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 |   Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland |
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Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland  Welcome to the place were I chronicle my own falls down dark holes and adventures chasing white rabbits! Come on In, Take a Bite, You Never Know What You May Find... "Curiouser and curiouser." Alice in Wonderland    |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" DAY 2248--September 28, 2020 Prompt: Now that we have only a couple of days to the "October NaNoWriMo Prep Challenge" [13+] by (362) , are you going to write a novel this year? With or without doing the NaNo, what is your best approach to write a novel: vignettes, outlines, character developing or what? If you are a NaNo rebel, what is in your book-writing future, then? If you are not ready to write a novel yet, what do you think of the NaNo program? Every year I tell myself that I will sign up for NaNo and work on my novel. Every year. This year however is has provided me with the only legitimate excuse I've ever had for not doing so. The pandemic, and subsequent fall out, has derailed most of my plans for 2020 and sidelines all the best ones for 2021 sadly. I, along with much of the nation, have had to adapt to a new normal that has included remote learning. Here in the northeast, our restrictions remain pretty tight and most schools are doing a hybrid model for school. It requires me to be creative with my work schedule and far more hands on when it comes to my daughter's education. That translates into far less time for me to pursue anything I might have planned for myself including, but not limited to, NaNo. I've always viewed NaNo as a viable and necessary piece on my journey to novel publication. It encourages me to develop commitment and discipline, two elements I am lacking in my writing practice. This year however, it seems like it would add additional demands to a daily routine that already has me feeling stressed and too thinly spread. Perhaps next year? Maybe by the fall of 2021, I will be able to regroup and make a new plan...one can only hope. "Blogging Circle of Friends " Day 2873: September 28, 2020 Prompt: Use these words: mountain - clover - stone The stone was cool in my palm, it's surface worn down and smooth by my worrying fingertips. I rubbed my thumb over the word carved into the back, feeling the rough outline of the letters H.O.P.E. I released the stone and it dropped down into my bag. I heard the faint clink as it made contact with something hard in the bowels of my backpack. I shouldered the pack and turned to gaze out across the Somes Sound to Cadillac mountain, rising through the morning fog like a sleeping leviathan rising from the deep. In an hour the early autumn sun would burn the fog away and the landscape would reveal itself as a picturesque kaleidoscope of colors; deep reds, golds and oranges punctuated by stubborn pockets of emerald pines and fur trees. By that time, I would be gone, driving south, away from the colors and the comfort of my coastal New England town. My hand strayed to the silver-plated clover on the chain around my next, another talisman, and a closed my hand around it. Hope and luck would be my faithful traveling companions on this one way trip. I prayed they would be enough. |
| "Blogging Circle of Friends " DAY 2861 September 16, 2020 "We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be". – Patrick Rothfuss Your thoughts? In my part of the world, masks have become more a political statement unfortunately. The decision to wear one or not wear one seems to be closely aligned with one's political leanings rather than an concern for health or well-being. You can go into an establishment and see folks with masks, and then others who are proudly, somewhat defiantly shopping bare-faced. Most places have signs on the door refusing entry to anyone not wearing a mask but it is not uncommon to see patrons testing the limits or simply refusing to comply. The instance that mask wearing somehow violates their personal freedoms is an all too common refrain. This week Connecticut introduced new fines for anyone not in compliance with the state mandate for wearing masks indoors and outside when social distancing can not be maintained. Its a $100 fine for individuals that can and will be enforced. I am curious to see how this takes affect and what impact it will have on the current situation. "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" Day 2236 Sept. 16, 2020 Prompt Prompt: What life lessons have books taught you? I've largely been drawn to books that help me escape life. It is hard to think of a book that might have taught me any life lessons for this reason. If I had to pick one it would clearly be Alice in Wonderland. I frequently find myself thinking about "madness" and "often give myself very good advice but I seldom ever follow it". I have always related to Alice, how she was always at odds with the world around her - struggled to find reason when the unreasonable seemed to reign. I appreciated her curiosity and could understand how it could lead you down paths into dark woods.I have always been prone to wander and often found myself turned around in strange places, surrounded by an even stranger cast of characters in my life. |
