(Dande)Lions and Tiger(lilies)s and Bear(ded Irises)s

Oh, my!

The area nurseries are opening today. Even though it is still too early to plant much of what I want, I’m going to stop by just to see flowers and colors and sniff the air.

I’ve been checking my yard and the lilacs are loaded with blooms this year, yippie! I planted an azalea last fall and it has bright pink blooms ready to open. The hydrangeas all have leaf buds and the day lilies and poppies are pushing up green leaves. The peonies are pushing up red shoots. All this means I didn’t kill everything! The plants survived my care! Hurrah!

I’ve got to plant some daffodils for next year, just a couple so that I can see their bright little faces in the morning. They look so cheerful.

Happy spring.

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Coming Attractions Part II

Climbing Everest

Journeys can be once around the block, a couple of times around the world or any length in between. Journeys on which you climb your own Everest have the most meaning for on these journeys you leave your boot prints in the snow. Unlike the pristine field of snow ahead of you, you’ve left a mark. Sometimes others can follow, but most frequently, your boot prints are there for you alone. The boot prints will rarely be in a straight line up the mountain. It doesn’t matter. Keep climbing.

Climbing your own Everest is worth the effort even if you don’t make the summit. For one thing, even if you only get a little bit higher the view is better. For another, the air is rarified. Rarified can mean air so thin it makes you lightheaded, but also elevated, exalted, noble, grand in purpose, and to convert into something of higher worth. How cool is that? In your whole life, you may not reach the summit and it doesn’t matter. The journey’s the thing. One step at a time. Keep climbing.

Journeys such as writing a book can be made without leaving home or you can travel around the world to do it. There are journeys through rehab or the journey as you raise a child. Whatever your journey, whatever your Everest, it doesn’t matter. Pack light. Keep climbing.

As my Whimsy takes me

which is the motto of Lord Peter Wimsey's family. And this is a quote I love from Lord Peter's creator, Dorothy L. Sayers -

"Nothing goes so well with a hot fire and buttered crumpets as a wet day without and a good dose of comfortable horrors within."

I doubt I'll have the hot fire and buttered crumpets, but it is a wet(ish) day and I have not one, but two comfortable mysteries to keep me occupied while waiting on my husband's knee replacement surgery. I'll also have a pad of paper and pen so I can work on crafting comfortable horrors for my own mystery novel. And maybe a few chocolates to keep my energy level up. Alas, no crumpets.

How to work your Muse

Begin by choosing a muse. Calliope, perhaps, if you’re into the Greeks, or a more current writer you admire. Maybe you think Margaret Atwood with her Canadian mystique is the be-all end-all of writers and her short story, Happy Endings, is the greatest piece of writing ever and that you could never write as well as she does. If this is true, take my advice and don’t choose Atwood as your muse or you will forever be in shadow instead of light. What about Hemingway? Do you aspire to write alone... in the rain? Then Hemingway might be your choice. What about Stephen Hoffenfeffer? What, you’ve never heard of him? This brings us to one of the few rules. Your muse should not be an unknown struggling along the path toward their goal. Your muse needs to be worthy of the greatness to which you aspire, but a muse does not need to be human or even alive though I do not recommend choosing drink. You may get a great story about your struggle toward recovery to share with the others in rehab, but probably not a lot more than that. Chocolate, on the other hand, is acceptable.

Once you’ve decided upon a worthy muse, you can begin hitting them up for support. Tell them your story or character woes. Do you need to figure out why four sets of identical twins were involved in a multiple car collision? Ask your muse for help, then listen, for the answer may come in the form of a snippet from a news story or the juxtaposition of two cover stories at the magazine stand. Worried about why a character cannot find happiness after winning the lottery and being crowned Miss USA? Your muse may direct you to a child swinging alone on a playground. You realize your character was abandoned while a youth and this explains everything you’ve been trying to say. Or you may think your protagonist needs some grief, then your muse nudges you into grabbing your significant other’s coat for a run out to the mailbox to check for acceptance letters from the New Yorker. Reaching into the pockets, you find a few wrapped chocolates and you realize your character is involved with an addict. It is perfectly acceptable to eat the chocolate while mulling this over.

Certainly, the main purpose of your muse is to stand at your shoulder ready to be called, but they can also serve a greater function. If you take that nagging little voice of criticism that lives inside you, the one that insists your writing is crap, and hand it to your muse, they will subdue it in a stranglehold. They will not allow the critic to speak. They will not even allow the critic to catch a glimpse of what you put down on the page. Your muse will allow you the freedom to let the thoughts spill free even if they seem to have no bearing on the story. Especially if they seem to have no bearing on the story.

Choose and then use your muse wisely and one day you’ll say, “I left the window open and rain dappled the pages of my first draft. I looked at the spots and realized my heroine needed to die. It was like Hemingway was in the room with me.”

Armchair Adventures

I can do things. I can read a map held upside down if I have to and I don't get lost. I can pick out the tune on a piano. I don't panic in the kitchen and my three-chip chocolate chip cookies are the talk of the block, but from my armchair, I dream of what else I might do. I dream of what else I could do.

A bowl of ice cream, scoop piled upon scoop, reminds me that I could climb Everest. I could master the vernacular of pitons and belaying ropes, and I could master their use, too, but my hand is a little cold holding the bowl of ice cream. Perhaps something warmer would be more to my liking.

What if I biked across the United States? Nothing Tour de France-style, but at a steady pace, bent over the handlebars, tucked into one position the entire way across Iowa or Nebraska. Hmmm, this cushion I sitting on feels awfully soft as I type this. I think I'll ponder something else.

I could sail around the world. I can imagine the feel of the wind on my face as the sails fill and the boat sweeps along atop the water. As long as the boat stayed atop the water, I'd be fine. I wonder how long a person can dog paddle?

My cat is stretched out along the back of my chair. He's looking right at me. Maybe I should try lion taming? I stare back at my cat, but he yawns, his kibble breath making my eyes water. Sadly, I realize there is no way I could stick my head in a lion's mouth.

However, I think I have everything in the house to make those three-chip chocolate chip cookies. Thank goodness I don't panic in the kitchen.