Everyday Canvas

Hooking with Threes

Prompt: "There are three women-girls really gathered around a fountain that plays its happy tune. It's their laughter I hear. One has a harp in her lap and the other a quill. But they're laughing at the wiggling puppy the third holds in her arms."
Nora Roberts, The Key Of Light
--What image comes to mind? What is this about? Write a poem or anything you want about this.

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Today Google is celebrating the 101st anniversary of the first electric traffic signal system. Now, what does this have to do with this prompt, you might ask. The traffic signal shines in three different colors one after the others: yellow, red, green.

This prompt, too, has succumbed to the power of three. Syncronicity, I’d say.

The power of three in writing is made to advocate that things and ideas in threes are more effective than other numbers of stuff. This has to do with the Latin saying, omne trium perfectum meaning that everything that comes in threes is perfect. Just think of slogans in threes: Liberté, égalité, fraternité; stop, look, listen; eat, pray, love; love, honor, obey {Grrrr! at the last one here).

Since we didn’t progress beyond the number three, this means, to me, we made little headway since Roman times where our mental processes are concerned.

Considering our mental processes with the stress on mental, nothing’s wrong with the prompt as it has applied what is tried and true to bend our thinking the author’s way, but I had to note this, as this is the way my wayward mind works. (Note the three “way”s I used in the last sentence. I guess I, too, can play the same game.)

As to the quote, my deduction is: The quote is luring the reader to opt for "the wiggling puppy" rather than music and writing. My question is, what if I prefer kittens or birds or animals in the wild, or better yet, many other things first? Frankly, I’d prefer music and writing first, then the animals. Of course, animals do have a way of wriggling into our hearts once they tame us, and I am the first one to say that, at several times in my life, I was head over heels with a few tabbies, a gray beauty, an Irish Setter, and a New Foundland.

Still, if it isn’t any specific animal, I’d go for writing and music first. Sorry, Nora Roberts, I am not taking your bait on the hook of three.