Chapter One - Episode 123 - Turning Corners - Situationally Theirs

Review, Revision, Edit and Update
When I write my first drafts, sometimes pen and paper, sometimes tap-tapping on my laptop, they can be filled with corny descriptions or as flat as a Grade 7 essay.

Today's review indicated to this writer a lot of flatness. With little effort, I abruptly shifted all the way over to corny. My challenge was to find the middle ground between the two. With a lot more effort and after many re-reads, I believe I have reached a balance between the two.

Turning Corners

“Miss Em, you look wonderful! Your vacation must have been great.” Brigitte greeted her boss with enthusiasm. Emelina did look wonderful. Tanned, relaxed and ready to be home. 

“Brigitte, it was…..how can I put this……illuminating.” Smiling gently, she thought about all that had happened. Not just in the past week, but in the past three weeks. “Do you know I’ve learned more about myself and what I’m capable of in the past three months than in my entire life. Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but………” Emelina stopped herself and abruptly changed the subject. “But now we do need to get down to work.” Although she was a bit miffed about not getting anything more, Brigitte did understand that she would have been out of line to insist on any details. 

Emelina did, indeed, have a very illuminating vacation. Excitement about just getting away, but more than that, her budding romance with Jeremy. To her great surprise, tears of frustration and walking on the  rocks of the past, had dashed the excitement. Finding new strength and risking it all. She knew that her personal secretary was not the one to share these precious and scary things with - it was her sister. Dez had helped her out of the isolated, but comfortable, pit she had dug for herself before the pandemic changed her life. They would be meeting that afternoon for a late lunch. Emelina didn’t know that Dez had her own stories to tell, not only about the workshop she attended, but the two weeks following the workshop.

~~~~~

Dez Eliot and Matt Hamilton spent the week following the workshop getting to know each other. Why marriage came up over coffee in the park neither remembers. They were in very clear agreement: “I do not want to get married again.” After that, it was a strange, but comfortable, two weeks. There were days when they did not see or talk with each other at all. Always up early, if Matt came into town for supplies for the apiary or orchard, he would call Dez for breakfast or lunch in the park. They preferred one of the many food trucks that had popped up with the Covid19 restrictions. Restaurants were open again, but only allowed half capacity, so lunch was often a burger or fish taco in the open summer air. Ocean breezes cooled the warm sunshine, while they talked of bees, apples and life in general, carefully skirting the issue of deepening their relationship.

Studying from the recent Fruit Trees workshop, when Dez got stuck on a particular part, she went to Matt at his orchard for help. In between, she got lost in her art, delving into stylized realism of the landscapes she loved. The budding relationship between Dez Eliot and Matt Hamilton had become an easy one with no strings or demands on time or heart.

“We don’t see people as they are. We see people as we are.”

~ Anaïs Nin, Little Birds