03 June 2013

Notes - [new] Grandma 17 / [old] Grandma 17 moved to Grandma 18 / tomorrow, dude


        Mid-afternoon. A cooler and therefore arthritic morning but eventually you had your thirty minutes of regular exercise and a nap. Afterwards you and Carol spent time putting out lawn and deck furniture. While doing so you both were visited by a young and very talkative all black shorthaired yellow-eyed female cat that graciously asked for food. She has a healthy coat and though not declawed she looked well cared for but lost or roaming about. Carol gave her a quarter cup of dry cat food and water, which she gingerly gobbled down. Then she rolled over for a tummy rub and she jumped up on your lap for added affection, and she gave you an added 'meow' before you left. You returned inside and within fifteen minutes she was gone, continuing her adventure.  

         1457 hours. We had a late lunch at Penn Station on Tylersville and are at the far north end of Pine Hill Lakes Park facing southeast towards the woods and a branch of Muddy Creek. Carol took a short walk through the woods up to the earth dam and returned. She is now reading her 'tree identifying' book. I ought to read over Grandma 17's 2484 words and begin deleting.

         You need to re-read it first because when you first wrote the story it was a joy. You need to remember why that was. - Amorella

         1511 hours. I re-read the story. I know what it brought such joy; the mix of European cultures within the DNA. I made use of our expanded family tree based on royal Scottish and English folklore -- tracing back to Julia, sister of Julius as well as to the Scots and Franks' separate bloodlines to Abraham and Sarah. I remember thinking; I might as well put all this genealogy to work in the fiction it mostly is (from way back when). One day, in perhaps less than a hundred years, most DNA bloodlines will be known and people can have their genealogy really checked as to whom one is/was related to whom. That will be very cool. Perhaps it will lead to a better understanding of our species as a whole and people can begin to think of themselves as a part of the actual family they really truly can anchor with. The truth of the pudding is in the pie that's what I like to believe.

         It is as if you were, just then, speaking directly to me, as if I were real just as you are. - Amorella
        
         Even if you were real as a spiritual entity Amorella you would not be legally real like any of us Homo sapiens are. You have to be officially born here not raised up by circumstance and/or imagination by myself. Even if there were real aliens similar to ourselves with heartsansoulsanminds, they too would have to come into the world/universe by birth (natural or humanly manufactured). That is, unless we all share some of the same spiritual stuff - a higher, more timeless consciousness (for lack of a more correct expression).

         You are ever the romantic when it comes to spiritual matters. - Amorella
        
         Good cheers rather than a run of tears makes more sense to me; it fits in the humor of circumstance to which we all are connected, even you Amorella. That's how it is in my book binding. Besides, it is not all fiction. These are ghost stories and will be even more so when I am gone. I see humor in it.

         All for now, boy. If you want to continue with word selection on Grandma 17 do so at your leisure. Enjoy the afternoon. - Amorella

         1536 hours. It is cloudy and still cool, but the air is very pleasant. I can smell the freshness in this forest of leaves. Carol is on page 136 of the Gibbs and Duffy book (the focus is on Kennedy).

         2129 hours. Papa John's pizza for supper, then we watched the news and an old PBS Mystery, Inspector Lewis. I just completed Grandma 17 (the new Grandma 18 was mistakenly posted as Grandma 17 earlier).

***


(New) Grandma.17, ©2013, rho, draft

This chapter’s story setting is in three hundred and five and is in the Roman town of Durolevum, Britannia now called Canterbury, England.

 We are visiting a couple as they were in their memorable fifties. At fifty, Copia Minor is a tiny woman with red and streaks of gray hair.

            One of the favorite places to Copia Minor and Lethargus was the Roman temple built on the southwest side of the city. This temple was designed smaller but appeared similar to the Supreme Court Building in Washington.

Empty, the temple appeared as a mausoleum in search of an occupant. It became the couple's privately shared memorial, a playroom for their two lost young children who had accidently drown in the Rhine. Lethargus and Copia Minor had placed the private toys and memories of the children on the empty temple floor where they believed their children played together once again.

One day Copia said, “I do believe they have gone on. I don’t see them anymore.”

“I never saw them,” said Lethargus. “I knew you did. That was enough for me.”

“The children were here yesterday. Today they are not.”

Lethargus sighed, “That is the way it was on the Rhine.”

“How could our children's spirits leave the temple?” asked Copia.

“How did they arrive here in the first place?” asked Lethargus.

“Perhaps they returned to our hearts,” suggested Copia.

“Our hearts are no place for young children to be. We will die one day, then where will they go?”

“Use your glass, Lethargus. Put them under glass.”

“Glass is not to be used for such spiritual matters.”

“Why?”

“The soul may be trapped forever beneath its transparency.”

“Use a special glass, Lethargus,” she pleaded softly. “I know they are hiding somewhere.”

“You said they were gone only moments ago.”

“I was wrong. The children are hiding,” she pleaded. “We need to put their young souls in the special bottle that we can carry with us.”

Copia was suddenly afraid her children's spirits had slid through the cracks in the temple floor. She heard her heart pleading, "Vipsania and Germanicus, please come out of hiding. Come be with your mother." She thought, the children think I am playing a game with them.

            Copia waited and waited. Lethargus did not return as quickly as she expected him to. He is always a busy man. Deep inside Copia Minor is thinking the worst; my children have seeped between the cracks and are sliding into the Underworld by themselves. A good parent should be there with them to help them along the way. She was beside herself as to what to do.


            This is when I, Grandma, showed myself at the door of the temple and I quietly said, “Copia, can I be of any assistance?

             “Momma,” replied Copia, “Momma, I can’t find my children? Shut the door, Momma. Please shut the door. I do not know what I’m going to do without my two lovely children. I promised them one of us would always be there for them. I thought they’d like it better in the temple here than in the Rhine River.

            The children talk to me, and I can see them. Lethargus doesn’t see them, but he knows I can. It gives him comfort to know that. I have never lied to him in my life, Momma. He is a good man. He is a good husband. We fell in love at the temple on the Rhine, Momma. This is a smaller temple but our hearts are in here Momma, and our children. I just hope I can still save them.” Suddenly a storm of reality blew in. “Momma? You’re dead.”

            “ Copia Minor, you are confused. I am a traveler taking old Watling Street to Londinium, and I stopped in for a few moments of solitude. I am always on one side of the road or another.”

            In an aroused suspicion Copia asked, “How do you know my name?”

            “I know everybody’s name, child.”

            A chill rolled up Copia’s narrow spine, ‘you are Death,’ she thought. ‘Death looks exactly my mother.’

            “I am not Death, Copia, I am yourself.”

            “Am I mad?” questioned Copia aloud; then she saw Lethargus in memory's doorway and with a blink Grandma disappeared into the landscape like the children of all children who unknowingly recite this little poem:

Mirror, mirror, wall of mirror

Who am I and why am I here?
I see my body head to toe
But where oh where is the self to know?

I need to view it without regret
Though I don’t know how it is quite yet,
The mirror can’t see where I reside,
The mirror can’t see the me inside.
781 words
***

        Post. - Amorella


        2227 hours. I glanced over Pouch 17 and we left them looking at the dark side of the Moon. I am not sure where we go from here but back to Earth.

         What would you have Friendly do? - Amorella

         Take them back to Earth for reassurance; maybe even set them free to go about their business if that is what the earthlings want to do. I don't know. I assume Friendly and crew have a plan. If an alien arrived here and I found myself in the position to introduce herorhim to our culture, our world really, I don't know. I would begin with the caves with the ancient art in France or earlier, East Africa where the species originated. Maybe I would introduce herorhim to friends without saying exactly what species sheorhe is (especially if sheorhe appeared as one of my fictional marsupial humanoids). These matters are really beyond my imagination. I don't think like this is real, home or public life. In fact this is reason enough to carry through with the blog postings as you do Amorella. We carry on as very normal people because in reality that is what we are. Our day-to-day world in retirement is not that out of the ordinary in our present culture. I don't know what I would have Friendly do, or Hartolite or Yermey. I don't even know what Pyl, Justin or Blake would expect other then hopefully to be safely dropped off back on Earth. And, if they were, I don't know what they would do next because I don't know what I would do next (that is if I had credible human witnesses who would vouch for each other). Anyway, this is Merlyn's dream not mine, I'm just set on recording it. He's the main character in here, not me. I'm literally bound in the book, but not in real life. 

         It is something for you to think about. Tomorrow, dude. Post. - Amorella

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