100 Things

Thanks for the photo, Beanie!

Not only was I inspired to pinch this picture from Nicole’s recent post at The Paper Teapot, I was prompted to follow her example and list one hundred things I love. She took the challenge from Julia Cameron’s “The Right to Write”, a creative manual I have not acquired myself, but then I’ve always appreciated others doing the reading for me.

Nic was right about this—once you start, it’s hard to stop. So here goes, in no particular order (except the top three) and in no way the limit of things that give me joy:

1.             Ter

2.            My family

3.            My friends

4.            Chocolate

5.            Vampires

6.            “A Song of Ice and Fire” (the books, not the TV series)

7.            Sitting at the ocean

8.           French fries

9.            Bass players

10.        Fast cars

11.         Movies about writers

12.        19^th century Paris

13.        Puppies

14.        Bailey’s Original

15.         Flâneries

16.        Duran Duran

17.         Warming spices

18.        Laughing

19.        Making other people laugh

20.       Summer rain

21.        Winter storms

22.       Documentaries about royalty

23.       Charles II of England

24.       Chrome (not the browser)

25.        The rumble of a muscle car’s engine

26.       Smooth jazz

27.        Fridays

28.       Lavender

29.       Extra-foamy tea lattes

30.       My CD collection

31.        Family photos

32.       Horses

33.       James Tiberius Kirk

34.       Stretching

35.        Candlelight

36.       Costume dramas

37.        Singing along

38.       Going for tea

39.       Shawls

40.       Teddy bears

41.        Bacon cheeseburgers

42.       Watching the sunrise

43.       Christmas

44.       The first page of a new read

45.        White roses

46.       Reminiscing

47.        Soft ice cream

48.       Finishing a writing project

49.       Starting a writing project

50.       Classic Mustangs

51.         Watching snow fall

52.        Hot showers

53.        Afternoon naps

54.        Baking cookies

55.        Solitude

56.        Michael York

57.        Going barefoot

58.       Art Deco

59.        Long necklaces

60.       Rhubarb crumble with custard

61.        Turkey stuffing

62.       Cashmere

63.       Birthday presents

64.       Cheesecake

65.        Fuzzy socks

66.       Hockey

67.        Canada

68.       Hugs (giving and getting)

69.       “The Night Circus”

70.       Telling people how wonderful they are

71.         Embracing my age

72.        Philosophical debates

73.        Long drives

74.        Night skies

75.        Def Leppard

76.        Museums

77.        Colouring

78.       Brownies

79.        Main streets in little villages

80.      Breakfast for dinner

81.        Full skirts

82.       Morning fog

83.       Kids playing street hockey

84.       Lying on the couch listening to music

85.       Massages

86.       The wind blowing through me

87.       Peppermint

88.      Crossword puzzles

89.       Lazy Sundays

90.       The sun on my skin

91.        Classic rock

92.       Sharpies

93.       Getting my hair done

94.       Making gratitude lists

95.        Bedtime

96.       Bookstores

97.        Jaguar X-types

98.       Flying

99.       Dreaming

100.   Being alive ...

With love,

“Snow Dance”

The sky thickened like pudding, clear and watery to start, gradually deepening until the colour was obscured by cloud. Ominous cloud. Scowling, gun metal grey cloud, loaded with menace and threatening Armageddon.

The first flakes were pellets no bigger than Styrofoam crumbs, and so sporadic that you couldn’t be sure they were real as they skittered at eye level past the window.

My rose tea latte was perfect, black and half-sweet, blistering hot under four inches of foam. Using a plastic plug in lieu of a spoon, I savoured the mousse while watching the snow pellets blossom into flakes, some joining forces to create frozen flowers, others flying solo, smaller but no less troublesome once their numbers increased. The line up at the counter lengthened accordingly as people streamed in, thinking to wait out the worst over coffee or at least get it to go and beat the blizzard home.

Snow has a funny way of falling. Some flakes float straight toward the ground. Others zip by at an angle, driven hard with no set destination. Still others dance like fairies in the wind, flitting back and forth, up and down; crystalline butterflies sketching zigzag paths against the winter sky. It’s quite simply beautiful. It’s even more beautiful with a hot drink, a warm scarf, and soft jazz playing in the background.

I take forty minutes to empty a medium cup. In the space of those minutes, the world went from bright and sunny to blazing white to the damp, dismal grey customary of February on the west coast. The crazy snow fell but didn’t stick. Like my half sweet black rose latte, it was just enough to be enjoyed without regrettable repercussions down the road.

That’s why I live here.

* * *

It's been a while since I've done a writing exercise. A little artistic embellishment here, but basically this was how my Sunday morning went.

“The Christmas Party”

Their eyes met across the room, and for the space of a heartbeat, time stood still.

He wasn’t the most handsome man in the crowd, but his laugh lines and silvered temples struck her as wildly attractive. From his vantage point, she was beautiful without trying, soft in hair and form, and when she smiled, it too was soft, alluring in the manner of good Scotch or a warm sweater on a cold day.

Most of the women at the party would be offended at comparisons to alcohol and comfortable clothes. Somehow, he thought she wouldn’t mind.

They circled the room like moons in orbit, moving but drawing no closer. Conversation foiled them from approaching each other, idle chitchat about plans for the holidays and inevitable griping about office politics, some of which were in evident play over finger food and wine. Her smile only deepened at the catty commentary, her eyes revealing nothing. Intrigued at a distance, he forgot himself and changed the subject from his golfing handicap to getting out of town for Christmas. His colleagues traded wry glances and discreetly let it go.

Corporately funded, it was a semi-formal gathering, a show of appreciation from the executive members who mingled with the worker bees. The drinks were paid for and appetizers unlimited. The men wore ties and the women wore heels. Music was meant to encourage conversation rather than make it impossible. Dinner was a natural follow up, since everyone was already in their party clothes, and people who had arrived with a partner began joining other couples to form a larger group.

He finally made it to her side. “Would you be offended if I said that dress looks wonderful on you?”

She looked him up and down, her gaze lingering thoughtfully on the sapphire silk knotted at his throat. “How could I be, when it matches your tie so well it almost looks planned?”

“In that case, will you join me for dinner?”

She laughed. “You don’t fool around.”

“I assure you, I’m completely serious.”

One of the sales staff called to them. “Are you two coming?”

Their eyes met again, this time at close range. “What do you think?” he asked in a low voice.

“Mm,” she replied lazily, her gaze wandering over him once more. “I guess it would be a shame to waste this dress.”

“Especially since it matches my tie,” he observed.

“Guys! Are you coming?”

Her head moved minutely and he nodded once. “Not this time, Jim,” he said over his shoulder. He turned back to find her still smiling. “I’m all yours,” he told her.

“Good,” she answered. “Let’s go home.”

“What about dinner?”

“I’ll scramble some eggs.”

“We paid the sitter to midnight.”

“Oh, so what? The kids will be in bed, that’s what matters.”

They passed Jim and the gang on their way to collect their coats. The faces were hilarious as he helped her into her cream wool then took her hand to walk her out. “ ’Night, all,” she said brightly on the way by. “See you next year.”

“Merry Christmas, you two,” Jim replied, dryly. “And happy anniversary!” he added before the doors closed behind them.

“Ghost Story”

They tore down her house. She disappeared for a wink and when she returned, it was gone. An empty lot, littered with wreckage from the home she had known, welcomed her like the gap in a grin left by a knocked out tooth.

So many years, so many memories. Shades of those who had gone before, of lives intertwined by blood and circumstance, bonds formed over decades—all destroyed in a day.

She recalled neighbours in the suite below her attic penthouse: the tech boys hauling their big screen TV into the yard for playoff barbeques; university students burning the midnight oil while cramming for exams. She had banged on the floor when the stereo got too loud and slammed her closet doors to let them know they weren’t alone in their space. Her favourite had been the brown-haired girl who had shyly smiled but never said a word as she passed in the stairwell.

