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Post #81: From Beginning to End

Cindy Frank books, creativitiy, middle-age, musings, personal philosophy, reading, Uncategorized , ,

IMG_0353Now why, oh why was this the rarest of pleasures?  Unlashed from the bedsheets, my feet warmed to the nubbles of the carpet, then cooled to the smooth of the hardwood, I made my way silently across the floors and step by careful step down the stairs.   Hair touseled, glasses askew, barefoot and nightgowned. Still dark, the house hummed.

Ah! It was just where I left it.  In a moment it was cradled in my arms. A moment more and I was cushioned into an armchair, feet tucked under and the book—oh that book—cracked open at last! 

Today there would be no rules, no convention, no conversation.  No heart-pounding have-tos, no  “should be doing” guilt, no getting dressed, no real meals. 

Today there would be no breathless snatches of a slap-dash quick read, a wrench back to reality coupled with an anxious pining for more, desperate for the torn moments and a hungering return to the story.

Today I am subsumed and submerged yet wafted aloft, buffeted and plummeted with my story from beginning to end. I float from armchair to sofa, from the lounge to the porch, from the attic to flat out on the floor.  A progressive read from the bottom of the house to the  top,  my eyes never leaving the page.  Oh what a ride!

Dawn becomes noon and noon becomes night.  Thousands of sizzling words jumbled into a joyous Jenga tower! And then at breathtaking last, with a contented sigh I am done.

Like the sweet never-ending all day giant jawbreakers of my childhood, a whole day read.

I’ll do it again!

Post #64: From the Tips of My Fingers

Cindy Frank family, middle-age, musings, personal philosophy, reinvention , ,

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The universe spun from the tips of my fingers. It loomed large in a tiny room at the museum.  All it took was a few cranks to set it in motion!  The solar system itself would start to whirl and swirl  and spin as all the planets would begin their personal pirouettes from speedy Mercury to sluggish Saturn.  All around the sun, calm and gracious, but always and ever unmoving.

I’ve been home for a long time. I wanted to be here. I was lucky to be here.  A loved and lovely slightly tumbled down house.  Lived in and deeply beloved.   Miraculously held together with duct tape and spit, scrambled full of everything from pop-up books to Pokemon cards. A warm cooky smell  always clinging to the air.  If you listened carefully you’d hear an entrancing cascade of crazy rhythms,  the gentle strumming of a mandolin or perhaps the low down sound of the blues.  Enter through the red door to find us all.  You’d know just where to find me.  I’d be at the center of everything, stirring at the stove.

But the planets keep moving, as just they should.  So exquisitely beautiful to watch them all spinning!  But just to watch?

What’s out there to find? What’s out there to see? What’s out there to do?

Open the door, down the steps, around the path. You have to look up. Of course  I look up.  There it  is!   The warm  embrace of the sky. Oh! It’s as if time stretches and pulls itself open before me.

Will it destroy the laws of physics if my heart and mind remain at the center of my private little universe yet still soar on their own?

Perhaps in this case, the sun does in fact move.

For the first time, in a long time I wake up in the light.  And my head, my head is suffused with dreams!