Scent of Sage

 

 

Pine Ridge  

Dove Whitehead stood over the body, peering around with telescope eyes, focusing on what was there, and more importantly, what wasn’t there.

Where was the blood spray?  The pooling blood beneath the body?  The splatters of blood drops on the wooden floor?  There were none.

Dove turned her eyes to search the room, not moving from the spot where she stood.  The man had lived here on the reservation for eighty years, nearly all his life.  Where were the accumulations of a lifetime?  The room was spartan, with the simplest of belongings. 

Closing her eyes, Dr. Dove Whitehead tilted her head and shut out all sounds.  Lifting her hands over the body, Dove inhaled.  It was there, the evil was there.

The scent of salt.  The scent of blood.  The scent of sage.

Word count: 200 for  "Scent of Sage" possible post 

I have an outline of this story.  Hmmm.

The Writer Within

 

 When the town’s beloved, elderly, and feisty Lucy Powell died suddenly at age 95, all wondered how to peer into her belongings.  

Miss Powell had no relatives yet alive and no family to inherit a lifetime of her history.  Her family was her community and friends.

Slowly, close friends began to assimilate bits of China, old books, quilts, and other items into their own homes.  That was when the diary was discovered. Who should take it?  Who should even open it?

A diary can paint a picture of unrequited love with hearts broken, hearts renewed, and love lost then found. Finding a worn diary, fringed from fingers turning pages over decades, awed all who gathered around.

Finally, Old Ms Alda Franklin stepped forward.  I will take it.  She and I shared so many memories… All agreed.

 

When Alda finally settled down into her rocker with a cup of tea, she opened the cover and began reading each page. She chuckled, cried, gasped, and sighed until she read the last page:

 

My life had meaning and gave me reason to exist.  Touching others, being kind and generous, loving those who are unloved: that is the essence of life.

   

To all who turn these pages: Go!  Make your life count! 

 Journals paint lives in ways that simple words cannot. When we moved, I unpacked 10 family complete diaries and a few not so complete. The bold underlined words are from Wednesday Words, 2015.  Delores started this challenge for bloggers to try other genres. Please go to these marvelous sites:  

 

                             River  and  Elephant's child

 

 

 

Dangers of Editing

 

Such fragility

Finn struggled with creating meaningful narrative in his latest 

book, Torch in the Dark Fount.

Liam carefully spread the ceremonial shawl upon….

Who? Why would he “spread” any shawl upon…? Delete…delete…

Liam grasped his knife and savagely shred the silken shawl ….

A little better….type, type…

Liam presented a fragile white crocus dipped in enemy blood to Warrior 

Queen Ma-eve. 

Ah, much better, Finn decided. With a chest filled with pride, he headed to 

his kitchen.

However, Finn Liam did not push save, something he would regret in a 

few hours. Rookie mistake, but it was not Finn's Liam's first.  It would not

his last.

 

source

The underlined words are part of the Wednesday Words from Sept. 2016.  

We Are Who We Are

When one walks into our home, one could guess that we just moved in and lived in perpetual scattered messes. Well, it is not as bad as all that, but I look at it with dismayed eyes. We are messy, in a community where it seems that other people live organized lives.  

Oddly enough, my house was very tidy when my children were little.  Maybe it was that a toddler or crawler was wandering around, or that I was a stay-at home mom. But things morphed when they grew to be teenagers who left a trails or heaps of stuff.  Then they moved out. (see below what they became as adults) 
Now all the messes around are our own.

We both are eclectic people with our own talents and interests.

He is all math and science, a huge bridge fanatic. Around his recliner, one will find books on bridge, astronomy, science fiction, and investing. 

I am all color and art, with writing as my joy. Around my chair, there is no mess. But on the table, my computer is surrounded  by printouts, post-its, rough drafts being edited, and photos.

When one combines those two, there is and will always be a mess.

So if and when someone visits, we will close doors to our "creative" rooms, hoping that visitors will focus on art around and on the walls. Will go "ahhhh" at quilts commanding parts of their own walls.   Will smile at our collection of family photos. Will nod with appreciation at my laptop on the dining table, knowing that I am a writer, one who writes everyday.

Being as we are, I believe our messes will be understood and maybe even admired.

Well, not admired, but at least understood.

A quilt for my daughter

My sister made this for me.  She is so precious.

Anatole Krasnyansky

Are we alone in this?  Do you have a flare of your own, resulting in a mess? Oh, please say yes.

C is for Carole Anne Carr.

My introduction to Carole came in the Blogger.com world in 2010.  Blogging was new to me and Carole Anne Carr’s excellent writing showed me what blogging could open up.

Carole has so many credentials:

I have worked in a bank in Central Africa, have been a teacher, 

held the Office of Reader in the Church of England,

been a professional actress and sold my papier-mâché sculptures in Europe. 

I now work as a poet and writer of children’s adventure stories that are historically accurate and are used by teachers in schools and universities, in many parts of the world….

Carole Anne Carr has published (so far) eight books:

 First Wolf, 

Candle Dark, 

First Work,

Little-Boy-Good-For-Nothing,

Thin Time, 

River Dark, 

Kaleidoscope

, and The Angry Giant.  All excellent books, I can say from my reading.

Carole Anne Carr shares her love for books by donating her time frequently to reading aloud to school children.  This may be her greatest love of all.

C is for Carole Anne Carr.

God bless her and keep her!
182

Eighteen Defining Thoughts

Your thoughts....

Share 18 defining thoughts….

