Tag Archives: judy dykstra-brown essay

Roar

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Roar

The ceiling fans turn above five women. One holds an almond cookie in her mouth as her hands adjust her notebook and reach for her pen. She moves the rest of the cookie into her mouth with the hand that has finished turning to the correct page, then brushes away the crumbs from the glass table. Another woman sits hunched over a tablet in her lap. She is wearing a black swimsuit and sits on the white canvas cushion of a rattan couch.

A third taps on her computer—a fact that has driven her former sofa neighbor out to the terrace to write––that tapping too distracting. Next door, the crash of chisel on concrete furnishes a counter-tempo to the gentle tapping of the keys. The ocean swells in a continual basso…the notes and words of a plaintive Mexican song straining in over the fence as well. The sparseness of the view––sea dunes, succulent ground cover, crashing ocean and sky–– is augmented by so many sounds that they blend into a cacophony that can be overlooked…or underheard, as the case may be.

I am the fifth woman, and as the other four write about whatever world each is in, their imagined voices fill my thoughts to a point where my own voice is lost. I can only record what I see and hear. It is as though my own imagination has been sucked up by the morning, lost in the profusion of thoughts of others that grow like liana in my mind.

The blades on the fans spin. Tiny upside-down crosses are formed by the bolts that secure the glass globes of the lights below the fans. Like crucifixes the tortured have slipped free from, they stand useless as metaphors but necessary in actuality. All of the crucified have scurried away…survivors of someone else’s bigotry or fears or cruelty.

Some of the survivors climb up the legs of the coffee table and pull themselves onto my computer keys. They jump on keys to say, “We have voices that will not be stilled. We sacrifice that bullies may be overcome. We expect you to resist as we do. Frightening as it is, it is the only way. Life is choice after choice and those choices, if easy, are not worth making.”

I take over. Brush them like crumbs from my keyboard.  I get to choose how profound my life will be, at least on the page, and I don’t want to write about crucifixion, church bombings, the Paris massacre, the San Bernardino shootings. I have six friends who live in San Bernardino. I haven’t checked Facebook. I don’t want to know.

I want my senses filled with tappings and poundings and too-loud strains of music and where the fridge will go in the tiny new sleeping/feeding room I’m having constructed for my dogs. I want another almond cookie, and a sip, two sips of hazelnut coffee. Some of us have to have a happy life. Some need to go on in spite of the slaughter, greed, small-mindedness. We win in this way. Something exists in spite of the horrible chaos some would make of the world.

We win by fighting, but we also win by being. By remaining. By choosing to be happy. The ocean roars and sometimes I must roar, also. But not always.

Note: No, my essay above was not written to the prompt.  I did start a poem on the WordPress  life-line subject of fortune-telling, and I’ll publish it later, but on my way to posting it, I found this snippet written in response to a prompt at the three day women’s writing retreat I went to last week, so I want to publish it, too. (HERE is a link to my poem on the subject of fortune telling.)

 

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                                                    My Imaginary Friend

I have never had an imaginary friend until four years ago, when one suddenly appeared.  She has a special function in my life: memory.  When I’m driving to town and suddenly forget exactly where it is I’m going, I prod her and within a few seconds, she has the answer for me.  She never tires of these prods–even when I ask her the same question twice within the space of an hour or two.  Sometimes she even leaves me notes on the refrigerator.  “Catfood,” she scribbles, “Lampshade.” “Hem pants!”

As is necessary with good friends, I forgive her her shortcomings as she forgives mine.  When it took her an entire week to come up with the name of a woman whose name I keep confusing with another, I did not chide her.  When I forgot the name of one flower for an entire year, I ceased even asking her to provide an answer and in its own sweet time, memory brought the name to me with no prodding.

As with all imaginary friends, I do not call attention to her in public. We have our conversations in private, usually as I rail against myself, “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” when the correct information will not come with the ease that it did before this particular decade.

It is she who decided I needed a wall hanger for glasses and keys and after fruitless minutes of my daily searches, reminds me that my car keys and reading glasses are where they’re supposed to be–on the rack!  She has been doing this for years, without complaint, and one of my main fears in life is that she will pass on before I do.

We have a pact, my imaginary friend and I, and if it is up to her and me, we will die peacefully, side by side, forty years from now when we are 108.  By then she will be so worn out that she will deserve a rest, and by then I will probably be all too willing to go with her.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Imaginary Friend.”Many of us had imaginary friends as young children. If your imaginary friend grew up alongside you, what would his/her/its life be like today?

An Antidote to Violence

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An Antidote to Violence

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One thing that has increasingly contributed to my depression over the past few years is my fear that the world population is becoming addicted to violence. Movies, TV and video games become more and more barbaric in their depiction of cruelty. It is as though mere shootings and stabbings are no longer enough. Writers think up unspeakable types of torture and infuse our favorite movies and TV shows with them. I don’t dare describe the cruelties, the memories of which literally keep me up at night. I can mention some of the shows, though, and if you’ve seen them, you will know the scenes of which I speak.

Homeland, The Bridge, Scandal, Revenge, The Blacklist–all of these are programs that, as excellent as they are, I had to stop watching. The horrors just escalated and escalated to a point where it was torture even hearing the sound effects. (I have always had to close my eyes during scenes of violence. Now I have to plug my ears and hum as well.) Yet there must be many who watch, eyes wide, and wait to see how much more horrible the next torture will be. If this were not true, they wouldn’t be some of the most popular shows on television. And, like their parents, our children have become voyeurs of violence. No wonder they bully and bring guns to school to mow down their own friends.

Recently I saw a training film shown to military personnel who were sent to Japan following WWII. Written by the man whose real name you would not recognize but whom everyone knows as Dr. Seuss (yes, that Dr. Seuss) it showed how the Japanese were schooled and brainwashed in the years leading up to the war to train them to accept violence as a patriotic (and religious) duty. How often has religion been used in this way? The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Salem (and many other) witch trials and now ISIS are examples that trip easily from my memory, but I’m sure each person reading this could provide more examples.

If hate can be taught, why can we not devise an antidote to it? Art, writing, dance, volunteer activities, choir, music and some sports are all activities that fill minds and hopefully push out the fascination with (and time for) violence. (Unfortunately, wildly popular sports such as football and boxing contribute to the world’s obsession with violence.)

Kids need to be afforded a substitute for what now fills their minds. Is this being furnished? Is anyone creating non-violent video games that can engage young minds as completely as the violent ones do? Are books being written that are as alluring as series of books about werewolves and vampires and zombies where love and sex and romance are bonded to death and violence?

And kids are not the only ones. The 50 Shades of Gray series? What was it about those books (Oh my!) that appealed so universally that they outsold every other book in the history of the written language in Great Britain and are second only to a Harry Potter book world-wide? Is violence so much a part of every one of us that we cannot help but devour these books? What element of them other than the sadism and masochism created the draw?

Jung acquainted us with the different archetypes within us all and world-class villains such as Hitler, General Tojo, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein and Pol Pot certainly brought out the dark sides of their legions of followers, but after all of these horrific periods of history, balance was restored. Whether this will be possible now that the weapons have become more cataclysmic in scope, it remains to be seen.

A few years ago, I was astonished to see one of the questions used to measure and define the personalities of members of the social introduction site OkCupid was, “In one respect, wouldn’t a nuclear war be kind of exciting?”. I don’t know the numbers of answerers who answered anything other than “No,” but I guess the very fact that the question was accepted (members were allowed and encouraged to submit their own questions) indicates that there are people in the world who would answer “Yes,” and brings up a further possibility that makes me shudder—that there is a possibility that such a person might someday (if not already) be in possession of the means by which to start such a war.

Impossible?   How possible was it that a good portion of a nation would follow Hitler or Pol Pot or General Tojo? Idi Amin? Saddam Hussein? The fact is that fear drives us to do much that might be against our natural instincts—or at least the natural instincts we choose to follow.

The fact is that we are human, and as humans we do have a complicated goulash of emotions, needs, impulses, compulsions, fears, dreads and instincts. Events and necessity trigger these contrasting sides of us and one very strong instinct in the masses is mob mentality. It may be hard for most who have read this far in this post to believe that they would ever be so led, and it may be true that they would not; but history shows that time and time again, it has happened. The acts of a charismatic leader, supported by henchmen in sufficient numbers, backed up by fear, fueled by prejudices efficiently stirred up, have stained most societies on earth at some time or other.

All of the villains I have named share many common traits, including one you might have noticed. None of them are American! If someone from another country (or a Native American) were to make up a similar list, who from America might be included? Would it be Joseph McCarthy? J. Edgar Hoover? Charles Manson? Custer? Some high mucky muck of the K.K.K? It is harder to see one’s own mob instinct and in the U.S., the examples might be more limited in numbers or occult in practice, but it may be that in our blood lust for vampires, zombies, werewolves and violent computer games–added to our insistence that the right to own any kind of gun from a purse pistol to an assault rifle is a patriotic right if not an obligation—are all components of our own mob instinct.

How is it that ISIS can reach out and recruit followers from our midst? Could it possibly be because we have prepared a path for them? Schooled our young people so thoroughly in the appeal and glamour and blood lust of violence that we have made them easy targets for those who might appeal to such stirred-up instincts?

It is easy to blame every other country in the world for harboring violence, but when will we start to take responsibility for our own? How many countries are viewing the movies and TV shows we produce that spew out violence? How many buy our computer games and books and comic books that all send the same message? Have we, perhaps not knowingly and with no clear-cut agenda, somehow become the world’s instructors in war games and violence? And even if we have the niggling sense that this could perhaps have some gram of truth in it, would we have the bravery to admit it, let alone the intelligence to somehow stem the tide?

In the past few weeks, I have felt such a huge change in mood. I feel energized, excited about planned activities and more rounded out. It think it came about in a larger part from working with kids and young adults in Camp Estrella. That excitement in seeing their enthusiasm and growth has not waned. I am enthusiastic about ongoing and upcoming plans–the dance classes and sugar skull decorating coming up–but I think, also, that people I’ve met in the blogging world have given me such reassurance that there are good people everywhere who want to do right and want positive things for everyone–not just those of their own country or race or religion or sex. The hope for the world lies within people such as you who take the responsibility to foster in your own children and the children of others interests that will lead them away from the violence that is coming at them from so many directions.

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“To the Moon, Alice!”

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“To the Moon, Alice!”
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On “The Honeymooners,” Ralph Kramden (played by Jackie Gleason) had a phrase that those of us of a certain age can’t help but remember.  “To the moon, Alice, to the moon!” he would rasp at his wife (played by the inimitable Audrey Meadows) whenever he had no less predictable comeback to her never predictable jibes. Of course, the idea was that this was how far he would knock her.  An upraised fist often accompanied his threat.

The audience, of course, would roar.  So hilarious this empty threat, for America knew that Ralph would never make good on the threat. Even Alice never flinched–supposedly because she, too, knew those words signaled an empty threat.  But underneath those words and the fact that viewers found them to be so hilarious, was the idea that such threatened violence was funny–and, somehow, that such treatment of his wife was a man’s right.

Alice’s only defense was her wicked wit, and unlike many abused wives then and now, she was never really punished for it.  Somehow America knew that if he ever made good on the threat, that Alice would be out the door and probably within a manner of days, on the arm of a man who didn’t weigh 300 pounds plus–a man who made more than the $65 a week Ralph made as a bus driver.

All-in-all, the situation was not very believable–that trim beautiful (sharp-tongued) Alice would ever be wooed and won by fat, acerbic, not-too-clever Ralph required a suspension of disbelief we were well-accustomed to in the early years of TV, not to mention the movies.  From “The Honeymooners” to “Doctor Who,” we were willing to believe anything to be entertained, but the element of violence toward women found so howlingly funny in the Jackie Gleason show was at least not echoed in the wildly implausible “Dr. Who” plots.  There it was highly likely that one would in fact (or in this case, fiction) be flown to the moon–something that never quite happened on “The Honeymooners.”

How far would I go for someone I loved?  Certainly not as far as Alice went. For although it is true that in my lifetime at least a dozen men have “sent me to the moon,” that is beyond the limits of where I’d allow anyone to knock me to!  Yes, I would and have done many things for those I’ve loved.  I have faced up to a gunman, done nursing tasks I never thought I would have done in a million years, faced up to a police captain to release a man  from jail (and succeeded) in a situation I should have had the good sense to know was impossible, and stayed in a country torn by revolution until I knew the man I loved would live, but one thing I would not do is allow myself to be knocked to the ground, let alone to the moon.  Abuse is something I would not take–by a husband, a lover, a parent or a friend.

It was inevitable that one clever cartoonist would come up with this answer to the question, “What did the astronauts find when they landed on the moon?”  Of course, Alice Kramden! But let me tell you, one person she would never have as a companion there is me! “I’d do anything for you, dear,” is a song those of us “of that certain age” will find familiar, but in my case it is not true.  I will not take abuse–either orally or physically–from anyone, no matter how close the connection, and have absolutely no expectations that anyone would take it from me.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Take Me to the Moon.” How far would you go for someone you love? How far would you want someone else to go for you?

                                      The Three Stooges and National Campaign Reform

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If I could change one thing about my country, it would be the national campaign and campaign financing process!  The three ring circus that now exists is anything but fun.  The posturing, lies, mud-slinging and character defamation (and recently the presidential candidates themselves) are more reminiscent of the Three Stooges than of the dignified performances that it seems should be called for on the part of those who are going to run our country and determine our futures.

I would like to see a system where presidential candidates are allowed to campaign for four months only.  This would be done during a series of twice weekly debates and interviews run by a non-partial panel of interviewers who ask questions on key issues.

Each candidate would also be afforded so much space in newspapers per week but the articles would also be written by nonpartial journalists.  Biographies of candidates would be written, again, by third parties who have no stake in election results.

The biggest change might be to totally outlaw campaign financing and instead to set up a common fund for candidates and to provide equal time for all of the leading candidates that would be provided by the networks and individual newspapers and national magazines. An additional advantage to this banning of campaign financing is that it might curb influence-peddling and graft and corruption in voting.  Perhaps we could get out of the power clutch of big business and again make our government one by the people, of the people and for the people rather than one serving the interests of mainly the powerful and wealthy.

This may sound idealistic, but wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to base your votes on real information rather than theatrics, mud-slinging and character defamation?  Perhaps if candidates were limited in the time they were given they would use that time to confront the real issues.

I don’t know how mailings and internet contact of private citizens could be regulated without impinging on the rights of free speech, as it would be a dangerous precedent to limit mention of candidates on various social platforms, but perhaps someone else could figure out some way to stop the current slander and libel and cruel character assassinations that occur on the internet.  If not, at least we could encourage our government leaders not to serve as the patterns for such behavior.

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “The Fun Platform.” If you were the new leader of your country and had the chance to transform something that’s currently an annoyance (or worse) into a very fun activity, what would it be? How would you go about the change, and why would you choose that particular thing?

The Missing Link

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                                                          The Missing Link

IMG_4820                                                              Leave a Link?

In the past few months, I’ve started leaving a link when I comment on other people’s blogs.  I had done this in the past, thinking it would make it easier for them to find material written by me that is pertinent to what they have talked about in their blog.  Then I read an article on a blog advice site that said this was tacky and made it look like you were just reading and commenting on another blog to advertise your own.  Embarrassed, I stopped posting any links.

Very promptly, a viewer complained, asking why I hadn’t included a link as she had grown to depend upon them.  I used this as permission to resume the practice.  Since then I have never had a complaint about leaving links, but I’ve had at least a dozen bloggers thank me for doing so.  It makes it so much easier to find the correct spot on my blog that I think they might be interested in, or in some cases, just helps direct them to new material they might have missed if they posted after I did.

I’ve found that this has given birth to so many more conversations and in fact I’ve found the blogging world to be a warm and caring and interactive place–partially due to the facility with which people can find my own thoughts about topics they themselves have written about.

So, dear blogging friends and friends to be, if you are making a comment to me about a specific blog of your own that I’ve commented upon, perhaps you’d consider including a link back to that post on your blog, since by the time I receive your comment on my comment, I’ve probably forgotten the name of your post or how to find it.

I’d love to comment on your comment and since there is so much to write and see and read each day, the less time spent searching the better!  The same is true when you read my blog about a topic you’ve written about.  I would love to read your thoughts.  Help me out by giving a link!!

I’m interested in how you feel about this matter.  Do you feel “used” when I include a link with comments?  That is not the intention.

And now, here is a link back to the Daily Post site:  https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/daily-ritual/

Hide and Go Seek in Paradise

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                                                Hide and Go Seek in Paradise

Yesterday Morrie, who was lying right in front of my chair behind my heels, his nose between my feet, suddenly jumped three feet in the air.  I looked down and this lovely fellow was on the floor between my feet.  I quickly took off a shoe and bashed him three or four times, which wasn’t very effective because I had Croc sandals on, but I finally scraped him to death. Morrie licked his lips and then his paw, but didn’t keep licking and didn’t swell or cry.  Something must have happened to make him jump, but he has had no ill effects.

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I have found five of these creatures on my bedroom or bathroom floor in the past four days!  I found two this morning alone and I think nine have met their demise by my foot in the past couple of weeks.  I don’t know what is bringing them in at this point as I hadn’t seen any for a few months.

The fellow pictured was about 2 inches long from his head to his stinger, not counting his pincers. Some are black, some reddish brown and some tan. Although the huge black ones are the scariest, supposedly the small tan ones are the most poisonous.  About six days ago I took my capris off a hook on the wall, put them on, then put on a blouse and walked into the bathroom, which is better lit than my bedroom.  I looked down and saw a twist of thread on the thigh of my capri leg and picked it off, but when I did, it moved; so I quickly dropped it onto the floor to discover it was one of the tiny beige scorpions!!!  I stomped and scraped it.  Can’t figure out why it didn’t sting me.

I’ve learned never to walk barefoot, but do occasionally.  Once in the middle of the night I neglected to put on my sandals when I went to the bathroom.  As I sat down, I felt something prick my heel and immediately shook my foot and a scorpion fell down. I felt only a slight prick and it never really burned or hurt much.  I think it had stung me on the tougher skin of my heel and just didn’t puncture it enough.

Another time a scorpion climbed between the heel of my Birkenstock and my heel as my heel raised up when I was walking.  As I rested it back down, I felt and heard a crackling noise and I investigated to find I’d cut the scorpion in two.  The front part of his body was still in my shoe under my heel whereas the stinger and rear legs were on the floor!!!

Probably my worst near miss with one of these evil creatures was when  I took my swim suit down from the shower nozzle where I had hung it to dry and for some reason shook it out (I never had before) and a scorpion fell out of the flap of material over the crotch.  Yes–Ew.  I know.  Ouch!  Now I always shake out clothes.  Well, except for my capris the other day.

Yesterday I asked Pasiano to spray for scorpions  in front of all the doors that lead into the house. So far it seems not to have kept them out, but perhaps it will slow them down long enough for me to catch them before they catch me.

Living in paradise is pretty nice, folks, but it isn’t free. Weather’s perfect, nature is gorgeous, labor and food and lodging are comparatively cheap, but oh yeah.  We have scorpions!!!

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What Should Be and Be and Be

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What Should Be and Be and Be

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I don’t really believe in fate because I don’t think life would make much sense if we were just following an unknown preordained script; but I do think some things are more likely to happen if we follow our intuition.  If quantum physics is fact, I think our intuition is what guides us back to our other parts. This is why some people seem so familiar when we meet them and so right.  And perhaps why others seem so wrong from the very beginning.  How boring a game is life if we are fated.  What an engaging game if life after life it is a game of go seek! It is not a case of what will be but rather a case of what “should be”

Prompt: Que Sera Sera--Do you believe in fate or do you believe you control your own destiny?

My 1000th Blog Post

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                                                                     My 1000th Blog Post !!!!

When I made my first blog entry on NaPoWriMo, taking the big step to commit to one posting a poem a day for 30 days, it seemed like a task I might not be able to complete.  I made the pledge to myself nonetheless, perhaps knowing my own nature and my dislike of not fulfilling obligations.  I made it, sometimes in the nick of time.  I think one posting was made at 65 seconds before midnight, thanks to a power outage and earlier obligations which kept me from posting first thing in the morning, as I usually did.

My days during that first month of daily postings went pretty much as they go now: 8:30, let the dogs out and see if the prompt was posted yet.  9:30–last possible moment to feed the dogs without Frida going into an apoplexy of barks.  By noon, my poem was usually written and posted, but sometimes the internet went out.  Sometimes workmen came.  Sometimes the electricity went off.  Other than these mitigating circumstances outside of myself, posting was always first priority.  OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis was my first ever picture posted on my blog, on September 12, 2012. This fountain of a Mayan woman is long deceased, having been knocked into the pool by a visiting workman, repaired and repainted, then again knocked in by either my gardener or dog–a different report according to who was speaking. This time, she was unrepairable, so parts of her reside separately in different parts of my garden.IMG_8669_2-1I didn’t post any more pictures until March, 2013.  This is one of the pictures I posted then that I used for the cover of my book, Lessons from A Grief Diary–which was initially my purpose in starting a blog, but after my initial posts and a few replies by readers and friends, my posts were few and far between until April, when I participated in my first NaPoWriMo.  After that month of posting a poem a day, I made  almost no posts again until April of 2014 when I again participated in NaPoWriMo.  It was at the end of that 30 day period that I decided to just keep going by doing the WordPress daily prompt, initially posting every day, then gradually adding photo prompts and occasional challenge prompts from viewers, up until the present day, when my record total number of posts per day reached 9 one day this past week.

I had no idea I had made that many until I read it on my stats page. I was sure they were wrong, but they weren’t. So it is official.  I am obsessed by blogging.  Not only writing them but reading them and conversing with other bloggers.  I love that I am in daily communication with interesting bloggers from India, Nigeria, Australia, the States, Canada  and other points all over the world.  Iceland. Greenland, Mongolia, Kenya and Indonesia.  Too many more to name.  I know what is going on with women’s rights in India and Journalist’s rights in Saudi Arabia.  I know that this week a Nigerian king cannot be buried because the man who has been raised from birth to accompany him to the grave (and by this euphemism, I mean to be buried alive with him, as in the style of Egyptian pharaohs) has run away!

I know that a good blogging friend’s beloved dog has passed away but I also know intimate details of the most important dolls in her life.  I know that my friend Judy King, who lives here in Mexico, had a Tiny Tears doll, as did I and I know the worries of a sixteen year old girl, a friend again looking for employment, the sadness of a twinless twin.  I have met nomads, travelers, photographers, introverts, shut-ins, journalists, and those fighting bravely for the security and safety of their transgendered friends.  It is incredible how the world has opened up for me in the nearly two years I have been seriously blogging.

A friend told me very early in my blogging life that she didn’t get it.  To her it just looked like an exercise in ego to be posting a blog each day.  I don’t think she’s ever looked at my blog.  Nor has another close friend who likes all of my books but who says she “Doesn’t do blogs!”  Other friends read and comment, knowing that even though a message isn’t sent exclusively for them and to them that it can still be personal and interesting and true.

In blogging we expand our circle–like a group telephone conversation on Skype or a support group or interest group. Blogging is the corner bar minus the drinks, the pot party where no one inhales, the slumber party not limited exclusively to girls. Very rapidly, it has become one of the most important parts of my life.  What I wake up for.  Where I go when I need advice or I’m feeling blue.

Some blogging friends have moved through my life and disappeared.  Most of them are mothers with a lot else to do, so I understand.  But others have come to take their place and I am constantly surprised by what it is that they respond to.  A recent posting with pictures of my favorite dolls of the past, posted exclusively for a friend who collects dolls, drew interest from men and from Judy King, whom I mentioned earlier–a journalist friend who wrote pages in my comments section–a wonderful story of her favorite doll that I hope she develops into a story some day.

Every day when I force myself to leave my house and go back out into the physical world, I meet people who, when they hear my name, say, “Oh yes.  I read your blog!”  People I did not know in my own small community as well as surrounding towns have become supporters, occasionally noting on Facebook or in my comments section that they are daily readers of my blog.  I’ve heard from kids I went to high school with, college friends I haven’t seen in 50 years–even one old boyfriend of my sister’s (when she was 12)  whom I had never even met when we both lived back in South Dakota.

I have reconnected with my favorite cousin’s wife and daughter, my high school principal’s ex-wife, who it seems was a friend of my older sisters in high school and who was there when those pictures of me and my friends in Johannsen’s dam were taken.  She and my sister were the ones who had driven us to the dam to swim!  And, in a remarkable coincidence, I’ve heard from Douglas Johannsen, whose uncle owned the dam!

Long story short, I’m not accepting the charge that I am writing a blog purely out of ego.  Yes, in writing it I am recording a life, but I am also making one.  And what a big big life it has turned out to be!

Thanks to all my funny, smart, loyal, dedicated, varied, weird, uncategorizable blogging friends.  I wish I could send you all a piece of cake or glass to lift.  Instead, I send you a slice of my life because you have sent to me so many slices of yours, and they were delicious!!!

And so, on to the next 1000!!!!

# (Today’s prompt is to pledge allegiance to what you believe in, so I pledge allegiance to the United World of Blogging!)

Night Fantasies and Other Reading Pleasures

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Night Fantasies and Other Reading Pleasures

 In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Bedtime Stories.” What was your favorite book as a child? Did it influence the person you are now?

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For his entire life, my dad was the storyteller in the house, but at night time, it was my mom who climbed into bed with me and talked me to sleep.  At first, she would make up the stories, perhaps fitting me into them, or weaving fantastic tales of everyday life that grew as I asked question after question.  (Present day bloggers may notice this same tendency in my comments! Sound familiar, “Relax”?)

One story would end, and of course, I demanded another.  Finally, she found a book of one-page stories to read to me, and when she got to the end of the first page, most nights she could be prevailed upon to read one or two more. To this day, I usually listen to a recorded book from Audible as I fall asleep.  As I’ve noted before, sometimes I wake up in the morning with the book still running and I wonder how it affects my dreams.

What a relief to learn to read in the first grade, so I could experience a new story whenever I wished.  From Dick and Jane to The Little Red Hen, I loved those simple plots that somehow grew so involved in my imagination.

Many of my favorite childhood books were lost in a tornado, but a few years ago, I found a number of others in my older sister’s library.  “A Walk in the City,” several Dr. Seuss books and my favorite of all times, “The Teenie Weenies” now reside on my own bookshelves.

It was in second or third grade that I became addicted to Nancy Drew.  Go HERE for that story.