This week's Words For Wednesday are: boreal, rocky, tempest, lake, rising, breathe or the phrase, "the summer rain washed her face with bitter tears".
A crisp, tempest wind rustles through the color splattered trees
And on each lake a lonesome loon awaits a warmer summer breeze
The salty, boreal air tiptoes across the once warm, sunlit rocky shores
While the equinox signals summer’s end and opens autumn’s doors.
Reds and yellows replace the once lush foliage greens
And once again we start our plans for a season that redeems
With each rising sun cooler days have silently begun to emerge
Now the summer’s passing and a frigid transformation will converge.
The seasons come and they will go, each has beauty of its own
The artist who creates it all is more than just well known.
But autumn captures nature’s best with painted landscape hues
Like growing trees that bend and breathe we, too pay our seasonal dues.
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| Painted by yours truly! |
This week's Words For Wednesday beckoned me to write a story about a place where the line is a very fine one between what's real and what lags into the realm of mental illness. It's a shame in this day and age that mental illness still carries with it such a social stigma and that so many people feel the need to hide being "different" from everyone especially those closest to them for fear of being chemically restrained.
This week's prompts are: fragmented, gravel, blistering, mundane, clairvoyant, grasshopper or the phrase, "incidentally yours". From those prompts I wrote the beginning of a fantasy filled story: Each night I awoke at precisely the same time. It had been happening for months and tonight was no exception. As I quickly opened my eyes wanting to catch what seemed just out of reach, I looked at the ornately carved antique clock on my nightstand. It told me what I already knew. Like each night before, it was precisely 3:15 am. 3:15? Did that mean something? Could it mean 3/15, the Ides of March? Could it be that simple? Would something happen on March 15th?
My attention drifted from the clock back to the fragmented dream from which I awoke each night. Once again I saw a small girl digging in the gravel that had been used as a pathway throughout a beautifully landscaped English flower garden. Above her the birds were happily chattering away in the giant oak trees that outlined the space used for the garden. The girl kept busily digging and sifting through the gravel as if she was looking for one special stone. She stopped digging when a colorful dragonfly landed on the wicker basket she was filling with carefully selected pebbles.
She curiously gazed at the motionless dragonfly and reached out to touch it to see if it was real. When it spoke, it startled her and she dropped her hand tool. It told her to listen to the grasshopper because he was the wisest of all the garden creatures. She smiled and thanked the dragonfly as he flew away. What she had to do finally became crystal clear.
What her grandmother told her was true. She was different! She not only heard voices, but she saw things as well. Her grandmother had called her a clairvoyant and although she didn’t know what that word meant, she knew it distinguished her from everyone else. Her grandmother was certain she was marked for greatness and would help many people throughout her life. Her grandmother claimed the gift the little girl possessed would lift her above the mundane and the ordinary. It would allow her to not only hear the grasshopper, but to understand his message as well.
Before she could hunt for the elusive grasshopper, her mother came rushing out into the garden hollering at her for not wearing her hat. It was hot and she always removed her hat because she like how the sun felt on her face. But her mother was sure the sun would have a blistering effect on her fair skin without it. She scooped her up and scolded her all the way back into the house. The girl had reached out for her basket, but her mother kicked it aside scattering all the carefully selected pebbles back to where they had originally laid. Her important project would have to wait until tomorrow and hopefully the grasshopper would come find her to give her the message she was supposed to hear.
As they quickly walked past the large mirror in the front hallway on the way to get cleaned up from playing outside, the little girl was startled by what she saw. The reflection in the mirror was of a face she knew very well. It was that refection that had jarred me awake at precisely 3:15 each night. The face of the little girl was my face. I was the clairvoyant and yes, I was awaiting a message from the grasshopper. His was a voice I needed to hear even though my mother didn’t believe in such malarkey and poppycock. She said hearing voices was a sign of mental illness and had threatened to have the family doctor put me on some medication that would make the voices stop.
Daniel, the older of my two sons loved his little red wagon and found so many creative uses for it. One of its riskier uses was discovered by my friend Carol when she came to visit me one day. She had gone out into the backyard to see the boys while my daughter, Christina was at school, but only found Matthew quietly playing with his trucks on the ground. Daniel's empty red wagon was next to the back fence under some trees. As she walked out into the back yard to look for Daniel, she heard him yelling, "Sky high!" What she discovered took her breath away. Daniel had positioned his red wagon under the lowest tree limb in the back yard and used that limb to hoist himself up into the tree where he had climbed to the very top. Carol wasn't really worried about him actually jumping out of the tree like he kept threatening to do. What worried her more than his threats was that he might lose his footing and fall out of the tree accidentally. After trying to coax him down from the tree and realizing she was getting nowhere, she came inside to get me so I could handle it.