I do not think I can hit #18, but will at least write a few.

#1 and most important is my relationship with God.  Even when my beliefs were wobbling, God kept His hand over me, protecting me.  Through Jesus Christ, my sins are forgiven.

#2 is the love my husband and I share.

#3 …my children who are now mature adults.  John and I were young parents, in our 20s, and did not know what we were doing.  Somehow, these wonderful people did not know that at the time.

#4 …writing, which began when I was barely able to read. Pencil on school lined paper or pen on better paper, writing is more than just tossing some words.  Writing is a constant growing experience which expands the brain and makes me smile.

#5 …art.  My aspiration at one time was to be an artist.  Have a minor in art.  I watched my gr-daughters quite a bit when they were young; we did art together, with me teaching. (I had a “Grandma Bag” which carried a variety of art supplies.)  Maybe I will be more active now that my gr-daughters are pursuing other arts.

#6 …quilting…which is also art.  Colors make my heart sing.

#7 …reading and journaling.  Books of all types and genre.  My husband loves astronomy and so do I.

#8 …my siblings are precious to me.  There were once five of us, three brothers and my sister.  Two brothers died while in their 40s. 

#9 …memories of my parents and long-past relatives. 

#10 …the stories from my family that I recall and write down, now with the speed a computer provides.

#11 ...seeing a baby...holding a baby...watching parents holding babies....a baby's smile...

Well, now you have it!  There are more but they would probably seem unimportant when I re-read this.

Baby!

                                                                         

There Be Dragons....

Bish's place

Bish Denham from http://bish-randomthoughts.blogspot.com/ has given me an award, “Dragon’s Loyalty Award”.  One has to love dragons, and I be no different.

There are some requirements to accepting awards, however:  1) tell seven things about yourself; and, 2) award 15 other recipients and notify them of the award.

This is the hard part for me.  All bloggers who read and comment on my blog delight me totally!  Also, I don’t want to put a burden of continuing the award-giving on these bloggers.  So, I will change this a bit.

I hope Bish won’t mind…she is such a dear blogging friend whose writing and perspective I admire.  Award giving is a way of honoring someone whose blogs have impressed the reader.  

Sooooo…. I will post the Dragon award in this post, and invite readers to copy and paste with the URL from where it came, AND write seven things about yourself.

Without any more whining or such, here are seven things about myself:

     1.  I lived in Ireland for a few years, where my husband’s family owned and operated a hotel, Hotel Vienna Woods, Glanmire, Co. Cork.

1985

.

    2.   Seeing a baby turns me into a mound of grandma goo,  “bbbaaaabbbyyyy!”

    3.  Discovering things about my ancestors has become interesting.

    4.  I love to see an old photo, speculate about the frozen images, and write about them.

    5.  I hate summer.

    6.  I love rain.  (Southern California)

Rain, real rain!

    7.  A swimming pool has to be above 80° for me to take the plunge.

Now…whatcha got?

Please use this award as an opportunity to share something about you...I wrote "grandma goo", didn't I?!

What to do next?!

Source: TACLUDA

One of the curses of a migraine life is that it must be lived indoors, away from the light, in nearly complete silence.

The only joy of such a life is a focused expression.  Whether it is writing or some other creation, the scope is narrowed and intense.

Think of a funnel.  Pour a liquid in the broad end and forcing it to condense, collapse in order to exit a narrow port.  Kinda sounds like giving birth, which I guess in a sense it is.

Writing is one joy, when I can retrieve the words from a reluctant brain that hurts intensely.  Samuel and Adventures in the Sock Drawer are part of that joy.

For Benjamin

Colors and color combination.  Working with shapes.  Putting them in a pleasing, exciting pattern is the reward. Sewing and quilting is that reward.

For Eli (still in progress)

For Aimee

For Benjamin

Wall hanging for Erin (unfinished when photo was taken)

Obviously, I have had many migraines.

For me

But I have much joy.

P.S.  There are other quilts, but could not locate my photos. Dang.

Sunshine caves!

Sunshine caves:  I can borrow “The Backyardigans” DVD!  (refer to 22 March 2011 post)

It wasn’t an easy sell. 

I picked her up from preschool and took her on an errand to WalMart, where I bought her lunch at McDonald’s: a McNuggets Happy Meal, which is the most expensive of the H/M deals.  Then we cruised through the little girl clothing and she selected some ‘Dora-the-Explorer’ undies, and new socks.  We meandered through the DVD section, where a new episode of “Angelina Ballerina” was down to $10, so she held onto it with white-knuckles. 

I never knew this about Sunshine, but she is a pretty smooth negotiator.  Oh, to look at her, one would think she is all fairy dust, sparkly sweetness, and a gentle spirit.  But, Sunshine is not like that, at least, not all the time.  She can be ruthless.

I sailed by the toy section like an ice cube on a hot slope.  Still, Sunshine flagged me down.  Slow-down-there-Grandma-how-much-is-that-doll?  Kept walking and said something about $20-and-that-is-really-expensive.

Getting through check-out, with all the candy bar traps that lay waiting, took all the teaching experience I possess in the area of re-directing students.  Fortunately, Sunshine was seated inside the cage/cart, with my diet Coke, and holding onto the DVD.  With both hands engaged, and with the sales clerk joking with her, I didn’t have to bite the candy bar bullet.

With “The Backyardigans” in my hands while my husband drove me home, I thought, ‘HAH!  Gotcha, didn’t I, Sunshine!’  But, of course, that isn’t the case.