Gone; all gone, and now where would she go?

Time has a funny way of passing. Too soon, she came back for a visit and found the gap in the street’s housing smile filled by a new construct, out of character with its neighbours and occupied by a family of immigrants, her attic penthouse replaced by a little boy’s bedroom, blue with sailboats painted on one wall.

She sat in the armchair near the window and watched over him while he slept. One night he woke up and looked straight at her. She smiled. He blinked twice, accepted her presence, and went back to sleep.

It’s not the house, she decided. It’s the people within it that make it a home.

“The River”

I stand on a riverbank. Tall grass grows on the far shore, a line of spears in silhouette against the predawn gloom. The sky is dark with cloud, though the clouds are lanced with vivid streaks of orange and pink. The water is smeared with the same colours, slow moving, winding its way toward an ocean I have never seen and cannot name. I am looking toward the horizon, waiting for the first bright rays of sun.

It’s too early for birdsong, but I hear the whine of mosquitoes on the tranquil morning air. The sound makes my skin itch, and I slide my hand up my sleeve to scratch absent-mindedly at the remains of a recent bite. Grasshoppers hum in the deep grass on both sides of the river, and something is cooing softly in the distance. It’s a peaceful moment, one worth cherishing before the world awakens.

The sunrise is precious. I anticipate it with religious dedication. That first golden wink heralds a new day, full of possibility and proof that yesterday is done. I don’t even look over my shoulder to see which way I came. It is enough to know my past is there. I may revisit at any time, with the understanding that it cannot be changed. The future will also have its way, but not until this moment is over.

I wonder where I am.

The distant cooing thickens with the deepening dawn sky. Though the cloud remains a dark, dense gray, the pink within it becomes coral and the orange turns the colour of flame. It is ever this way, the intensifying colour as sunrise draws near. It doesn’t matter where or when I am; this is the moment when daydream meets daylight.

If you don’t know where you are, I have been told, look at your shoes. I drop my gaze and see my feet in sandals, my ankles thin and bare beneath the hem of trousers as shapeless as my shirt. The ground is muddy, and I have the odd sense that the fingers spanning the width of my soles have sunk a bit. I think I am in Asia ... but where?

As I lift my head, I note the first spark of sun is not golden but white, bright white, and the thickening coo is now the thrumming of rotors on a monstrous flying machine.

I am in Vietnam.

* * *

Music is a powerful stimulant for the imagination—but is everything we picture in our mind’s eye imagined? Or is it a fragment of a life so long past we don’t remember it? A composition called “First Light” by Michael DeMaria never fails to conjure the scene described above, though the helicopter did not appear until I delved further into my initial vision. Kinda sucks, really. The serenity originally inspired by the music (and doubtless intended by the composer) is probably ruined forever because I pressed myself for something beyond that precious moment when a glorious new day is born, and foreboding answered the call.

“Diva XVI”

The room was dark, womblike, and comfortable with the familiar scents of her perfume, cigarette smoke, and sex. Ellie lay on her back, staring toward a ceiling she couldn’t actually see, and one word slurred into the next as she spoke to no one in particular.

“I was almost married, once.”

He answered drowsily from the sheets next to her. “You mean to someone else?”

“His name was Alfred.”

“I’ve never heard you mention him before.”

“Couldn’t talk about it.”

“Do you want to talk now?”

She took a deep drag on her cigarette and let the smoke out through her nose. “I’d rather have another Scotch.”

“We’re out.”

“Shit,” she said before she took another drag.

Movement on her left suggested that he’d propped himself on an elbow to peer in her direction, though the dark was as impenetrable from his side of the bed as it was from hers. “Tell me what happened,” he coaxed. “Did you dump him?”

“He died,” she said.

“Jesus, Ellie ... I’m sorry. That was stupid.”

“It sure was,” she replied, though she wasn’t referring to his ill-timed joke. She took another puff and started to ramble, lapsing without realizing into her childhood drawl. “We were both really young and my aunt wasn’t crazy about me marryin’ a cowboy, so Alfred enlisted to give her some time. He reckoned joinin’ the army would make him respectable to my folks, and I’d be old enough to wed when he got back from his postin’. I was scared to death they’d send him straight into the war, but when they sent him to Hawaii instead, I thought my prayers had been answered. I prayed a lot back then; I sorta had to under the circumstances, but I really meant it when I prayed for God to keep Alfred safe. When he told me where he was goin’, I thought, Lord Almighty, you’re the best! You know? Hawaii was on the other side of the world from where the action was; it seemed a sure thing he’d come back and we’d be married soon as he stepped off the train. But two months after he left, the Japs bombed Pearl Harbour ... an’ that was that.”

Silence from the other side of the bed. She wondered if he had fallen asleep, until she felt his lips form a soft kiss on her shoulder. “Jesus, Ellie,” he repeated in a low voice, “I’m so sorry.”

She shrugged, grateful for the numbing amount of booze in her bloodstream. “I wasn’t good enough for him, I guess.”

“Not good enough? Who told you that?”

Immediately, Auntie’s voice echoed in Ellie’s head though she chose not to answer the question. “It’s as well,” she said instead. “If I’d a-married Alfred then, I wouldn’t be a movie star now.”

“That’s probably true, but did you want to be a movie star?”

“Hell, yeah. Doesn’t every girl?”

“I thought every girl wants to be married.”

Laughter mingled with the smoke she blew from her nose. “Now that’s stupid. Why be married when I can do whoever I want?”

“Is that why you’re not marrying Seward?”

She said nothing, just lay and smoked until ash scorched her fingers.

“Bond? Does he have any idea where you are?”

Ellie rolled away to grind her cigarette into the bedside ashtray, then rolled back again, into his arms. “Shut up, Swain,” she drawled, coiling one leg around his hip. “Shut up and fuck me again.”

This Wind

It has a personality of its own, this wind. It alternately teases and threatens as it blinds me with my own hair and pushes me along the sidewalk. Even the trees are daunted, shivering at its touch as they never do in spring. They feel its insistent tug on their leaves. They know its mercurial nature, its changeable moods. They know, and so do I.

It smells of autumn, this wind. Crisp and cold, blended echoes of wood smoke and dark moist earth tickle my nose. The stink of seaweed at low tide is equally pungent on a cloudy day. The placid time of green perfume is past. Winter chill rides on this wind.

It has teeth, this wind. I sense its potential to bite as it brushes by my cheek, though when it hints at more than a nip, I have the sense to stay indoors.

It’s a vocal beast, this wind. It whispers through those shivering trees (and what do they hear that makes them tremble so?); it murmurs and moans and even chuckles as it chases the leaves in frantic circles around my feet. Once in a while, it roars. It picks up the ocean and flings it at the shore. It pummels the roof with rain and howls along the street, funnelled between buildings that amplify its voice to epic decibels.

It can also be a friend, this wind. It strokes my hair and kisses my ear, and curls like an amiable arm about my shoulders. I like it best in this congenial humour, when it accepts me as part of Nature’s greater whole. We sit together by the sea, saying nothing. We are aware of each other and content in company—then, without warning, the mood shifts. The sky lowers and the sea grows dark. The waves churn, white-capped and surly, in the rising gale. It’s time to go indoors.

It’s in front of me, this bullying wind. I would hurry, but the playful menace blows me back toward the beach, goading me, pulling at my scarf, tearing at my hair. Seagulls float overhead; they’ve figured out how to work with this wind. So have the little birds. They make themselves into torpedoes and aim themselves for home. What a good idea! I huddle into my coat. I duck my head. I push against the flow and manage to gain the street. It comes from all directions, this crazy-making wind. I can’t see through my hair, I can’t hear past the wailing in my ears, but I persevere and gain the safety of home.

Upstairs, I stand at the window with a mug of tea in my hands. I watch the raging surf and the wild trees, and am reminded of something humbling.

I am so much smaller than this wind.