| "Blogging Circle of Friends " Day 2859: September 14, 2020 Prompt: Write about moving. We've moved into our new home just going on three years ago now. It took about an full year for us to fully and completely be settled. We moved from an very urban area. Our old home was a 1930's era colonial off the main street about 5 or 6 mins from the downtown area of a small city. The drive to our new place takes us past open fields of farm land before turning into our neighborhood of wide streets and wooded lots. The new property has many mature trees and a yard with a natural flow. The quiet has taken some getting used too. The soundtrack seemed to be missing the hum of traffic and the occasional emergency siren. I have come to love our quiet, residential street with neighbors we wave to on walks, the visits from wild turkey and deer and all of the birds. Moving sucks no matter how you manage it but we definitely made the right decision, a truth that became all the more apparent after two months of quarantine. I would have lost my mind in our old place. The back deck became a refuge for me during that time. I delighted in watching the birds, discovering that we had an army of yellow finches that swooped down from the trees and ravaged the feeders. It was so calming, in the midst of all the chaos of a world turned upside down over night. I appreciated their bustle and drama as we secluded ourselves from much of the world outside. I don't know how we would have managed at the old place, with our tiny yard and the proximity of the looming apartment houses with their haunting turnover of new faces. I am so grateful we made the move when we did. It had been daunting and scary. It had been exhausting and had taxed us to our limits but today, I can say it had all been for the very best. "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" DAY 2234--September 14, 2020 Prompt: Ray Bradbury advises in Zen in the Art of Writing, “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” If reality is so bad and destructive, which I agree that it can be at times, why are we seeking it under the guise of believable factor in the books we read and the movies we watch? What is your opinion on the matter? I used to think I wrote to escape life. I would get caught up in a piece and forget whatever real drama was waiting outside the door for me. My early pieces were departures from my reality. As I began to write more seriously, I found more and more of myself in my stories. I found myself echoing my life. Writing became the way I processed things that happened to me. It was my way of cleaning house, mentally. I believe people seek out authenticity in movies and novels some times because maybe it helps with their own self-reflection in much the same way. Maybe watching something play out in the hands and hearts of other characters is a way of processing our own emotions and reactions. I tend to get the most feedback over the non-fictional pieces I publish more often then any other genre I write in. I can't tell you how many times I've been told a reader could "totally relate" to something I'd written. I think all of us are looking for common connections in life. |
| "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" DAY 2238-- September 8, 2020 Prompt: Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” As best stories sometimes come out of their authors’ fears, what do you say for writing about one thing that scares you every day? For example, what scares you today? I feel like nearly every day since becoming a mother, my life dictates that I automatically do at least one thing every day that scares me. Motherhood is one terrifying-as-fuck journey some days for real. I find myself fairly well-rooted in the fear that I am screwing up , even on the days when I grudgingly award myself an A- for parenting at the close of a particularly productive trip around the sun. As my daughter rapidly approaches puberty, some days I am completely overwhelmed by those fears. We get sidelined by epic shouting matches as she seems compelled to argue with me over the most mundane things. It seems we are destined to never agree on a wide spectrum of topics from, "what shirt goes best with those leggings", or "why chicken nuggets are still chicken" to "why one particular Hamilton cover is in fact, not Sia but some other artist". Sadly, these are all very real examples drawn from actual arguments. I blame our most irrational debates on burgeoning hormones and on my patience and sanity, both of which have been severely compromised in the wake of COVID. I try not to to think about the fact that she's not even a preteen yet. The truth is that real emotional fireworks haven't started yet and that thought fills me with a numb horror some days. I wonder how we will make it through these coming years, she and I. The anxiety overwhelms me at times and I have to take step back. I have to slow down. I have to acknowledge that we have amazing moments still too. For as much as we may battle, she will still randomly take my hand in the grocery store, unconsciously slipping her delicate fingers through mine. She still prefers to sleep in between us most nights and we one of us will always wake with her lithe body snuggled up against our back or her small face pressed against our neck. As much as she loves time with her friends, she seems content to settle back into time with us after returning from play dates and sleepovers. The graceful and forgiving truth is that,as often as I have seen the budding adolescent in her these past weeks and months, I have also had glimpses of the loving, dependent child she still is in her heart and it gives me a beautiful respite from the fear. "Blogging Circle of Friends " Day 2853: September 8, 2020 Prompt: It wasn't until I was older that I understood... It wasn't until I was older that I understood that having expectations of others would be the greatest deterrent to my own happiness. The truth in life is that most people in your will not care about whatever battles you may be facing, what dreams you wish for or what goals you achieve. That has been a hard learned lesson and one I seem bound and determined to keep forgetting. Lately it seems, I'm dealt one reminder or another as to how little I, or anything I may think or feel, matters to the people who would claim to love and care about it. It sounds like I am whining...I'm honestly not. I'm most angry at myself. You see, I am the person who feels compelled to pick up every call, to respond to every text. I "need" to be there, to invest in everyone else - sometimes at my own expense. I am the one condoning the way others make me their second and third choice. There is something inside me that doesn't believe I deserve more sometimes. I thought we got wiser with age but that doesn't seem to be true in my case. I have to keep relearning the same lessons. I have to keep reminding myself not to expect more from other people. I have to remind myself not to be grateful when someone makes me an afterthought. |
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