Back to Mint Springs

One of us has been sick; until last week we hadn’t visited our park for two weeks. 

For the last couple of evenings, we’ve returned.  The ponds are still there.  Deer browsed  in the apple grove at the mouth of the Park, some of them  with new, fuzzy horns. 

We saw a hawk on a dead branch on a live tree, statue still, guarding prey in the lower pond. Two cars were parked in the parking lot, but we saw no people.

Golden Wisps of cirrus ribbons in the east and solitary wisps of cirrus over the western hills slowly changed color to pink.  While we were on the dam,  geese flew over our heads, their hysterical honks breaking the silence.  They landed in the middle of the pond. honking and back-pedaling.  We counted nineteen of them, one short of the last count.  We saw feathers floating on the pond.

We walked from the dam to the middle of the new bridge.  We like to listen to the frogs there and look for turtles.  The cricket frogs have silenced now, but the green frogs and bullfrogs still sound.  Ox saw a muskrat, swimming under the bridge towards the greater pond.  A minute later we saw the silver wake across the far side of the pond then the muskrat disappeared.  This was our greatest thrill since the last beaver was removed from the pond a few years ago.  Yesterday Ox saw a turtle, playing dead man’s float with its nose at the surface until Ox spoke to it in a soft voice.  The turtle alerted, looked at him and dove to the bottom.

Our walks in the Park feed me equanimity and joy.. My soul shrinks without them.

The Plot Sickens

Years ago I read a mystery story a night.  After a year or so of reading mysteries that way, I'd read the first couple of chapters, guess the ending, and check the last chapter to see if I’d got it right.  This saved time, but didn't show me how authors structure novels.

For a few years now, I’ve written bits of a murder mystery.  After reading so many mysteries writing one should be easy - Pfaugh!  While writing the people and settings is interesting, getting characters to move out of their chairs and do anything is a different matter.  What on earth is going to happen next in this story?

The person I was when I started isn’t the person I am now.  The story too, is changing as I go along.  Sometimes I get lost in the story.  When I come up for air the story feels like congealing lava.  Part of the problem is that I don’t want to kill anyone off.  Another problem is that the story has changed from a straightforward poisoning story to the story of the insidious growth of jealousy.

A long time ago I dealt with the destructive and consuming feeling of jealousy.  I worried that reexamining this feeling would revive it; It hasn’t.  I can examine the insanity that lasted for a while with me.

I don’t plan easily. I write and write and don’t really know where on earth the story is going. The fix for this problem might be to pay attention to the plot.  How?  Plan one?  Me?  I bought three how to plot books.  Steal This Plot, No Plot? No Problem! and Just Write, here’s how!  All have excellent advice.  I made the lists from Steal – story spicers and motivators.  But I can’t decide what plot to steal.  I filled the six boxes from Just Write.  I keep telling myself that I must write, then edit and remind myself that it’s not all crap, just a work in progress, advice from No Plot? No Problem!  My brilliant younger sister advised that I outline the story from the end working toward the beginning.  I'll end up doing that too;  it seems the best way to get where I'm going.

Until I get hopelessly bogged down again I'm going for the reductive sculptural approach - just write at least twelve hours a week (No P? No P!) and trust that form will happen or can be imposed on the story later.  In any case the project seems worth doing to me.  Maybe after 100,000 words I can cut out enough solidified lava and rearrange events to make a coherent story that moves.

Betsy's Big Birthday

Fifty years ago Betsy slid into the world at the Air Force hospital in South Ruislip, England.  Labor, with the help of the Lamaze method, was long and easy.  Ox read us Chapter 5 of The Wind in the Willows during Betsy’s journey into the world.  Her obstetrician, a Texan, sang “Home, Home on the Range” to welcome her at entry.

Betsy weighed 8 lbs 1 oz.  Despite that, I marveled at her tiny hands and feet and worried about her survival.

Last Wednesday we celebrated the birthday.  Tom, Betsy’s husband, threw a party at Shelter two at our local park.  Good friends and good family came to the party.  Shelter two suited us well; my niece Sarah’s children, aged two and four, both run to get everywhere; from shelter two you can see a long distance.  The playground is only a little way downhill.  Betsy’s son Jackson, nine, loves being Tommy and Abby’s wise older cousin.

My sister Polly came with Mike, our brother Jack came with Rauna.  Tammy and Sadie, friends from Orange came.  This was especially fun for Jackson, who built robots after school with Sadie last year.   Sadie went off to college this year.  Julie and Jeff, who we seldom get to see, came from Charlottesville.  Betsy’s sister Cat brought the ice cream later.

Sarah and Mike took the children swimming.  The children returned to the shelter.

In the evening a fearless fawn browsed down by the playground to Jackson’s and Tommy’s delight.   She let the boys get close to her.  While the boys quietly watched the fawn, we saw a large, pale, owl fly over the playground.  I often hear “hoo h’hoo, hoo, hoo” on our walks in the late evening; it may have been a great horned owl.  The geese, who have recently returned to the park from their summer vacation at Beaver Hill Trailer Park pond, stayed away Wednesday.  This was a wonderful birthday party, even though no bears or geese came.