The End!

Well, we have officially reached the end of November, and the end of Nano Poblano and of course, Nanowrimo.

When I pasted my entire month’s worth of blogs into a Word document, the total word count came up to 12,567 words. Which to be honest is more than I have written in a month in MANY years. So I am Very Pleased.

It was TOUGH.

It was hard to prioritise time to write a post each day.

I would just sit down, put the number in the title, and then just write. So whatever came out of my fingertips was published immediately with no editing and no re-reading.

My plan is to read over what I have done, do a tonne of editing and planning, and then make it into the Thing it has been in my head for over seventeen years.

Might take me a few more years lol.

Might be next November when I challenge myself again.

But it will happen.

This challenge has taught me one thing: I do have time to write about 500 words a day. They don’t have to be perfect or edited, they just have to be there on paper. It’s better than nothing!

If you did nanowrimo or nano poblano or any other writing challenge this month, how did you fare?

This Land [30]

The long, harsh winter was finally over.

She realised it one crisp day in May, when she felt the warm sun on her bare arms. Her first roses were blooming. Bright, peachy yellow ones. And their sweet lemony scent danced on the breeze and filled her with such joy. Enough to go running barefoot in the gardens, flinging her hair free, the joy of the glorious sun coursing through every vein in her body.

She knew what she would do now.

She knew with all the conviction in the world.

She would go to the train station, and wait on the platform for his train to draw in. She would step forward, and immediately tell him yes.

No, she would hand him a letter.

No, no. That would be silly. She already wrote him a letter. She would just wait for him. And he would know. Why should he not know? He would know!

She raced back indoors, drawing her shawl over her shoulders in the sudden chill that hung around the back door.

‘Letter for you Laura,’ Phyllis called from the drawing room. Phyllis was visiting for the week. She debated whether to go in and get it or not.

‘Who is it from?’ she stood in the doorway, her left foot tapping impatiently on the floor.

‘Well,’ Phyllis peered at the handwriting, ‘it looks like Mary’s handwriting actually. It came through this morning. Ethel collected the letters from the post office.’

‘Oh. Mary!’ Laura darted across the room and snatched the letter from her younger sister’s hand. She ripped it open and hurried out of the drawing room, with Phyllis looking after her as though she had sprouted another head.

‘Why the rush!?’ Phyllis called anxiously, getting out of her chair.

‘I am meeting .. I am going to the train station,’ Laura threw over her shoulder, before taking the stairs two steps at a time. She dropped the envelope on the floor and shook the letter out, reading as she hurried into her room and shut the door behind her.

Dearest Laura,

Your letter was beautiful. I do miss you so. We have settled in nicely by the sea. John’s practice is marvellous. And I am doing so well with so much fresh air to cleanse my lungs. They have accepted my application at the College and I have my first class on the first week of June. It’s only a small class; I shall be teaching the summer students before they move me onto something more permanent. They say it’s a probationary period. I am not at all nervous, I tell you. We are both looking forward to your visit in August. I have the most wonderful room here for you. It looks right over the sea and the window is as tall as I am! Every night when the days are clear I watch the sunset and I think how you would adore this darling little room. You would feel right at home here. And come September, when our number shall increase by one… I feel giddy thinking about it!

Now for the real reason I write to you so hurriedly, Laura. Tom refuses to tell you, so I must do it myself and warn you before he arrives, lest you have the shock of your life. He is engaged to be married, my love. To Rosaline. Remember Rosaline? You got on really well with her at the Winter dance when you came to visit us at Leighton. He is bringing her and her mother back with him for the summer. Says he wants to give them the tour of the town. I expect he wants to show them the old haunts. Rosaline tells me he tells her about your roses and she is keen to see them. I write only to let you know, so you don’t keel over or anything silly like that.

With all my ferocious love,

Mary

She finished reading the letter and her legs were frozen in place. A soft knock on the bedroom door, and when she didn’t respond, Phyllis pushed it open and peered around.

Laura’s face was pale.

‘So you know,’ Phyllis’s voice was gentle as she came into the room and took her sister into her arms.

Laura shook herself free, tossing her head.

