FF – The Deck Is Stacked

On vacay this week, so posting in haste. Still I couldn’t resist Liz Young’s photo for another step along the path of the young woman we saw the last couple of weeks. You don’t have to read the other snippets to read this one. They all stand alone, but in my mind it’s the same girl, another 6-10 years down the road and still struggling with the reality of growing up.

Photo copyright Liz Young

The Deck Is Stacked

I always thought I’d marry my high school sweetheart. Like the movies. Maybe date the odd joker first, but pretty much just true love and happy ever after. Maybe he’s a diamond in the rough, you know?

In real life they’re all jokers. You’re looking for the king of hearts, but it’s knave after knave and not a diamond in sight – rough or otherwise.

Tonight’s was a classic. Called me “Ace” and said if I play my cards right, he’d take me to his private club. Bleurgh.

I can’t help it, I keep trying. Waiting to deal up a winner.  

As so often happens to me, this story came into my head with a musical accompaniment. I love The Gambler, but with the analogy to this girl’s situation it has a whole different meaning.

FF – Poetry Study

TRIGGER WARNING: Self harm / suicidal thoughts

Photo copyright Rowena Curtin

Poetry Study

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood.

Isn’t teenagehood supposed to be about possibilities? I see only one road. Grades. College. Marriage. Babies, drudging on forever. One road. And it’s not the one less traveled by.

Of course, Robert Frost was a man. Maybe my brothers don’t feel this way. Grades. College. Husband. Babies.

Two roads. Where’s the second? Is it a guy on a motorbike coming to take me away? Maybe it’s a knife or pills. No. Maybe it’s grades, college, not marriage. Maybe there’s a big turn here arrow just around the corner.

Maybe I missed it already.

Extroduction

Last week’s little girl was just starting to get treated like an adult. This week she’s half a dozen years older and starting to realise it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

The Road Not Taken is one of my favourite poems and I recite it often, especially when wandering through woods. I hope this character finds a way to love it, or at least not view s reading it as another part of her drudgery. I also hope she doesn’t need a white knight on a motorbike to save her.

Just in case she does:

FF – Valentine’s Day Mixed Media

Photo copyright Roger Bultot

Valentine’s Day Mixed Media

It’s almost indistinguishable from something my kids bring home from school: macaroni balanced on coloured blobs with a drizzle of yellow goo over the top.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, darling.”

Like them, he’s oozing pride at his creation, waiting for my expressions of wonder at the mixed media delight before me.

Except the kids don’t expect me to eat theirs, just stick it on the fridge and kiss their foreheads. He’s going to want a whole different reward, and I have to choke this down first.

I should’ve ordered in. Actually, I should’ve kept husband 1; at least he could cook.

SS – Molasses’ Musings

Photo credit – Lisa Fox

Molasses’ Musings

I am a sloth. I do everything slooowly. Talk slowly. Move slowly. I even eat so slowly that I never fart.

Fart is an F word. Other frightening F words are fast, far and falling. I do not like F words.

I do like S words. Like slow. And steady. And sleeeeep.

Sleeping is one of the things that I do best. Some of my human friends find it hard to go to sleep, so I help them with my special meditations. Friends is a special word because it is a GOOD word even though it is an F word.

***Extroduction***

Yeah, this one needs a bit of explaining! Sebastian loves sloths and collects them in stuffed form, but the original and best is Molasses. Like all my kids’ stuffies, Molasses has his own voice and personality (OK, that’s entirely my fault), in this case revolving largely around his irrational hatred of F words and his love of anything involving S’s (He also likes Ms). One of the best things he does is guided meditations to help Sebastian sleep. I’ve started writing a book of his meditations, because it feels like something that other families would love too – or at least that I’d like to record for Sebastian to look back on. This is a condensed extract from the Introduction to that collection.

Oh, and the title? Well, Molasses wouldn’t want to be part of Friday Fiction, so I thought this could be a Saturday Story. Just for him.

This morning I was asked to make Molasses a strawberry sandwich. He actually wanted sausages, but there’s limited time in the mornings.

FF – One of Everything

Photo copyright belongs to our leader, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, this week.

One of Everything

Jim’s One Of Everything store at the end of our street was always Mum’s favourite place. She’d drag us in there to find ‘something to brighten our lives’. Sunshine would’ve been better. And empty space. But Mum preferred the niknaks she found at what we preferred to call “Lots of Nothing”.

Eventually, Jim got round to asking her to move in, and she didn’t have to buy the stuff any more. The house got less cluttered after that. She started selling those niknaks instead of buying them, and the sunshine came back. To her face, and to all our lives.

FF – House Move

Photo credit: Alicia Jamtaas

House Move

(A true story)

“Label all the boxes,” I said, for the hundredth time. “We need to be able to find things when we get there.”

I passed around Sharpies and glared at anyone who suggested they might get to it later.

Of course, a computer is only as good as its programmer and a label is only as good as its writer.

So I stand here, in front of a wall nearly high enough to keep Donald Trump happy, and every single box is labelled. I should find my boots no trouble.

Except a full 24 of the boxes are called “Basement: Misc”

Stuck On You

Photo copyright: Trish Nankeville

Stuck On You

“It won’t come off!” Matty shakes his leg, increasingly annoyed at the bur stuck there.

“I know how that feels,” I say, laughing. “You used to cling to me that way.”

“I did NOT!”

“You always wanted to be carried, even when you were too big. I think you just wanted to sneak in those extra hugs.”

He’s too big for hugs now. Wouldn’t dream of embracing his mother in public.

“Well, how did you get me off?” He’s tugging at the seedpod again.

“I waited. And you grew up.”

“I’m not waiting until this thing turns into a tree!”

The Haunted

The Haunted

I live with ghosts. Ghosts aren’t spooks. They’re memories that you’ve clung onto so long they start to cling back. Hands you held so tightly, you can still feel their touch when they’re gone. Voices that ring through empty rooms.  

Ghosts can be five years old with pokey toes jabbing you in the night as you sleep, and sixteen next morning, when a song comes on that she loved back then. Ghosts can disappear as you reach them, or hang around all day.

Ghosts can stay even while their souls go on living, having kids and grandkids of their own.

FF – Building up

Rochelle Wisoff-Fields‘ own photo today.

Building Up

As we climbed, I sensed something was about to happen. We always said we wouldn’t get married, that love was enough. But that day it occurred to me that an ancient temple, high above the city, would be the perfect place for you to propose. When you touched your pocket, I wondered what sort of ring you’d hidden there. By the time we reached the top, my heart was pounding as much from the anticipation as from the climb.

Then you pulled out your phone and as you snapped selfies, my heart was tumbling 7000 steps back down to reality.

The Brightest Light in the Darkest Night

Photo copyright Na’ama Yehuda

Trigger warnings: Early Parenthood, Loss

The Brightest Light in the Darkest Night

In the dream we’re falling. She’s a tiny bundle in my arms and we fall and fall until I don’t know whether I’m terrified or grateful that there’s no ground to hit.

Her cries pierce me awake and for a moment we’ve hit the ground but no, we’re in bed and she just wants a drink or a diaper, or maybe she was dreaming too. For that microsecond she’s all there is: even outside the dream there’s only her and me.

But then the world comes back, and there’s her, me, and the gaping hole where her mother should be.