had served for years. Then one night some creature, maybe a big dog, since I haven't noticed any grizzlies around, tipped it over. It didn't break that night, so I merely picked it up and put it back on the pedestal. The robins continued to come. Sometimes five at a time would be in the bowl fluttering their wings and splashing water into the air, creating little raInbows if viewed on the right side of the sunshine where you could see them. But, after a night or two it was tipped over again and falling on the base stone, broke in two. I bought a new one. A week later it was broken in the same manner. I was ready to take up a night vigil. Couldn't stay awake. So, I bought one of the big, heavy deep, concrete bowls that, with its wide, turned-back ruffled edge, looked like an opened flower. Neighbor Bob anchored it on the pedestal with liquid nails insuring it could not be tipped over.

It wasn't long before I noticed the little birds couldn't get a toe-hold on the thick, smooth ruffled edge. Even to take a drink. I bought another shallow bowl and set inside the big concrete "flower" bowl. It didn't look good nor did it solve the problem. Big and little birds disdained such a Rube Goldberg contraption. I took it out and tried the big bowl again. The robins just couldn't get in it to make their water spray with their fluttering wings like I had so enjoyed. Only the bigger bodied doves came to sit in the water like cows do in a farm pond. The robins would walk around and around the bowl's edge but, seemingly couldn't get the nerve to step in.

"Maybe," said Doris. "The water is too deep." I should have figured that out. By the time the birds' feet were on the bottom of the bowl, their heads would not have been above water. So, I tried less water.

Now, I'm coming to the picture I want you to see. I looked out one day and there were three robins in the bath, happily fluttering their wings, sending big, lacy sprays of water. The little birds, eight of them this time, who still had trouble to get a toe-hole to even take a drink, had flown in to just sit on the smooth ruffled edge and from that circled perch were enjoying the spraying water the robins were creating. They fluttered their feathered wings happily in the falling spray as if they were in the bowl, recycling the falling drops. The robins didn't seem to mind. In fact they seemed to increase their efforts as if to make more water fall for them. Can you SEE that?

I SAW it. I HEARD it, and witnessing it made me FEEL good. I thought of the V formation of migrating geese, whose sings create a wind current for all those flying behind. Also, I thought of the Syro-Phoenician woman who said to Jesus, "Yes, Lord; yet even the little dogs under the table eat the crumbs."

REJOICE!

Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.