The call echoes down the stairs of the home where Pete hasn’t been able to find his hat since it was a Jays cap.
“On your closet!”
There’s a pause.
“It’s not there! Can you just come up?” and when I don’t teleport, “We’re going to be late.”
I climb the stairs I once carried him up.
I pull down the hat box, and open it with a flourish.
“In a box!” he says, like I hid it. In the box labelled Pete’s Hat.
“God help Maggie, sons can pull this crap, but husbands?”
Extro
Why is it men can look and not see? I vaguely remember there’s some scientific thing about men looking for a specific shape, so they can’t see the ketchup if it’s on its side, for example, but aren’t these the same men who are supposed to outshine us in spatial perception? Anyway, I digress. My story is just a bit of fun this week, because it’s been a week and I could use the lightness, couldn’t you?
My mother was the creative one. Her artwork drew crowds – masterpieces that balanced simplicity with complexity. She mothered us in her own way, but her pride and joy was always her non-living creations.
So I was the rogue. Spun out early, hunted chemical creativity and spiraled further out of control.
When she passed, she left only strands of a home and an intricate web of trauma to unpick in therapy.
At rehab, I had to attend Art Class. Silk Weaving, ironically. I was wary, but the motions came more naturally than I expected and with each strand, the healing began.
Extroduction
What an stunning picture from Sandra. I have been thinking a lot about spiders recently, after an interesting conversation with my therapist about my former fear of them and how I overcame it. Their webs really are the most beautiful of traps.
My story stems from that, and not from my own experiences – my mother was neither an artist nor a spider, and I have never been the rogue. So it’s fiction. As usual. Honestly, just assume everything I write is fiction, it’s easier that way!
Thanks to Lisa Fox for the photo this week. I was intrigued by the apparently gift wrapped pictures, but I went a different way.
It’s Art If You Say It’s Art
Maggie picked up the paper. Turned it around. Twice
“Wow. You’ve put a lot of black into this one.”
Did she sound impressed? She hoped so, didn’t want to crush his little spirit with the “what’s it meant to be?” question, or worse try to guess and get it wildly wrong. She’d read too many parenting books to fall into *that* trap.
“It’s a representation of how our past overshadows our present, so we are never truly free,” said her son, reverently.
“So, you didn’t like your past, eh? Think Dad and I did a bad job?”
“Well… not necessarily.”
Extroduction
Oh, art. I’m afraid it’s a mystery to me. I like what I like, but I couldn’t tell you why or what makes a ‘good’ piece of art. Sometimes I think it’s entirely random what becomes worthless and what priceless.
I do know that I love painting and sketching. And that the process means more to me than the product. Dominic demanded I sketch kittens on our recent train journey. Afterwards he declared that one looked like a demon. Ah, well, forever learning.
Below, the kitten sketches just to haunt you. Don’t worry, you don’t have to say anything nice.
I spot him through the window, recognising his profile. The man I knew so many years ago didn’t have a sprinkling of grey across his temples, stood up straighter, held himself with more awareness.
The man at the bar is old, I can tell he’s let himself go. Not in the sense of failure; he’s relaxed into himself. He no longer has anything to prove.
I wonder if he’ll see the same thing in me. Yes, my body is softer, but so is my heart. The years haven’t always been kind, but they’ve taught me to be kind to myself.
Extroduction
I’d better say this quick – it’s fiction folks. I’ve been married a hundred years; no danger of old flames round here! This post comes with a better late than never note, since it’s Saturday and I usually post Wednesdays. Maybe that’s what my character is thinking too!
Another sunset photo – this week from Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Sky’s On Fire
Victoria looks out of the window and sighs. The sky to the South burns. She can’t hear it from here, can’t feel the heat of the flames, but she knows what it feels like to be closer and she’s glad of the snow and ice that surround her.
The fire could easily spread. She knows that. Winter will be no match for its hunger if the winds turn.
So she fills her buckets and packs her go bag – keeping one eye on the awesome menace – and does her best to go about her day without succumbing to her fear.
Extroduction
Definitely a story about literal fires. What else could this Canuck be referring to?
Passing Mae’s Diner, before the second Springfield, the car sputtered, then stalled. Shelly wasn’t sure she’d come far enough, but she’d have to trust that Milton wouldn’t think of meek little Shell buying a beat-up old dinger and heading West. She was out of options.
From the diner door, a woman beckoned, smiling.
2025
Shelly was locking the front door of the diner she’d run for years, taking over when Mae retired. A beat-up car ground to a halt outside and a girl stepped out – eyes red, cheek blue. Shelly opened the front door and welcomed her inside.
I’ve always known better than to step on a crack in the pavement. Bears, you see. Or bad luck. I suppose bears would be bad luck, so maybe that’s not an ‘or’.
But too many ill-informed city councils replaced tarmac and concrete with brick patterns – interesting and classy and, critically, pedestrianized.
Take away the cars and make the shopping streets safer. Obviously you have to walk further from the now distant carpark, in the rain, but you won’t be scooped up by a bus or sideswiped by a taxi driver. Safer.
Except for the infinitely increased risk of bears.
Extroduction
Bit of a silly one today, with a tribute to AA Milne, and to all the fun of being part of a family who care about such things.
NB – the bears in this weeks’ story are not directly connected to last week’s bears. Pure coincidence. Nothing to see here.
My photo today – take a couple of weeks ago in Quebec City.
The Short Way
“You look like you’ve walked miles,” Jimmy laughs as Joan shakes the snow off her coat and sits opposite. She lives on Grand Champlain, a short dash away down the Petit Champlain steps.
“I might Uber back,” she says.
“Through the alley?”
“Nah, I don’t fancy being raped, mugged or murdered tonight.”
Jimmy’s heard girls fear attackers everywhere, but it’s the first time he’s really confronted it. “You’d rather walk miles around or pay for a car, than walk 250 metres between houses in the dark?” he asks.
“Of course,” Joan nods. “And in case you’re wondering, the bear. Always.”
Extroduction
Back in university, I lived for a year in a lovely house just across a park from town. Everything from shopping and classes to friends and hobbies, lay diagonally across the park. It was maybe a fifteen minute walk along that path, including a narrow bridge across the stream, a bit of towpath and the low possibility of meeting cows. You could go around the park and add five-ten extra minutes, but still without streetlights and with the gloom of the empty grassland on one or both sides. Or you could go the ridiculously long way around, more than double the time it took, but stick to residential side streets.
For the boys in our house, there was no discussion, even internally, about which route to take. They’d saunter across the park, morning, noon or 2am, without even considering other options. But for us girls, it was a decision *every time*. The more tired you were, the more tempting the shorter route, but also that usually meant it was late at night, there were fewer people around and you felt less alert to deal with danger.
Female friends and I have had the shorthand of “raped and mugged and murdered” to describe the danger of being a female alone in the wild since before I hit puberty. We know, women, that the greatest danger to us is men, and neither ‘not all men’ nor ‘more likely to be attacked by someone you know’ are even SLIGHTLY the reassurance we’re looking for. Sometimes a chivalrous young male friend would offer to walk my friend home on her equally perilous journey. I don’t recall ever getting the same offer, but that second line reflects her experience that those ‘gentlemen’ didn’t necessarily make her safer.
So yes, boys, when we tell you we’d rather meet a bear in the woods than a man, I understand you think we don’t understand how dangerous a bear can be, but I will tell you with 100% certainty, that you’re underestimating the man.
Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for this week’s image
Marrying Right
It started with the dress. I didn’t want to wear white – the virginal, innocent bride, handed over to her new owner by her father. Excuse me while I vomit.
Then Tom said if I wasn’t being conventional, he’d ditch the whole suit getup and pick up a new party shirt.
We told the guests “dress as yourself” and substituted the floral arrangements with balloons and string lights.
Then we started designing the cake. By the time we were done it looked like the campervan my Gran lived in during the 60s.
That gave us an idea for the honeymoon…
Extroduction
They say every little girl dreams of her wedding day, and every woman has plans. It wasn’t like that for me, but I did find I cared more about the details than I’d expected when it came down to it. In most elements, we were fairly traditional, but the bits I remember most are where we strayed from convention and expressed ourselves. The couple in my story have done that throughout, and I personally believe their wedding and marriage that follows can be better for it.
I can’t imagine they’d lead with the Canon, but this is a beautiful combination.
They engage in price fixing and tax dodging for millions, but sure, my $2 game is the thievery. Kid came by today, six times maybe. Always clutching his change, smudged face, eager smile. Shuffleboard is his game, but not, honestly, his skillset. A bigger lad, smarter clothes, pushes past and grabs the shinny. Of course, it flies off the end all 3 times and this guy cries fix. Then the boy takes it from him, shoots for the umpteenth time, falls short. Again. I grab him the biggest teddy bear on the stand. “You think you can carry this home?”
Extroduction
I had a friend a while back whose parents were travelling fairground workers. Although many of the terms used about these people have negative connotations, she was proud of her Dad, the carney, of the money they earned and the way of life they raised their kids in. It wasn’t an easy or wealthy life, but it was full of camaraderie, support and love.
From the other side of the tent, kids for generations have loves the gambling, the thrills and the excitement of the carnival. I steal myself for the cost, but I love taking our boys to the fair.
So God bless the carneys who fill our world with fun, laughter and hope.
elmowrites 