Meg Sefton's Blog, page 4

Mr. Tumnus

Public domain photo by Ola Safarova, flickr

The day they took you away, Mr. Tumnus stood under the lamppost by the fragrant magnolia tree. (You loved playing the part of Edmund.) When will he be back, I asked the cop. I don’t know, he replied. I prayed to the Lion of Narnia wondering if he would listen.

Linen

Unsplash photo by Kasia Sikorska

We were buried in rough linen clothes with satin ribbons at our wrists and ankles. It was a superstition to always have suitable burial clothes and so a piece of linen given at birth was added onto, eventually becoming full-size dresses or suits. The ribbons protected us from malevolent spirits.

Divide

Camp Scene, Cooks at Work, circa 1863, US National Archives, flickr

Dear Mother,

Please accept these fragrant magnolia flowers Beulah has dried for you. She wishes our political differences would not divide us. She says you are still aggrieved over my decision to defend the Southern redoubt, that I have betrayed my race.

Your Henry

Pensacola Lighthouse, July 18, 2040

Ms. Tock

Foto Miki, flickr

Attendees of Gloria Tock’s soft literary openings at Mystery Tea were often rendered porous, open to fictional worlds. Worlds, characters, plot twists, epiphanies unveiled themselves in their consciousness, in their dreams. Some found love, some healing, some madness. Soon she was run out by those who preferred stultification, soul death.

Stonewall

Photograph of General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, US National Archives, circa 1863, flickr

Henry Edwards, Pensacola Lighthouse, July 1 2040, Southern Redoubt

I had a sticky moment with Stonewall Jackson on the balcony.

He knew my place in his world. “You eat field peas, boy.” (Field peas were for slaves.)

Fear shook me though he was only a ghost.

Then he was gone.

Ghosts

Pensacola Lighthouse , San Diego Air and Space Museum, 2013, flickr

2040, July 4, Pensacola Lighthouse, Southern Redoubt

Confederate ghosts remain sticky around the balcony outside the Fresnel lens where they beg me to turn off the light, believing there were Union soldiers across the bay who will fire at us. I don’t tell Henry lest he believe me incompetent.

Brother

Basil Leaves, Alabama Extension, flickr

Darla’s basil plant looked rough even though she had found the perfect spot—her home office desk next to the window. When she adopted a basil plant brother to sit beside it, something changed: It strengthened, deepened in color. At night, she thought she could hear them talking and laughing.

Feel

Brentano fabrics, flickr

When he was little, his mother gave him a box of fabrics so he may trace the ribs of corduroy with his fingers; feel the rough wool, the luxurious velvet and satin. She wasn’t sure if it helped him in some small way, but it seemed to make him happy.

Horse

repin_horse by ErgSap, Art Gallery ErgsArt, flickr

I have dreamt a horse comes to me as I stand beside the only pasture in south Orlando. He lays his head upon my shoulder and tickles me with his rough mane. “We come from a different time,” I tell him, “A different place.” His flank quivers. He whinnies softly.

Dream

This Old Guitar by Alan Levine, flickr

I dreamt I was at my father’s old church, taking part in a decidedly secular jamboree of folk singers and acoustic folk rock cover bands. They had their favorite people singing and so I wasn’t certain of gaining an entrance with my simple folk song I’ve sung and played on my guitar since childhood.

But when it was almost over, I managed to gain a mic and sing the opening words, strum the opening chords, and then there was silence in the audience and some applause of recognition. I sang the first verse with feeling, just as I had as a girl, but with a woman’s appreciation of the meaning of the words. I stuck to the original words and basic melody line of the popular folk song. However, as my voice gained strength and I felt the audience enjoying it, I began to invent words whole cloth. Somehow, I slipped in a reference to the faded raspberry velvet pew cushions, tying in an immediate relevance to my audience so they looked down at their seats. I sang of a day about laundering clothes but how it was a way of washing away troubles, seeing life anew, being new. I had added in vocal riffs as if I were on Broadway. I was seeing in colors, patterns as I invented new verses. Maybe what I was experiencing was close to synesthesia: colors and patterns became music and lyrics.

When I awoke, I was back in my rough little life but better rested. This wasn’t the first time I’ve made up and performed music in my sleep. But it’s always Broadway. Don’t we all want to go, some small part of us, sing that favorite tune we’ve secreted away and brought out at unexpected moments, even if it’s our own private Broadway?

It is my hypomania that has allowed this, I know that, now I’m back in the sobriety of my waking life. Or maybe it’s just weird little me. But is being weird so terrible? My weirdness has helped me cope with times of stress, has helped me sense there is something more beneath what is happening in present reality, more life, more hope, more possibility, more joy.