Sunday Scribblings - Fearless

Once upon a time there was the fairest garden in all the world. Bright flowers danced and the air was sweet with the breath of trees. It was all that one could ever wish for. And safely tucked up together in this wonderful place lived two caterpillars...

Listen and I will tell you.

They were very handsome caterpillars in their way. He was orange and she was lilac which was good as these were the colours that they each liked to look at best. They spent their days curled up together, watching the world's going on and talking as if they would never stop thinking of interesting things to learn of each other. They set each other riddles and rhymes. Spoke of cabbages and kings, dreams and stars - laughing and thrilling to be together. And loved each other with their whole heart's soul.

Sometimes they would give each other gifts. She would go out and bring back sprigs of heaven scented herb that she knew he would like. He would find for her soft petals to lie upon in a mark of such thoughtful beauty that she felt her heart to burst with the joy of knowing him.

Most times though they lay together, just being together. Knowing the other was near. And that was all they needed.

One day a new voice was heard in the garden. It sounded odd. - compelling, but revolting at the same time.

What is that? asked she.
I don't know he said. Stay here, I'll look.
He went out a little way, came back, looking ill.
Well? she asked.
He shrugged. It is fear. He tried to make light of it, but she knew.
What is it doing here? This is our garden.
I don't know...yes I do...It has come for us, he replied.
Well it can't have us, she said indignantly.
He smiled, but said sadly What we want might not come into it.
I don't care! she cried. Tell it to go away

Fear sat outside on a branch, flapping huge brown wings and singing an awful song about eggs.

She shuddered and pressed closer to him I wish it would go away
He smiled at her, soothing, I'll protect you
I know she said simply, I'll protect you too
Thank you he smiled again I know.

They lay, curled up tightly together and listened to fear's horrible song.

Trying to be brave for each other, knowing in their hearts that this could be the end. Dreading losing each other, being torn away. They knew it could happen and never had they loved each other so as when they knew the end of all things sang outside.
Aware as never before of the softness of skin, the dearness of a smile.

I'm sleepy she whispered. You are so lovely and warm.
Come here, he said. Are you comfortable?
I am with you,she replied. There is nothing else. What happens, happens.
You are everything to me, he said. Do you know that?
She laughed softly Of course I do, silly.
He laughed too, secretly amazed that she could laugh at a time like this.
Can we do anything? she asked, reading his mind.
No he replied gently.
Then we see what happens and until then I'll laugh because I have you and fear does not.

She snuggled into him and swiftly fell asleep.
He watched over her. Thoughts lurching round his head. He began to feel a bit light-headed. It was strange, very strange.
He watched, as if in a dream, the dust coloured blanket wrap around them. Unaware that it was he that made it. Wrapping them both in silken safety. Fear could not get them here.

They slept...

They slept for a long, long time and dreamed the wildest, most vivid dreams: of air and movement, bright colour and liquid light, the sweetest scented taste of flowers.

It was the sunrise that woke them. He was sure of it, but she maintains to this day that it was the sound of falling rain. Either way they both agreed that the rainbow that arced across the sky was a beauty.

But what neither of them knew was that the rainbow itself wished for wings as clear and silken as the ones they now carried and carried them where ever they wished to go.

and neither of them cared what the rainbow, or anyone else thought.

They had each other and that was enough.

THE END


For other examples of fearlessness check out Sunday Scribblings here

Sunday Scribblings - Passion

I am bobbing on another stream of insomnia. House MD is uploading on another window. And so my poor brain turns to the Sunday Scribblings prompt. I believe that I did this last week, bizarrely enough, writing about sleep when sleep was yet hours away. Even more ironic to write about passion when I am feeling as passionate as an old teabag.

I think the previous two posts cover quite a bit of ground on the old passion stakes. The fact that a building moved me to tears is fairly indicative of my love of art and architecture. The fact that I am nuts about spinning is apparent to all who know me. But I don't really want to focus on spinning right now.

Passion is a wonderful word - a Cathy and Heathcliffe word - but really in essence it means emotion. Passion being the opposite of rationality. Hmmmn. Passion, emotion: the soft underbelly, the vulnerability of the human - particularly the artistic types - the writers, the artists, the musicians, the visionaries of all kinds.
It deserves a poem really doesn't it? And a damned good one too. I shall have a think...

And late Sunday morning here it is:

Song
by Ted Hughes

O lady, when the tipped cup of the moon blessed you
You became soft fire with a cloud's grace;
The difficult stars swam for eyes in your face;
You stood, and your shadow was my place:
You turned, your shadow turned to ice
O my lady.

O lady, when the sea caressed you
You were a marble of foam, but dumb.
When will the stone open its tomb?
When will the waves give over their foam?
You will not die, nor come home,
O my lady.

O lady, when the wind kissed you
You made him music for you were a shaped shell.
I follow the waters and the wind still
Since my heart heard it and all to pieces fell
Which your lovers stole, meaning ill,
O my lady.

O lady, consider when I shall have lost you
The moon's full hands, scattering waste,
The sea's hands, dark from the world's breast,
The world's decay where the wind's hands have passed,
And my head, worn out with love, at rest
In my hands, and my hands full of dust,
O my lady.

Sunday Scribblings - Sleep

Sleep is wonderful. I love dreaming, especially the ones where I fly. Sleep gives us the chance to sort out all the hectic thoughts that we don't have the time or the inclination to address when we are awake. It heals, it fills us. I fall into sleep with relief.

And getting into bed, lying down, feeling the soft cotton and the gentle hold of the duvet around me, pillows giving just enough under the weight of my head.
Staring up at the stars or the moon when it sails past my window. In summer, with the window open, listening to the waterfall or the distant hum of a car as someone makes the solitary journey up the valley. Falling into the darkness to the familiar sound of the house around me muttering to itself, tinking pipes, the creak of the bunk when Rose turns over in her sleep, the clack of the catflap as Zac goes off to, or returns from, a midnight adventure. I wonder where he goes, what paths he finds in his cat world, wide open to his night vision. The scents he finds, what it is like to push through bramble and fern towering above his head. A beast of prey on his mountain.
Before I know it I am asleep.

I wish sometimes I could savour the pleasure of falling asleep for longer than I do. To enjoy tipping over the brink in the same way as sinking into a deep, warm bath or melting chocolate on my tongue.
I wish sometimes that I could stay asleep. I miss sleeping and I hate the sucking dryness of my energy levels after a bout of insomnia. How poisoned it feels to know that the time I should have spent usefully topping up my body's store of strength instead has been given over to thoughts and worries that serve little purpose.
Sometimes however, the extra time is useful. I spin, write, imagine my other lives that I could have led. I pray sometimes, for those who also cannot sleep but for more serious reasons that habitual insomnia. I think how blessed I am. I watch my daughters sleep, like pearls in oysters, still and perfect. I watch them breathe, mutter, stretch and sink back once more. Rose laughs and I wonder what she is dreaming of.
I wander downstairs, make a cup of tea, snuggle up in a blanket and stare once more out at the stars. If I am lucky and I close the laptop soon I will get back to sleep tonight.
Funny that, writing about sleep when finding it is an ongoing struggle for me.
Nos da cariad, I hope you are sleeping well and are held in gentle dreams.

Sunday Scribblings - Fellow Travellers

It takes a bit to get my dad to tell stories. More than a pint or two. But after a while if you nudge him, he'll start to think and then, if you stay quiet, he'll start to talk. This is one of my favourites. The story of my dad and his fellow traveller in a brief but heart stopping journey.

We were on patrol, looking for rebels. There were five of us. I was in the lead. It was hard going through virgin jungle, maybe three or four miles was all you could do in a day.
There were no tracks, just dense green. It was quiet but not silent, there were the birds and frogs and insects. Spiders as big as your hand and you could not see the webs until you had walked into them. They stuck to your face.
There were no paths, there were just spaces between the trees, but it opened out suddenly into a clearing. There was a pool and plenty of space. A good spot for all kinds of trouble. I stopped and looked around as best I could. I couldn't hear anything unusual.
Then into the clearing walked a tiger. It stared at me, slowly walked towards the pool and took a long drink. It stared at me the whole time. Then it turned around and in two feet I couldn't see it anymore.
I had been in the jungle for a long time and I had been in all kinds of danger, but I had never hugged my gun so tight as when I was sharing that clearing with that tiger.

Sunday Scribblings - New

This is what came to me when I thought about new things. ps I don't think new babies are spangly but that is how they make me feel. Spangly is a sian word that means excited and scared at the same time.

fresh apples
crisp,
shiny,
crunchy

new wool roving
pleasing,
exciting,
undiscovered

books
new smell,
untouched,
clean,

new babies
breathless,
happy,
spangly,

new moon
bright,
soft,
luminous

Now and Then - Sunday Scribblings

This time last year

Now I am filling in the expected dates in my new calendar. I love doing that. Seeing my whole year spread out in front of me full of potential. Will I start the nurse training? Will I get chickens? Will I manage to do Woolfest this year?
2007 is just about over and what a wild ride it was. Fun though if painful at times but then what is a year if you haven't lived it to the full? I hope 2008 is as adventurous and challenging. Okay Woolfest doesn't sound either but believe me, for me it will be! Adventures and challenges are relative as Sniff in the Moomintrolls will tell you.
This time last year Iwas writing this blog tucked away in my own miniscule corner of cyberspace. At that time I had yet to meet Patois, Nicole, the Sheriff or Pilgrim. And Dizzy, Iolo, Cherub and Pippa had not yet started blogging. Very glad you guys drop by btw.
x


For other thoughts on Then and Now check Sunday Scribblings

Sunday Scribblings - Dance

Our stage is the kitchen, the music starts and away we go. The music carries us and they are away, leaving me free to watch them with my heart in my eyes.
I love to watch my daughters dance. To watch them finding the beat, responding to rhythm and feel. They are sweetly expressive in their unformed grace, bobbing and dipping like little boats on a sea of sound. I am astonished at their beauty.

Then V says "They dance like you" and I see the truth of it. And I don't know what to think - I want them to dance their own dance, to find their own steps but mine is the only dancing they see, how can they not follow? Do they dance because they like to dance or do they dance for my approval? Does it matter if it is both?
They are smiling like sunrise as they dance around me. They are flying. Who cares? Stop worrying Mummy, we are happy.

For more writing on dance check out SS here

Sunday Scribblings - Walk

I love this song, written I think by Mr Hendrix, but I'm not certain about that. Anyway it was covered by The Corrs and was the first thing that sprung to my mind when I thought about walk, which is the prompt for Sunday Scribblings. There is something dreamlike about this song, childlike too in a way, but I also happen to think it is one of the sexiest songs I've heard. "Take anything you want from me" - an inspired line if ever there was one.

I rarely use other peoples words for S S but hey, it is late and I have no words of my own that fit tonight.
Nos da cariad.

"Little Wing"

Now she's walking through the clouds
With a circus mind
That's running wild
Butterflies and zebras
And moonbeams and fairytales
All she ever thinks about is riding with the wind...

When I'm sad she comes to me
With a thousand smiles
She gives to me, free
It's alright, it's alright' she says
Take anything you want from me
Anything

Now she's walking through the clouds
With a circus mind
That's running wild
Butterflies and zebras
And moonbeams and fairytales
All she ever thinks about is riding with the wind...

When I'm sad she comes to me
With a thousand smiles
She gives to me free
It's alright, it's alright' she says
Take anything you want from me
Anything

Fly Little Wing... Yeah, Yeah...

[Guitar solo]

Fly Little Wing...
I want her to fly

Sunday Scribblings - Misspent Youth

I don't know if a youth is ever misspent. Surely every experience goes into making what we are.

(Just about the shortest SS I have ever done!)

Sunday Scribblings

What's Your Sign?
Funny this one. I nearly didn't write about it as my faith does not encourage an interest in astrology. Before I became a Christian I was full into it though and I knew a lot, I could cast charts and all sorts. I found it absolutely fascinating, the subtleties of the study.

As I became interested in the Christian faith I recognised that Deuteronomy was fairly clear - do not look to the stars for guidance. Let me be clear: there is nothing in Scripture that I can find that forbids the study of astrology, however, we are required not to rely upon it or cast our fortune upon it. I am a fundamental kind of person. If you are going to believe something then believe it with your whole heart, don't mess about. I was sorry, but willing to give it up as part of my commitment to the God that I was falling in love with and I laid it down.

I still remember a lot of the information though and when a conversation is started about astrology I join in rather than throw my hands up in horror as I have seen many Christians do. However, the fact is that if you tell me that you are a Scorpio or a Pisces...well, I know a lot about you. (Actually I have never been told by a Scorpio that they are a Scorpio, they always like you to guess, so do Capricorns) I know there is something in it and I acknowledge its accuracy and its limitations. And I do this because I know that the Lord created Heaven and Earth and all that is in it and He is not a God of confusion but of order. He sang the stars into being, in all their beauty and He set them on the paths that they tread through the sky. It is natural that there is a grace and precision that even mankind can spot.

I was born in early March and to some that makes me a Piscean. Well, I see enough of the character in me to go with that sure... and I think being a Pisces is pretty cool actually, but the fact of the matter is that I was reborn under the sign of the Cross and that means I don't have to be limited to what I want to do or what kind of person I want to be because of the position of a constellation against the sun at the time of my birth. I can be anything I want because Jesus said I can.


For additional discussion of this topic may I recommend what my dear V has to say: check it out here, it is interesting.

Sunday scribblings

Country

City

Probably had way too much time on my hands this morning, but hey, fun with photoshop and it kept me quiet.
Look here for more Sunday Scribblings

Sunday scribblings

A Small Hymn of Praise

Thanks for warm doorsteps at sundown,
merlot wine,
hot buttered corn on the cob,
the flight of crows,
starlings pops and whistles,
ice cream and seafoam.
For these and all other blessings,
we thank you Lord.

For Sunday Scribblings prompt on Simple

Sunday scribblings

Masks

Been thinking a bit about parties a bit lately (thanks Nicole). How will I celebrate my fortieth. Yes, I know, I have plenty of time to plan, but it's as well to be prepared. And then this morning, making the coffee, I popped on Rose's request CD, Disney Princess and it hit me. Come as your favourite Disney villain.

Seconds later I thought, hang on...I'm a good girl I am, why villains? Because in acting/theatre at least, villains are more fun.
V is the most moral man I have ever met, and yet he would love to play Gaston (Beauty and the Beast). I love Ursula the sea witch in the Little Mermaid. Though I'm not quite up to her weight, or voice, but she is still fabulous. And then you get the A grade bad eggs: Jafar, The Wicked Stepmother(s) and the biggest of the lot, Malificent, who gets to turn into a dragon. Cool.

Sometimes wouldn't you love to unleash your inner baddie (not in a Psycho way of course) but just acknowledge that sometimes its a bit of fun to wear a scary mask.

What Disney villain would you come as?

Sunday scribblings

Second Chance
They say that for every choice we make a part of our life breaks off and continues elsewhere - an alternative reality or something. It is an absorbing notion. There is a me still in Africa, there is a me on a Carmarthen farm, there are several, I am sure, where I am no longer even alive.

A few months ago I got to see one of my alternatives quite closely, a second chance to see a man I once knew when I was a very young woman, only just past the girl really.
Oh, years ago this man was something to see. He moved like water or a particularly well bred cat and courting some one else though I was, he made his interest in me clear. I thought about it, messy though it would have been, but soon thought the better of it.

I left his sphere and did not see him for the next fourteen years. In this time he married a girl who was far more beautiful than I. She was Irish with dark flashing eyes and she held herself like a queen. They were married for ten years, had two daughters and then they divorced. He could not help himself...married to a sweet natured beauty, he still wanted more, something else, someone else, his own second chance...

As I said, a few months ago I saw this chap once more, quite unexpectedly. His ex-wife was just picking up her children. We chatted, catching up, knowing that we would probably never have such another set of random circumstances to meet each other again. She is still as lovely as ever. He has aged, thickened at the waist, but still an eye catching way with him.

And it could have been me, picking up my daughters, seeing a man with whom I once shared life and do so no longer.
I went home to my own man, knowing that we will lose each other only to death, not to what might have been. Some second chances you can keep.

Sunday scribblings

Oceans are far from me
Lonely and tranquil as the moon

Oceans are indeed foriegn to me - my island is surrounded by seas and channels with small familiar names - Bristol channel, Irish Sea, North Sea, The Wash, who can get romantic about a body of water called The Wash?!

I don't like the sea anyway as I have said before. It always seems as though it is lying in wait, biding its time.

Oceans however are so large that they are beyond malice ( or anthropormophology - there's a word!) And what is more, oceans are found far away, on the way to America, Polynesia, Japan or India. Far, far away, sights I'll probably never see... then again...

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