On an Afternoon Walk - Where Your Feet Are

If I hadn’t looked down

all the way to the ground

I would never have seen 

a peaked wooden roof 

with a little brown door.

Fairies live high in the trees,

and on a grassy green floor!

“I’ve always believed in experiencing everything in life. 

When you walk out with blinders on, you cut 

yourself off from the angels and the fairies.”

~ Alyssa Milano

Moving

 

Moving from house to house

            is moving

         home to home.

“Wherever you go, go with all your heart!”

~ Confucius

Embrace ~ HOME ~Theme for December 2021

Home, a feeling surrounded by photographs and recipes…….

Open air, whether in deep forest, widening prairies, or bottomless ocean……..

Moving from house to house….

Exploring, in baby steps,  I welcome the ghosts…………

“Home is where one starts from.”

~ T.S.Eliot

Chapter One, Episode 132 - Inscriptions - Situationally Theirs

Review, Revision, Edit and Update

This morning's revision began as only a few small wording changes and punctuation corrections. However, when I talked about Dez and Emmie examining every brick, I really was concerned about the relaxing weekend they had planned. So I have re-visioned that area to cut them a bit of slack. It does seem that as I get farther in any episode, the more wording or sentence structure issues crop up.

Inscriptions

Houses do not have personalities. But then most of us know that ghosts do not exist. I’m sure Sarah, the ghost girl, the girl on the swing, would disagree. Dez and Emmie had been discussing the personality or lack of personality of the house for several hours. “Let’s go for a walk, Emmie. I’m not sure personality is the right word for a house, but every time I come up the drive, I see more than just a pile of bricks stacked up around a wood frame. Maybe, I’m seeing history?” 

“A walk. Good idea! If we go out the front door, no one will notice us.” The sisters were taking time away from work on the Estate and Dez's work in Hartley. Unable to completely re-create their pandemic two week self-isolation in March, they could, sort of, self-isolate upstairs with the benefit of Cook's culinary expertise for a weekend. From just 24 hours to a full weekend, they had settled in to relax. Emmie agreed to Dez's suggestion for a walk to humour her sister. After all of the Beaufort family celebrations and gatherings, thinking about the personality of the house seemed quite odd. She hoped that going for a walk would actually distract Dez from this crazy idea. But the first thing they saw when they went out the front door were double twin pillars supporting a small parapet. “This is what I’m talking about. When I see that, I don’t see a pile of bricks that hide pretty rooms. I see support and protection. Here - look up there.” Dez took Emmie by the elbow and led her around the far side of the house. “There. Up in the corner of the house, almost completely covered by ivy, there’s a gargoyle - and another at each corner, level with the eaves. Some say they ward off evil. More protection - right? I guess I’m sounding a little strange.” Dez did take a more artistic view of the house than probably most on the Estate did. 

Emmie was rather amused, but tried to hide it. When she thought about it though, she had always felt protected in this house. Well, except when Sarah was floated unexpectedly through a wall or window. Suddenly curious, she stopped and bent down. “Look what I’ve found, Dez.” Emmie had squatted at a corner, brushed away dirt and tugged at sparse ivy that clung to the bricks. The brick she had uncovered at the front of the house, a slightly deeper shade of brick red, was inscribed with a single word: Hope. “Do you think there may be others?” Dez was curious and excited. Each corner did have another. Kindness at the front. At the back on either corner was Wisdom and Truth. Walking the whole perimeter of the house, they looked for any other inscriptions, but only the four cornerstone bricks were inscribed. Unless they had been covered too completely by ivy, there were no others. Emmie saw her home with different eyes. She had lived within the walls for over 20 years since marrying into the Beaufort family and had wandered the grounds. She had never known the old house, her home, this intimately, but had grown to love it anyway. Emmie still didn’t believe that any house had a personality, but this house felt……….different. 

“It is not length of life, but depth of life.”

 ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Chapter One, Episode 131 - Up to the House - Situationally Theirs

Review, Revision, Edit and Update

The number of revisions my episodes go through begin long before they are ever posted. I am improving slowly but steadily. Today's many revisions within this episode: back and forth sentence restructuring and reshaping throughout, with attention to my over-use of both proper and improper pronouns until I was satisfied. 

