Write for at least seven minutes, starting with the phrase:
Yes, but two things can be true at once, and in this case….
Feel free to share your writing in the comments if you’d like to.
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Yes, But Two Things Can Be True at Once
There was once a village where everyone judged the weather by looking through a single window.
Each morning they gathered, glanced outside, and declared, "It's a beautiful day," or "It's raining," or "The storm has passed."
At the edge of the village lived a woman whose home stood on a mountain. She smiled kindly whenever she heard the daily announcements, but she rarely agreed with them.
One day the villagers asked, "Why do you always question what we can plainly see? The view from the window tells us everything."
She invited them to walk with her.
They climbed through forests where sunlight danced between the trees. "See?" the villagers laughed. "The weather is lovely."
They climbed higher until thick fog swallowed the path. The laughter grew quieter.
Higher still, icy winds pushed against them so fiercely they struggled to stand.
Then, beyond the ridge, they found wildflowers blooming beneath a cloudless sky.
The villagers stood in silence.
Finally, the woman spoke.
"The window never lied. From where you stood, the sun really was shining."
She looked across the mountain.
"But it wasn't the whole truth."
The eldest villager frowned. "So which view is the real one?"
The woman smiled.
"All of them."
"The sunshine was real."
"The fog was real."
"The storm was real."
"The flowers were real."
"They simply existed in different places at the same time."
The villagers began to understand.
From then on, whenever someone described another person's life, they remembered the mountain.
A smile could be genuine while exhaustion hid beneath it.
Strength could exist beside grief.
Hope could live alongside fear.
Someone could appear well for an hour and still carry pain through every hour that followed.
One afternoon a child asked the woman, "How do we know when we've only seen the window?"
She replied, "The moment we believe our view is the only one."
The child looked back towards the village and then towards the mountain stretching beyond the clouds.
"I think," they whispered, "two things can be true at once."
The woman nodded.
"And sometimes," she said, "that is where compassion begins."
Yes, but in this case two things can be true at once. The girls needed a mistress and so did the men.
During World War Two the American Eighth Air Force, commanded by General Era C. Eaker, was stationed at various airfields south of London. Eaker needed a location for his headquarters and chose Wycombe Abbey.
The Abbey was an enormous red-brick building that had previously been a private girl's school surrounded by several large lawns and a pond occupied by disinterested white swans.
Moving their kit into the bedrooms, the General's staff noticed that beside each bed there was a nightstand and on the nightstand was a brass bell-ringer labeled "RING IF YOU NEED A MISTRESS".