Semi-Daily Scribbles

The Big Kerplop

A blessing in the skies looks different to each of us. This morning as I looked up in the 6:45 a.m. heavens, scattered with puffed and wispy salmon-tinted clouds, I saw my beloved schnauzers Jethro and Bruno scamper about on a biscuit-shaped cumulus congestus that rolled past my house. That's when it occurred to me, I'm here to observe, lend a hand when I can to a fellow traveler, and clean up after myself. Simple; certainly not sexy, and harder a task than one would think. And so what if your superpower is the ability to never fit in? To never get out of your mouth words that describe how you really feel; what you see all around you; the messages you hear when someone engages you in "casual conversation." Have a nice day! is loaded with incredibly high expectations, and the ability to maintain oneself in an upright position becomes Challenge #1 on a daily basis. You think you know a person, but how would your life change if you could literally get inside their head?

Clear a Path

An Interesting Pair

“Oh, here come those darling little babies. Doesn’t their mother have them dressed in the most adorable frocks? I wonder where they’re off to in such a hurry?” Two matronly women pushed matching perambulators with vigor, each wearing their cleaned and pressed Sunday best. The ladies with their frilly charges took up the entire breadth of the sidewalk, while worshippers fresh out of church stepped into the street to avoid a collision.

“Very pretty, indeed. But, well, I see clearly...um, that is to say; the girls are as similar to their parents as night is to day, if you take my meaning."

“Beg your pardon, Louise. I forget that you are only recently moved to our humble burgh. Everyone in these parts is familiar with the Caine family and their singular situation.”

"I only know they live on the outskirts of town and keep to themselves," Louise replied as she watched the well-starched nannies maneuver their baby buggies with great agility against a surge of townsfolk.

Well, an interesting pair. Artists.” Phyllis paused, waiting for that designation, and all that it implied, to work its way into Louise’s brain. Phyllis huffed when she received nary a snort or a tsk-tsk from her companion, so she continued. "In any event, you’ve probably not heard?

“Heard what, Phyllis?”

“Not here. Let us find a place to sit and enjoy the lovely afternoon.” The women strolled up to a bench at the entrance to the arboretum. Families with picnic hampers scurried to secure a prime piece of lawn beneath ancient oak and hawthorn. Phyllis shooed away two boys parked on the bench who were fighting over a balsa wood glider.

“Go take that elsewhere, lads." As the boys scuttled off toward the park's reflecting pool, Louise's gaze lingered on the ginger-haired boys.

"What is it, Louise? Phyllis nodded her head toward the empty bench.

"Oh, nothing really. I thought the boys looked familiar, is all. Familiar from where I can't quite say." As the pair sat down, Phyllis looked off into the distance and sighed.

"The familiar prevents us from living in a world of limitless possibilities." Phyllis reached into her pocketbook and pulled out a silver flask inlaid with a twining vine motif. She took the smallest of sips from it before offering the flask to Louise. "It helps refresh one's senses after being cooped up in a stuffy old church all morning." Louise raised an eyebrow at the proffered refreshment, but accepted it all the same. "Now, listen up," Phyllis said as Louise handed back the flask. "I have a story to tell."

Rules of The Road

The Limitations of Expertise

Who's story am I allowed to tell? Can I hand over free rein to my imagination so it can wander unchecked as it dictates the rules of an existence lived outside of my skin? The safe play is to write what I know; access to opportunities and the freedom to consider more than one path in life. Does my background translate into an echo chamber, or an offensive display of privilege? Either way, not much of a page turner and closer to a head-scratcher.

What’s it like to be human? I think I can speak to that experience with some level of expertise, but what’ll it take for me to offer a more inclusive narrative of who we are as a species? Here today and destined to become a memory, if we’re lucky. Stardust, at the very least.

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