Finding Direction: The Wind Vane Chronicles

[Note:  I need help from y'all, again, and lots of comments because this is the second piece of writing that I want to enter into the writing contest that is sponsored by the Picayune Writers' Group.  I have until May 31st in which to enter 3 pieces of work. 

There are several categories, but at least two of mine will be in the non-fiction category.  The third piece will either be non-fiction or a poem.  I haven't decided for sure yet, but think that it will be another non-fiction piece because, while I like my poetry a lot, I think I have a better chance in non-fiction, which is more my forte.

All of my pieces are on the "short" side in looking at the qualifications of the contest, which says pieces are to be less than 5,000 words.  Mine are in the range of 1,200 to 1,800 words or so.  Do you think that will make any difference?  It's just the way I write.  When I've "completed" my thoughts on a story, that's it.  I stop.

As I told y'all the other day, next week I'm going to publish two more pieces and let y'all have a say in which one you like best and/or think would do best in the contest.  So comment a lot here, and stay tuned.  I'm going to leave this one up several days to try to give everyone a chance to chime in.  

In the meantime, I'm feeling fairly good and plan to have a quiet weekend.  Hope y'all have a great weekend!  Dee]

Search For Profoundness Leads Back Home

    Melancholy abides in November’s short days.  My thoughts often turn inward; search for the serious, the profound.  At least, those were my thoughts in 1981's November.  

    I’d spent months doing fun things - working as the local Community Editor, with friends.  I explored every opportunity, expanding my life into one, long joyous adventure, as if to erase even a moment’s contemplation of the more mundane.  I exulted in the freedom to write, to excel, while being paid for doing what, by nature, I did, whether paid for it or not.  Difficulties within my marriage worsened exponentially in relation to my newfound freedom without.  I could not change the one, so I chose to engage in the other.  

    But, I pondered, the search could not be one continuous joyride.  Numerous other, more serious, considerations needed contemplating.  Three considerations were my children.  Although all three had been sharing in my fun flings, so it wasn’t as if I had neglected them.  They were very much in my mind, always.  But my 17 year old son was at Annapolis and, at 15 and 12, his younger siblings had lives of their own to occupy their time.  So, by November my mind had time to dwell.

     I decided it was time to settle down and get with the program.  There must be some profound thought hiding somewhere inside my mind I could pull out to share with my readers.  Enough frivolity had occurred thus far to last the rest of this life and fill several others.  I couldn’t spend my whole life on a lark.  I concluded there must be a deeper, more serious meaning around somewhere that had escaped my attention while I was off on an adventurous good time.

    I decided to take a three and one-half day sabbatical in search of some measure of meaning to my existence.  I know, most people take a year, but I didn’t have time, so had to crowd mine into three days.  If you don’t think that was hard.  Figuring it might be easier to find meaning in a different place, I left town.  You know how it is, the grass always looks greener . . ..  (That’s not the profound thought I found.  Somebody already had that one.)

    Also, thinking that roots might be important, I decided to visit my parents in Tucson, Arizona.  Age brings wisdom and experience, I surmised, and parents never lack for advice to give.  Perfect place to provide perception.

    Due to the shortness of available time, expensiveness of plane tickets and the reasoning that not much profoundness could be found with kids around, I went alone.  Besides, the kids were in school.  And, they visited their grandparents every summer, while I hadn’t seen my parents in over two years.  (You know how grandparents are - forget mom and dad, just send the kids.)

    The four hour plane trip seemed a good place to start the serious thinking, so I bought a Newsweek to read to get in the mood.  World events and the state of the economy (it was 1981) nearly always put one in a serious mood.  Not much frivolity there.

    Instead, from New Orleans to Houston I ended up talking to a flight attendant about photography (he had a camera identical to mine).  Then, from Houston to Phoenix (my sister, who lived there, was going to drive me the 90 miles to Tucson), I talked the whole time with a Californian who made money in Texas real estate and owned a new 40 foot yacht (I only discovered the significant details, you see).  Not much meditating got done, but I still had three days left (half of the first day being gone).  I figured I could make up for lost time when I arrived (see, the time changed and it was an hour earlier).  I know, that’s not very profound.

    I killed the rest of day one riding in the car from Phoenix to Tucson, taking a long nap and eating a lot of Mexican food for supper.  It’s hard to think profound thoughts when you’re sleepy and have a stomach full of nachoes.  That was my only profound thought for that day.  But two and a half days were left.

    The next day, Sunday, we went to church.  It should have been my best meditating day, but wasn’t.  The morning started off well, but by the time we finished the big Sunday dinner, with roast and homemade rolls, another nap crept up on me.  Afterward, my mom, sister Laura and I went for a neighborhood stroll.  I took pictures of cactus and rock lawns and mountain skylines and breathed in sun-warmed pines, dusty, rocky earth and prickly, stringent cactus.  Laura touched a small green cactus with red, fuzzy-looking puffs on it that turned out to be needles as sharp as they were fine.  We spent several blocks removing tiny, stickery needles from her classical pianist hands.

    Another surfeit of Mexican food for supper ruined any eleventh hour effort at serious thinking for Sunday.  But, there were practically two days left (I was being generous to myself).

    Monday we three girls hiked in the mountains.  We rode an open-sided shuttle up to Sabino Canyon, hiked a ways up the canyon, clambered down to the creek and consumed sandwiches under a leafy, green umbrella of a tree.  Sunlight filtered through holes in our tree canopy and water gurgled under rocks nearby.  We sat on cool, smooth rocks, savoring our time all together for the first time in many years.  The peace of the spot - wind and water and sun - stilled any need to speak.  We were one in silence, watching butterflies and hearing birds cry out far overhead.  

     We lost the trail back down the canyon and I said, “Let’s climb up here to the road.”  Halfway up the steep, slippery slope I asked myself, “What on earth am I doing, leading this 60-year-old woman and high heeled girl up this cliff?  I must be crazy.”  Then I wondered who else would have come with me, and decided no one but my sister and  mom.  The miracle was, we not only made it, we rejoiced in the victory.

    It looked rather “iffy” about three feet from the top, but we clung to each other and lunged over the guardrail by the road, lugging our picnic basket, camera and all.  Hearts rapidly pumping convinced us we were still alive, if rather winded.  We laughed breathlessly at what we had done.

    We tramped another mile down the road and rested, waiting for the shuttle’s return.  Talk came easy and rested with us.  I was too tired again to find profound.

    Tuesday I had to go.  I got up at 5:45 a.m. to tell my dad good-bye before he went to work.  He wanted me to stay “till the snow flies,” he said, in 80 degree November sun.

    Mom, Laura and I drove back to Phoenix.  We spent the day doing daily things like talking and eating and shopping.  I thought, tomorrow I’ll be doing these same things in Mississippi, but it won’t be the same.  We watched the sun set together, shared our last small talk and I left at 8 p.m.  With fog and other delays, I didn’t arrived home until 3 a.m.  Numbness was all that remained.  

    Once home, I looked up “profound’s” meaning in the dictionary.  Profound means “to plunge, to penetrate, to explore the depths, to experience.  It is characterized by intensity, as of feeling or quality.  It encompasses.  It is filled full.”  

    Where did I get the idea it meant serious or stuffy or some pompous saying?  Why did I think I had to search somewhere for it?

    The most profound thing I discovered was that I already had it and didn’t know it.  It went with me wherever I went.  From then on, I decided to be profound, which could include being frivolous or adventurous or just plain having fun.  Forget serious, I thought.  Serious will take care of itself.  I want profound.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS