I Got a Rock

While finishing up my run along McAlpine Greenway this afternoon, I stumbled upon what is normally one large pile of rocks.  The DPW leaves them in various locations along the trail.  When the need arises - usually for drainage issues - it allows them ready access without having to continuously haul them in, albiet they are rarely used.  I've run past this particular area no less than one hundred times.  I've never seen anything other than exactly what it is - a pile of rocks to be used as drainage.

At some point over their holiday break, two children (entirely a guess) had been busy working.  The single pile of rocks had been re-imagined into something more...

Admittedly, had it been darker, it would have been slightly creepy in a Blair Witch sort of way.  Had I seen any weird stick figures hanging from the tree branches, I would have clocked my fastest mile to date running away from there.

The cardboard sign in back reads "Rock Hinge.  Tell your friends to come visit."  It also contains the names of the artists.

I snapped pictures of their work, yet none of them do any justice to the time they must have spent balancing and arranging each stone.

Taking it in, I began to wonder the point so many begin to loose that...spark.  That bit of imagination that lets you see a pile of rocks and transform it into a pseudo tourist destination for middle aged runners.

Don't color outside the lines.  Walk single file.  No pudding unless you eat your meat.  It's as if we are trained to be less and less creative as we get older.  Bogged down my rules, regulations, and little patience for those who don't abide.  I can't count the number of times during my career when I have asked why, someone has said "Because this is the way it has always been done."

I feel a great deal of my writing in 2016 was a lot like that pile of rocks.  Doing things by the book had become so ingrained I was building it into my writing.  Scenes were flat.  Dialogue stilted.   I wasn't able to see what it could be.  My spark had been extinguished by the responsibilities of adulthood and what I felt was a terribly negative year.

As I sat staring, their creativity began to fan my own flame.  I envisioned a story where two young children were rearranging those rocks, but found a body underneath.  Or a locked chest.  Or their missing (now dead) dog.  The rusty wheels began to turn once again.  

A man and woman walking the trail had now stopped to look, as well.

"It isn't named Rock Hinge - it's Stonehenge," the woman said.
"And it isn't laid out like this.  The stones are all wrong," the man added.

And there it was.  Everything that had been spinning around in my head personified.  To them, it either had to be Stonehenge - set up exactly as all the pictures you see - or it was wrong.

"Maybe it's not supposed to Stonehenge," I said as I stood back up.  "Maybe it's Rock Hinge and this is exactly how Rock Hinge looks."  I then continued on my way.

I have decided to adopt "Rock Hinge - tell your friends to come visit!" as my mantra for 2017.  Rock Hinge will be a  reminder to think deeper when it comes to my writing.  To take a scene I've crafted and treat it like those stones.  Stacking, re-stacking, and laying them out until I have found a Rock Hinge of my very own for you and your friends to come visit.

How do you keep from losing your creative spark?  Let me know in the comments section.