Disvillage Story 6 – Dulcinea “The Mother”

July 30, 2019August 2, 2019 ~ 7seasonsago ~ Leave a comment

Her head moved to a position that her ears thought made them hear better and listened for a train. No train appeared to be coming. What had caused this unexpected wave of emotion? She didn’t know. The overwhelming sensation had abated, but the feeling of horror clung to her. It was not terror, but horror. It was not a feeling she felt often. It overwhelmed her and upset her. It was the second time she had felt it at this spot on the trail that ran along the train track she used as a short cut between her house and her brothers. She picked up her daughter Tabitha, who had started crying.

“What is that mommy?”

Dulcinea looked at her daughter. Her heart tightened and a little tear escaped her eye. Tabitha had felt it too. Yesterday she had thought she had made it up. Now she wasn’t so sure. She looked around. It was quiet. There was no train. No birds either. No rabbits or squirrels rustling in the bush. The feeling of being watched made her grab her daughter tighter and hurry on. Running seemed pointless as anywhere to run was to far. It seemed best to pretend that nothing was happening – to discourage a confrontation.

“It was just a stick, baby. I thought it was a snake too.” She said aloud, inventing a reason to be upset. Miraculously, Tabitha said nothing and stuck her finger in her mouth. As she walked away, the feeling left her. Maybe she had made the whole thing up.

She was almost in bright spirits when she reached the door of her brother’s, Jamison Lee. It was hard to shake the feeling that her spirits were so bright because she had just escaped something. She thought about the non-existent serial killer that didn’t live in her town. Had he recently killed there? Had he been watching her? Did she fit his profile? Did she seem vulnerable? Was she an outsider? She knew she wasn’t main stream, but she had never thought of herself as “that” different. Somewhere inside of her head she heard a voice say, “Nice girls don’t walk alone in the woods. Nice girls aren’t single mothers.” If this was her mind saying these things it was a betrayal of everything she believed about herself. Or… maybe she was just making the whole thing up she thought firmly to herself.

She had walked the same way at the same time of day more than she could count. She had created a pattern that, imagination running wild or no, she would not repeat. The path had been a staple of her routine. Before this week she had walked it many times in enjoyment. She was sad to lose it.

She knocked on the door of her brother’s house. He and his spouse Tyco had agreed to watch Tabitha so she could go out on her date. Tabitha escaped her grasp as just as the door opened so that she could bust in. “Uncle Jamie,” she yelled running past her uncle Jamison Lee searching for Tyco.

“We look nothing alike, but somehow being a couple has made us twins,” remarked her brother inviting her into his house.

“Thank you so much for doing this. I can’t stay. If I don’t leave now I’ll be late,” she said declining his invitation with a kiss on the cheek and a step backwards.

“Pick her up in the morning. Sometime before noon,” said her brother in goodbye.

Dulcinea continued her walk to her date. There was a new pedestrian overpass and now access to downtown was more readily possible. When they had originally put in the freeway it had completely cut off walkers from the town. Progress always seemed to be designed for someone else. She was pleased to be utilizing progress that seemed to benefit her. She felt reunited with community.

The mood of the path near the train track was wearing off and she was starting to get excited about her date. There were no expectations. She was just excited to be hanging out with a handsome man.

She had run into him while she was helping a homeless person find a church that was offering food and respite. Michael had been arguing with a neighbor of the church about the line of homeless people with shopping carts in front of the building. The neighbor was trying to sell his house across the street.

“Are you even zoned for this?” he had demanded of Michael.

“We are zoned to be a church. Helping those in need is the work of the church. What do you think a church is? A country club?”

“You know, I’m a Christian too!” the neighbor snapped and then stormed off.

Michael had sighed with frustration and then turned to Dulcinea to ask her if she needed help. Dulcinea explained her situation and waited patiently for Michael to explain the services to the homeless person – who then left them suddenly, alone together, heading into the respite of the church.

The absurd situation had made them comrades and after a brief pause of silence between them, he said. “I get it. I mean, if it were my yard, I would like it to be free of needles and human feces too. But helping these people didn’t bring the problem here. They were already here.” He finished turning to her with a sigh clearly eager to change the subject. “I’m Michael.”

“I’m Dulcinea.”

Michael was a Christian. At first that had concerned her. The bible had a tenuous relationship with those gifted with magic. Sure, there had been magicians at Christ’s birth, but the book also gave instruction on avoiding witches and killing them when possible. In the bible magic was the soul property of prophets.

But Michael wasn’t a Christian of the “dreadful sort”. Which seemed to mean he asked more questions than he pretended to have answers to. She had even gone to church with him. When she had lifted her hands in prayer, she had felt power. There was magic in that old church. While it hadn’t made her want to “come out of the broom closet” to him, it had turned out that him being a Christian was not a show stopper.

She wasn’t sure what she would tell him or even how to broach the subject. I’m a witch? What did that mean anyways? For her, witchcraft wasn’t so much about a belief system or a deity structure. It was more like a language not everyone could speak.

Regardless, Michael made her feel good. It had been a pleasure to help him go through his closet looking for things to donate. They had found an old uniform of his. Michael had been a Mounty – of course he had. He was one of the good guys. She couldn’t help leaning into the feeling that this Christian Canadian was the Dudley Do Right to her Penelope Pit Stop.

She hated that analogy. It was too accurate and at the same time not at all who she was. She was perfectly capable of getting herself out of any jam she got herself in. However, it was undeniable she was always getting herself into trouble. Or that trouble had a way of finding her. Eglantine attributed it to her green eyes. “The lipochrome attracts magic, wild magic, unpredictable magic. It creates a vortex”, Eglantine had once explained. What ever the cause, it might be nice to have someone who’s hand she could depend on taking from time to time. It was exhausting figuring it out by herself all the time.

Dulcinea reached the restaurant and descended the stairs into the lower part. They would not be dining at the fancy restaurant on top, they would be eating at the bistro underneath – listening to the Celtic Rock Band playing in the corner.

Michael smiled when he saw her come through the door and stood up to pull out her chair. “How was the walk?” he asked her.

“Funny you should ask. I feel like I just walked through the worst cloud of evil,” she replied dismissively as she took her seat with a little chuckle expecting him to take it as a joke.

“On the path near the train tracks?” he inquired. The question caught her by surprise and she almost fell into her chair.

“Why would you say that?” she asked.

Disvillage Story 3 – Treble Makers Under a Rest

July 12, 2019August 2, 2019 ~ 7seasonsago ~ Leave a comment

Fruitless mulberries had once lined the street – with one in front of every lot. Or, so she had been told. She had met another “nosey neighbor” at an open house. When she had described which property was hers (to see if the two of them were neighbors), the elderly lady had exclaimed “oh, the house with the perfectly sculpted tree!”

It was… perfectly sculpted. The trunk had been pruned to resemble a hand. With her second eye, she always saw a tree house sitting in it. She wondered which alternate reality that was in. Yet, maybe it wasn’t an alternate reality. Maybe it was the future.

When she had first bought the house, she had thought about cutting it down. It provided no fall color and no fruit. However, the love that had gone into the maintenance of the tree could not be denied.

One year she had it pruned back to the “hand”. The summer after had been unbearable inside her house as the tree struggled to regrow its canopy. She had discovered what the tree was for. It was for shade. The lesson had solved another problem. The neighbor across the street who had constantly complained about it, never complained again. She guessed it had been a hot summer for them as well.

The tree had proven it’s worth. Moira would keep it. Taking the under canopy up, she provided a space for undergrowth trees and populated it with Dogwood and Japanese Maples. These under canopy trees would provide the fall foliage she needed. As a day dreamer she recognized the importance of keeping and celebrating the passage of time. In a place where seasons were not distinct, she tried to provide some structure for mother nature wherever she could.

While the tree thought of itself as ancient (it was probably the oldest tree in the neighborhood), it was (in reality) a mere fifty. Since she had decided that the tree would stay, Moira bought a boulder for it to have as a friend with the hopes that the much older rock would impart some wisdom to the provincial tree.

Moira was sitting under it now on that very boulder as she mentally prepared herself to go to work. There was nothing hard about her job, but she liked to be in the right space before she arrived. Also, Donny, her neighbor Jakes housemate, was going to catch a ride to work with her. So, she was also waiting for him.

Gwydion, her employer, had given Donnie a job in house keeping in the café at the resort and hot springs she worked at teaching yoga. She was also preparing for her meeting with Gwen regarding expanding her role there. Gwydion was trying to establish music for the grounds and was hoping to start training talent as they were having some difficulty securing local musicians. As with everything with Gwen, it was long term thinking – seeds planted now for shade trees and fruit tomorrow. She also suspected that Gwen was laying out the first steps in a path to make her his second in command.

Gwen had laid out four areas of focus for the resort – water, earth, wind, and fire.

Water was represented by the hot springs and bathhouse. It was a chance to be clean. To wash things away. It also represented the heart and was the most social part of the resort.

Earth was represented by the grounds. They were laid out with a compliment of edible, medicinal, and ornamental plants. It was a place devoted to the care of the body.

Wind was represented by the amphitheater. It was a place where ballets, lectures, and concerts were given addressed the needs of the mind.

Fire was represented everywhere. It could be found in the heat of the drawn bath. It could be found in the oven of the kitchen. It could be found in the illumination of the theater. Fire was transformative. It addressed the needs of the soul.

Moira’s instrument of calling was Double Bass, but she played all the string instruments. She had taught both her grandchildren violin – her little treble makers as she liked to call them. Adjacent to the amphitheater, Gwen had plans for a school. One of the classes taught there would be music, but Gwen had hinted that her role would be one of a “principle” of sorts.

Moira had the background to pull it off. She had started her life in classical music and dance before moving on to university and then a corporate position of leadership all the while dabbling in fine arts to amuse herself.

It was corporate life that had introduced her to the concept of “retreat”. These “work vacations” had become important to her as a time of deconstruction and reconstruction. When she retired, she found herself gravitating to all sorts of retreats. Yoga retreats, music retreats, writing retreats, ceramic retreats – you name it. Moira enjoyed it all.

It was at one such retreat she had met Gwydion, sailing. He had discussed with her his resort. They had a likeness of minds and a relaxed way of speaking to each other. He was also very easy on the eyes which made her school girls heart glad. He made her feel young. Before she knew it she had been recruited to join his team of workers.

Which brought her to now – under this tree – sitting on this rock. Yoga instructor hadn’t really felt like work. It had felt like a calling. But the resort also had the feeling of a calling. Taking on more didn’t feel like signing up for more somehow. It felt like another step down her right path. It was a path that had brought her to this house, this neighborhood, this town. There was magic here. She could feel it.

A noise distracted her and she looked up to see Donnie on his way accompanied by her other neighbors Tyco and Jamison Lee. They were delivering fresh eggs and had dropped some off at Jakes just in time to escort Donnie over.

A new friend, a new opportunity, and fresh eggs. There were even blueberries on the bush and peaches on the tree. At a time in her life that she should be thinking of how to wrap it up, it felt like she was just beginning. Her wandering soul was at rest. She had arrived. Like the tree her reason for being had not immediately been apparent. It was time for her to start providing shade for others to sit under.

Suburban Splendor Number 3 “Say, what’s in this drink?”

February 17, 2018February 17, 2018 ~ 7seasonsago ~ Leave a comment

The many faces of the room (sculptures, photographs, paintings, dolls) stared him daring him to create. Clutter, some called it. But as an artist he needed stuff. Some stuff represented people he knew and had known. Some stuff represented ideas. Regardless of where it came from it all gave him inspiration and reminded him of memories from his past.

Jamison Lee sat holding his tablet in the middle of the Bull Room thinking about what he would draw next. He was currently fascinated by contemporary mythological archetypes. His mind processed them as a type of folk hero. Perhaps he would be able to raise them up to kitchen deity status – pictures you would hang on the wall to meditate on he thought. When he created his flight attendant he considered maybe he was creating a patron saint of air travel. He enjoyed creating these solo figures and making up stories about them.

He also enjoyed this new digital medium. The iPad pro and stylus had created space he didn’t think he would have time for until he retired. The only down side was he hated telling people that he created his work digitally. He imagined them thinking he just pushed a button to generate it. In reality each drawing was hand rendered – sometimes taking 10 to 15 hours. What he loved about a digital drawing was: no brushes to clean, no pencils to sharpen, no colors to run out of or remix. The 10 to 15 hours of working on a piece was pure composition and creation.

“So you don’t have any originals?” someone often asked him curios about collect some original work.

“No”, he would reply. “You could consider my work as you would a digital photograph. It’s a copy immediately after you take it as it saves to a drive. There is not even a negative to archive. It becomes a copy of a copy of a copy every time it’s saved – like a memory. The work is only original once.”

He wondered, as he chose the next subject for his drawing, if in a thousand years (or even a hundred), if the work stored on a hard drive would look like an old Xerox copy. He swirled the whiskey surrounding his ice and took a sip. Tyco had made it for him. Jamison Lee noticed something extra in the whiskey, something sweet that brought out all the flavors.

He looked up to see Tyco with a basket in his hand returning from the chicken run. He had heard them crooning their laying song earlier from the bull room where he sat contemplating the next piece. It was the bull room because of the bull horns which presided above the opening to the dining room. Also, it was a place to receive guests and hear their stories. It was the bullshit room. It was the perfect place to create.

“Five eggs today”, Tyco said setting the basket on the counter.

It was a good haul. “Say, what’s in this drink?” responded Jamison Lee.