Trying out my poetic wings, which hopefully will not pull an Icharis and melt while I soar too close to the sun.
Recently, I joined a Flash Fiction page - every Friday, I absorb a picture they post, then I write what comes to me based on the scene they provide. Below is the picture and my entry. Apologies for the Poe-like tone--it was what came to me last night at midnight (when I decided to ignore sleep and write instead).
Night
Heat sears the air,
Shimmering distortion vibrates a sandstone roof.
The fire of afternoon brilliance
Shades the dips and dells of
Craggy rock and verdant moss.
It melds heat into the sun-kissed bones
Of citizens below.
Unconcerned, they while away treasured moments,
Chatting with the Reaper
Above the gong
That tolls their final hours,
Sun-blinded and unprepared.
Light flees across the slopes,
Lining leaves and roots
With golden shadow.
It plays in the crevasses and ridges,
Chases the darkness down the cracks
Before dancing away,
Flirting with the whelming blackness
Of Shadow.
Like a laugh that dies before it is heard,
The colors fade.
Amber, then silver, then gray,
And purple.
The citizens turn their faces skyward,
The knell sounds its clanging strokes.
Four hours left,
Three, two, and one,
And then,
Blackness waits.
The night
Sweeps over once more.
And there are no stars tonight.
Ten years ago, on a very hot day, I sweated in a white dress in an un-air-conditioned wing of a church, and waited.
I was nervous, I was hot (hence, the sweat). Someone found a fan and stuck it under my dress so I could have some air blowing up over my legs.
I almost chickened out. Not out of marrying the guy I loved, but out of the walk down the aisle. I had a sudden premonition that as soon as the doors opened and that aisle stretched out before me, I would lose my breakfast. Rather than risk that embarrassment, I wanted to run out the back door and plan an elopement later.
I'm glad I didn't.
When the doors opened, I somehow managed to cling to my dad's arm and trip and stumble my way down the aisle all the way at the front, where we smiled shyly at each other, like we had only just met.
I wondered
Ten years ago,
What I would do this morning
When I woke and watched your face,
Relaxed, peaceful,
Lashes free of glasses,
Breathing in deep, steady draughts of dreamland.
I wondered
What ten years would do to this
Thing called "Us."
And so, I grasped my bouquet with nervous fingers.
The doors opened,
The music flowed.
The white satin rustled
Toward you, at the front.
The words we said to each other
That day
Were meant to last
A lifetime.
So here we are
Ten years later.
New wrinkles, gray hairs write a
Story
Stronger than words:
Roses from our bush
Offered wordlessly,
A stroke of color
When I'm not looking.
I woke today and
Watched your sleeping face,
And wondered what I should do
To love you today.
I got up
And cleaned a mess
And changed a diaper
And wiped some mouths
And settled an argument
And loved our offspring
And loved you
Because this is
Our First Ten Years of Forever.
I asked my mom once, sneakily, who was her favorite child, me or my brother? Young and naive as I was, I think I honestly expected her to give an answer that favored me.
I have to laugh at that memory now. The tables have turned, and now I'm the mother of multiple children, and the idea of "having a favorite" is so completely foreign to me, I can't even fathom it. Sure, I love some things about one child more than I may about another one, but it balances itself out nicely with the individual qualities of all three of them. They're all three so different that it's like comparing a can opener to the Eiffel Tower to a coffee table to pancakes.
If I had to order my children in first place, second place, and third, I couldn't. They all win. Or lose. Whatever your perspective is (they win in my perspective).
Moving on to another point (because I'm good at making vague points with off-subject stories), my three books are very like my children in that I love them all, I pour my heart and soul into each of them, and I chew my nails to the nubbins as soon as they enter society, terrified lest someone notice a fault in them. When the occasional poor review comes in, I'm heart-broken, asking myself where I went wrong, and it takes many kind reassurances from my husband to remind me that everyone is subject to his own opinion, and that one person's poor review may be someone else's new favorite novel.
Lesson learned. I have to stop worrying so much about other people's opinions.
Incidentally, just as I can't order my own children in first, second and third, I didn't order my books either. They can be read in any order. Ashes, Ashes or Broken Crowns or Pretty Little Maids. All three have different characters and different story lines. The only theme running through all three books is that each of them relies on the history of a nursery rhyme to solve a mystery.
That's it! I hope you enjoy them, because I've done my best with them, but if you don't, send them home and I'll give them a hug and a kiss and tell them I love them anyway. :)
Today, I notice two new silver hairs. They thicken the streak of silver that already waves its way through my bangs. The crows feet stare at me from the mirror, along with the creases at the corners of my mouth that have introduced themselves to my reflection in the last few years.
Yesterday, my daughter held her palm against mine. "Mommy," she said, "your hand is a lot more spotted and wrinkled than mine."
Ah, the brutal honesty of the innocent.
The truth is, I haven't been aging gracefully. I've been aging, kicking, screaming, biting, and clawing my way through it.
Tonight, I wheel my cart of groceries through the parking lot to my minivan--my minivan that says, "Hi, I'm a mom. I'm a wife. I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I have three little troopers that sit in these three car seats several times a week and compete for who can reach the highest decibel."
Somewhere along the line, I lose track of the van and aim for a minivan farther down the row. When I reach it, I see the license plate, and stop suddenly in confusion. Where is my familiar vehicle? I turn in a full circle, and then I see it. Or him.
A man, standing beside the open door of his vehicle. His mouth reshapes itself, and a whistle splits the air--a whistle that proclaims to the parking lot: "I like the way you look."
I stare at the man, memorizing his familiar features, the way his fingers curve around the door handle, as they had done to my hand nearly ten years ago when he had slipped a ring onto the now-wrinkled finger of my left hand.
This man has watched each of my wrinkles form over the years, has combed his fingers through the silver streaks that have appeared, has found ways to say, "I love you, and you're still beautiful to me" through all ten years.
So to the whistling man in the Walmart parking lot: I love you.
You know that shot of Gollum at the end of The Return of the King where he reaches for the Ring as he falls, slowly, eternally into the fires of Mount Doom? Even with his dying breath, it is what he desires more than life itself. The Ring encapsulates his heart's desire, and even death cannot distract him.
So here it is, thirty days into January, the Endless Month. The Month of Cold. The Month of Dark. The Month That Will Never End. Ever. February, like the Ring, stays just out of my reach. I reach for it, struggle for it, hope for it, watch it dance just beyond my fingertips for so long, and yet.
I have never been diagnosed with any specific depression disorders, but I do know that as January repeats itself every day for eternity, I lose hope of ever seeing spring again, of ever feeling warm again. Obviously, the calendar tells me a different story, but I'm talking about the feelings that accompany the long, dark days.
You know what? Amazingly, February always comes. And then March. And then April. That's just how it works.
I was thinking today about the Israelites, years ago, waiting for so long for their Messiah, getting heartsick as years and decades and centuries passed. And now today, as we wait for His second coming. Do seeds of doubt ever blossom in our mind? Does it ever feel like year after year after century passes, and still, and still, and still?
But what kind of Christian doubts? Honestly? *sheepishly raises hand*
I admit to flashes of uncertainty. What if? What if it's all just a big cosmic joke? What if I've placed my trust and my hope in a grand illusion? I doubt very much I'd win any awards in heaven for my implicit trust. Because I've certainly tarnished my crown with a few too many seeds of doubt.
But one thing always calls me back. No matter how dark the days, no matter how massive the cloud of doubt that hovers over my head, the concept of God's faithfulness won't let me lose hope entirely. Even when I lose sight of Him, He never loses sight of me. When I question His very existence, He stands patiently by and coaches me through it. When I just can't see the next step ahead, He picks me up and carries me through the murk of gloom and doom.
I love that old hymn, Great Is Thy Faithfulness, oh God, my Father. Morning by morning, new mercies I see.
If I only know where to look.
I want to be like Gollum. Not really the words you'd typically expect to hear; most people who have read the books or seen the movie would shudder to say those words in that order. But seriously, I do. I want to have such implicit longing, such undeterred devotion to the One Person that really matters, that even in the throes of doubt, despair or death, I still strain to reach the object of my heart's desire.
First, I haven't blogged for awhile. I've been so caught up in vomiting story material into my first draft of my current work in progress, that I haven't given myself pause for at least three weeks.
Second, if I was going to blog, it would be about this, because this hits home. So, so much.
Third, since my friend and fellow author wrote it first and put it much more eloquently than I could, I will post his link here, and tell all of you, especially you fellow writers, to go read it. Do it. It's really good.
Harry Kraus: 3 Men Walk Into A Blog
I'm an alto. I'm probably a second alto. My voice breaks when it moves from an A above middle C to a B above middle C. After that, it's all in my head voice. For you non-musical folks who are reading this, that means that my singing range is only a little higher than someone like James Earl Jones (Darth Vader from Star Wars) or Benedict Cumberbatch (Smaug from the recent Hobbit, Desolation).
I grew up in a perpetual state of mild jealousy of the sopranos around me. I wanted to be a leading soprano. Why? Because leading sopranos could get actual speaking parts in school musicals. Since school musicals obviously are such an important aspect of the average middle and high schooler's life, I let myself get depressed every time I was passed over by much higher-ranged voices for the parts I wanted.
I remember the first time I really tried to listen to an alto line. I was singing Trust and Obey with my mother in church, and since she is a second alto, I honed in on the line she was singing. It was one note through most of the song. I leaned over and whispered, "Alto's really boring, isn't it?" She leaned back and said, "No, it's what makes the soprano pretty."
Today, I was thinking about personalities. I've heard it said that almost all personalities will fit one of the characters in Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne. Some people are energetic, vivacious, exciting, go-get-'em. Kind of like Tigger. They live their lives in a crazy circle of activity and social whirl.
There are the wet blankets. The Eeyores. They have a perpetual half empty glass sitting on their desk, and more often than not, find themselves comfortable in their gloominess.
Kangas are the caretakers. Piglets are the shy ones shrinking behind their curtains, afraid that anyone will notice them. The Owls of the world are erudite, studious, oozing gray matter like there's no tomorrow. Rabbits remind me of a shrew, nitpicking the thread of life until it comes unwoven and picked apart.
And the Poohs bumble their way through life, not really making much fuss and bother, not really letting themselves get upset by anything. They take life as it comes, ebbing and flowing with the tides around them.
It takes all kind of people to make a world. If we had only the sopranos, wouldn't the music we make as we go through life be kind of flat? One-dimensional? Even a little boring? If we add an alto note or two, or a tenor, or a bass, or all of the above, voila, suddenly we have depth, beauty, mystery, undertones.
I see some of Tigger in me, and some of Piglet, and some of Pooh, and a little of Kanga. Owl, well, no. Eeyore, only if I haven't had any chocolate for a week.
Over time, I've come to appreciate the depth that makes life interesting. I will always admire the leaders: the Type A's that take charge and get things done. I'll always admire the lead singers in the musicals who can belt out Climb Every Mountain or Angel of Music without much seeming effort.
But there will always be someone in the back behind that curtain that makes sure the actor is on stage at the proper time with the necessary props and the make-up in place and the lights on and the music cued up.
What would life be like if there were no stage managers among us?
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