Category Archives: solitude

Taking a breather to chase some tail

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Now before your mind wanders into dangerous territory, I meant the Easter Bunny’s tail.  I am taking a brief hiatus from blogging this weekend to enjoy some much-needed R&R – Red wine and Rabbit (of the chocolate persuasion).

bunny

(image credit)

Hopefully a few days of not pressuring myself to write every day will ease the feeling of having a deadline and coax back the enjoyment of the creative process that I seem to be missing.  This weekend signifies rebirth and I am taking the meaning of the holiday to heart.

I wish all of you a very Happy Easter weekend.  May your days be filled with the love of family and friends, and maybe a little bit of tail for good measure.  The chocolate….I meant the chocolate!

Of Mice and Men in the attic – fiction

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attic

After hearing the word mispronounced, with the emphasis on the wrong syllable, she had an idea of what to do with the wretched people who would not allow her solace.  Fanatic – indeed they were.  They camped out in her driveway, followed her everywhere but, one by one, they became smaller in numbers.  Her “fan-attic”, mind you, was becoming rather full.  She hoped the smell would dissipate.

~~

66 Word Micro-Fiction written for the Chimera Challenge at Grammar Ghoul Press.  This week’s challenge is to write a piece using the word ‘Fanatic’ – noun – a person with an extreme and uncritical enthusiasm or zeal.  (image credit)

chimera-badge

 

 

 

 

Floating in a most peculiar way – fiction

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eagle-neb-lg

As he neared the Eagle Nebula, he gasped at its beauty.  He always hoped he would see it in his lifetime.  As he got closer to it, his trajectory changed and he was able to view it from many sides.  His thoughts turned to home and, although each version was different, he mumbled audibly as he rewrote the letter in his head for what he hoped would be the last time.

“My Dearest Love,

I can only anticipate how worried you have been since you have not heard from me.  The mission to Mars went horribly wrong on so many levels and I fear I will never be able to get back to you.  I have not seen my crew nor am I able to communicate with Houston.

I am miraculously floating through space with no oxygen, yet I continue to live.  The noxious carbon dioxide that I expel with every breath seems to dissipate and is no longer toxic to me.  I have not consumed food or had water in what I fear is more time than I can calculate but I have no true concept of time in this vast constellation.  I have no waste to rid from my body and, against all odds, I still seem to exist.

The sky is beautiful.  I remember how you used to love to gaze at the stars, taking the time to point out the constellations in our own galaxy and you would always wonder what existed outside of the Milky Way.  I am here, love, and it is beyond anything you could have ever imagined.  It is color and music and poetry all connected by stars.  It feels like our wedding dance when everything and everyone seemed to disappear and the only thing I felt was your breath on my neck and the only sound was our hearts beating together.

But with all of this beauty comes so much despair because you are so far away.  I wish for this journey to end.  I wish my mortal self would cease to exist so you and I could be reunited.  I wish that I would not have to go through the pain of writing this letter yet again because I fear that I do know how many times it has been written and that number is too high to be accurate.

I will do my best to get home to you.

Until we meet again, my love.”

~~

mutant750-wk

 

Written for the Grammar Ghoul Challenge – combining the photo above of the Eagle Nebula taken by the Hubble Telescope and the word Love (noun) – A person or thing that one loves.

 

 

It’s all fun and games until you can’t have a shower

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I have been fortunate to live in this beautiful place called Muskoka for most of my life.  I was born in a larger city and we relocated when I was seven years old.  I left the comfort of my little town for a couple of years when I went to college and, when I could no longer stand the sites of the concrete jungle, I eventually made the move back home.

Friends from college still ask how I can live in such a remote location and I always respond the same way ~ how can I not?  I am not a city girl, by any means.  The crowds of people at any given time make me very anxious and the pace of the city is way too fast for my liking.

Being a “country bumpkin” and living in an old out-building of a farmhouse does, however, have its challenges.  I try my best not to watch the heat slowly escaping through cracks in the house by filling in holes and covering door jambs with towels to block the drafts.  I try to tune out the sound of the furry little freeloaders living rent free in my attic and my basement.  But the one thing I am unable to ignore is the frozen pipes after battling frigid temperatures for a few weeks.  I had been lucky until my return from home on Monday.  As much as they fought to stay warm enough, the pump and the pipes were no match for Mother Nature’s steady -34 Celsius temperatures without factoring in the wind chill.

Thankfully because I have been living this lifestyle for so long I am able to adapt but I am hoping to have the situation rectified by this afternoon.  Adapting to my lack of running water is one thing, this is why I always keep bottled water in my house.  But not being able to shower in my own home will soon become an issue and I’m sure my neighbors don’t want to see me “bathing” in the snow on my deck!

snow bath

(image credit)

Finding the hidden beauty

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invisible sunrise

The sun may be rising

behind a curtain of clouds,

but it is still grabbing onto the horizon

and pulling itself into our morning sky.

The beauty may be hidden,

the stunning colors may be invisible,

but the sounds of a new day

echo what we cannot see.

Life begins anew as the sun comes up.

It rises regardless of any obstacles

and we can still feel its warmth.

Its light through the clouds is proof that a new day has dawned.

Even though it may not touch our skin,

we know that holds a place in our day.

And though we may not be able to see it,

we have faith that its hidden beauty is there,

waiting for that chance to peek through the clouds

and shine on us again.

 ~

(image credit)

Here’s to grit in my eyes

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Dear Mr. Sandman,

This is a difficult, yet necessary, letter under the circumstances.

While I respect the fact that your position among the Counsel of Legendary Figures (COLF) may be on a lower rung of the power ladder, I must respectfully submit this letter to share my disappointment in your abilities of late.

I have been seemingly self-sufficient when it comes to nodding off after my head has initially hit the pillow.  I know you are busy with others who have difficulty finding that evasive snooze-zone so I have learned to manage that on my own.  What I fail to understand is how you neglect my needs after I have come back into full consciousness and am wide awake at 2:30 in the morning.

sandman

I am a relatively patient person and have been using my time creatively to come up with story lines and blog post ideas while I wait for your arrival, but to no avail.  You have been a repeat offender when it comes to being a no-show and I am beginning to take it a little personally.  I mean, come on man, it’s just a little sprinkling of magical sand for goodness sake.  Surely you can swing by and drop some of that precious powder on my eyes so I can find that whimsical dream world once again after waiting for several hours.

I certainly don’t want this to sound like a threat but, I can only imagine how displeased the COLF would be to find that you have been slacking in your duties and misrepresenting such a prestigious mythical body of great legendary figures.  I’m sure Santa Claus, Cupid and the Tooth Fairy would be slightly easier to deal with but Mother Nature has been a real bitch lately!  (Even Father Time cannot keep up with her shenanigans)

So, for the sake of fairness, I shall refrain from sending a copy of this letter to the COLF in hopes that we can come to an agreement.  I shall eagerly await your attendance the next time I find myself staring at my ceiling in the wee hours.

Come on, Sandy, just a little sprinkle.

With the utmost respect,

Susan

 

 

 

Not all silence is golden

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paul-helleu-sketching-his-wife-1889Her silence began to paw at him.   Like the constant yanking of coat-tails by an impatient child,  her wordlessness did more to annoy him than if she were nagging him, as she usually did on these trips.  But she was petulant in her nature this morning and it was agitating him to the point that he could not focus on his painting.

The day had lent everything he required for his creative process.  The sky was reflecting a profusion of purples and blues off the water and the grass was standing perfectly still, waiting for him to capture its very essence on his canvas.  She began to pick at the weeds in front of her and sighed heavily each time she threw a collection of dying blades into the windless day.

With each of her exhalations, his brush stroke became angrier and more forceful.  The once stunning colors on his palette were becoming a mottled collection of angry hues and the overwhelming emotion he felt rising in his cheeks began to match those shades of regret and dejection.  The beautiful day now felt sour and unfriendly.

He put his brush down and stood to stretch.  She turned her back to him and that simple gesture was the last act of child-like behavior he would tolerate.  In one fluid motion, he reached into the canoe and, without thinking twice, grabbed the paddle and struck the back of her head with all the force he could muster.  Her skull split like a ripe melon and an arc of blood spatter found the extra canvas hidden in the canoe.

After standing over her for several minutes, he delicately placed her hat back over the gash on her head.  He studied her for a moment.  There was such a serene quality to her silence now and he felt the inspiration to begin painting again.  He reached the for the canvas in the canoe.  There was something intriguing about the pattern of blood and his brush strokes on this new piece of art gingerly worked around those drops to maintain their artistic integrity.

He felt great satisfaction looking at his newest masterpiece.  He placed the canvas on the now spare seat in the canoe and began looking for some large rocks.  He would have to do his best to make sure she wasn’t found near the others.

~~

Written for the Grammar Ghoul challenge:  using the word “paw” as a verb and using this picture to write a story up to 750 words.  I’m not sure why my creative brain always goes in the direction of the macabre.

mutant750-wk

 

 

 

 

 

Finding the courage to find myself

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This is really a post for myself, perhaps to hold myself accountable for all the things I wish I had been doing differently lately but have not been doing.  It is a kick in my ass, a wake-up call, a reminder that I shouldn’t feel guilty about putting myself first.

I have been feeling lost lately.  It could easily be the November blahs, the thought of our first Christmas without my mom or the fact that I have been ignoring my health and putting on the pounds that I worked so hard to lose.  Whatever the reason, I am not myself.

Up until now, I have spent a great deal of my life trying to “fix” other people – it’s just the way I am, the way I survived my youth and part of my failed marriage.  But it’s time for me to realize that I am the one who is broken.  It’s time for me to learn from my past and realize the only person I can fix is myself because I don’t like this feeling of being broken.

The nagging feeling in the back of my mind is not depression but the lethargy I am feeling is a warning sign.  I need to start participating in my life.  I need to sum up all of those lessons I learned from my past and use them to forge ahead into my future, a future where I am the driver and not the passenger.  A future where I make my own map and am not tagging along on someone else’s journey.

dear past

With a little bit of effort on my part, I can harness that energy that is lying dormant and forge boldly into my future.  The slate is blank and I can make of it whatever I want it to be.

Dear Future, I AM ready.

Got the message, loud and clear…

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It’s a rainy, snowy, cold Saturday and I am home with a nasty chest cold.  I’ve been channeling my inner James Earl Jones when I talk and my boss thought I was a man on the phone.

I did a bit of work around the house to make it a little less drafty this winter and I finally decided the germs had gotten the best of me.  I wrapped myself in a blanket and had been wasting my time surfing through my pictures when I stumbled on this one:

writing

‘Nuff said…..thanks to the spirit responsible for sending the message!  Time to reintroduce myself to the characters of my book and get the bloody thing written!

There’s a lot of DNA and it’s not a Criminal Minds episode

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I am officially glad I am no longer in my twenties.  Even when I was in my twenties, my regard for a sanitary living space and the respect of my roommates trumped any need to party like it didn’t matter.  I have recently discovered that this is apparently an old-fashioned way of thinking!

A new friend has had the challenging job of being the General Manager at a fast-paced restaurant in the area where I live.  I have frequented there many times and become friends with the staff through our mutual jobs and our shared love of football.  Sure they are a younger crowd and they like to party, but I had no concept of how many of the rules of human nature those parties violated until just recently.

I had a few drinks with the GM last night after he and the head of maintenance had spent the last two days cleaning the remains of those parties once the staff had vacated the houses for the season.  The pictures he took of the damage and the items left behind were shocking to me.  I would have requested a full hazmat suit before I even entered those seasonal dwellings.

dna

(image credit: dnaproject.co.za)

From 10 staff houses, they collected over 90 bags of garbage, repaired holes in drywall that were cleverly disguised by newly purchased plastic vent covers, disposed of a few comforters that would easily have contained so many samples of DNA they would keep a Forensics team busy for months, steam-cleaned carpets and collected an arsenal of bottles and cans from each yard.  The description of some of the parties left me speechless, and that is a tough feat considering I have a writer’s brain and nothing is off-limits when it comes to a story.

There is something extremely soothing about walking into my house and not fearing the unknown.  There will be no naked parties taking place, there will be no food on the counters and tables that have become science projects over an extended period of time and there will be no risk of seeing things that cannot be unseen.

I sure hope the two responsible for the clean up get to reward themselves with the accumulated amount of security deposits and bottle returns.  After those crime scenes, they deserve it!