Conservationist and author, Rachel Carson describes it best:

“Given the initial talent.....writing is largely a matter of applications and hard work, of writing and rewriting endlessly, until you are satisfied that you have said what you want to say as clearly and simply as possible. For me that usually means many, many revisions.” 

~ Rachel Carson

Up to the House

There was little to visit about that evening. Neither Dez nor Emmie wanted anything more than quiet. Plans to watch a movie set aside, Emmie was reading, Dez was sketching. Emmie put her book down and watched her sister sketch with an ordinary pencil. Lines and curves appeared on a very ordinary piece of paper from the coffee table. Familiar shapes of a house and a large tree appeared. Emmie, sounding surprised, said “You’re sketching this house, Dez.” Her sister stopped mid sketch, glanced up at Emmie, looked back down at her work. “It just started out as a few lines. The house just materialized - kind of like Sarah does.” Dez had been curled up on the couch, using a hardcover book for an easel. She put down her book, page and pencil, uncurled her legs and sat up. Putting one foot up on the opposite knee to massage the tingling numbness away, she said “Has anybody ever really looked at your house? Like it is a part of us all. I mean, I’m not here that often so I shouldn’t really include myself, but I did live here when we were self-isolating.” Emmie looked thoughtful and walked to the living room window. “Of course you're a part of us, Dez. Speaking of Sarah, I wonder what she knows about the house, if anything.” Dez stood up gingerly, testing her balance on her wakening foot. “I’m not sure that’s what I mean. Not just the architecture or even what has happened in the house, but the house itself. I’m not making sense even to me.” 

But it made sense to the old house as it settled with the creaking of its age. 

“I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects 

the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.”

~ Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

Chapter One, Episode 42 - The Girl on the Swing - Situationally Theirs

June 17, 2020

Review, Edit and Update: 

Little to fix in this episode - 

a comma here, a period there. 

What’s interesting? - a ghostly entry into Dez’s life.

The Girl on the Swing

Dez only caught a glimpse of her. She was driving up to her sister’s home for the afternoon. Emmie was away, so seeing someone in the house troubled her. It could have been one of the staff. Maybe it was Brigitte. The figure at the window seemed too slender to be Martha and Cook apparently never was in the upstairs. But, she thought, maybe it’s my imagination? There were no cars parked at the front, so Dez drove around back. Hmm...no cars here either. She made sure her cell phone was in the big bag she carried. Digging around in the bottom, she fished it out and turned it on. Parking the car as quietly as possible on the gravel, she turned it off. Let it sit for a minute. Opened her door quietly and slowly. Once she was out of the car, she closed the door just as quietly, the only sound the click of the catch. I’ll have to close it more tightly once I know who's in the house. The back door was closed and locked. The rubber soles of Dez’ shoes as she walked around the veranda, let her check the windows. None seem to have been disturbed. It must have been my imagination. Back at the kitchen door, Dez slipped her key in the lock. It made a tiny grating noise that made Dez wince. She really should be calling someone, but she just wasn’t sure of what or who she had seen. Not wanting to be thought a foolish woman, she decided she could handle anyone….if there was anyone inside. Slowly, carefully, noiselessly, she crossed the length of the kitchen and started up the stairs. Her breathing sounded too loud so she held her breath. When her lungs were about to burst, she took little shallow breaths. Dez still didn’t hear any movement from upstairs. The house, upstairs and down, felt empty and at the same time there seemed to be a fragment of a presence. No one had ever told Dez of any ghosts that may inhabit the old house, but the quavering of her heart, suggested that there was something or someone with her. Why now? Why not when Emmie and I were isolated here? Were there any strange noises we both ignored. Emmie would know of ghosts or strange goings on. She would have told me. Wouldn’t she? 

“Is there anyone here?” Dez voice was loud and sounded almost booming, making her jump. “Is there anyone here? If you’re a ghost or a spirit or something, do something so I can stop being scared! I saw you at the window when I drove up. At least I thought I saw you.”

