I have a thing for "squares of sunlight" in stories. The squares of sunlight that fall in through windows onto beige carpets where cats crawl into them and bask for hours as if there's nothing they'd rather be doing than lying there. I always write them in, the squares, not necessarily the cats, and I stopped to wonder why today.
When I was growing up, I lived on the Oregon coast, which anyone can tell you, does not get a lot of sun. It's known for being rainy and dark, cloudy and windy and cold. Our house faced north-south so on those rare occasions when it was sunny, it always started in my parent's bedroom on the east side of the house. As a child, I was convinced that Sunday was the day of sun because I can't remember a single rainy Sunday. I'm sure there were, there had to be given the location, but I can't recall a single one.
On those days, especially in the summer, sometimes my mom would be in her room sewing something (and uselessly trying to encourage me to be crafty in my own sense). Their room had this light yellow curtain on the east-facing window and the sun would always stream in in big, bright patches on the carpet (it was grey not beige, but who's counting. The beige comes from living in Arizona where sun was all too plentiful). All those mornings were lovely and have apparently ingrained themselves in my memory.
So when I write them into stories, I'm writing in a moment of happiness. It might be obvious, what with the sun being metaphorical for happiness, but it's really more than that. We haven't had many sunny days lately and I should add that I've never been a huge fan but I like the rare bursts of happiness it always seemed to bring.
I think I'll go write one into the story I'm working on, as this post was all just a huge procrastination on my part.
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