Kathleen M. Basi's Blog, page 84

Paradox and Contradiction

Life, Liberty, & The Pursuit of Happiness* (Photo credit: anitakhart)

Call it reversals, call it paradox–Christianity is full of them, and they are a sometimes insurmountable stumbling block for people contemplating religious belief. To destroy yourself in order to find yourself, to die in order to live, to consider yourself blessed when you are mourning, or poor in spirit, or persecuted…to people steeped in the idea that our purpose on earth is the pursuit of the good life, these concepts are foreign and threatening and, well, nonsensical. Why should I deny myself enjoyment and pleasure? Why should I deliberately impose restrictions on myself that are difficult or unpleasant? The more I indulge myself, the happier I’ll be. The rest of it is moral repression imposed by people trying to control the ignorant masses.

Thomas Merton once thought so.

“Here I was, scarcely four years after I had…walked out into the world that I thought I was going to ransack and rob of all its pleasures and satisfactions. I had done what I intended, and now I found that it was I who was emptied and robbed and gutted. What a strange thing! In filling myself, I had emptied myself. In grasping things, I had lost everything. In devouring pleasures and joys, I had found distress and anguish and fear.”

and

“There is a paradox that lies in the very heart of human existence. It must be apprehended before any lasting happiness is possible in the soul of a man. The paradox is this: man’s nature, by itself, can do little or nothing to settle his most important problems. If we follow nothing but our natures, our own philosophies, our own level of ethics, we will end up in hell.”

(Quotes from The Seven Storey Mountain, by Thomas Merton)

Notice he didn’t say capital-H Hell, as in a place where Satan torments you for all eternity. He said little-h hell, as in a life full of misery, anger and bitterness.

And he’s right. The 2012 “Better Life Index” found that our country is #1 in terms of personal wealth and #12 in terms of happiness. Out of 36. Another survey, the “Happy Planet Index,” listed the U.S. as 105 out of 187. Ouch.

Granted, it’s not a terrible ranking. And granted, plenty of people who call themselves Christians are also bitter and angry and miserable. But let’s consider the possibility that if all our wealth of TV viewing and video game playing and enrichment activities for kids and wide-screen TVs and smart phones and wall-to-wall carpeting and supersized master bedrooms and sporty cars and vacation homes at the beach and girls’ weekends and football games with the guys–if all those things can’t make us the happiest place on earth, then…maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree altogether.

Related articles

The Pursuit of Happiness is the Source of all Unhappiness (gratefulandawake.wordpress.com)
In pursuit of happiness (kaminik.wordpress.com)
On Economists and Marriage (palamas.info)
Happiness Is A Choice (thoughtcatalog.com)
Joy of Solitude (christopherscottblog.typepad.com)

Of Nicholas, At Age Four

Birthdays in our house seem to be lasting a week this year. (Or two months, if you follow Julianna’s sublime refusal to acknowledge the passage of time.) For the past week Nicholas has been in Heaven. But a weeklong birthday that always falls during Lent causes its own brand of difficulty for a family that gives up sweets. The birthday gets an exception to the rule, but the making of the cake does not. And this year was Nicholas’ first year to take treats to school. And the family was getting together on Palm Sunday weekend for Easter. And a four-year-old has to have a special birthday dinner, and you can’t do that without a birthday treat either, right?

Thus it came to pass that we had to have three separate birthday treats. Show of hands: how many people “snitch” tastes of the batter when they’re making cakes and cookies?

Yeah, me too. Making desserts during Lent requires an extreme act of self-will. Fortunately my mother made the cupcakes for his school.

(Three paragraphs about baking cakes? Really? Okay, Kate, it’s only five days till Easter, just chill.)

Anyone who’s been reading for any length of time knows that my relationship with my third child is at times combative. As he grows, it’s becoming clear that he’s not simply following the same stages as his older brother, to land in more or less the same emotional place. He’s his own person: a boy’s boy who refuses to understand why I will not let him “kill” people or tell his sister “You’re dead.” He’s been asking for months already when he gets to start baseball. (Not a word about the piano, mind you. Just the sport.) Where Alex, at just-shy-of-eight, still calls us Mommy and Daddy despite knowing he’s old enough to drop the “y,” Nicholas at four is consciously and deliberately transitioning to “Mom” and “Dad.”

In recent weeks the children have begun the yes-no battles. You know, someone bosses someone else, who says “no,” and the aggressor says “yes,” and the other “no,” and it’s a test of manhood to be the last one standing. Mommy is Not.Fond of this stage.

Nicholas also has a finely-tuned sense of injustice. Not necessarily correctly tuned, but definitely finely tuned. He routinely pushes us all the way to outright punishment before, yanno, following a simple direction like “go use the bathroom,” and then wails and screams as if we’re the ones being unreasonable. He can stretch a two-minute task into a ten-minute battle, and doesn’t seem to get that if he’d just done it in the first place, he’d be on to something more fun already.

Part of this sense of injustice is the fact that Julianna still gets lots of help getting dressed. He doesn’t think it’s fair that his older sister gets help and he’s expected to do it by himself. So when I was brainstorming things I could do with or for him on his birthday, that was the first thing that came to mind. I went and woke him up with kisses and a soft singing of “Happy birthday,” which brought a smile. “Nicholas,” I said, “go use the toilet and brush your teeth, and then if you want you can bring me your clothes and I’ll help you get dressed this morning, since it’s your birthday. How does that sound?”

“Oh, yay!” he said. “That’s a good gift!”

He can be so darned sweet when he wants to be. So very helpful, eager to be sent on errands or given little jobs. You just never know. I wonder sometimes if it’s in the tone of voice of asking, but I’m not sure that’s the whole answer.

What Nicholas doesn’t have is a strong vision of his preferences. Alex was well into the superhero stage by the time he was four–for three years he wore the same Superman shirt every day unless specifically ordered into another one, or unless it was in the laundry. Nicholas isn’t like that. He picks his cake decor from the scrapbook gallery of previous cakes, and this year he at last settled on a castle. And since this post has gone really long, I’ll just stop there and show off Nicholas’ second “castle cake,” which was a collaborative effort of Mommy’s assembly and Daddy’s decorating skills.

Four years old. Craziness.

Beautiful Moments (A Photo Post)

It’s been so busy lately, I hadn’t realized how many beautiful moments we were enjoying. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if they passed by unmarked. If I knew to get the camera, I was aware of them. I just didn’t realize how many had come crowded together.

This was the sixty-degree day in which the last snow melted, and we waited outside for Julianna to get home from school.

This was the seventy degree day that followed, when Nicholas began learning to ride a bicycle…

…and Alex flew a kite around the remains of the snow….

…while Michael….well, you know Michael.

That weekend was our pre-Down Syndrome Day party. I have so many great pictures of that event, such joy, such beautiful children, but they’re not my kids, so you’ll have to take my word for it and just enjoy pictures of mine:

It took Julianna quite a while to warm up to the idea of face paint, but once she did, there was no stopping her:

Nicholas jumped on the bandwagon, too:

Meanwhile, the boys were having swords, bucklers, crowns and bow & arrows made for them in great quantity by the balloon man:

And Alex got to be assistant to the magician/comedian:

Which was very funny, as witness:

Later there was dancing, which was super cute, but again–too many other kids involved for me to share pictures. During the dancing, Michael did what Michael does. Lately, that means steal shoes and walk with them on his hands:

Fortunately, they were Julianna’s. Because Julianna had stolen someone else’s shoes to dance in:

After all this, we entered the Crazy Week and I didn’t even look at the pictures until we had a whole new bunch of beauty in the form of a baby cousin come to visit:

And grandparents, too!

More tomorrow, when I wrap up Nicholas’ 4th birthday celebration. At the moment, it’s time to run interference between bickering children. Whose idea was Spring Break, anyway?

 

Sunday Snippets

Time for a roundup of Catholic bloggers at RAnn’s This, That & The Other Thing blog. I missed you all last week in the whirlwind that has been life lately…so I’ll do a two-week wrapup, but just hit the highlights:

Last week’s best post was Conversations in the Truck: Adam and Eve. I also talked about the Lent you want versus the Lent you need.

This week I reflected on the Holy Spirit speaking in the ordinary and on the gifts given mothers to share with the world…because it never was just about motherhood

Thursday of this week was World Down Syndrome Day, so I posted some of the most universally applicable of my DS posts here.

And if you want to see a Maestra Julianna video, you’ll have to go to this post.

7″Q”T: Down Syndrome, Cute Conversations, and The Crazy Day

(You all love my descriptive 7QT post titles, right?)

___1___

What a week! Monday I spent the day at the Cathedral selling books and playing backup singer/pianist/flutist for Danielle Rose. What an amazing lady she is. Tuesday was Nicholas’ 4th birthday, and in between Jazzercise, school pickup, and piano lesson transport, I interviewed Angela Baraquio, Miss America 2001. Another super sweet lady. Wednesday I went to hear my parents speak about their trip to Medjugorje. And then? Then came…dun-dun-dun…THURSDAY.

___2___

Thursday was always going to be nuts, because I hadn’t gotten any of the week’s writing done, but…well, here’s the timeline:

4:45 when Michael woke me up crying for water and I never got back to sleep 5:15: Get up and go to Jazzercise

7:00: arrive home, start bread machine, help kids with breakfast,get Julianna ready for school

7:30: shower

7:50: wolf down a bowl of cereal and round up kids, coats and shoes

8:10: Nicholas and Julianna to school

8:30: arrive home, put Michael down for nap. Writing time commences, interrupted by three days’ backlog of email, including one from a TV reporter requesting an interview for World Down syndrome Awareness Day.

11a.m.: reporter calls back and tells me she’ll be at the house in 20 minutes. Get dolled up and try to contain the carnage in the living room.

11:20: feed Michael while answering questions on camera

12:30: scarf down some “lunch” (i.e. Michael’s rejects)

12:40: go pick up Nicholas from preschool

1:30: sitter arrives, leave for the local Catholic high school, where Christian & I are scheduled to speak to juniors about NFP.

3:30: arrive back home, provide snacks to bottomless pits kids

3:45: Julianna and the TV reporter arrive. More filming commences.

4:15: voice student arrives

4:20: Michael needs a diaper change

4:50: Throw together dinner for the family

6:00: Watch self on TV. (Top of the news cast, baby!)

6:15: Get teeth brushed and jammies on Michael.

6:40: Load the boys in the van and go to Alex’s Cub Scout Pack meeting while Christian runs to Target for the diapers we’ve run out of and then takes Julianna to swim lessons.

8:30: Collapse on the couch in exhaustion

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So: more Down syndrome notes, learned this morning at the presentation we helped coordinate for the doctors at the university hospital:

in 1980 the average lifespan for a person with Down syndrome was 25-30. Today it’s 55-60. (Wow!)
60% of siblings of kids with DS go on to pursue “helping” professions: therapists, teachers, doctors, public life, etc.

___4__

And you need another Maestra Julianna video this week, so here you go:

I’m going to start pulling C’s phone out at 8:00 in anticipation of her arrival. This is what she did when she walked in the room after religious ed. We had to stage it again for all of your benefit.

___5___

Shortly after, Julianna needed to go to the bathroom. This was our conversation in the bathroom:

“How was church school, honey?”

“Good.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Uh, Dee-Duh.”

“Jesus?”

“Yah!”

“What did you talk about Jesus?”

Silence.

“Did he ride a donkey?”

“Yah!”

“Did they wave palm branches?”

“Doh!”

“No? Did they sing ‘Hosanna!’” (I sang the David Haas refrain.)

“Doh!”

“They didn’t? Yes, they did.”

“Doh! Hah Boh-day!”

(Sigh.) “No, they didn’t sing ‘happy birthday,’ sweetie.”

(Injured tone of voice) “Why?”

“Because they don’t know ‘happy birthday’.”

“Why?”

“Because it hadn’t been written yet.”

“Why?”

“Okay, it’s time to go back to choir practice now.”

___6___

Alex & Michael have started a new game in the van. Brace yourself–this is revolutionary stuff. It’s called “Let’s drop the toy on the floor and make our brother pick it up.” I know. I have the smartest kid In.The.Universe. Because no baby in the history of the world has ever discovered this game before! At least, Michael doesn’t think so!

___7___

I think I’ve earned the award for Longest “Quick” Takes in the History of Quick Takes with this post. It’s been a week for meditating on many subjects based on the many things I’ve outlined above, but I can’t do them justice now. Maybe next week. Happy Palm Sunday weekend…and First Weekend of Spring (har har, you’ve all seen the weather forecast, right?)

 

3/21, T21: Why Down syndrome Matters To You

Thursday, 3/21 is World Down Syndrome Awareness Day. Why? Well, it’s the numbers. Down syndrome is a trisomy, or third copy, of the twenty-first chromosome, so 3/21 is the obvious choice. If you see someone wearing a blue-and-yellow ribbon tomorrow, ask them who their chromosomally-gifted loved one is. Tomorrow we’ll all be doing things in our schools, workplaces and communities to put our loved ones’ need for support and human dignity in front of everyone we meet. And because it’s what I do, I blog. Today, in honor of 3/21, I’m resurrecting a few of the posts I’ve written since Julianna began rocking our world.

Snapshot:

It’s easy to take a snapshot and say that my 13-month-old is functioning at about an 8-month level. It’s much harder to communicate the experience of what those 13 months were like.

Walls:

It reminds me of that line in Beauty and the Beast: “We don’t like what we don’t understand; in fact it scares us.” And why this lack of understanding? Because in America at least, there is a massive double wall barricading “normal” people from “disabled” people.

The Meaning Of Life:

…when people see Julianna, they stop, they turn their shopping carts around, they engage in conversation. They stare at her—not an unkind, rude stare, but the hungry stare of people confronted by something so beautiful that it has to be acknowledged, like a rainbow in the morning. It’s not just that she’s a beautiful child, although she is. I think it’s a natural reaction to the discovery of beauty in a place where the overarching culture, in its focus on Stuff, Sex, and Svelte, has failed to recognize it.

Standing At the Precipice:

A newborn is a newborn is a newborn. A baby with Downs is not born delayed. It starts in exactly the same place as every other newborn. All babies are helpless, all babies do nothing but lie there, sleep and eat and make diapers.

Yay, God!

Julianna has taught me a deeper truth: that praise is not about words at all. It’s about opening yourself up to the moment, delighting in what you experience, and allowing the knowledge of the One Who made it possible to intensify the joy.

Pigeonholed:

Everywhere we go, Down syndrome is the topic of conversation when Julianna is around. Like skin color or relative tallness or shortness, DS is what people see when they look at her. But here’s the trouble. When we classify a  person on his or her skin color, it’s called racism, and as a society we struggle to remove that plank from our eye. But for some reason, that isn’t true of disability.

What To Do About The Elephant In The Room:

Don’t avoid the subject. Just say it directly, without fuss. We are all made up of tiny things called chromosomes, and Julianna has one more than we do. This is called Down syndrome, and it makes her learn things more slowly than you do.

A post for all who call themselves prolife:

Respect for life is so much bigger than abortion. It’s an attitude that should permeate all of life, in all its forms and manifestations. Prolife politicians are very good at being outraged by the systematic termination of “imperfect” children. But if you’re going to ask people to shoulder the responsibility of caring for children with disabilities, you can’t abandon them once the child is born.

Because It Never Was About Just Being Mom, Anyway

A six-part fugue from The Musical Offering, in the hand of Johann Sebastian Bach. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Most of the time, my brain clicks along like a 6-part Bach fugue on steroids, all angles and gears turning, pushing forward without a pause for breath.

What I aspire to is a brain that works more like a Gregorian chant, or one of those “music from the hearts of space” pieces with long, sinuous lines that slow you down and soothe you to peacefulness.

In reality, I think I’d settle for a brain like a two-part invention.

There’s so much going on these days. So many different motifs to catch and develop: the sharp forward thrust of Alex’s interest in science, the straining tenor of Nicholas’ desire to be bigger than he is. The dissonance of Julianna’s delays, which add color to the mix, the earthy rumble of Michael beginning toilet training. Plus there are the work threads: the steady rhythm of nonfiction assignments, the crazed treble of book publicity and all things that spin off it, and of course the soaring, otherworldly lure of novel publication.

Sometimes I think I surely have to drop something altogether, rather than just pick up and drop motifs  in turn as time allows. But when I talk to my friends who are staying home with their kids, not working, I hear the same sentiment:

Just spent 1 full hour combing through emails, writing things in the calendar, and making a shopping list. All for my two big kids’ activities in the next two weeks. Lord, help us. (from a friend, on Facebook)

It would be nice to think otherwise, but life is picking up and dropping threads, and weaving them into the tapestry of something larger than the threads themselves. This just the reality of life–especially life with kids. It’s easy to go looking for a reality in which this is not the case, but it’s a chase after wind. There is a constant tension between the kids’ needs, our needs as a couple, and our personal needs. Between our responsibilities to them and our responsibilities to other things–and to ourselves.

Working mothers often feel guilty, as if we are choosing wrongly to do anything other than raise children. I didn’t used to feel this, because I used to consider myself a stay-at-home mom. Now that I’ve recognized I am a “work-at-home mom,” I feel it all the time. Surely I’d be holier, a better wife and mother, if I didn’t do anything else.

But even in the days when all moms stayed at home, they did other things too. They volunteered at church; they grew gardens and made jams and canned vegetables. There has never been a time when mothers were only mothers. And that’s as it should be. God didn’t put us on the earth to raise kids and bury every other talent He gave us. We all have gifts the world needs.

I can’t work in the parish nursery or volunteer in the school kitchen or at the food bank, because this is what I do: I write, when I can, what I can. Some of you do prolife work, some of you do ministry to mothers (or fathers); others teach Sunday school or clean the rectory or mow the neighbor’s lawn, or watch someone else’s kids so they can work at the art museum or teach dance or keep the library open.

And you know what? We need all these things. Life is poorer without them. We need each other, because no one person can do it all. The tapestry of the world would be much different if we all did nothing but raise children. Its timbre would be duller, the texture coarser. Yes, it’s a precarious balance, requiring constant adjustment. But it always was, and no matter what we do it always will be, world without end, amen.

The Spirit Speaks In The Ordinary

If I have to pick a favorite person of the Trinity, there’s no question: the Holy Spirit wins, hands down. It’s the Spirit who guides me, whose help I invoke when I’m at the end of my rope, whose whisper has inSpired all the best words and melodies and harmonies I have ever written.

I’m not one of those people who thinks it’s a one-way relationship, that I just get to look pretty and hold my hands out while Person #3 drops finished works in my lap. The Spirit doesn’t “give” me songs (or stories, or reflections); he inSpires them and I have to do the bloody, sweaty work of beating them into a form that can actually pass muster in the world. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don’t. But I know there’s no chance without the Spirit.

I first got to know the Spirit when I was battling crippling anxiety. In the presence of the Blessed Sacrament chapel or on the muddy bank of a placid Iowa river, I discovered that I could “let go” the knot of tension in my chest or in my head. And when I did, what remained felt like cool water on a burn, or a long drink smoothing a parched throat. It was a long time before I understood Whose Presence I was experiencing.

That feeling is elusive in the presence of chaos and stimulus, and life with small children is nothing but. At this very moment I have a complaining, wiggling 16-month-old on my lap, trying to type for me. This is why I need the time away: otherwise, I lose not only the words and melodies I’m called to write, but my very equilibrium as a human being.

Still, I’m learning that even if I can’t feel it, He’s there. If love is identified not by overwhelming passion, but by the daily repetition of choices and actions, then why should God, who is love, be expected to provide a nonstop barrage of emotional stimuli? Emotions are not the point. They’re just a nice side effect.

“I don’t feel my faith,” I told a priest in Confession once.

“Feelings.” He dismissed my preteen angst with a wave. “If you see a man without a coat and you feel for him, that doesn’t keep him warm. What keeps him warm is giving him a coat. You don’t need to feel anything.”

But–but! I like that cool spreading-out in the center of my chest. I like that shiver when my brain or my body releases in His presence. I like that buzz in my brain that comes when He’s working inside it. I like to say, “Come Holy Spirit,” and have the words and ideas start to flow as I get out of the way and listen to the divine whisper.

Yet sometimes I have to go do something utterly mundane, like sweep the crumb-y  residue off the kitchen floor, and lunge and pull a wet mop over the surface while perspiration tightens my hairline. Sometimes that’s when the Spirit nudges: “Hey, here’s that blog tour idea you’ve been asking Me for. And oh yes, that missing word that will make that entire song verse work? Done.” No glorious shiver. No chorus of angels. Just everyday, nose-to-the-grindstone, do-whatcha-gotta-do-as-best-you-know-how…work.

And you know, I think that’s as it should be. Because after all, isn’t that what most of the work of the Gospel is?

7 (sort of) Quick Takes…including a cute video

___1___

Alex is a great kid, but he can’t find diddly squat. Wednesday night, as we were getting ready for choir practice, was no exception. He couldn’t find Julianna’s backpack, even though he was standing right beside it. A couple minutes later Nicholas shouted (because what other volume is there?), “MOMMY I CAN’T FIND MY HEAVY COAT SO YOU HAVE TO FIND IT FOY ME!” Alex went to the closet and said, “It’s right here, Nicholas!”

I murmured to Christian, “Alex found something?”

“Well,” Christian said, in an isn’t it obvious? tone, “we do have a new Pope.”

___2___

[image error]

“Habemus Papam” – Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J., has been elected Pope Francis I (Photo credit: Catholic Church (England and Wales))

Speaking of the Pope, what’s your impression so far? He seems like a simple, humble man, a servant rather than a king, and I couldn’t be happier. I loved that he asked the faithful to pray for him. I loved that touch of self-deprecating humor: “They had to go practically around the world to find him.” And the way he referred to himself as Bishop of Rome instead of Pope. And those big, out-of-style glasses. And the fact that he’s already been criticized by both right and left, which is always a good sign. I can’t wait to see where he leads us.

___3___

Nicholas has a little angel-devil thing going on. He’ll be super sweet and helpful for a few minutes and then grow fangs and start smoking at the ears, resulting in banishment to his room, accompanied by ear-piercing screams. So the other night, when Nicholas gave us a whole dinner hour’s worth of politeness–please, thank you, compliments, the works–Christian said to me sotto voce, “Who turned the angel light on him?”

___4___

new trailer 12-05-09 (Photo credit: JARM13)

Yesterday afternoon I broke the Burley out of its snowstorm storage. The kids are crazy about the Burley. For now, at least, when they’re riding behind a bicycle they seem to be immune to the snipping and bickering that has come to characterize so much of their interactions recently.

___5___

I hit the big time this week: I was featured in an article in the National Catholic Register!

___6___

And because you need some Julianna cuteness, here’s a video from choir practice. (Disclaimer: this was our first run-through of this particular piece. It is not a polished performance.)

Julianna goes to religious ed on Wednesdays now, so she’s with us for the last half hour of rehearsal instead of in the nursery with the rest of the kids. She thinks she’s part of the choir–pulls out a book, sings at the top of her lungs whether or not she knows the song. It’s adorable.

___7___

And finally…I’ve been at 129-point-something for 5 days, so I’m going to call it: I’ve reached my weight goal!

I went running last weekend for the first time in months and was thrilled to find it enjoyable. Lots and lots of Jazzercise has given me the strength and endurance I needed to make it a positive experience instead of a penance. On Sunday afternoon, though, my legs were really tired. I realized I hadn’t taken a day off exercise in two weeks. I knew I needed to cool it…but I can only get to Jazzercise on certain days at certain times, and videos are a mediocre substitute. So I pushed through Monday, and man, I was sore. On Tuesday I expected a more leisurely workout, but we did “circuit training,” which turned out to be even harder. I winced my way through the rest of the day, my muscles telling me “Enough! Mercy! A break!” So unwillingly (because exercise gives me more calories to eat) I took Wednesday off…and the soreness dissipated instantly.

The odd thing is that I’ve been STARVING all the time again, despite being over my calorie budget every day for a week. And yet my weight is maintaining. So that tells me the excessive exercise had kicked up my metabolism. And also that I’m probably ready for a maintenance diet instead of a losing one.

___Bonus take___

We got Alex up early this morning to watch the space station cross overhead. I’ve seen it several times while running, but it was fun to share with Alex.

Fiction: Escape

A bit of fantasy for your Wednesday morning, inspired by this picture (no really, click it open)….

*

The moment Clarissa saw the forest, she knew. She knew it in the shadowy hush that clung to the spired evergreens; she knew it by the tingling that crept down her spine. The world she’d always sensed, the Otherness that hummed in the back of her mind, just beyond her senses, and beckoned her to escape an unfriendly reality–that world was here, waiting for her.

Her room faced the forest, not the fjord that lay at the base of the steep hill. The innkeeper apologized, but Clarissa barely heard him. The water wasn’t what drew her. As soon as he left, she opened the window and inhaled the odor of enchantment: fresh like clean air, spicy like evergreen, cool like water, plus something vaguely cinnamon that must be magic alone.

For years she’d tried to find a way to bridge the gap to that shimmering existence just beyond her senses. She’d almost given up finding the gateway. If it didn’t exist here, it didn’t exist at all.

She slept with the window open, and when she woke, it was to the sound of rain tittering on slate. She donned her rain slicker, anxious to escape the enclosing walls. The front door creaked loudly, echoing through the silent building. Shivering with anticipation, she darted barefoot into the rain.

The trees stood like towering sentinels, inky against the hunkering sky. Beneath their shelter, the rain filtered down, muted. Her feet padded soundlessly on a carpet of fallen needles. The sense of enchantment grew stronger the farther she walked. It tingled her skin, then danced away again. It teased her senses, shimmering in the periphery but disappearing when she turned to look.

The rain tapered off, leaving only the muted drip of stranded water droplets sliding off evergreen. Hesitantly at first, then with confidence, the crickets began singing. The hum intensified until the very air seemed to tremble.

English: A Fjord in Norge (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As dawn drew near, Clarissa could feel the magic in the forest growing stronger, its time approaching. She stepped lightly, her bare feet tamping down the soft, wet grass. Her toes lost all feeling, but the prickling in her skin was constant. It was very near, now. She could almost see the shimmer in the air, a flurry of wings half-visible in the growing light. A cool, clean breeze tinted with cinnamon raised the fine hairs on her face. She pushed back the hood of her slicker. Show me, she whispered. The shimmer focused to a silvery line that stretched before her, and the firs breathed, Come.

The trees thinned, the thread warming slowly to gold. She stepped from beneath the shelter of the trees. Far mountains glowered beneath storm clouds, but here the air shimmered. Her breath caught as a gossamer sphere drifted lazily across her vision. It hung there, bobbing. She exhaled slowly, and as if responding to the warmth of her breath, the image in its depth sharpened, an vision of promise shimmering in gold.

Clarissa smiled and reached out to enter her new life.

*

Only in retrospect do I realize I already used the name Clarissa for a character. This is not meant to be the same person, but somehow this girl just needed to be named Clarissa. There was so much I wanted to evoke about who this girl is, why she’d be so eager to escape but it didn’t want to come through and I’ve learned that when I keep hitting a brick wall it generally means it’s not supposed to be there. Maybe down the road I can do something with it.

As for the image, you really need to click here to get the visual I used as the Write On Edge prompt today. I wanted to use it in my post too but I am very leery of copyright issues, and I just couldn’t find to my satisfaction that the image was okay to use. So please click it!