A friend passed along this beautiful short story by Oregon writer Molly Gloss, calling the style “very Terrance Malick.” I can only say that it’s a clinic in setting and imagery.

I also love Gloss’s thoughts on writing on her website. Especially this part:

Motherhood isn’t trivial; its activities may be trivial, but they put you in touch, deeply and immediately and daily, with the great issues of Life: heavy duty things like Love and Loss, Growth and Tolerance and Dignity, Control and Conflict and Power–which are the issues, incidentally, that make serious novels. I might have become a writer eventually without first having become a mother, but it’s hard for me to imagine it.

I don’t have kids but hope to someday, and it’s encouraging to hear there may be a wealth of wisdom and inspiration waiting on the other side.