‘Know what?’ she snapped, folding the letter and putting it away into her drawer.

‘About Tom?’

‘Oh! Yes, of course I know. Why are you being so motherly all of a sudden?’ she said curtly, pulling on her coat.

‘Laura, come now, don’t…’

‘I’m going for a walk, Phyllis. Please. Allow me to get dressed in peace.’

She pushed past her sister, seizing her shawl and wrapping it around her neck. She picked her hat up and stalked out.

Company [15]

Republishing this as part of my NanoWrimo. It fits. It belongs. Is it cheating? Maybe, maybe! But it belongs.

A basket of strawberries, over a slender brown arm, gleaming in the heady sun of July.

A basket of strawberries, and fields rolling away with greenery and promise. Insects buzzing in the thickets nearby, birds chirruping, as a soft breeze swooping through the very tips of the trees, a gentle swooshing sound, bringing a coolness that prickled the tiniest hairs on her skin.

Perhaps now she would turn, and would see a tall, handsome figure walking up the hill towards her. Perhaps he would call on her to wait for him. She would stand, alright, and wait for him, and when he joined her he would whisk her away somewhere. He would have his motorcar waiting, and they would sail into the horizon. Where would they go? She wasn’t entirely sure, but it would be somewhere great. She would look upon his face and a thread of understanding would pass from his eyes to hers. She stood, now, in the long, almost still, summer afternoon, at the crest of the hill, with the scenery rolling away from her, far into the distance, and shadows of clouds drifting lazily across the sunny landscape.

And so, so still, almost like a picture.

‘Hi! Laura! Hiiii!’

She whipped around, her basket almost slipping from her arm. A tall figure, marching up the hill towards her. He was waving his hat madly, certainly not her mysterious handsome stranger. He was handsome, there was no denying that. Handsome, but so… so … familiar. For it was only Tom.

‘Oh. It’s you.’ she said, when he had reached her, and she continued to pick her way across the field. She lifted her skirts a little, the meadow grass rising high above her hem.

‘You say that like you are disappointed,’ he said, there was a small twinkle in his eye, so slight, and it irritated her.

‘Am I not the handsome stranger you so anticipated?’

She looked sharply at him, but there was only amusement in his eyes. Bright, mirthful eyes, as blue as the deep sky all around them.

‘No, not disappointed,’ she said lightly, shifting the basket to her other arm. He glanced inside. Strawberries of all kinds and colours tumbled over each other, small ones, big ones, shaped like tomatoes and hearts, bright red, gentle pink, red tinged with white and green.

‘I’ve come to drag you back for supper.’

‘Much ado about supper,’ she picked a wild strawberry from her basket and popped it into her mouth, ‘I’m not hungry’.

‘My sister sent me after you,’ he said, ‘I’m to bring you home immediately.’

‘Well you needn’t always do as you’re told,’ she scolded, severely, ‘I was rather enjoying my solitude and expecting to have an adventure, until you came along and dis-enthralled the occasion.’

‘Oh, I dis-enthralled the occasion, did I. And what occasion was this, that it commanded you to trail your muddy skirts in solitude through the fields?’

‘Never you mind!’ she snapped.

‘My, but you are sour today.’

She sighed, and then glanced at him. He was looking expectantly at her, and his face was so youthful, so carefree, and his eyes danced just so, in that boyish way of his, that she relented a little.

‘I was longing for an adventure,’ she said, finally, stooping a little to pick a wild stalk from by her feet, ‘and I supposed, when I saw your figure in the distance, that you might be it.’

He contemplated her for a few moments, and his face was blank, and then he erupted into loud laughter, and she laughed with him, because it was frivolous and silly, and he made it seem so carefree, and it made her happy.

‘Ah, hence the disappointment’, he said, wiping his eyes, ‘come now, Laura, your adventure shall not forsake you, but it is time to go back for supper, else they’ll all be mad, and we shall have a merry time of it.’

Irritation set in again, and made her square her shoulders, ‘need they be so .. so.. rigid!?’

