Mid-afternoon. You did your exercises this
morning, fifty minutes worth. Carol is taking her first walk around the lake at
the park while you sit it out. You had left over Papa John’s pizza for lunch
while you watched last night “Downton Abbey”. So far it has been a rather
relaxing cool and sunny day. You got a short note from Rich and Ann D. saying
you ought to continue your work and that I, the Amorella, ought to be patented
for the prevention of writer’s block.
1413
hours. He was being humorous.
Of course. – Amorella
I
think my problem with Diplomat is that I am not wickedly keen on satirizing
myself.
No doubt. Don’t you find this
refreshingly interesting? – Amorella
I
see the great dark humor in it.
Isn’t that what you wanted, to see the
darkness with the species – why not let Diplomat flesh it out. – Amorella
I
normally love research.
There’s the rub. Funny, huh? – Amorella
I
must say humor knows no bounds.
Why else a HeavenOrHellBothOrNeither? –
Amorella
True,
a bit like Moby Dick that way.
Here comes Carol walking across the dam. She
looks cold. Later dude. – Amorella
You
ran some errands, including a hot chocolate for Carol and a stopped at
Graeter’s before sitting in the car behind the Miami University extension at
the VOA Park off Cox Road. Carol is on page 87 of The Postmistress.
1523
hours. Time to work on Brothers 14.
1610 hours. I completed the segment
though we moved from VOA Miami to VOA Centre Target to nearby Kroger’s Carol is
getting candy for the packages she just bought for the Blue Ash Retired Teachers’
luncheon on Thursday. She and Ann are in charge of it this time.
Add your Brothers segment. – Amorella
***
(final) The
Brothers 14 ©2014, rho GMG.One
It
is an early morning in late August and Orion is up in the southeast sky. By
afternoon high school and college football and band practices have begun in
Riverton. While Richard thinks on why the New Year doesn’t begin in September
like it should, Robert sits beside him on the back deck looking off into the
clump of trees on the back of his corner lot at Main and West Streets.
“I
like the trees,” said Robert. “A couple in the middle are already turning.”
Richard
smiled contentedly, “Buckeyes, no doubt."
“I’ve
new a poem in hand.”
Ignoring
the statement Richard asked, “You started reading my book yet?"
"I
finished the first chapter.”
“What
do you think?” asked Richard enthusiastically.
“Who
is Grandma Earth exactly?”
“She
. . . I’m not sure exactly. She introduces the stories.”
“Is
she Mother Nature? That’s what I thought at first, but your side notes say she
is the black actress in Gone With The
Wind.”
“Hattie
McDaniel. That's right, I mentally modeled the character of Grandma after her.
I didn't know it was a margin note.”
“It
is a draft, Richie.” He glanced to the browned blue grass in the late summer yard
thinking he should have watered it more like Connie had suggested. “Whatever
happened to Hattie McDaniel?”
“I
don’t know. Her caring portrayal in the film is what I wanted to express.”
Robert
gave a grumble, “Grandma as Mother Nature doesn’t give a damn. Look at all the
natural disasters. Millions of people killed.”
“She’s
indifferent, just like we are.”
“Speak
for yourself, Richie.”
“She’s
indifferent just as I am. I made her up. What else would you expect her to be
besides myself?”
“You
once said Grandma was modeled on the commercial face of Aunt Jemima."
“People
know about Aunt Jemima. She is still on the box, he paused and shuffled in his
chair, “Well, she’s new and updated. Most readers wouldn’t know the name Hattie
McDaniel, and I didn’t know how to reference Gone With The Wind in context with Aunt Jemima.”
“Aunt
Jemima’s supposed to be a cook too isn’t she?”
“I
don’t remember,” replied Richard in a ruffled tone.
Robert
spoke lazily, “The whole chapter is a bit unorthodox, but I realize you are
writing for a very limited audience.”
Richard suddenly asks, “Do you
want to fly out to Vegas again this fall or wait until spring?”
"The last time the four
of us went to Vegas you spent most of our last free day playing nickel slots
Richie.”
“That's because early on I
lost a hundred dollars playing quarter slots. It isn’t nearly as much fun as
nickel slots." He hesitated, "where are Cyndi and Connie?"
“We’re coming!” shouted Connie.
“We’ve whipped up a special treat.”
What have you two been talking
about?" asked Cyndi as they came into the room.
"I hope it's double
chocolate and caramel brownies," replied Richard.
"We made a fruit
bowl," smiled Cyndi. "It's a lot healthier than brownies."
"But not nearly as
good," replied Robert. With a hint of irritation the brothers laughed.
The girls sat somber-like for
a moment. Connie noted, "You
two should be more health-minded." Then, seemingly out of the blue, Connie
commented, "I'm not going to Vegas again unless we rent a car and drive to
the Grand Canyon or one of the other national parks."
Cyndi added, "Richie you
lost over two hundred dollars playing those dumb quarter slots."
"I thought you lost a
hundred," said Robert.
"Why did you tell him
that Richie?"
"I figured it out,"
said Cyndi happily, "when he started playing the nickel slots."
Robert piped in with a poker
face, "Jeez, Richie, you should be more honest.”
"Richie's better at
fiction," snapped Cyndi. "Isn't that right, Connie."
"Not always. Why, again,
I did I marry you Rob, and not Richie? Seems to me you had a pretty good
line," giggled Connie.
"Better than my
brother's," intimated Robert coyly.
The four sat in a comfortable
silence, each with a small known family smile relaxing on their faces. Finally,
Connie spoke just above a whisper, "We each know who each is and who the
other is not."
Uncharacteristically, Robert
broke out into the laughter first. The others followed suit. Richard and Robert
got out the card table and put it on the deck. Richard got the chairs. Connie
pulled the deck of cards from the top right kitchen drawer. Cyndi put the fruit
bowl away and picked up some beer and chips from the kitchen. The rest of the
afternoon at the corner house was remembrances, fun and games.
***
2116 hours. Carol made a unique vegetable
soup for supper and we cut into a fresh loaf of wheat bread bought today at the
grocery’s bakery to go with it. We watched last night’s PBS's “Sherlock” and then NBC and ABC
News. I completed Grandma 14 and am ready to drop it in the posting.
You discovered some errors and may have
created another so re-read it carefully in the morning. Add and post. –
Amorella
***
(final) Grandma’s Story 14 ©2014, rho
GMG.One
I
am standing on one of ridged Chinese mountain summits about five thousand feet
high and a bit above an austere stone shelter where three people are spending
their summer.
Shushu
is a rather pleasant young woman from one local tribe who usually has her own
way. Her summer love is Ch’ang who is from an adjoining tribe. Her great aunt,
Lili, shaman of both local tribes, is also on the summit. The stone hut is Lili’s
for the summer months, and she invited Shushu and Ch’ang. Neither Shushu nor Ch’ang,
are related except by love. Now, Lili knows a private love story of a different
age in which both Shushu and Ch’ang are unknowingly connected. Here is Lili to
tell to you this story.
I
am Lili of the mountains. I dance the mountain air to walk cloud tops when I
dream of life now long ago to you, but not to me. It has been as twenty years
of life, these two thousand of yours, that is how I sense it.
The two I am telling this private story about were dancers as I
am. The particular summer of your long ago, I had begun an embroidery project
with an emerald green backdrop. Something unpronounceable was in the air when I
stared into the green silk cloth. My left foot touched something unseen, a
stone I immediately dug up. The stone is unpronounceable in the summit air but
it is Plenty and Bountiful, at least on its sharp edge. Understanding is a
sense, like smell to an ancient shaman like myself.
Shushu
loves Ch’ang and she though can do something about this love she chooses to do
nothing. Likewise, Ch’ang chooses to do nothing. Together the two become as a single
room, like this shelter where Grandma and I, Lili, presently stand. To exert
their separate personalities Shushu becomes a doorframe in the west wall while
Ch’ang becomes a doorframe centered in the east wall. The river, two thousand
feet below, runs from west to east. Two thousand feet above the river, love
attempts to construct a bridge between the two doorframes.
As
love is a condition it cannot build the bridge between the two stubborn
friends. Hearts build bridges, not love. The walls of this stone shelter, the
west wall and the east wall, are the rigidity in their hearts. The centered
doorframes are the exacting souls of both Shushu and Ch’ang.
Lili
took a moment to smile then she suddenly transported herself to the center of
the stone shelter where in her line of sight she can see through the two
opposite doorframes at once. In life one cannot see through both doorframes at
once due to the Nature of Things. In death one can sense the mark of the soul line.
Each
doorway is a Dragon of Plenty and Bounty. Each soul-framed doorway is equal.
Each doorway is invisible in the Nature of Things. Each doorframe is invisible
in the Nature of Things. Each wall is invisible in the Nature of Things. I,
Lili am also invisible in the Nature of Things. Yet, as I am writing in Grandma
Earth she is visible in the Nature of
Things.
This
is what I, Lili, thought those many years ago and this is what I think today. I
made my embroidery that summer. I am the
small centered red dot. Shushu is the west dragon. Ch’ang is the east
dragon. When a living human being stares at the red dot long enough sheorhe
sees not a red dot, but the tip of the tail of me, Lili, the Red Dragon.
It
is then that the mirror image dragons, Shushu and Ch’ang, immediately form into
one dragon. Shushu and Ch’ang become an illusion in one as do the
heart-and-soul as do the doorframes but not the dragon’s door.
Grandma carefully steps down off the stone walled
shelter of heartansoul and begins a little mountain jig. For time and not,
those old black feet move like a river dance. Standing straight and tall those
feet dance. Grandma's hands ridged on her hips as Grandma sings, “I move in
human feet stomping. I dance in a Nature seen and unseen.” With that, Grandma
jumps to a cloud top and Lili re-appeared. Both dance side by side until they
are out of sight in the sky.
Cloud dancing with Grandma
in the sorcerer’s dreams
Have a past and a future,
without the difference.
Words dancing in stories
with schematics on themes
Of
balance and cadence and conscience and prudence.
***
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