After getting him safely down and scolding him for climbing the tree, I got the saw from the shed and sawed off the limb flush with the trunk of the tree. I knew how little boys are and how they rarely followed directions the first time, so instead of having a repeat performance I decided it would save me some of my sanity by just cutting the limb from the tree. I know my boys always hated having a mother who could out think them and stay a few steps ahead of the game. Maybe being the youngest and only girl growing up gave me the head's up on what little boys were all about.
Not long after the SKY HIGH! incident, we moved into a larger house. One day while all the kids were outside playing in the backyard I was sitting inside enjoying a few minutes of solitude. All of a sudden I heard "thump, thump, thump" across the roof. It sounded like a giant squirrel had just run across the roof chasing a buffalo. As I looked up trying to figure out what the noise was, it happened again...thump, thump, thump. That time I got up and went outside to see where the noise was coming from and what was causing it. What I discovered on the roof wasn't a giant squirrel after all. It was a four year old who was in BIG trouble! Daniel had used the tree growing next to the house as a ladder to get up on the roof. In no uncertain terms, I told him to come down NOW! He knew he was in trouble and gave me his best "Oh Mom, I'm sorry" look. That look may have saved him from getting a spanking, but he did get punished and sent to his room so he could think about it. Over the next few weeks he pulled that same stunt a few more times which ended each time by getting a stern lecture about the dangers of falling and hurting himself.
The fourth time I caught him doing it, I was pissed! I snapped off a switch from the bush next to the back door as I steamed outside to get him down from that damn tree. When he saw me he knew he had pushed me too far that time and that his "Oh Mom, I'm sorry" look wasn't going to work. With a couple well placed whacks with the switch, I'm proud to say Daniel finally learned his lesson and never climbed that tree or any tree again. The only problem was that his replacement for tree climbing was even worse. For some reason, he decided to take up chasing snakes! I give up! Raising 2 boys is like raising 50 children! And now I have a legitimate reason for being crazy! Did I say I stayed a few steps ahead of them? Well, folks I lied!
When my children were in elementary school they attended school in Port St. Joe, a small village along the Redneck Riviera. I have mixed feelings about my years there largely due to the way in which a single mother was too often viewed and treated. If I hadn't been a strong woman I believe on many occasions I would have either been destroyed or defined by a particular event, yet I somehow always let those times strengthen me and broaden my horizons. My children seemed to follow suit and learned at a young age how to use their heads. I have to admit they always seemed to amaze me every step of the way and never disappointed me in how they always managed to shine even when shining wasn't what they should have done.
My youngest child, Matthew was a quite precocious. He was always up for a good challenge so when he announced to me one day that he wanted to be in a PTA sponsored talent contest, it didn't surprise me. My only question was what he was going to do for talent. You see, although I have always thought my children were the brightest amongst all the stars, the Jackson 5 they were not. Matthew simply told me he was going to be a comedian and that was the last I heard about it for several weeks.
Then one day Christina, his only sister and the oldest of my three children came rushing into the house as soon as she got off the school bus. There in the doorway she stopped with her hands firmly planted on her hips. She looked at me and said, "You aren't going to believe what your son did today!" Uh oh! There wasn't any "my brother" or "Matthew" about it...at that moment he was my son and only my son so I knew he had done something pretty outstanding and probably something memorable. She started telling me about the semi-finals for the talent contest that had been held earlier that afternoon in the school auditorium. A panel of four teachers were appointed to select the best of the best who would compete in front of the families later that night. All the fifth graders thought it was great because they were excused from class so they could watch the selection process.
When it came Matthew's turn, he sheepishly meandered up on stage. Christina's friends all pointed out, "Hey, there's your little brother!" Matthew took center stage and began his stand up comedy routine with the following joke: What has a hundred teeth and guards the incredible hulk? His punch line was "my zipper". Immediately, the auditorium filled with laughter! Now, it wasn't that he had told an inappropriate joke that embarrassed his sister. It was the fact that all four of the teachers laughed at his joke. With her hands still firmly planted on her hips she said with utter disgust, "And they laughed!" Needless to say Matthew was not selected to perform in front of the families although I have to admit the night would have been more memorable if he had performed.
About that time Matthew came in the house. Please tell me how does a mother explain to a 5 year old white version of Eddie Murphy what's appropriate and what's inappropriate? How does one rip away the joy he must have felt from accomplishing what all comedians live to do? After all he had accomplished his goal. He got the audience to laugh! All I asked him as he came in the house was if he had anything he wanted to tell me. He stopped momentarily and thought for a second before getting a quizzical look on his face and simply told me,"No." I left it at that and figured I'd address his choice and source of jokes another time.