‘They are worried,’ he smiled gently, ‘John isn’t here, so I expect I am your company for the evening, and your mother wanted to make sure that you were available for it, and behaved like the lady that you are.’

‘Lady, indeed!’

‘Well, is the promise of my being company not enough to entice your stubborn spirit?’

Laura threw her head back and laughed heartily, ‘Oh, Tom. Company, really?! You aren’t company anymore. You don’t need me there to entertain you, when all the others are there. You’re simply — why, you’re part of the furniture!’

He regarded her silently, and the laughter vanished from his eyes. She didn’t notice, for her back was to him, as she sailed along ahead of him.

The breeze rustled through the tall meadow grass, the buttercups and wild daises rippling in wonderful waves across the sloping hills, the wind pushing clouds along in the sky, the leaves gently conversing with each other in the distant thicket. A loud motorcar announced itself on the road just beyond the field, whizzing past in a flash of silver and red, and then silence once more. Silence and the earthly sounds of nature, and the two of them, picking their way through the field and on to the road, her ahead, him behind.

Ethereal [10]

I don’t know how to pay attention.

To the moon, to the stars, to the earth spinning in the galaxy.

I don’t know how to slow down and hear the leaves fall.

I sometimes stand still when it is dark, but light. I can hear the call of the humming system that is life. I can hear it in the way the trees rustle together.

I can see it when the clouds, dark and purple, scud themselves over the beaming moon.

I can hear it when humanity is tucked away for the night. In the stillness.

It roars loudly when the machinery shuts off for the night.

It roars and it calls me, you see.

But I am always in a rush, I don’t heed its call.

What would happen if I stopped, and listened? If I turned my eyes upwards. If I let them focus, till the blur became a sharp knife to slice through reality as I know it.

What would I hear? What would I see?

Image Credit

Little Things

When I come home to my mother’s house, it is the simple things that remind me of home.

She doesn’t live in my childhood home anymore. I don’t have my own ‘room’ here; me and the kids sleep in my sister’s room whenever we come and stay. There is a lot of unspoken tension, and lots of standard-family issues, but there are also things that remind me of being little again.

Things that make my senses spark, my tastebuds come alive with the remembrance of something that made them what they are today.

Things like, a steaming bowl of harira, which is like a Moroccan minestrone soup. It has a tomatoey base, with celery, parsley, onions, ginger. Chickpeas and soft pieces of boiled lamb float in the rich soup, and thin vermicelli pasta pieces with some brown lentils make it a complete meal on its own. Of course, in my family, we have to serve it with parisian, which is what Moroccans call ‘french bread’ – something leftover from the French colonisation of the land. Fresh warm crusty french loaf slathered with a generous layer of salted butter to dip into your bowl of tasty soup. Makes my tummy feel like it’s home.

Things like, although my parents don’t get on anymore, the sound of my parents talking from their bedroom. My dad’s voice low, my mum’s soft, up and down in tone, lulling me to sleep. Then in the middle of the night, the sound of my father snoring rumbling through the entire house, all three floors of it. That too, is the sound of comfort.

Or today for lunch when my mother and three year old son sat together having what she calls ‘dipping egg’, but what is more commonly known as a half boiled egg. Tapping the top, dipping buttered ‘soldiers’ into the thick, golden yolk. My son loved his lunch, he has never had ‘dipping egg’ before, for I have never eaten it since I grew out of childhood. I had an egg of my own, and the taste of the warm yolk on buttered brown toast instantly took me back to my childhood kitchen.

Small things.

Small little things you never know you missed until they come back into your life again.

Bowl of fresh harira, food for the soul.

I Don’t Relate to You

I recently came across a song that made my blood run cold.

It’s by this famous singer called Billie Eilish. I hadn’t heard of her before. Mainly because I don’t like music much, unless it stirs something in the murky depths of my personality. Mainly because I get put off very easily by ‘famous’ pop singers. Call it snobbiness, call it depression, I like soft melody, classic songs, sung from the heart. I don’t like the ‘beat’, it sucks you away on a train of nothingness into a chasm of darkness.

Anyway.

This song is called ‘Happier than Ever’ and I listened to it one day as it popped up in my Youtube ‘recommended’ list.

