Fall Hiking (Strawberry, Mall, Sunder, Brick, Waterfall)

We had been backpacking in the North Carolina mountains for 12 days. Toni and I have been doing this every October for the last several years. There is no more beautiful place on earth than the North Carolina mountains in October! The air is crisp, the smell rich with the loamy earth, the leaves beautiful hues of red, gold and yellow! We keep our hikes near the creeks as we love to hear the sounds of the rushing water. We often stop at different waterfalls to eat our lunch and revel in the sights and sounds of water cascading down the mountain wall. Sometimes we even get the courage to jump into the water, gasping as we come up, laughing at each others expressions because it is so shockingly cold!

Toni has always been the one to take care of our backpacking menu, and she is very creative. She has figured out how to take backpacking meals way beyond the usual freeze dried concoctions and beany-weanys!! In fact, last night for dinner with had chicken and artichoke hearts with egg noodles with strawberry Jello with fruit for dessert! She takes the Jello and puts it in a water bottle and submerges it in the creek for awhile and there you have it! She does the same with instant pudding. It is always fun to see what she is going to pull out of her backpack for the next meal.

Last night we made our camp by an old homestead that had nothing left standing except an old brick chimney. You see many of those lonely sentinels scattered through the southern landscapes. As we sat around after dinner we invented stories of who lived here and of their loves and losses. Times change, seasons come and go, and yet, our hopes and our dreams are in most ways the same as the family that lived here on this mountain those many years ago: The desire to be loved and appreciated, to have a home where harmony rules and is a safe haven from the discord of the world.

Unfortunately, this morning we left the mountains to head back to civilization, jobs and the every day world. As we came down into Brevard we had to stop by the mall to pick up some supplies for our long drive back home. In the midst of the cacophony of too loud music, too many people and too many lights I felt that sense of peace that had come to me from two weeks of reveling in God’s beautiful creation sunder under the gaucheness of the world we live in.

~I am a medical missionary (a nurse) and live in the Philippines where I work with street children. I have always loved words and writing so this looks like a fun way to develop that even more.

Hester (Strawberry, Mall, Sunder, Brick, Waterfall)

I pull into a parking space as close to the mall entrance as possible. I sit in my car, breathing slowly, trying to get the courage to open the door, step out, and walk the short distance to the door. I hear a roaring like a waterfall in my head and it feels as if a brick is sitting low in my stomach, anchoring me to my seat. I think I'm going to be sick.

This is the first time I have been back since the day I lost Sophie. She was there playing in the racks of clothes, bright red and green Christmas sweaters, and then she wasn’t. She was gone. Flyers with her little elfin face, clear blue eyes and strawberry blonde hair are still plastered all over the city. Bob and I are keeping up our weekly rounds, checking to make sure the flyers remain posted, asking questions of the store clerks, putting up more if they have become ragged or torn. Every Tuesday, we visit the police detective assigned to our case, Jeff Rayner, just to check in.

Lost, stolen, kidnapped, taken: All words describing what happed. But lately, I’ve been thinking that none of these particular words really describe the truth of that day. I came across the word sunder last night while rereading The Scarlet Letter in preparation for the freshman English class I'm supposed to start teaching next month. I'm somewhat doubtful that I will be able to keep that commitment. Mid-way in the book, there is a scene in which the leaders of the town are interviewing little Pearl, trying to determine if it would be in the best interest of her young soul to be taken from her fallen mother, Hester, and given to someone else, someone more godly, to raise. The men decide to put the matter aside for later consideration and, as Hester scoops Pearl up in her arms and leaves, she encounters a woman who invites her to the woods for a satanic ritual later that night. Hester declines, but says if they had taken little Pearl from her, she would have willingly gone and signed her name to the Devil’s book. The last lines of the chapter keeps playing through my mind:

But here -- if we suppose this interview betwixt Mistress Hibbins and Hester Prynne to be authentic, and not a parable -- was already an illustration of the young minister's argument against sundering the relation of a fallen mother to the offspring of her frailty. Even thus early had the child saved her from Satan's snare.

After reading that chapter, I went to the dictionary on the swivel stand in the front living room and looked up sunder. The primary definition is “to break or wrench apart, sever.”

Sunder. Yes. That's the word. That’s what has happened to Sophie and me. We have been sundered. We had been wrenched apart. We, mother and daughter, have been severed. And now, fallen like Hester, if I could have the offspring of my frailty back for even a moment, I would gladly sign my name to the Devil’s book. I would lay myself before Satan's snare if only I knew my little girl was safe. God help me and forgive me.

~Belinda is enjoying the challenge of these weekly monologues. Among other things, she posts them on her blog at Upside Down Bee.

Midnight Prowler (Waterfall, Mall, Strawberry, Sunder, Brick)

"What in the world?!?!?" I sat bolt upright in bed - my eyes shooting open and my heart beating like my Kitchen Aid mixer going to town on a meringue. I could hear the unmistakable sounds of someone creeping around the perimeter of my house. I sat as still as possible, the sound of my heart beating so loud in my head I knew the prowler could hear it, too. "Why, why, why tonight when Mike is coaching the late ballgame?"

The branches sunder beneath my bedroom window, scratching the siding, as I listened to his feet crunch in the leaves. I begin to pray, "God, no matter what, please protect the children! Please, please protect the children!" I thought of them lying innocently in their beds, hopefully sleeping soundly and unaware of the horror taking place in their backyard.

I gathered my courage and slunk out of bed. I laid there on the floor for a minute and listened again to hear where he might be now. I could hear footsteps in the garden, by the brick wall. I crawled on my elbows, commando style, to my kitchen. I stuck my arm up and felt around on the counter for my kitchen knife. As I pulled it down, the blade clattered to the tile. "Dang it! Well, that's what you get for buying a set of knives from a teenage boy at a kiosk in front of the waterfall at the mall!" I laid flat on the ground and looked at the windows to see if I could see a shadow of the person torturing me. No shadows emerged.

I crawled over to the phone and picked it up off its cradle. With shaking hands, I dialed 911. It began dialing. I crawled to the window and lifted the sheers to see if I could stealthily locate the prowler. As I lifted it, his figure came around the corner. He looked me dead in the eyes. I heard a voice say, "911. What's your emergency?" I calmly replied, "The neighbors great dane escaped again and he is in my garden eating a strawberry."

~hpt loves to write and hopes never to go through anything as harrowing as this...

Carnival Day (Bracket, Assembly, Tent, Velcro, Spice)

Shivering from excitement and the unusually cold spring weather, I stood with my classmates waiting to enter the striped red and white tent that had appeared overnight on our school’s large playing field. It was carnival day at Mary Pickles Goff Elementary School and we were wiggling anxiously to give our tickets to the attendant. For weeks, flyers had been posted around school describing all the different games we would be able to play and the amazing prizes we would have a chance to win. Our little heads were full of visions of ring tosses, birthday guesses, basketball throws, and huge stuffed teddy bears.

During morning assembly, Mrs. Rabalais had announced that the 6th grade classes would get to line up first, ahead of all the younger children, because we had brought in the most food for the Drive Against Hunger. I was sure that my contributions of a can of sliced olives, a jar of peanut butter, and two bags of elbow noodles had tipped the scale in our favor. Plus, unbeknownst to my mother, I had also snuck her large tin of ginger from the spice cabinet. I despised the taste of ginger because my mother believed a teaspoon dissolved in a glass of warm water cured everything from upset stomachs to colds. She looked for any opportunity to pour this concoction down mine and my sister’s throats.

My bare legs were freezing as the wind blew in from the north side of the courtyard and buffeted against the main campus building. Like the brackets of a parenthesis, my brown pig-tails hung from either side of my head, framing a freckled face with wide set brown eyes. With one hand I nervously opened and closed the Velcro tab on my skirt pocket, while chewing the cuticle on my other hand’s thumb. In so many more ways than my young mind could comprehend at the time, this day was going to be one I would remember for the rest of my life.

~Belinda writes, ponders, considers, questions, and muses on her blog, Upside Down Bee

A Slice of Derby Pie (Flicked, Olive, Hair Dryer, Parachute, Crackled)

I was lying on the old quilt we picked up at the flea market the week before. Someone had put a lot of love into it; one edge was frayed, but not beyond repair. I rolled over, reached into our basket, and plucked an olive from the jar. I sucked on the pit as I searched the sky for the first parachute to appear. The PA system crackled and a female voice announced that four-year-old Clare was lost and would her family please come to the registration area. At the end of the lane a cyclist worked his handlebars with a wrench, his race number fluttering in the breeze. I could hear a bluegrass band tuning up close by. An orange trail above alerted me that the first diver was about to come into view. I flicked the pit into the woods and stood up to look down the hill at the big X where they would land. The excitement of Derby week was all around me in the city, but here in the park it was like a festival. I squeezed Jason’s hand as if to say, pinch me so I know I’m not dreaming. Arriving from Minnesota, the weather was a relief. It was the first week in May but the wind spread sunshine hot across the back of my neck like a hair dryer.

~TherMumz likes trying her hand at these monologues

Falling (Flicked, Olive, Hair Dryer, Parachute, Crackled)

Pushing the door open, I reached my hand in and flicked on the light. Hesitating before stepping from the thick carpet of my bedroom to the stone tile of the master bath, I saw the floor had been scrubbed as a pungent disinfectant smell wafted out to me. I made a mental note to ask Janice who had done this distasteful job. They should be thanked.

At the far end of the bathroom, the shower curtain with tan fern fronds over an olive green background was pushed back revealing the white enamel of the tub, the silver faucet and shower head. We had bought the curtain last month; one of several accessories purchased to compliment the creamy brown Bryce had painted the bathroom. “Macadamia” the paint card said. This was just the first project of many we wanted to accomplish to get our home ready to sell. Bryce had been laid off from his job and we were preparing for the likely possibility of a move. Bryce was interviewing locally without much luck, but I still hoped we would be able to stay in this community where I had finally started to put down some roots. So, I made sure the paint colors and other choices were things I actually wanted for our home, not just things a buyer would like.

The new bath rugs were gone as well as the wicker laundry hamper and matching basket in which I kept clean towels. Where they were or who removed these things, I couldn’t say. Or why. To spare my feelings, maybe? Or were they taken for the investigation?

My hair dryer was lying haphazardly in the sink, its cord snaking across the cream tile counter to the floor. The sight of this – something belonging solely to me, not Bryce, and that something being out of place – moved me to finally step into the room. Here was something I could fix, something I could “tidy up” as my mother liked to say.

Placing the dryer in the cabinet below the sink, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. Slowly, I leaned in closer and saw what I already knew was there: dark circles around swollen eyes, a pale and puffy face, limp and dirty hair. There was one surprise, however. New little pouches of skin had appeared at each corner of my mouth. “Nice,” I thought. I looked and felt like I had aged 10 years in the last two weeks.

Looking at the tub again, I moved to the end of the room. Reaching up to unhook the curtain and its plastic liner from the shower rod rings, the liner crackled as it began to fall into the tub. A tear slid down my face and landed on the edge of the tub. I looked at where it had landed, surprised. I hadn’t cried in three days. I thought the tears had run out.

Suddenly, the rushing falling sensation was on me again, driving me to my knees. I had been falling for two weeks now and the bottom was no where in sight. But thankfully, over the past few days, the falling was becoming more of a floating downward, and it seemed more like a parachute was slowly bringing me down, down, down to the solid ground of reality. But moments like this, my parachute collapsed and I began plummeting. There would be no one to catch me or cushion my landing. For this, I knew with certainty, I was alone.

I closed my eyes, praying for the panic to pass. I felt like I was back in Junior High when Mary and Nikki had bullied me into riding a roller coaster at the park. As the car dove downward, I had clutched the silver bar, hair flying out behind me, mouth open in a silent scream. Then, I knew I just had to hold on for a certain amount of time. It would be over. The ride would stop. Now, I didn’t know if this nightmare ride would ever be over.

“Mom? Mom!” David’s voice came to me. “Aunt Janice says I can’t go play at Billy’s house today. I want to go! Why can’t I? Can I go, Mom? Please? Mom?”

Forcing my eyes open, I tried to focus on David’s face, the pursed lips, the furrowed brow, the tear-filled brown eyes. He stood with his stout legs apart, hands fisted on his hips, like a super hero. “Mom?” he said again, questioning with a softer voice now that he had seen my face.

David’s voice inflated my parachute again. I found myself floating, the freefall had stopped. The panic has subsided. Another thing was before me that needed to be fixed. And, as I stood to go to my boy, the thought occurred to me that David also only belonged to me now. No longer did he belong to both me and Bryce. He belongs solely to me.

~Belinda resides in North Carolina with her husband, three children, and one dog.

Memoirs of the Best of Times (Flicked, Hair Dryer, Crackled, Parachute, Olive)

While walking into the house for the first time in forty years, I noticed that most of the walls were painted a drab, olive green. Some of the windows held old venetian blinds that crackled as I attempted to push them up in order for the sun to penetrate the dusty, film covering the windows. I flicked off a dead fly from the sill where in the past I would stare for hours looking outside at the birds, the trees, and my older siblings playing in the back yard. When I was young the walls had been a bright white with curtains that had vivid colors all over them in some kind of paisley print. In the bathroom was an old hair dryer with the cord hanging down over the sink in a limp position that reminded me of abandonment, neglect, and desertion. Which told me not everyone had the same emotions crossing the thresholds inside as I did. Roaming from room to room brought a cascade of memories that clouded my mind and heart. I could see clearly the times that my sister and I would hide from my mom behind the edge of the dresser. How in the world did we think that we were ever really hidden? One time I brought home a jar of baby frogs, tiny little things that represented treasure beyond belief. I put them in a shoebox with grass and a jar lid full of water. Astonished was the only emotion I had the next morning when my baby frogs were not in the perfect house that had been fashioned just for them. Where they ever went I never found out. In my brother’s old room, we would set up a cave made out of blankets and sheets. First of all my brother would help me take the sheets and parachute them into place right over the chairs and other mobile type furniture to make just the right fort. I would play in there for hours setting up my dolls, stuffed animals, and several books.

So often the patterns we set up as young children carry over into our adult lives. I still love bright walls, cheerful curtains, and looking outside in my back yard. As my mind wandered through that old house, it struck me how all of the elements of my life could be found in my past. I remember piling books into my forts or sitting up on the roof taking my recent tomes and devouring them in the afternoon sun. Entering the house of my youth showed me that the blueprint for the rest of my life was laid right there in the walls of that old home.

~For Lynn, writing is not only a passion it is the way to make sense of the world. I write almost daily at lynnsmusings.blogspot.com

Choking (Flicked, Hair Dryer, Crackled, Parachute, Olive)

The sticks crackled under my feet as I walked under a tree next to the 13th hole. I had tried to hook it around the Tea Olive that guarded the front left of the green, but I quit on it and pushed it right. The sea-salted wind blew off the ocean like a hair dryer set on high.

EVEN IF I LOSE THIS HOLE, I’ll still be okay, I tell myself.

I knew differently. I had to get this one up and down. A three-up lead might not be enough, with all that was going on in my head. My opponent played poorly early, but now was mounting a charge. It had started to wear on me on the 12th, when my tee shot found the bunker. I flicked it on to the green and made par, but my hands were shaking the entire time. My golf swing had stopped working.

STAY IN THE PRESENT, I tell myself. Don’t think about anything but THIS shot.

The club championship was open to everyone. I won it last year, but the boss didn’t play. He hadn’t had a tough match, crushing his first four opponents. I had had nothing but difficulty, coming from two back with five to play in the second round and winning the last hole in the quarterfinals to advance.

And I needed to beat this guy to make it to the final to play the boss. STOP THINKING ABOUT THAT, I tell myself.

I decided to try to lob it up over the grassy patch that lay in front of me. If I hit it crisp, I could make it sit like it had a parachute attached to it. Anything else, I’d lose the hole. And maybe the match. Simple as that.

Panic was taking over my body. My pulse quickened as I made a couple of hurried practice stokes. CALM DOWN, I tell myself…CALM DOWN.

~dt's semifinal match is March 22 on the Teeth of the Dog

Room With a View (Triangle, Fanfare, Cafe, Firecracker, Obvious)

I lie in bed and through my window I watch a palm tree gently swaying in the morning breeze. I could describe the scene in more obvious terms based on my locale: the palm tree is doing a lazy merengue as the world is stretching and yawning, shaking their heads to clear them from the fog of last night's cuba libres. I am personally trying to wake up enough to head to the panaderia for a croissant canela and a cafe con leche.

I think back to other views I've had through bedroom windows. Some good, some not so good, and some absolutely fantastic.

From my childhood window I could see the giant live oak tree with the treehouse my brother built. Well, it wasn't really a tree house... more a collection of salvaged boards and tetanus wielding nails rammed into the poor tree's flesh. I learned to climb trees there, to no fanfare whatsoever. My brothers taught me how to climb up, but not how to descend. An easy way to get rid of a pesky kid sister.

From my college dorm room window I could see my boyfriend's dorm. He was in plain view one evening meeting my best friend to go study while I recuperated from knee surgery. I had no idea at that point I was an unwitting victim of a love triangle. It was my very own, low budget "Rear Window" of sorts. I got to witness two people I cared about stab me in the back... or front, as the case may be.

In Grad school, I moved in with a friend who had chosen his neighborhood based on the fact that he was 6'4" and 220. I chose his neighborhood based on my pitiful budget. There were nightly sound effects perfect for the evening news. I would lie in bed and hope and pray it was firecrackers. I never had the nerve to look out my bedroom window.

In the first house I bought, my window looked out to my backyard and a lovely little forest of pine, dogwood, and oak trees. I loved that bedroom. I can picture us lying in bed - my dog, my cat, my husband, and I, talking about what we wanted from life. Well, the dog and cat weren't talking really - they usually snored. That view was so beautiful, I never did put up curtains.

I don't care what the view is from my next bedroom window. I want a comfortable bed - one that is big enough for me, my children, a dog, and maybe a cat. I want a new capuccino maker so I can sip cafe con leche while I lie in that bed. We're moving in a couple of months. I'll let you know what my view is after I make my bed and lie down in it.

~hpt is currently living in the tropics, waiting to move to rural Tennessee. She has great hopes for what she will see out her new bedroom window.

Six Block Lament (Triangle, Fanfare, Cafe, Firecracker, Obvious)

I got off the Metro at Glacier, a tortured soul. It was obvious I shouldn't have come.

Paris wasn't the city of lights in the 13th Arrondissment, with only a Boulanger in the middle of the block and a café on the corner of Rue Boussingout that made, ironically, great Spaghetti Bolognese. They were closed.

Up the block I went, but my mind was on a girl back home who I wished I could call, but I wouldn’t. A phone call now would have little fanfare associated with it. Too little time had passed and the love triangle I had created caused hurt that wouldn’t have gone away in the past six months.

We’d met a few years ago and immediately fell in love. If I’d been older and farther along in school, we’d have been married. But we waited and eventually, I’d screwed it all up. She had her moments too, but it was mostly me. C’est la vie...mais…

A firecracker went off in the distance. More war protests…ugh. Every night it seemed, they paraded up and down the streets shouting slogans and carrying torches. I arrived at No. 42 and went upstairs.

The apartment was empty and cold.

~dt ran away to study in Paris during the first gulf war…

Geometric Form (Triangle, Fanfare, Cafe, Firecracker, Obvious)

I sat at the corner café telling myself it was obvious that there would be no fanfare at the dinner table when I announced to the family that I had made the school band. Mom plays piano, dad violin. Colin and Sally play guitar. I’m the painter. I can paint all of them on canvas to keep for prosperity. Tonight, I’ll smile sweetly, nervously, and Colin, ever the older brother, will look at me with that sly twinkle in his eye. “What’s going on, Firecracker?” he’ll ask. “Nothing,” I’ll say and grin ‘til I giggle. When dad comes to the table I’ll blurt out that I made band. They’ll all ask with their eyes, too cautious to use their words. I’ll stay quiet for a while. Someone will pass the mashed potatoes, the conversation will turn to details about their day, and I’ll say it, “I’m playing the Triangle.”

~Ther Mumz is a writer who dabbles in many other fields in life