If you want to skip the preamble, I don’t blame you. You can go to the story by finding the orange yarn emojis 🧶 🧶 🧶 and start reading under those.
🎨 🎨 🎨 🎨 🎨
Some folks are able to narrow in on one thing they like to do. I’ve never been good at that - I have too many interests!
I love to paint, play violin, draw, write … It’s been hard for me to focus and do anything perfectly, because I aim in all these different directions. Years ago, I cut back on so many other things I also used to do - bubbling, entertaining audiences, soap making, and so many other hobbies and crafts I dreamt of doing “some day.” I decided to narrow my focus as best I could, and figure out what was most meaningful to me. I got rid of a household of “stuff,” and narrowed my interests drastically down to mostly violin and writing, though my fantasy self still loves to paint, draw and especially illustrate books. (Which I have done in the past.)
These last few months, I have been trying to find my happiness as a single mom, even though my kids no longer live with me. I turned to my violin - the instrument I had begged to play from Kindergarten through 4th grade when I could finally start. I gave it up when I became a mom. But now that my kids are adults and no longer live with me, I thought I would try to play it again. I recorded some of the beginning songs of me playing again and have shared them on many social media platforms under the hashtag #TheTravelingViolinist
🎻 🎻 🎻 🎻 🎻
Last year at this time, I was writing my most recent book: “Simple Book of Shadows,” and drawing the cover on my iPad - a triquetra that looks hand drawn, lit from behind, and has the colors of the rainbow in a color-wheel style. It was inspired by the tattoo I designed that is on my left arm - another color-wheel triquetra that symbolizes me with my two boys, and also symbolizes more than that.
After I got that book written, an acquaintance told me that I couldn’t possibly write books as fast as I have in the past (Mere Creativity, I wrote in 6 days, and Simple Book of Shadows took me a month), because she grew up in the publishing industry and she knows better than I do, how books get written by authors. It startled me to get such feedback. I stopped writing altogether.
Fast forward to Christmas of last year, and one of my sisters-in-law said to me that my calling was to write. “You write so well!” She’d read my “On Spoons and Sparkles” story to her kids and they all loved it. And she just wanted to let me know that I should write.
The cognitive dissonance of the acquaintances negative feedback combined with my sister-in-law’s positive (and unexpected) feedback have sat with me for almost a year now. I have tried to learn things like marketing and building an audience and all kinds of things that are not my talent, and meanwhile, projects I have wanted to write continue to sit in my thoughts and not get out onto digital paper the way I dream they will be, some day.
This past weekend, after a very emotional previous few weeks (due in part to losing my dog, Sparky and missing my sons), I decided to just continue writing like I have. I don’t have finances to sink into real publishing of my books and the expensive marketing. I am barely making it through life right now since I’m not able to hold down a “real” job (whatever that is) and I live on a very fixed income that doesn’t cover my medical expenses and all the insurance companies I pay money to every month. (Insurance is, I think, the most expensive part of my monthly budget.)
💸 💸 💸 💸 💸
(that’s supposed to be money flying away, in case you can’t see the emoji very well)
🍃 🍃 🍃 🍃 🍃
This morning I had a vivid dream just before waking up, and I spent the next hour writing it down, for you all to read.
I hope you enjoy the story. Please let me know what you think, and if you think that I should definitely return to writing, and start those novels in earnest, that I have been thinking about for years now. The first chapters of “Fairy Tech” (for ages 8-12) are available on Amazon Kindle Vella. My next book’s first few chapters come out in November, 2024. I had originally hoped to get the book done by the end of last year, but then I was called to that sudden halt I mentioned earlier. So they are now scheduled for a year from now.
I have dreamed of writing “Fairy Tech” since 1998, I think. I know the characters well, and what the setting is where they live. I know the plot, and I know how I want to write it. I just need to get writing, and see how the characters work out the plot. Fairies can be tricky, so they may dance around the story, and we shall see how it all works out, so long as I put my fingers to the keyboard and start writing it in earnest.
🧚♀️ 🧚 🧚🏽♂️ 🧚🏾♀️ 🧚♂️ 🧚🏼 🧚🏿♀️
Without further adieu - here is the vivid dream I had this morning:
🧶 🧶 🧶 🧶 🧶
Evacuation
I stared at all the shoes, scattered in the hall, that I had brought with me to campus. Why had I brought all these shoes? I only wore my maroon sandals all the time. I didn’t want to leave them a mess like this. I couldn’t. I started pairing them up. The purple heels I had seen in the window at that fancy store that I just had to have.
The purple left shoe and its matching maroon shoe that laced all the way up my foot and the heel a comfortable wedge. I had forgotten about so many of these shoes that I used to love.
How many pairs of sneakers did I own? The orange pair with their heavy soles, made for weight-lifting, the red shoes that I wore every day for two years. The white pair. I didn’t even remember the white pair. Had they been for a long forgotten uniform?
So many shoes. I hastily lined them up, two by two on the polished concrete floor outside my dorm room. I needed to hurry. Everyone else was leaving. The hall growing more empty by the moment.
I grabbed a pair of my sneakers - the green ones. They weren’t nearly as worn as the red ones and I remembered they were comfortable, even if I hadn’t worn them in a while.
I shoved them into the emergency black backpack we had all been hastily issued not even 20 minutes ago.
“Take only what you absolutely need! We need to evacuate!” The breathless faculty member had told us and then scurried down the hall, to the next room.
Looking out in the hall at that point, I saw many faculty members handing out backpacks quickly to students.
I turned around, the hall completely empty now.
I was alone. I needed to get to the stairs. Why wasn’t there an elevator or an escalator?
I looked at all the rooms as I passed them - clothes piled on beds. Computers left on, some windows left open to the breeze outside. Rooms felt empty and strange. No students laughed in them, listened to music, commiserated over the most recent puzzles they’d been given to solve.
I got to the end of the hall by two staircases, and saw Jamin, the one who kept me company in between each of my relationships. We barely spoke most of the time. We would greet each other in class sometimes; that was the majority of our relationship.
When I needed comfort from a heartbreak, there he was, ready to hold me in his muscular arms and smelling of fresh air and pine needles.
We looked at each other - time froze as our eyes met. My heart skipped a beat, and felt like it would never beat again. Then I felt it - beating wildly in my chest. My head flashed to the idea of evacuating with him, hand in hand, navigating the mountain together. I knew I would be safe if we did this together.
“Jamin!” Another student called him. He came out of the room he had been in. Jamin turned towards his friend, away from me. He made his choice and I was on my own.
I hurried down the staircase. It circled in a wide arch. The cement stairs were small and close together. I always navigated them carefully. The steps were too small for my feet. The metal bannister was cold in my hand.
I had descended this staircase so many times - sometimes I wondered if Hobbits had made it. It felt like the inside of a cylinder. Stairs narrow by the bannister on the inside, stairs wider on the outside.
I stayed close to the inside of the stairs, even though it meant the stairs were too small for my feet. I needed to hurry and the path down the inside felt shorter.
At the bottom of the staircase, I was greeted with big, wide windows. Faculty members were ushering the last students out of the building, directing us to the biggest lecture hall on campus.
I walked around a pillar and got on the moving walkway that would take me through the door towards the lecture hall.
I had to go through the library, attached to my dorm, to exit. All those beautiful books that were rarely touched anymore. So many books. The colors of their spines sitting on golden colored wood shelves. I loved walking through the library.
I wanted to pause and take in their organized, colorful view one more time. I glanced and urged my feet to keep moving forward. My chest felt open and empty. An ache formed in the top of my chest and felt like a lump on my throat.
I finally got to the lecture hall and sat down on the side by the door.
“ … your backpacks are waterproof and will give you some buoyancy.” A faculty member was lecturing the students quickly on what would come next.
“So, once again, you’re going to proceed directly down the mountain face.”
My eyes went wide. I looked at the students I could see - their eyes wide too. We all had the same realization together - there would be no busses, no trains, no carpools to take us through the pathway in the mountain. We were to traverse the face of the mountain. The view we’d seen all year - the waterfalls cascading down the mountains.
I got up, in a daze. My head spun. I looked at the doors ahead of me to get to the face of the mountain. Students were already pouring out of them. 100s of students, through all the different doors.
Sure, we went through those doors sometimes to enjoy the view, but this time, we didn’t know if we would be back. The possessions we’d left in our rooms suddenly felt distant and unimportant. We had our clothes on, hopefully a change of clothes in our backpack, maybe a clean pair of socks, some rations hastily packed, and that was it.
What was next? Navigating waterfalls.
I stepped outside the door, unable to focus on what was directly in front of me.
I stood at one end of the building. I looked to my left and saw students walking through the moss we all loved, heading to the concrete stairs and polished, smooth concrete arches that framed the waterfall.
