#63: Writing snippet

I haven't given you guys much lately. I'm as apologetic as ever. Here's a snippet of a story I've been working on.

I was fueled to write this after hearing my grandfather passed away. (I didn't know the guy,so no hard feelings on my part) But the whole ordeal had made me think hard on my own relationship with my father,and how it pairs with the story I'm writing.

How did I know it was you? It was your eyes, they lead me to a place I hadn’t seen since I was the same age. A valley far from the city, now owned by plum farmers. But back then it was fields of wild roses. Your mother and I went there every year on the first day of summer, when the roses were already in full bloom. The air was so thick with its fragrance it put us under a thought-bound spell. Your mother made a bet with me that she would tame those fields, that she was going to own a nursery like her grandma Ivy had. Yet every year she tried her best and every year she’d come back cut, and sore from defeat. I doubt she ever knew the wild rose brambles kept Goats and other folks from snacking on her favorite flowers, her primroses.

One year there was a mix-up on the weather team's routine. To make up for the drought they planned a three day long rainstorm. The storm however grew out of control, into a thunderstorm. Lightning struck the dry thorny fields. Yes, the rain helped to swelter the burn.. for a time. The field was singed badly, and your mother took it hard, sold the land to the Plums shortly afterwards. I’d never seen her as lost as the day she gave up that field.

That was until I saw her swaddling you in her arms. She didn’t know how to nurture a filly, begged me to protect you in her stead. I was more than willing to help a friend, but when I realized she wanted me to keep you as my own child I was not only concern for her well being, but I began to doubt myself.

I was a therapist, not a mother at the time, either way I was true to my word. She disappeared shortly afterward. You were too precious in your foalhood. patient, but eager. Serene, but silly. You and Papa were like honey and hay, you’d be fast asleep by his side as he filed through paperwork. You ogled for his affection for a time, until ‘Nito was born. I watch you skulk back into the pensive filly as your younger brother took the lime-light. You returned to your books, and your studies. You aced test after test, got award after award, but it didn't seem like it was enough. You thought you had lost something, something special. Now when you smiled to your father he gazed over to you and merely asked what you wanted.

But it wasn’t so simple. You couldn’t simply tell him, this wasn’t something you wanted. Yes, you craved it, but it was a need, if anything. You needed his affection, his gratification, appreciation, whatever the term. You needed his love. Yet his glare narrowed, and you apologized for wasting his time. You had lost something special. It was never his love, was your voice.

You came home later, and later. You ate dinner alone more, and more. You made friends with types with scars too real to be ignored. In a way they reflected your own growing scar. They gave you a taste of hidden magic. The ability to enchant, confuse, and to enrapture. They built you a new image. You weren’t a little blossom lost in a field of thorns. You had your own thorns now, tucked away in your magic.

One night you came home far too late for reason. Pent was slumped over the door, waiting for you to come home. And before either of you could yell, or protest. He forced all his wits into one strong hug. I remember the tension leaving you breath, the relief swept down your face in tears when you heard him sob too. He whispered many things to you that day, many truths that we all forget. Like how we take our loved ones for granted, and how we forget to acknowledge those we care for. The fact he loved you, and the sorrow he had for letting you think otherwise. But most of all he told you the hardest truth of all.

“The heart will search for love, wherever it it can be found. It knows no bounds, nor holds no bias. It grows colder as we age. It learns to fear strangers, to doubt who we used to love. But even then, no matter how cold, or fearful, or doubtful... The heart will search for love.”

Musical inspiration: