#write365

The crisp air of fall always leaves me with mixed feelings, a confounded heart.

My own feelings and memories come first, of happiness and walking in crunching leaves and warm drinks on those first cold days.

The dread always comes second.

Because you see fall as the enemy. The sign of approaching struggle and heartbreak as a our have to fight your own mind. As you try to rekindle your spirit from its dying embers, try to not let the icy wind snuff out what fire you’ve managed to keep over summer.

To me,

Fall is gentle, fall is tender. The stressed summer mind broken by the return of cool air. Solace.

To you,

Fall is cruel, and merciless. Robbing you of every comfort and worse yet, robbing you of me and our time together.

To Us,

Fall is holding you until you fall asleep. It is more bad nights then good, it is more stormy winds in our relationship than any other time. Just when we think the boughs will break and it will all fall apart Autumn and her cold winds depart.

And for you,

Winter means cold air in aching lungs, getting your breath back and cementing your feet to the ground. Comfort comes in blankets of white snow, but you see my eyes begin to fade.

Another busy day. Here’s a little something I wrote. I need to make it up this weekend! The letter arrived at exactly 12:01 AM the night of Adelaide’s twenty-first birthday.  It  promised an adventure,  as letters which arrive at strange times often do. The letter was tucked inside lavender scented wax-lined paper and, more importantly, it was late.  If it had arrived on time, Adelaide’s adventure would have turned out quite differently, but it is best not to dwell on that now. Time has a way of changing things. Nothing can outrun its reach, not magic, not dream, and not even death.  So the letter, which arrived five years and one minute late contained not the adventure the letter writer had intended but one a great deal more dangerous.

Dear Traveler, Lately my life has been a flurry of activity.  Between work, family, and other responsibilities I’ve been getting home late and leaving early every day. The challenge has always been to find the space in between all the things I need to do for the things I want to do.

So the last week I really wanted to focus on finding the space and holding onto it. Even if it means taking 30 minutes at 10 at night to write a little-- as I am doing now. The importance finding this time is a lesson I keep having to learn.

More than that it’s the relationship between time and momentum. When I first put my novel down, it was only time that was the problem. I thought I didn’t have any. I couldn’t see the spaces in the blizzard of other responsibilities.  Then it became something more. I came back and, because I didn’t remember where I’d left off, I re-read what I’d written. Then came the inner editor. Without that forward momentum to get me through my own self-doubt, I was stuck.

Now I have to push myself forward with all the weight of my anxiety and without the initial story spark. Then, once I get moving, I have to find my way back into the story. The portal I first took has moved. I can’t remember the beats, the tone, the feel of it as well. It’s going to take some work and some time.

Like a camomile bed The more it is trodden The more it will spread

Make no mistake, this was a plan of last resort. I had little left, but I had little to lose. What I needed was resources and who better to steal from than those who stole when they had no need. Still, I knew how slim our chances were, with only a few sachets of chamomile between us and a pinch of licorice root between us.

‘It sounds risky,’ my partner had said when I placed the herbs on the table.

I smiled, a touch wryly. ‘Then it is good we have the gambler’s herb, and plenty of it.”

She scoffed. ‘A weak herb. Chamomile hardly offers enough luck to win at a slot machine. You’re trying to rob the whole place.’

‘Have some faith in me will you?’ I said plucking a handful of the dried flower from the pile on the table and dropping the petals into my mortar.