FF – Light a Candle

Photo credit Susan Rouchard

Light a Candle

“Light a candle” they said. “When you think of her, light a candle and remember.”

The flame burns softly. It dances like her – erratic, unpredictable, beautiful.

But one candle burns too fast, dies before I am ready to let the memories go. So I light two.

They dance together. Not identical, but synchronized – sometimes leaning together to share a moment. Sometimes drifting apart a little, but never separating.

One burns out first, leaving the other alone, guttering, trying to survive without its partner.

I light a hundred candles, and a hundred more.

There are not enough candles in the world.

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Susan’s beautiful soft focus photo inspired so many thoughts this morning. Our Jewish friends are lighting candles daily for Hanukkah; in so many places around the world, these candles could be lit to remember those lost in tragedies and wars; or perhaps the candles are themselves worshipping, gathered before the artwork we cannot quite make out.

But when I started writing, it was about the idea of lighting a candle for a lost loved one, hence my story. For a musical accompaniment today, a change from the country / pop I usually post – one of many carols I loved singing at school.

FF – Kick the Patriarchy

Photo credit – Ted Strutz

Kick the Patriarchy

“What’s the point of high heels?”

“To oppress women. Keep us reliant on men. They shouldn’t have burned bras back in the day; they should’ve burned stilettos.” Sarah’s just that age to be militant about everything. She wears jeans and sneakers everywhere; if the revolution called for heel-burning, she’d have to buy some specially for the purpose.

“I like them,” Milly whispers. “They make me feel tall.”

Milly is caught between emulating her sister’s attitude and catching her up in stature.

“Don’t ever let the patriarchy make you feel small, squirt. We women can take over the world without tottering.”

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In haste this morning, I’m helping run the Winter Wonderland at Sebastian’s school. Happy December, all!

FF – Welcome to the New World

Photo credit Fleur Lind

Welcome to the New World

“The future is hydrogen!” the poster says. Cars that eat greenhouse gases and spit out water!

Welcome to the future. It’s not exactly all you dreamed. Unless your dreams were a fever-induced mixture of 1984, 2001 and maybe Contagion.

Of course, the poster doesn’t mention the energy costs of producing, storing and transporting hydrogen. Like electric cars fueled from a fossil fuel grid, they promise much and deliver… something. But it’s a step in the right direction, right?

Only if you still think climate change mankind’s biggest threat. Only if your toaster didn’t strike this morning over pay and conditions.

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A friend of mine who is very pro electric and self-driving cars was recently explaining to me why hydrogen cars are not the future. I have a feeling the only kind of car we should really be striving for in the future is the type in Fleur’s photo today, but I played around with this idea for my story, also inspired by something that I hear could be an even worse threat to us on the horizon – a benign dictator like no other.

Meanwhile, for a more upbeat assessment of how progress is going, here’s Brad Paisley.

FF – Bunny Talk

Photo credit: Rochelle Wisoff Fields

Bunny Talk

“I’m the tallest rabbit in the world!” She’s on her hind legs and, as usual, I’m narrating from her point of view.

“You are. And the prettiest.” Sebastian’s flattery game is on point.

“And the messiest,” I say, in my own voice, picking up another handful of hay that’s spilled onto the carpet.

Bunita scoots under her hutch into her ‘burrow’. Like all animals, she’s super slim when she wants to be. She bursts out of the other side and into the cat bed which they didn’t give the time of day but she adores.

“Now I’m a banana split!”

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What caught my eye about Rochelle’s fascinating photo was how tall the man in the hat looks and how short the lady in the brown coat. Aside from being on different steps, I think their attire has a lot to do with the appearance, more, perhaps, than their actual stature. Anyway, that put me in mind of the newest member of the family, Sebastian’s rabbit, and so this story was born!

Below – the bunny showing how she is clearly too fat to fit under the hutch (she goes there regularly. How is this possible?!) and in the banana cat bed.

FF – Chores

Photo credit Roger Bultot

Chores

“It’s your turn to water Mum’s tree!” Luke says, running into the house before his brother can reply.

“Piss off!” Matty stomps round to the garden.

I watch from the window as he stares at the tree, thinking. The watering can is hanging off a branch, just out of reach. He wants to come in and ask for help, but Matty is the younger and smaller brother, if anything trumps fairness, it’s pride.

Five minutes later, he’s in, grinning, and the ground under my tree is dark with moisture. I guess my tree got a little extra fertilizer today.

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Luke and Matty had a long argument about perpetual motion machines in the run up to this post, but it wasn’t 100 words long (more like 2000), so they settled for a more concise argument about who was going to water the tree and how. I’m hoping it’s clear, but in case you’re not sure, Matty found the solution in his own words. I guess these boys are growing up; I can’t see previous incarnations of either of them using such language!

FF – On the porch, waiting

Photo credit David Stewart

On The Porch, Waiting

She’s not back.

I check the phone. Check her Feed. Nothing.

She’s having fun, young, free, thoughtless. As it should be.

But my brain says she dead in a ditch, passed out in some man’s bed, shipped off to Alberta by those gangs. I’ll never see her again.

Headlights swing into the street. It’s a police car, come to tell me the worst. They’ve lost her. Or they’ve found her.

She slams the taxi door and sways slightly, looks up at me and smiles.

“Hi Mom! Sorry I’m late!”

She retches into the flower bed. I swallow the same urge.

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Last week a lot of people left a front porch light on, for varying lengths of time. I went a different way, but this photo took me out onto the porch again, so here we are. Parental Anxiety is a strange thing, people have described it to me as your heart walking around without you, and as our children get older, that knowledge that you can’t be there with them, to protect them; that letting them go is the best thing for them – that mixture of pride and amazement with a dose of fear… it’s a special experience. My two are still little, so my ‘letting go’s are still on a tiny scale, but I get glimpses of what I know is coming.

Back to porch lights for this week’s musical accompaniment.

FF – First Footing

Photo credit Dale Rogerson

First Footing

“Scottish legend says the first person to enter the house had to be…”

“David Tennant!”

The tour guide glances over at the heckler. A pretty teenage girl with a wicked grin. “No,” he says, “Not David Tennant.”

“Sean Connery?”

“No. Although either of them would do. We’re looking for a tall, dark-haired gentleman.” He’s forgotten the rest of us now – only the two of them are in this conversation. “But not that Outlander guy. Red or blond hair is a big no-no. Also women. Harbingers of misfortune, women.”

“You can say that again,” mumbles the old guy next to me.

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Last night was all about porch lights and doorbells, but this story features another holiday with doorstep traditions – New Year’s (or Hogmanay) in Scotland. You can read a little bit about First Footing here but the basic gist is that the first person across the threshold signified the fortunes of the year, and a tall dark-haired man is really the only good choice. For some reason, that’s where the muse went for me, and I’ve long since given up arguing with her.

Sean Connery has done many incredible things in his life, but this is my favourite.

FF – Good Neighbours

Photo Credit Lisa Fox

Good Neighbours

Dad says we only own up to the edge of the trees and must never run, or worse let the dog run, beyond them. But he mows right up to the Farleys’ drive because he says its neighbourly. So neighbourly is giving a little more, taking a little less.

“Wouldn’t it be easier if we had a wall?” I asked him once. “Mrs Welsh at school says good fences make good neighbours. She has a poster in the classroom about it.”

“That’s a poem,” Dad said, “And it doesn’t mean what it says it means. Good neighbours make good neighbours.”

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First, I would like to say there is no snow in this picture, or indeed in my story. There will be plenty of time for snow in winter, thank you. It’s a weirdly-warm 18c here in Southern Ontario, the leaves are pretty and one can almost believe there will never be snow.

Anyway, in lieu of a musical interlude, here’s the poem Mrs Welsh likes so much, albeit I wonder if Dad understands it better.

FF – Light in the Dark

Photo credit – Liz Young

I wake in the darkness, not knowing where I am. There’s something heavy on my lap. It takes a moment to realise it’s you. You’re breathing. One of us fell asleep first, but I don’t know who, only that I fell asleep holding you and if I’d dropped you… the thought hangs, terrifying, in the air.

But I didn’t drop you. You’re breathing, peaceful, safe.

We were in the rocking chair by your cot, I was calming your fears by rocking gently, breathing slowly, but we both fell asleep and now your breathing calms me. There’s no need to fear.

FF – Chips Joe

Photo credit Rowena Curtin

Chips Joe

They say no man is an island, but they never saw Chips Joe. Him sits outside the cabin, where trawlers supposed to store their nets or clean them fish, but ’s been Joe’s cabin longer’n anyone can remember.

His name might not be Joe, definitely isn’t Chips, but tha’s all anyone knows of himself: eating chips and dangling his legs out over the bay. Molly down the chippy says he pays cash and never says him a word. Plate of chips and back to the dock.

Out there before the fisherfolk go out; still dangling when the sun goes down.

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For some reason, Rowena’s photo brought two characters to the muse this morning. The first was Chips Joe, the mystery loner who sits on the dock and eats chips (British ones, from a chippy. Big and fat, lots of salt and maybe malt vinegar. The kind seagulls love.) His story is the story I planned to tell.

But somewhere along the way, a second character emerged. The speaker’s unique voice took some effort to convert on to the page and I’d be interested to hear whether you found his way of speaking distracting when reading this piece.

That first line isn’t John Donne to me, it’s Jon Bon Jovi, Emilio Estevez and Kiefer Sutherland. Enjoy.