Semi-Daily Scribbles

Time & Tails

Hey my Evergreen Girl! Wow. Time is a strange beast. Why, you’re still asleep at my feet as I pound away at one of my many incomplete manuscripts! I think all my years of crappy story craft serve as a pretty sturdy tether to forever keep you somewhere close to my writing desk (which is even older than you!) I’m typing up my annual updates, even though I’ve always felt you never really left us. I think Lily would agree. 2021, so far, has been like a whirlwind and the trickle of water off an icicle. Or, in other words… is today Monday? All I know is the world can feel like a chaotic heap of bathos and rage, but quiet time spent in memories of you is like a balm. By the way, I thought you’d be pleased to know your Pa, Grandma and I got our two shots of the COVID-19 vaccine. We still wear masks wherever we go because it’s the right thing to do in these days of Delta & The Variants. And, oh! The Man & The Missus came to TX for a visit, and brought four excited Grandgirls who laughed and swam and hid in closets and got toes and/or fingers all painted and sparkly and made s’mores ‘round the fire and tried to play with Lily and left a lot of surfaces pink and sticky. We all had a wonderful summer get-together.

I like to share these highlights with you that rush on by from day to week to month to here we are at another Say Hello to the Rainbow Bridge anniversary. I hope you frolic a-plenty and eat all the treats that cross your path. I miss your goofy feistiness, and even the times when you were just downright naughty. I will never forget our walks through Seaview down to the shores of the bay where there were so many intriguing spots to stop-n-sniff. Or you riding shotgun as we visited job sites all over the state. What a fine companion you were! Happy times and precious memories, for sure. I miss your rambunctious, curly old self. Always underfoot and never closer to my heart were you in those everyday, taken for granted moments.

Treasure the Discarded

Previously...

     I'm exactly what I wished for once upon a starry night. Took decades to notice the contentment staring back at me from the bathroom mirror. Things on my wish list should've remained the same, whether I was 5 or 80. Adult things got in the way to muddy the clarity a child brings to the world. My path has always been the way of the creator. These days find me chronicling peoples’ lives and placing digits on fretboards to find the right sounds to tell their stories. These pursuits are not new, only discarded years ago for whatever the fashion was back then. This invigorated stage of life is a product of recycling. Repurpose my purpose that I described in an essay I wrote when I was five. DATA CHAOS is the name of my b(r)and. If I ever catch my breath, what would I do next? Relying on muscle memory lately as I try to stay out of my head. I usually draw swords when I attempt to traverse the terrain of my brain. Thoughts get roped around one another until reality and reason become untenable.

     Make a touchstone every day: capture sounds only fingertips can produce, record a conversation between woodland creatures, create a statement with buttons and glue. Leave something at the end of the day that was not there when the sun began its ascent. Collect enough glimpses into brilliance and one is bound to find a path to truth. We make our own luck by listening to one's soul whisper. Magic never left us, even when we tossed our tools aside and achieved in life the opposite of what we had always dreamed. Clocks don't care when you get around to something, or completely change course and forget all the plans that at one time really mattered. If joy is found in building up and tearing down, rubble suggests a masterpiece in disguise.

Don't think for a minute Darla Varney has vanished into the night. Simply put, Darla is the night. She's also history made and waiting to unfold. Quite literally, Darla is all over the map, and her time piece has struck the wishing hour. But do not fret. Darla's covered her load, obeys all posted speed markers and is ready to pick back up the threads she's been spinning forever. Once you get there (Forever, I mean) try to park as near to the entrance as you can.

Embracing Oblivion

Disarm me with your charms, but know that your personality is problematic.
(Yeah - don't know which one of us is the addict.)
But here we are in the woods, a stare-down in progress.
Each one of us casts a light of varying intensity, all in the service of demanding transparency.
Disrupting the other in an unfolding tale of what's to be discovered by lifting the veil.
There is no way to turn this progression on its head.
Grow in the only way you know, and your soul will fill-in the holes.
(This is actually factual: words are coming out of my mouth.)
When is one's story ever truly told?
Variations on a dream.
Start.
Stop.
Change direction.
Forget why you chose this destination.
Destiny never intended for you and me to come to rest beneath this hallowed tree.

Ted's Indelicate Misadventure

bright side

Itinerary

There are lots of activities and attractions to keep you busy when you come visit H-ville:

Second-run movies and weekend swap meets at the Prairie View Drive-In.
Breakfast specials at the Chik'n & Biskit.
High School!
McAllister's Flowers.
Hanging out down by Cathedral Rocks along the Samson River.
Keggers in The Woods!
Hiking along Authority Ridge up to the alpine meadows.
Mountain Goats!
Drownings.
Unfortunate run-ins with wild animals.
Lost hikers.
Missing sisters.
Talking owls.
The Center of All Creation.
The Steps of Death!
Apple Harvest Festival Queen & Court.
Courtroom appearances.
Secluded rentals.
Herbal Procurement.
Roadside confessional.
Come Live Among the Sentinels!
Stay for a day but live year-round in H-ville.
Just passing through.
Picturesque Olde Growth!
Youth leave town and never come back.
River Guide and Fishing Excursions.
Watch the locals weave their ancient traditions.
Hearts & Souls on display in a museum.
Snatch up trinkets made to unreliably remember the past!
No one is forgotten in a town lost to memory.
Favored Sons are Always Protected!
DNA found everywhere but no one's come looking.

In Memoriam.

From Camels to Humans

Thoughts are ordered in No Particular Order. It's .. they are like reading a book by landing on random pages "and just going with it." Timeline? A logical sequence of events? THEME! All are about as useless as peanut butter without bits of said legume embedded within. Or like ... please explain to me the narrative thru-line of your life, why don't you? No easy feat, that. Our brains flit from factoid to face to that tingling in one's feet to what's her name to ... what was the subject again? We slosh about in our thought soup daily and still we're able to hold down jobs and pack the kidlets off to school and pray to whichever Belief System we are the most comfortable believing in that one of these days we (the entire world's population, I'm thinking) don't just wake up one morning to the news that this novel-bugger-this-or-the-other carries with it a 40.3% case fatality rate.

The Season of Reason

Come To Pass

Previously...

A certain slant and intensity of light captures the rays of a pink undulating star from within the center of Darla's agate. No need for assembly. Darla's burst of radiance does come with a price, though. Brilliance enters The Change and comes out the other side of the galaxy as a footnote. Darla designs pendants from polished stones and found objects that serve as compass / early warning system at reasonable price points. Everyone likes to rub thumb and index finger over the smooth and yet irregular surface of a much loved talisman as the End of All Things Recognizable approaches.

And about that far-flung footnote straddling a couple undiscovered galaxies:

Darla's arch nemesis is the Vendor Badge Checker. A man with no warmth in his grey-green eyes and a space-invading habit of yanking on lanyards to check one's credential against a list taped to his clipboard. No permit? No permission for Darla to weave her magic upon shoppers with treasures salvaged from forgotten places. Memorabilia forged by tall tales and dirty faces. That boy and girl in the plowed fertile field who just found one of your paperweights. Wait until the camp boss finds it hidden under the straw upon which the girl and boy sleep. Together tightly; limbs give off warmth like one of Darla's Krazy Kwilts. Morning comes in minutes and nothing to break a fast other than what must be dug up, and the camp boss always counts what's been collected in that wicker basket strapped to a narrow, bony back.

the bad guy is always someone's hero