Dez was at the dining room window. The very window that she thought she saw someone. The white gauzy drapes were pulled against the afternoon sun. Sunlight filtered through them softening everything in the room. Dez breathed a sigh of relief. “It was just my imagination. How did I get so spooked?” Nevertheless, she did look in each corner of the dining room and the adjoining living room to be certain that she was alone. Back in the dining room, she pulled back the curtain. It was always a lovely vista with the expanse of lawn, the gravelled driveway lined with Tuscany pines, the town of Hartley nestled in the distance. The sun was low, the shadows of the trees long. On the lawn, close to the mansion, was an ancient redwood that Dez admired each time she came to Emmie’s mansion. The red bark, lit up by the sun, made it more stunning than usual. Dez froze. There was the same figure, but a young girl. A blonde, ringleted girl swinging slowly back and forth. “But there is no swing on that tree! I know it.” Dez had often thought the old trees branches would be great for swings. The tree itself a wonderful climbing tree. But I’m not ten years old anymore. “There is no swing. No girl. Only a tree. I must be losing it. If this place is haunted, why hasn’t anyone told me!”

If the old house could have laughed, it would have. But all it could do was watch and listen in amusement as Dez tried to make sense of what she had seen. No one had ever told her the story of the house and the girl on the swing. It was an innocent enough story. No murder or mayhem. One day, that story would be told, of that the old house was certain.

~~~~~

Dez heard Matt’s truck before she saw it. Tearing her eyes away from the girl on the swing, she looked up. “I’ve got to tell Matt about this. Or should I? He’ll think I’m crazy and I don’t want to chase him away.” When she looked back at the tree, it was just a tree. No girl, no swing. “I’m forty years old and seeing things. But I know what I saw.” Dez turned and retraced her steps down to the kitchen just as Matt was knocking on the door. 

“Dez! Are you ok? I hate to say this, but you look like you’ve seen a ghost. That’s a pretty trite phrase, but that is how you look.”

“Not ‘a’ ghost but two ghosts, Matt. Or maybe it was just one that was in two places when I was outside it was upstairs and when I went upstairs it - or she - was on a swing on the big tree at the front. Damn. I’m shaking. It was so scary!”

“Are you going to be ok? Do you still want me to go to the orchard with you. We’ve still got some clearing away to do before you can get your beehives in.”

“Definitely, Matt. I’m just glad you’re here. Getting the beehive spaces ready would be good for me. I need some physical work to settle this shaking.”

Matt put his arms around Dez. “You are shaking! And yes I know we’re supposed to be distanced but I’m worried about you. Let’s go see that tree first where you saw the girl on the swing, just to prove you’re not going crazy. Then we’ll deal with the orchard.”

~~~~

Looking up into the tree, they could see nothing. Dez suddenly stepped backwards, gasped and put her hand to her mouth. “Matt. Look. Up there.” 

Matt did as he was told. “What Dez?”

“Those scars on that branch. Scars that only a thick rope could have made. Two of them. There was a swing here.”

“The muses are ghosts, and sometimes they come uninvited.”

~ Stephen King, Bag of Bones

Chapter One, Episode 23 - Stock Taking - Situationally Theirs

May 29, 2020

Review, Edit and Update

Most of us, in this Covid19 situation, have had our lives stripped bare. This is especially true for single people - women and men. Episode 23, Stock Taking, asks Emelina Beaufort to examine her own life in the midst of pandemic restrictions. 

Improved sentence structure was the biggest repair job to be done. Detail was added or expanded. Some punctuation, and at least one typo was fixed.

Stock Taking 

When Dez sat down on the sun dried wooden bench, she leaned against the wrought iron arm rest. Her only plan for the day was to drink her coffee, apply for employment insurance, contact her previous boss and go home. For now, she would sit in the cool air and warm sun. Her short list gave her the luxury of enjoying the birds, soaking in the rays and listening to the trickling of the stream. Staying inside was a big part of the precautions, but fresh air, sunshine and the world outside of walls were a big part of sanity maintenance when her apartment seemed to have shrunk to the size of a postage stamp. Dez almost felt guilty when she thought of Emmie’s place. Sure it was beautiful, in a glossy magazine manicured sort of way. Too tidy! Even though over the weeks of no gardener, grass looking a little ragged and weeds popping up in the usually pristine flower beds, it still looked manicured. Just in need of a manicure to polish things up. Draining the last of her coffee, Dez was about to get up and get going on her day when her phone rang.  Dez had not chosen a typical ring for her phone. In fact it wasn’t a ring at all…… ‘Don’t stop believin’ ’…..her favourite song. Always got her humming and wanting to dance. Emmie's name popped up. She hadn’t heard from her big sister in a couple of days. Emmie had returned to The Mansion. Dez was only mildly sarcastic when she said The Mansion like that. In fact she was more than mildly jealous, but knew that their different life paths, had brought different things into their lives. Dez was still single, but had not been in short supply of male company. Emmie married into wealth. Exactly what she had always expected for herself. When they last talked, she seemed quite unsure whether she still wanted all the trappings of that childhood dream. 

Dez checked the time. It was almost 9am when the EI office would open. Pretty early for Emmie to be making phone calls. After that silly bank fiasco thing and the jail time, they had been self isolated together in Emmie's kitchen. She often didn’t get up until noon. Her sister definitely was not a morning person. 

“Emmie? Is everything ok? You’re up early!’

“Ok? Oh, yes. Everything is just fine. I’m coming into town this afternoon. Are you going to be home?“

“Sure. I’ve got a couple of errands this morning and then I’ll be home. You know the saying: Stay Home and Stay Safe! I'm using lots of hand sanitizer while I deal with this important stuff like my car and EI. Washing my hands as often as I can. Yes,I’ll be following orders. Emmie, you sound pretty serious. Are you sure you’re ok?”

“Yes, Dez. Everything really is just fine. I just have a lot on my mind and I need to talk with you about it. It’s about the house and what I want to do with …..what I might do with it.”

“Me? I don’t know anything about real estate except that I can’t afford to buy anything. I can barely afford rent.”

“Well, that’s part of what my plans are.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense. What are your plans?

“I’m not going to give you anymore details right now. Just be home this afternoon, I should be at your place around 2:30. Apply for your EI, but I hope you’re not making any other big plans.”

“I’m just going to track down my old boss to see if I still have a job, but I have no other plans in the works. Doesn’t seem much point in setting too much up right now anyway. I’ll be here when you get here. I hope you’re telling me the truth about everything being just fine.”

~~~~~

Dez did get her application in and she did track down her boss. He was actually quite glad to see her.  An older man, Mr. Jorgenssen had run this business for almost twenty five years. But his small business was now jeopardized. He could keep it open for a limited amount of customers and his hours of operation also had to be curtailed. Mr. Jorgenssen and one employee would be doing a very thorough inventory, finding stocks of supplies that he would carefully ration. He was closing the Dry Cleaning and Laundry for a day so that he and one employee would do a deep clean of his establishment. Although, he could only pay very slim part-time wages, he was keeping two of his best employees on. Dez was disappointed in the pay, but glad that her job was still hers. The EI or the other relief money from the government would keep her afloat while this old world was in such a mess.

Emmie was waiting for her when Dez got home. “Come on, up Emmie. I’ve got tea, water and wine. Which one do you want? The wine isn’t fancy and it’s red. I don’t have any white wine.”

“I’d like some wine, but only a half glass. I will have to drive home tonight and I don’t need to be pulled over for drunk driving.”

Emmie seemed more relaxed since the morning’s phone conversation when she seemed tense and nervous. She had said everything was fine but Dez didn’t really believe her.  

“So what is this plan that you may or may not have? Is it anything I’d be interested in?”

“I hope you’ll be interested in it. I still have to talk to Digby, Martha and Cook about it. Giles will probably have a place in it too. While I was home, I went through the entire house to see what was there, rather like an inventory. Not that I didn’t know what I owned, but I needed to see it again. Really see it. What I saw was a big empty house. Yes it’s nice, nice furnishings and decor, but no people. The only place I felt the warmth of people’s lives was in the Downstairs. You and I must have left our mark, but Cook, Martha, Digby…all of my employees… were imprinted in so many little touches. The way Cook owns the kitchen and not just with food preparation. She requests, very assertively specific types of pots and pans, whisks, ladles and carving knives. I own the walls, but Cook owns the kitchen. And then there’s Martha. Cook won’t let her put her grandchildren’s pictures on the refrigerator, so Martha has a frame on her door ~ you’ve seen it ~ for all their pictures and poems and cards. Digby, for as quiet as he is, has a presence felt in the way he hangs up his coat, the way he places his shoes just so when he has finished for the day, the books that he reads. I suppose because I stayed in his room for the couple of weeks you and I were in our ‘kitchen house’, I felt his presence just a little bit more. But Upstairs……empty. My bedroom had some hint of my personality, but otherwise it was empty. Has been since Mike died.”

“That’s quite a speech, Emmie! So what have you got in your head to put life back into the Upstairs? Did you seriously think of a Bed and Breakfast?  No. There’s nobody traveling these days, anyway.”

“Well, you are sort of right, Dez. What I have in mind would operate more like a boarding house, but it wouldn’t really be a boarding house. And you’re right, no one is traveling these days. That’s where Digby, Martha and Cook come in. I  - I mean we - if you want to do this - will need to talk with them first. For another reason, I talked with my fellow board members. Our conversations gave me an idea. The community needs more beds or places for people to quarantine, or have a place away from their families while they have to work. What do you think?”

Dez was quiet when Emmie finished. “I don’t know what to think Emmie? Except maybe you’ve finally really lost it? It might be a good idea? Or a real dangerous one. There’ll be a lot to do to get the Upstairs ready.” Dez wasn’t going to admit it, but she was more excited about this than anything else in the last many years. 

“Constantly take inventory of what’s important to you.”

~ Dave Chappell

Chapter One, Episode Six - Togethering - Situationally Theirs

May 09, 2020:

Reviewed and edited this morning. Some additions and improved sentence structure provide more clarity and detail. Any typos were fixed. (I did notice that Dez's hair colour is auburn in this episode and black in at least one other episode. Had she dyed her hair? I'll have to think about that before I make any change.)

Togethering

Emelina waffled about getting dressed before she went out to have breakfast. Because of the late hour, it was not really breakfast, merely breakfast food. She vaguely remembered being woken up from a sound sleep at 3:30 or was it 4:30? Driving into the city and picking her sister up? Her mind finally cleared while, strangely, still in Digby's room. She realized that her sister really was here. All of her staff, including her butler Digby, had deserted her because of some Invisible Menace. Digby was not given to such darkly poetic descriptions, so Emelina had to learn what he may have meant. Would that explain why Emelina was in her butler’s suite of rooms? Shrugging her long, ice blue satin robe on over rumbled, but matching silk pyjamas, she slipped her feet into her ice blue slippers. Emelina stopped. No. I can’t do it. I must be dressed, even if I have to do it myself. Quickly picking up the clothes from her night time rescue mission, she went into Digby’s ensuite bathroom, washed her face and tied up her hair. Her jogging suit, steel grey with a white stripe up the side, would have to do. even if she had already worn it once. A quick rinse with mouthwash and she was ready to face what was left of the day. Smiling at herself in the mirror and pinching roses into her cheeks she said aloud to her mirrored reflection. “There. Done”

“Good morning Dez. Where did you say my breakfast was? There’s nothing on the table.”

“Good morning, Emmie. Oh I meant that table right over there by the door to the hallway.”

Desperanza smiled and pointed to a little desk by the entrance to the hallway. She had pulled it out from the wall and moved its chair behind it. Dez washed her hands before picking up and handing Emmie her breakfast. Emmie was puzzled. Not only did she seem to have a ‘little kids table’, but there was green masking tape on the floor. The long kitchen table had green masking tape across the centre of it as well. 

“What’s going on, Desperanza? Why are you at such an arm’s length? Why do I have a separate table? I won’t bite you. Just because our conversation was a bit, shall we say, unpleasant last night doesn’t mean we have to keep separate.” Dez held up her hands. 

“Stop, Emmie. Just set your plate down on your table and let me explain. You don’t know much about this pandemic do you? We are basically strangers to each other. You don’t know where I’ve been and I don’t know where you’ve been. You only know that I was in jail last night. How many people have been in and out of the cell, I have no idea. We haven’t seen each other a very long time - what is it? - ten years? At dad’s funeral? So, I only know that you live in this big house.We might as well have come from different planets. But the cops - I mean police officers - insisted that I stay with family or they would send me up island to a dinky hotel in a town I’ve never been in with a lot more than one stranger taking care of the place.”

Dez took a deep breath. She hadn’t planned that little speech but the words just fired out of her mouth before she could even think. Emmie returned to the green line of tape, accepted the mug of coffee Dez handed her and back to the 'little kids table' where her breakfast was cooling.. 

“You’re scared, aren’t you, Dez?” 

“Of course I’m scared. There’s lock downs everywhere. The politicians are all agreeing with each other. Not just local politicians but all over the world! I suppose not all of them, but most of them. Sick people, dying people…….”

Dez’s brave exterior crumbled as she talked. She really was frightened. Having no place to go, she was dependent on the good graces of her sister. Her belongings from her last apartment were still locked up there. One person in her apartment had tested positive for Covid19. She couldn’t go back until that building was free of the virus. A virus that had spread rampantly all over the world. Emelina may not have known much about the real running of her house and nothing about the pandemic, but she did know how to diffuse tension in a situation. A skill she had learned by osmosis from Digby, a master of diffusion of tension. Her sister was in the midst of a very tense situation.

 “Dez, you’ve really done a lot of work in here, haven’t you? I’m just going to sit here and have my breakfast while you explain what the purpose of all this separation is. Am I to assume that you’ve done all of this for good reason? The kitchen does look a little strange with tape on the floor but at least it’s colourful. So go ahead and tell me what is going on.”

“Thank you, Emmie. You’re right. I am scared. No. Terrified. The only thing I can control are my surroundings. I’m in your house, they're still not my surroundings. Nothing belongs to me. And you could ask me to leave at any time. But I’m tired of being scared, so I’m going to ask you right now: How long can I stay here?”

“Dez you can stay as long as you want or need to. Just tell me what the tape is all about? And this ‘little kids table’?” Emmie glanced up and saw Dez starting to smile. She smiled back at her younger sister, Dez’s face all flushed and her curly auburn hair frizzing around her face.

Little smiles led to giggles and then they both burst out laughing. The laughter of the two sisters taking them back to their childhood home. Between great gulps of air, Dez said “I’ve……got……..a little……kids ……table tooo!! Look!  Look! Over ….there…..beside…beside........the ....the…..pantry door!” 

“But what…..about……that horrid…..green…….tape…..! It’s..it's…….a ……..good…….thing……I haven’t ………..got mascara………..on. It….would be……..all ……over….my face…..!

The laughter finally subsided. Emmie’s half eaten breakfast was cold but she finished it anyway. “So what do I do with my dishes. Do I keep them over here too? On the ‘little kids table’?” That just about set them laughing again, but Emmie was a master of control. She regained her composure with only a little bit of effort. Dez was still stifling her laughter. Their different and distant worlds had collided, leaving them breathless. They both knew that they had once been good friends that would help each other out of any difficulty or, as Dez would put it, out of any jam. They shared their dreams, their clothes and their laughter. And they would do so again.

Because it was so late in the day, practically supper time, Dez and Emmie, spent the evening talking about the games they played in childhood, the scrapes they got into as teenagers and why there was green masking tape all over the kitchen floor. Dez had decided, if they had to share a house they would do it as safely as possible. She would teach Emmie about the precautions they needed to take. She would create separate living spaces for them in this huge kitchen. They were up late that day and into the evening ~ well past midnight. Emmie had in fact been on a holiday, so had been out of touch with the changes taking place in the world. She did wonder at the number of masks she saw people wearing, but dismissed it as none of her business. Once Dez  made her aware that it really was her business, she had many more questions for Dez. Although she was not very computer literate at all, Dez apparently was. Emelina suggested that they set up one computer ~ either from Martha's or Digby’s room ~  somewhere in the kitchen so they could both see and work on it. That movement alone would challenge their togetherness. One to move the computer, one to supervise. As the newly organized house grew quiet that late night, both girls ~ and they felt like girls again ~ slipped into their separate dreamlands. Only the tick of the big kitchen clock could be heard.

“I think we dream so we don’t have to be apart for so long

. If we’re in each other’s dreams, we can be together all the time.”

~ A.A.Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh