Saturday Soliloquy 61: The Woods

The Woods in Washington State... or maybe it was Tennessee

 

I honestly cannot tell you FOR SURE where these woods were.  But I do remember playing in woods really frequently and I think it was in Oak Harbor, Washington.

 

I remember this one little hidey place.  It was my special place.  Perhaps it could be called a thicket.

 

I went there the most.  Perhaps that's the only place I really played in the woods.  It is the only part I remember now.

 

Perhaps it is the memory of the feeling of safety and enjoyment that is part of the reason I'm working so very hard to "re-wild" myself. these days and since way back when we moved to Florida.  So that my children will have the fun and feeling of safety of having their very own woods with thickets in which to play.  They do!

 

I don't know what they will remember of this time during which our homeplace is very wild.  I do know they have so much fun out there.  As I become more comfortable, I'm able to let them wander more and more.  Currently, their wanderings are not all that far from our dwellings.  

 

Our first fall on our property, we had VERY tall grass because it had not been mowed in ages and we didn't have a mower that could manage it when we moved on the place.  The children turned the tall grass into a neighborhood... forming tunnels in the grass, tromping down grass for paths, and making rooftops of grass laid atop the grass tunnels.  It was wonderful.

 

More recently (fall 2015), we had far less grass, so the children moved their imaginary neighborhood making into the woods beyond where their grass homes had been.  And instead of houses, they call them castles or other grand adjectives... and Ria even has apartments for her siblings in her castle.

 

They do also fight.  I hope, though, that they will remember the fun more than anything!

I Am... Mama and Writer

First Mama.  Then Writer.  Though, of late, the latter has consumed a great deal of time as I work to get things in order to potentially be the primary breadwinner for my family.  My desire is first, to do the Lord's Will.  Thus this new direction and new focus.

It would be disingenuous of me to leave it at that.  You see, I've been struggling greatly.  I'm like the child, perhaps you have one or have seen it... they obviously want to do what their parent says more than anything, but perhaps the attitude during the doing is negative... or even downright rotten?  Well, I've been mired in the negative all too frequently as I've realized this new direction.

My recent past makes even more sense now than ever.  When EmJ was a baby, I was working to sell Lilla Rose.  Do you remember that?  I didn't exactly want to do it then.  Certainly didn't want to do it full-time indefinitely.  But doing it during the time I did enabled me to learn MANY things that have been extremely useful as I've begun to develop my "author's platform".

Have you ever heard of such a thing?  Even if I chose to go with a Publishing House when my manuscript is ready, they want their authors to have a strong platform because they expect them to work on marketing their creation.  No more are authors able to write and focus exclusively on writing... for the most part.

And if an author goes Indie... even more important to have a strong platform.

I hope you'll follow me at my new Author's Blog.  It'll help me and you'll still be able to read my thoughts and stories when this blog is closed.  It's coming to the end, my friend.

Saturday Soliloquy 60: The Rain in Oak Harbor Washington

My Mom told me this never happened... and maybe that's true.  But this is my story as I remember it.  And, in my memory, this happened way more than once.

 

I loved Oak Harbor, Washington.  Maybe that's because it is there I can pull up my first memories.  I have no idea why I cannot remember before I was five years old.  I think it is rather strange to not be able to remember before 5, but perhaps it's rather normal?

 

It rained very often in Oak Harbor.  I have learned since, that it rains a lot on that side of the Rocky Mountains.  It may rain more often in Oak Harbor than a little farther East into Washington State... I don't know about that.  I do know it rained a LOT there.

 

It didn't rain in the dark all of the time, or even most of the time.  In my memory, the rain fell just as often with the sun shining bright as with it hidden by dark clouds.  I remember finding myself in misty rain while playing in the sun really often.  And there were even many times when I could see the drops falling down, but they never touched the ground.  And back then I was pretty close to the ground (little kid), so I could readily see the truth of this observation.  That's the part my Mom says never happened, but in my memory is has always been and will continue to be what is true for my story!

 

Saturday Soliloquy 59: My Stories

Stories are my life.  My life is stories.  They are, indeed, what lives are made of... really.  Even a plant’s!  Or rock’s!  Everyone and everything has stories.  If only we could know them...

 

I love to share stories.  Both mine and those I hear.  I just prefer not to do so directly from my mouth.  Why?

 

My words, as they flow from the tips of my fingers onto the digital page flow like lovely water.  Similar to the various ways water flows in many ways on the surface of our lovely earth.

 

But try to speak them and the flow is hampered.  Somewhat similar to a dam forming at my teeth… and the words to form the stories in my mind and heart… they get stuck.  The flow stops and the lake forms… not a natural lake, but the forced kind... the man-made kind.  And I feel stuck.  The stories don’t mean exactly what I meant them to mean when I speak them.  So, I usually don’t speak my stories.  It’s so much nicer to believe that the story is as I meant it to be when I write it.

 

Of course, there is the reality that any reader will bring their own garbage to interpretation of my tale.  And so, perhaps my meaning is just as mangled as a result.

But at least, I know that the words were just right when I left it!

 

Saturday Soliloquy 58: Thoughts about the Mandelbrot Set: Planetary

Think of the solar system, the universe, the galaxy... We are one.

 

I am a planet circling the sun (Tori focus on Christ).  I have rotation and revolution in my path that is one continual round through this life.  Through my course, as on earth, there are times when I am closer to the son and times when I am farther away.  There are times when I am facing away and may know the light, but not feel it.  There are times of eclipse, too.

 

This system perspective enables me to see even more clearly how and why others in my life may not like it when I change.  My path is easy for them to be around, until I change.  And then, they must either also change or be in continual discomfort, or depart.

 

Each family is like a solar system.  Hopefully Christ is the "son" but oftener it is an emotionally abusive person upon whom all focus, rather than Christ.  Each person in the family has their set course, which is determined, in part, by "gravitational pull" of their own mass as well as their own relatively to the others in the family.

 

The larger community is then a universe, varying portions of it depending upon which type of community (neighborhood, town, city, nation, etc) one is considering.  Our world would then be like unto the galaxy.

 

All one.  One together.  The same and always different.

Saturday Soliloquy 57: My Sixteenth Birthday

It's likely he got the idea from someone else's life.  My Dad, though a genius, doesn't have many original ideas.  And, really, when it comes right down to it, he doesn't often execute his borrowed ideas very well.

 

We didn't have much of a relationship.  The main time my Dad interacted with me was to punish/discipline me or to hit my leg when he thought something was funny while we watched TV together.  Seriously.

 

So, I wasn't too excited about the prospect, but yet... I was totally excited.  My Dad was taking me on a date.  My first.  He told me he wanted me to know how boys should treat me, so he was taking me on a date to model what I should expect.  I'm sure that effort would've been more successful if I'd actually valued myself at all.  I didn't, which I'm sure is a result of generational curse stuff as well as not feeling like my parents valued me much at all.

 

I remember that he held the door for me.  He took me to dinner.  And then to a movie... in a movie theater!  We watched Beauty and the Beast.  I really enjoyed the movie.  It was my favorite Disney cartoon movie for a long time after that date.  I'm sure that's because of the date, really.