Love in the Time of Corona

It has been way too long since I did this. Way waaay too long. With the constant stream of everyday life, I haven't been listening to my muse..but now...corona! Doesn't it sound like a pretty royal excuse to not leave the house and do something all by our lonesome?

All joking aside, the fears and dangers of corona have been largely discussed and mused about these past few weeks and I don't plan on doing a special on healthcare here, on this blog. What I'm more interested in is how to spend this newfound time we have on our hands - due to being housebound. To stay put can be a scary command for those of us who are used to busying themselves socially, in large groups of people.

I imagine, it can be quite awkward silently reading a book. Or staring at a wall, thinking, if you're not used to doing something like that. Philosophers supposedly do that all day, but these are a rare breed of people with really special needs. You may not see the immediate appeal, but I think being quarantined can be an awesome experience; it all depends on your expectations. And as a couch potato queen, procrastinative genius, lazy-boned blob myself, I promise you, if you just let it happen, you will have a blast.

There are no rules for procrastination in times of corona, except maybe to not let panic mode destroy your precious time of being in the moment. So I would not recommend on doing corona-related research on the internet. Mortality rates, nah. Stay up to date, yes, but pandemic crises reports? Only when directed by Roland Emmerich!

I have several ideas on how to spend the next few weeks. Gardening is high on my list, it would have been anyway, because it is the type of outdoors solitude I enjoy with the advantage of not having to sneeze into my crooks. I plan on reading even more, but that of course means I have to park my two kids, currently home bound with me, somewhere, where they, in turn can procrastinate all by themselves.

Shut up, you, I'm raising a new generation here!

I want to finally immerse myself in The Witcher 3, I want to watch the new season of Better Call Saul, I want to do some more illustrations, do nothing at all, paint a cabinet, declutter my kitchen. This time I will have, it's not all me running wild. I imagine it is much like life in a monastery. Solitude, a nice herbal gardening project, and lots of walking around in my robe, turning inwards for reflections and stuff.

Well, the reality will be, that I'll probably have to do a lot more kids stuff than I planned on, and I have a sneaking suspicion that solitude, when prescribed, will throw me into a reactant spiral of "You can't tell me what to do!" unrest. So maybe I'll start a rave or something, just to be a bit subversive. Other than that: greener pastures, my friends.

What are all of you going to do? Will you befriend yourself all anew? Will you practice being alone with your thoughts? That doesn't mean being asocial, you know. It just means that you, for a certain time in your life, are enough and content being around you. It's good. You're close family. Being you is one of the best things you have in your life. So, take care. Have a ball, you.

My Kid's in Color

My kid is really strange. He's odd with words and people, and sometimes with his hands and feet. Watching him among others is watching him being in his own world. Most of the time, he doesn't even take note of the world around him. Nor does he seem to care. He doesn't participate in other children's play, and he doesn't get the rules they set up amongst themselves. To his own world, their rules have no meaning.

He walks across the blanket two girls spread out to have a picnic. He does that over and over. I think he likes the color, red and white, and the fact that there's squares on the fabric. And he likes the feeling of walking on it, because it's soft and he has no shoes on. That is all. In the meantime, the girls get furious. "Don't walk across that blanket anymore. How hard is it to understand, stupid?"

I can tell you now: it is very hard. Yes, my kid is stupid. He's not really noticing that he's upsetting the girls. But they, in turn, are also stupid. Because they're not getting how great it is, to just be walking barefoot across a blanket without thinking of anything but your feet. Without thinking of the rules of girls, the rules of having picnics in public, or properly socializing with people. I mean, seriously, how cool is it, to not care about anything besides what it feels like to walk across a blanket?

And how awesome is it, to just run around without a destination until your cheeks are all red, and you get so exhausted, you're barely able to breathe? How awesome is it, to be that weird? I can tell you, it is super crazy awesome! Because normal is boring, and normal is redundant, and throughout history, normal has been done to death. And while normal probably would be easier for me to handle and easier to explain to the outside world, I wouldn't want to have it any other way.

You see, I gave this boy some of my traits. I may be partially more aware of what's going on around me, but that doesn't mean I always agree with the demands of world. In fact, many a times, I do have some problems getting along with world.

I can feel your vibe, little boy. I see what you're all about. And if I were just a little bit braver, I'd be doing what you're doing. I'd be walking without my shoes, just walking and feeling the soft fabrics of my world.

For The Moment

I was talking to our pediatrician the other day, about how parents will do anything for the health and safety of their kids. They will drive thousands of hours to see the best doctors and do whatever it takes, and give their limbs and organs, if necessary. This conversation sparked a little stream of consciousness on the drive home. I was thinking about those moments, when kids are small babies, when, for the moment, all their needs are fulfilled and they just happily lie there in your arms and doze off, while you, as a parent, can't help but think about all the things yet to come.

Newer Poetry - Pimped Out

There will be more in time. More of everything. :)

First Page Review: Spellbloom

Hey everyone, and hello to first page review! Always exciting to get a little bit of feedback on the first few words of a story. This is taken from the first story I ever thought out and wrote down, titled Spellbloom, a contemporary fantasy tale. It is the one story closest to my heart, but it is yet to be finished on paper. I'm so hestitant when it comes to writing this story. In the hopes of getting more experienced at storytelling, I never want to touch it to not spoil it with mediocre writing, if that makes any sense. :) I started writing it two years ago, and I'm not even halfway finished, but I edited bits and pieces of it. The picture you see is a home-brewed graphic experiment that may or may not be the real cover for the book one day. 

Looking forward to reading your comments and suggestions and I can't wait to visit your blogs and to read your stories. :)

1.

Pador stared at the portrait in silence. The face in the picture frame stared back at him. He knew that the years had given him a few hard lines around the mouth, and the painter hadn’t wasted any time sugar-coating the truth.

The people of Indova called Pador rigorous, a man purported to rule with a strict vision of things that needed to be done. He had never seen himself that way. The things to be done most rarely are what everyone agrees with, his father used to say. Unlike Pador, he had been the leader of a family of 4, not millions. Pador sighed.

At least in the picture he looked the part of the leader, Pador thought, carrying the bearings of Indova on his chest, the blue cloak hovering over the black cliffs of the Seam, the traditional symbol for the first Mage Rebellion nearly 300 years ago. His ancestors had fought in that battle, and many of them had lost their lives.

He had always worn his blue cloak with pride, ever since the day he got elected. He had made a name for himself in the Academy, and he was a reasonable choice for the Council. The fact that he didn't want the job was of little importance and just went to show how the laws of Indova bestowed all power upon the election committee. The committee had seen aptitude and farsightedness in equal measure in him, and none of the other candidates. Sometimes Pador still thought they'd made a terrible mistake choosing him, but his advisor had told him that his doubts proved him to be the right choice all the more. 

Pador knew his duties, and well enough to realize that anyone would have a hard time ruling a country, at least if he tried to do it well. Sometimes however he caught himself thinking that there might be someone out there who would enjoy it more than he did. He sighed again, a heavy and deep sigh – resonating back at him from the walls of the hallway. He turned around to go back to his office. He longed for this day to be over, but it wasn’t even close to noon. He had several ministers to meet still, representatives to greet with a smile on his face and their pleas to suffer through. He would be able to visit Janey thereafter – if it wasn’t too late in the day. He had been looking forward to seeing her all week, yet he hated visitation days because they would only sound in another 6 long days of waiting. He missed the times when he saw her each day, the times when they were freshmen in the Academy and their assignments would bring them to different places all across Fallwyne. He was a better man with her by his side, always, and a happier one, but unfortunately, there were other things to consider, more important things such as her health. Janey was his wife and he loved her dearly, but he couldn’t risk exposing herself to him more than once a week. He was poison to her, and she needed all the time she could get to recover from his visits. It was the only way they could be together at all.

Pador opened the large wooden door to his office and saw Aeron sitting in one of the high visitor’s chairs. He got up to greet him as he saw him enter, “Ah, there you are”. His black cloak swirled as he rose. Pador always thought that there was no one who wore the Guardian’s cloak as well as Aeron, although there certainly were Guardians who took their responsibilities more seriously than he did. They had been friends for over a decade, and now wasn’t the time to question his work ethic. 
“Do you have a minute or two?” Pador knew, that, with Aeron, it would never only take a minute or two, but he nodded.   
“What’s going on?” he closed the door behind him. Aeron sat down again, this time on the corner of Pador’s large writing desk, in between red document folders and a pile of mail.

“Wintershedge has sent word of their arrival.”

“And?”

Apparently the girl has already fallen ill with the bloom.”

“What!? Oh no!” Pador was dismayed at these news. He started pacing up and down the room.

“How bad is it?”

Aeron hesitated. “She’s…functional, but very weak. The journey was exhausting for her.”

“Is she bedridden?”

“Unfortunately yes.”

“Good gods.. how did this happen so quickly?”

Pador massaged the few stubbles on his chin. “That’s bad…  I shouldn’t have sent them away together..”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, we don’t know the details. There is still a possibility that she’s just sick with some other illness.

“Please,” Pador said, “you know as well as I that there is no one better suited to judge the onsets of second bloom than their people.”

Aeron didn’t respond. 
“We should offer to help them, bring them back to the city after…. they are done..” He sat down. The regent's chair was heavy and cumbersome.
"I had no right..."
He felt Aeron’s hand on his shoulder moments later.

“You did it for Janey.”

Bad Mother of Ideas!

Writing is such an odd activity compared to some of the other things I do for fun. First of all, unlike the other stuff, the process is not as much fun whilst I do it, as it is to file away a story - and knowing that an entire universe just sits there, right inside a folder. Finishing is the ultimate reward to writing.

Unfortunately, the finishing line is not always in sight. While I noticed that something always gets my writing started, the commitment to completion part is much harder. It happens, that as I write down an idea, another one pops into my head and as it sits there, making waves, I'm beginning to wonder if the new one wouldn't be much more inviting. Why bother carrying on with a mediocre idea when there's a better one out there? However, I learned from NaNoWriMo that the purpose of writing is not only the idea, but the sticking it out part, and that's why the yearly writing challenge is such an essential experience.

As I'm looking through my archives, there are tons of orphaned beginnings, some of them only one sentence long. It's fun to look at these fragments from time to time and think about what they could have become, if I hadn't so callously abandoned them..

This is me in the front yard! one of them begins (and it ends right there as well).

And I still have no idea which direction this would have gone. Yard - then what? Kitchen? Probably nowhere.

Mother never was particularly versatile in her ways to torture me... another one goes.

I like to believe that there is a story to be told, second nature to my first.

I usually hate re-reading these kinds of self-important notes. 90 percent of the time I am convinced I can barely compose a full sentence, let alone swoop anyone away with the cut of my quill. Writer's baggage!


Anyways, there is more.

Ryku, I’m yelling, Ryyyykuuu, but she doesn’t look up from the thing she made out of mud. That’s the thing with kids. I approach her and she finally looks up at me. There you are! she says, and I detect rebuke. Typical, I think, that she’d twist it like that; as if she had been waiting for me, not the other way around. 

A cute children's story I was working on for a bit. Well five sentences long to be exact. 

The quickest way to hell is taking in a visitor. I titled this one Purgatorial Suspense.

Barlo was a vile man, a boy who grew up to bring nightmares. He had outgrown his father by the age of ten...

Six-Sentence-Sunday 8/12

http://sixsunday.com/

Looksie here, it's a new dawn. It's a new day. Sunday! Today I want to introduce you to some of my more recent scribblings. They are called --->Shorts! (..with an exclamation point - because they are just outrageously short short stories) and you'll find them on my blog. The point of these Shorts! is to write a story that begins as close to the end as possible - this one needed 17 sentences in total, and you can look up how it ends  --->here. 
These are the first six sentences of The Long Run.
Looking forward to reading your comments and criticisms! :)

The Long Run

He paused and looked at her, "What else is there to say?"

What needed to be said had been said, and it was he who had done most of the talking. Her body and mouth remained still, except for the one silent nod she gave him.

He didn’t need to wait for her response;

she didn’t put up a fight. 

She looked away, far across the lot of picket fences, and her gaze pierced right through the suburban Arcadia, to that other place her mind went sometimes. 

There was a time when their life had been nimble, when smiles were just smiles, not crooked strains, when every small occurrence seemed like a riddle for them to understand in their later years – a time when they would be wise and knowledgeable regarding all things life.