Winter’s grip relaxed
Momentarily on pause
Mystery awaits…………
I Am Innocent!
I am Innocent Ms. Loony!
There is a mystery afoot on the blog photosfromtheloonybin (go and check it out) and I am being blamed for it. But it is a good blame and I really wish I had been the perpetrator. Many who frequent her blog also think it is me; and to be honest I may have fed the fires, but I have finally come clean.
It was not me.
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Though after reading the note sent by the culprit I would have thought it was me too. Ms. Loony almost convinced me that I was the one who did the dastardly but kindly deed. Wish I had. Whoever did it got Ms. Loony back for the difficult “mystery photos” she posts every Friday.
So, if it was not me—who was it? Anyone know?
Bliss is being blamed for something good. What do you think?
I Need Your Help
Mystery (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I read this to my Writers’ Group today and they liked it. I have a few ideas of where this is going–but if you want to give me any ideas I would more than appreciate it. Some of it is true, some of it is not. The part about the hairy legs is true.
Short Story 1
She remembers the girl who wore knee socks and long denim shorts to hide her hairy legs. She remembers the girl her mother did not want to grow up.
The mossy smelling countryside returned to her mind’s eye. Riding her bike down the road. Catching glimpses of the cows in the overgrown pastures, the creek full of brown water, the cars whizzing by her. Her first freedom. The wind blowing her long hair into tangles.
She started riding a bike when she was twelve. Much older than most kids, but she had always been a late bloomer. There had been no bicycles to ride at her house before that. Her brothers had bikes but they were much older. Now teenagers they had given up their bikes long ago for fast cars.
Her sister, three years younger, was far more adventurous than she was. At least in practice. She went on adventures in her head; her sister went on actual adventures. That her sister started riding “the” bike (they only had one and had to share) at nine was not surprising. A year later her sister would shave her legs, no matter what their mom said. And she would too—if a ten year old could do it—then certainly someone on the cusp of being a teenager should be able to.
Today, as she sifted through her memories of decades ago, she remembered something that had always puzzled her. Something that had niggled at the back of her mind, but something she had shelved because questions about it had been met with icy silence. But now, she wanted to know.
As a kid, she knew that things did not add up. But trying to make sense of certain things was stymied. It was like when she asked her dad where babies came from and he said ask your mother, knowing she would not ask her. She was very very old before she understood where babies came from—because no one at her house talked about things like that to her. Her older brothers were protective, her younger sister even more innocent than she.
In fact, years later, her sister would complain that she had not told her about the “monthly miracle”. She refused to call it a curse—it was part of being a woman, and she often wondered why women did not embrace that part of themselves. She often heard that if men menstruated, they would brag about the pain, the duration, the amount of blood. But no, women tried to hide it, like it did not happen. Like it did not exist. Yet it was a big and important part of their lives.
Her mind was wandering. She refocused. She remembered little pieces of conversations that would stop when she entered a room. She learned not to interrupt these conversations, she learned to stay where she was not noticed and listen. But not enough was ever said.
Five decades later she had discovered a clue, one so big and obvious that she could no longer deny what she had felt since she was young. She was not one of them. Her family had always been loving in an uncloying way. They were not demonstrative. Hugs were few and far between. She had always known she was loved, but there had always been a feeling of not quite fitting in.
Mystery Recipe Saturday
Raspberries (Photo credit: hello pedestrian)
Today I am presenting to you a “found recipe”. As I was looking through a notebook which passes for a recipe book at my house, I found a piece of paper folded into four. Upon opening it, I found a recipe—thus my “found recipe”.
You did not think it would really be any more complicated than that did you—perhaps a mysterious recipe on parchment paper in another language that tells us the secret of the ages; or a recipe for what to drink out of that golden goblet that is the journey end of those trying to find ….
Anyway it is a recipe for a salad dressing. An untitled recipe for a salad dressing which makes it all the more mysterious. So I will name it myself. Drum roll please………….
Raspberry Enchantment
1 finely chopped garlic clove
2 tsp. of raspberry jam
1 ½ tsp. grainy mustard
1 ½ tsp. apple cider vinegar
3 tbsp. of olive oil
There were no instructions, so I assume you measure the ingredients into a container, mix and pour on salad greens (I would choose mixed baby greens or baby spinach with red onions and slivered almonds and maybe some dried cranberries).
So now, you are prepared for life—a few Saturdays ago I gave you a blueberry dressing and now I have provided you with a raspberry dressing—you are now officially ready for spring!
V ~ is for Vicarious
Trixie Belden and the Secret of the Mansion, the first Trixie Belden mystery (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“If a movie is really working, you forget for two hours your Social Security number and where your car is parked. You are having a vicarious experience. You are identifying, in one way or another, with the people on the screen.” ~ Roger Ebert
I have a rather positive outlook on vicarious experiences. Though I may not have experienced something firsthand, that does not mean the experience is not worthy. In fact vicarious experiences can be just as satisfying. Is that not what we do when we get lost in a good movie as Ebert so ably puts it, or better yet, when we read a book?
I remember as a young girl reading the adventures of Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew, and living them in my imagination. The things that they dealt with did not happen in my “real” life, but I was richer, as was my imagination, for having experienced them vicariously.
I sometimes live through the tales my friends tell of their adventures, their travels, and their creative acts. And by listening to them, my attention is rapt, and their memories become not my memories, but an open door to things I have not had the chance to do or create.
Some of the synonyms I found for vicarious are not at all how I define it. The words second-hand, displaced, remote, indirect, removed or distanced do not play a part in my vicariousness.
To me, living vicariously opens up worlds that may not be available to me otherwise. It also provides an impetus to do the things that I find appealing. Sometimes living out something in your imagination translates itself into action.
I have lots of things on my life list (as opposed to my bucket list which sounds a little too final to me) that I want to do: travel, publish a book, learn to golf and play tennis, get involved in more community activities—and as I work on this list, I derive pleasure from those who do travel extensively, write books, play the games I want to play, and join the activities I want to take part in. It is part of the learning process—it is all part of my life research.
I think of “living vicariously” as a practice run wherein I am identifying what it is I want to accomplish.
On the Homefront 