It’s a slow song, in the beginning. Half whispered lyrics, deep yet soft voice. Talking about how she was happier than ever to be away from someone. It’s sad and almost mournful. And then the tempest rises. The voice becomes stronger. Some anger creeps in. Then it is fury. Fury and pain and loss and a primal roar that makes me think exclusively of a tragic loss of innocence.

The last line in the song is ‘Just fucking leave me alone‘ and it is sung with such passion, that all the hollow empty caves within my being surged to life.

This whole song, this whole damn song, is exactly how I feel, felt, am feeling, always feel… about a terrible and tragic time in my life. Something that still haunts me today.

And I am just so shocked that someone so young can articulate it so well and write something that means something to such a lot of people.

Mr Blue Sky Painted by an AI

The season of life I am in right now is such that it is proving to be a mountainous task to make time to write blogs. This is a sad state of affairs, because I thoroughly enjoy typing out a blog and pairing it with some painting or other that vaguely resembles what I want to say.

Speaking of paintings, there is a lovely thing you can do nowadays. You can ask an AI system to generate paintings for you based on words or phrases.

Somebody on Youtube put the lyrics to a really pretty song (to me anyway) into the generator, and the result was marvellous. Here it is below for you to see:

Argument

What do you need from the garden?

I need some… red lobsters.

In small pieces.

The smallest pieces you can find.

He sits on the garden step eating mint and contemplating as the shouting rages around his little body.

When he comes indoors, his small milk teeth are stained brown. He bares them in an enormous grin.

Mud Pies by Ludwig Knaus

It Matters

Don’t leave litter! Love this piece by Colleen at The Chatter Blog.

The Chatter Blog

(c)

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The Giant Fell into the Raging Sea

Here is my contribution to the March 2022 Writing Prompt from Michelle at Putting my Feet in the Dirt.

The giant fell into the raging sea. Oh, the roaring sea. The storm went on for hours, slashing the sails, smashing against the sides, scratching holes in the wood and splintering the deck. The sailors vomited over the sides. In relief? In terror? In dread of their own deaths?

Nobody thought for a moment about the giant until it was too late. They were all slumped in various places when the storm waned. The clouds, thick and heavy and furiously black, quickly dissipated. The sky they left behind was alarmingly blue. Too cheerful, it seemed, for the carnage it left behind.

A loud sobbing sound rose from the depths of the ship. Louder than the slowly fading roar of waves. The sound grew wilder, more grief stricken.

One by one, the sailors raised their weary heads. Sunken eyes, drenched hair, damp clothes.

‘Who’s that?’ one of them muttered.

‘We’re all on deck’ another groaned.

‘Apparently not.’

The wail rose higher in pitch, until the sailors’ ears began to ring.

The captain went to see what was wrong.

When he came back up through the hatch, his face was a deathly shade of green.

‘What is it?’ he was asked, as he pushed past his men to look over the side of the ship. Pushing past them again to run across the deck and look over the other side. His breathing grew heavier as his men crowded him, looking over the edge, craning their necks.

The water was blue and glorious again. The sunshine lapped at the waves, glittering into the distance. The deck was almost entirely dry.

The wailing below was a siren. Screeching into the piercing blue around them. Raising hairs, shivering timbers. The sailors pressed closer together as the captain let out a groan of despair. His eyes were wide as saucers, his knuckles alabaster white as they gripped the handrail.

‘It’s over, lads,’ he whispered, ‘we’re finished.’

The first mate was now striding towards the hatch that led to the underbelly of the ship. The prison cell. Where they had chained the giant using the strongest iron on land. He began to descend, and the other men were quick to surround the hatch, peering warily as the first mate disappeared into the blackness below.

The captain stayed on deck, staring with unseeing eyes into the distance.

There it was. The tell-tale surge of ocean. A giant wave, hiding the monstrous giant beneath its surface. Hurtling towards the ship at breakneck speed.

The first mate emerged from the hatch soaking wet.

‘Giant hole!’ he spluttered, ‘Giant hole! All the creatures are drowning! Giant’s gone! Giant hole!’