I walked forward, feeling completely alone in a crowd of people. Some students had groups of their friends traveling together. Some were with their best friend or their partner. A group of students trailed behind a faculty member who pretended to know what they were doing.
I walked forward, overheard the faculty member say, “it’s going to be okay. Just slide down the concrete. You’ll land in the pool of water, and we will keep proceeding forward.”
“Keep proceeding forward.” It repeated in my head. “Keep proceeding forward. Keep proceeding forward.”
I looked down the smooth concrete leading to a pool of water. Students were lined all the way across the mountain, doing this very same thing. Some students had already made it across the pools below and to the next concrete arch.
I sat down at the edge and trusted it would work out. 100s of students had already done it. “Keep proceeding forward.”
I pushed off and before I knew it, my feet and shins were in the pool below. I trudged through the water to the next concrete arch and slid down that wall into the next pool of water.
The pool was maybe 6 feet wide. Trudging through it wasn’t so terrible. “I can do this,” I thought in my head. “Keep proceeding forward,” the thought continued to echo in my head.
I got to the next arch, slid down the slippery concrete into the next pool. That concrete arch had noticeable water sliding down it, more than the previous arches.
My back was damp. My clothes felt cold as the water made them damp and cling to me where the water had seeped in.
I slid down the next archway, trudged through another pool. One after another. I started to notice the pools were getting deeper. The water was now up to my waist.
I pushed my legs forward through the water. Urging them to keep moving forward. Keep moving forward.
How many of these had we gone down? How many more were ahead of us?
Students who had been talkative at the beginning of the exodus were now silent, urging their own bodies forward as we continued to work our way down the mountainous waterfall.
How long had we been doing this? Each pool a little more deep than the previous one. I wasn’t sure. The pool I was in was chest high. I could swim in this one, instead of walk. Swimming was easier.
I kicked my legs and did a breast stroke with my arms, keeping my head above the water. I wanted to continue to be able to see what was ahead of me.
Students swam in the pool next to me, everyone doing whatever stroke propelled them forward. Some clearly knew how to swim, others weren’t as sure. Their backpacks kept them buoyant as they kicked their legs behind them.
At the end of the pool was a slight upward slope, leading us to the next arch. It gave us time to collect our breath and look down before we plunged to the next pool. I stood there - my legs frozen underneath me. Was it the cold water? Was it the size of the slide I saw? I had gotten used to sliding down concrete walls now, into pools below.
The next concrete arch ahead of me was much larger than the previous arches. It looked like a vertical drop - at least 11 feet, down into a pool. The pool, I knew would be deep. Would it be chest high? Deeper than that? I couldn’t tell.
It was a steep drop and my stomach fluttered, my chest clenched. The breeze caught my clothes as I stared down the smooth concrete wall of the arch.
I took a chance. I got to the top of the archway, put my feet over the edge, and then turned around so my stomach faced the concrete wall. I lowered my body down, feet dangling below me, and held on as I tried to gather my courage.
“Keep moving forward,” I heard in my head.
I took a deep breath, and let go. I slid down the concrete wall. I kept my arms in front of my face as I slid.
My feet plunged into water. This water was much deeper than any of the previous pools. There would be no way to tell how deep it was.
My backpack still aided in helping me move forward. The water pushed us forward, too. I swam my awkward breast stroke. I was suddenly grateful for those swimming lessons my parents had signed me up for, that I had always hated. Swimming came so easily to other people, it seemed. It had never been easy for me, though.
But I had passed every swimming class by working hard and trying to do what I saw others do. So I continued with my awkward breast stroke.
A student treaded water in front of me. I would have to go around her. Everyone was proceeding forward, but she was treading water, looking back up the mountain.
Was she waiting for someone? Was she stuck? Had she forgotten something?
I saw around her. “Are you okay?” I asked her as I got closer.
“I’m okay,” she said, and kept looking up the mountain.
I continued forward, wondering if any of us was okay and what would happen when we got to the bottom of the falls and the mountain.
🏊♀️ 🏊 🏊♂️ 🏊🏼♀️ 🏊🏾 🏊🏿♂️ 🏊🏼♀️ (those are very tiny swimmer emojis)
I hope you enjoyed reading my story!
Please let me know what you think; I could use some encouragement.
🎙️ 🎙️ 🎙️ 🎙️ 🎙️ (tiny microphones; aren’t they cute?)
You can find my current books on Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Kindle Vella and Audible.
Mere Creativity: And also some Circus Skills
Simple Book of Shadows: Basic Secular Witchcraft for Witches
You can also find me all over social media: