Two Letter Words

Before I begin, I have to announce how excited I am!  My last blog entry was viewed 209 times on the day I posted it ~ a thousand times during the following week!  So excited! For someone who cowers at the thought of self-promotion and who longs to be discovered, it is actually nice to have a few readers.

For twenty years, I have written for myself and my children. Whenever I wrote something, I read it to my three kids. Then, I began reading a few stories to classes or co-workers.  After a boat-load of encouragement, I started sending my manuscripts to editors and agents.  That's when the entire process got murky. I had to ask myself ~ pretty much every time I sat down to write ~ Now, who is this for?  At that point, I made the decision to just do what I do for myself and my kids. If anyone notices, fine; if not, that's fine, too. I am writing a children's story right now, which is totally different from writing a post.  I have worked on it for months, and I will rewrite it a dozen times before it's finished. The story is the result of a true Tomorrow Trunk moment that happened over the summer.  While the moment has passed, the story is alive and well. Hopefully, I will post it before the end of the year.

But that story is not today's big story.  Something so strange happened this past Wednesday at the Chinese buffet that has found its way into the Tomorrow Trunk.  My mom and I always eat lunch before her doctor's appointment, and we usually prefer the Chinese buffet near the hospital.  One of our favorite parts of the lunch is reading and comparing our fortune cookies.  I have taped and dated every single fortune in my discovery journal.  I can't wait to see if any of those horoscopes come to pass.  At the end of this lunch, dated November 6, 2013, my fortune cookie read, You will reach a level of intelligence that you cannot imagine.

Hmm...I'll take that fortune for sure.  Then we opened Mom's cookie and read her fortune: It is not in your character to give.

Huh? Boy, did the fortune tellers get that one wrong! I asked Mom to hand me that tiny piece of paper, and I re-read it. It is not in your character to give...up.  It is not in your character to give up. What a difference a two-letter word makes! That little word up was sitting pretty on the second line of the sentence, and Mom just missed it.

After the doctor's appointment, we drove to the local Wal-mart for paving stones, prescriptions, and dog food.  I noticed the new Five for Fighting album entitled BOOKMARKS.  I was so excited about my long-anticipated purchase, I could hardly wait for the drive home!  I am absolutely obsessed over the first two tracks! LOVE, LOVE FEST!

However...track 9 is the one that grabbed my attention.  The title of the track is YOU'LL NEVER CHANGE.  I listened to the song once, and then I quickly replayed it a second time. The lyrics to the chorus are as follows: You'll never change, you'll never change, you'll never change...me.

Wow. Once again, what a difference a two-letter word makes.  The first time I listened to the song, all I got was the powerful emphasis on You'll never change!  Then, when I tuned in more closely, I heard a soft, convincing me...right there at the end, quite possibly on the second line of the sentence.

Five for Fighting is the stage name for John Ondrasik, who sits at the very top of my all-time favorite list of American singer-songwriters.  I love everything about his style of music and his depth of lyrics.  This song is an entire post unto itself...how we have our measuring sticks ready and our plans for transformation in place ~ usually for someone else, not ourselves. I love how that little two-letter word me changes everything about the song!

Open the Tomorrow Trunk and tuck away something important from this day!  I have always known the power of one notable two-letter word: no.  Leave it out ~ I have no life becomes I have life. Put it in ~ I have hope changes to I have no hope.  I can't tell you how many times Katie has called me and asked, "Was no meant to be in that sentence or did you leave no out of that sentence by mistake?"

Sometimes we omit a two-letter word, and the sentence just doesn't make sense...to, by, of, on; however, sometimes the omission or inclusion changes everything! YOU'LL NEVER CHANGE...me. IT IS NOT IN YOUR CHARACTER TO GIVE...up.  So amazing!   I wish I had a thousand more examples, but two was all I needed for today's big story.

My mom's face said it all when she read that fortune cookie the first time. My mom is such a giving person ~ a true example of charity, kindness, hospitality, and unselfishness. She was completely rocked by the words on a little white piece of paper.  She said, almost immediately, "I'm throwing that one in the garbage; makes me wish we hadn't eaten here today."

Always ready to come to her defense, I grabbed the paper in disbelief.  Up, Mom...you missed up. It is not in your character to give up. She took the fortune cookie out of my hands and tucked it into her jacket pocket.  "Now, that's just like me. I'm keeping that one!"

Haha! If only our life sentences could be altered so easily by two-letter words...if we could go from not giving to not giving up just that fast.  Or finally recognizing that when we are screaming to the top of our lungs You'll never change!, what we are really saying is You'll never change me.

My is another one of those words that changes everything.  In this big, wide universe, you are one person. In this big, wide universe, you are My one person.  It's amazing how our entire existence can be completely transformed by the significance of a two-letter word.

Dianne ; )

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

It was a dark and stormy night...and I should have canceled.

It is 3:46 a.m. on November 1st, and I am sitting in my husband's recliner unable to sleep. I finally realize I should have canceled.  Everyone else canceled, but I had practiced TAILY PO! a hundred times! The weather was just too bad, but I had worked too hard on the decorations. No one will come, but who wants to hear scary stories on the Saturday after Halloween. Besides, I had eyeballs, and a scary beaver, and ME-TIE-DOUGH-TY-WALKER!  

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents ~ and nobody came. I turned on the scary music at 5:45 p.m.  My branch manager and I lit forty tealight candles in baby food jars at 5:50, and the witching hour began at 6:00 p.m. To say that the rain fell in torrents is a mild understatement. I waited until 6:30 before I blew out the forty candles. At 6:45, I began climbing up and down the ladder for the hundredth time to take down decorations, and the storm that had hammered central Mississippi was moving east. By closing time at 8:00 p.m., the remnants of the dark and stormy night were history, as were any signs of a Halloween library program. I should have canceled; that simple.

But for some reason ~ it is now 4:00 a.m. ~ and I have been up most of the night questioning every decision I have ever made in my life. Where did I take a wrong turn? Why do I do what I do? Have I missed a sister life that should have been mine? Why do I save cats, go postal when I see dogs tied to trees, endeavor to get kids to come to the library, and write stories about a life that, in the wee hours of this early morning, seems scant and meager.

Yes...I did save a black kitten on Halloween.  Well, actually, I didn't save him (or her, God forbid); a man passing by in a truck saw me lying down in a witch's costume on the wet ground underneath the vehicle with the library shelver holding an umbrella over my head, and he stopped to see if we needed help.  When I explained to him that a small kitten was trapped underneath the vehicle, he proceeded to lie down on the wet ground while I held the umbrella over his head. After several attempts, he retrieved the kitten.

Did I mention that this entire situation occurred just one hour before the storytelling program was supposed to begin? A local farmer had brought me a bushel of peanuts that needed to be loaded into the trunk of my car; so while I was standing in the rain ~ somewhere between waiting for the peanuts to be loaded and the farmer fumbling through his overall pockets to make change for a twenty ~ I heard the kitten meow.

When I saw the four white paws of the little black kitten, I knew exactly what had happened.  One of the feral momma cats at our house has a litter of kittens, and this kitten is the one we call Paws. Somehow the kitten climbed into the body of my car and survived the ride with me to work.  Also, did I mention that I live thirty miles from my job?  How on earth was he still alive? Big Sigh...I knew I had to try and get him back home to his mother.  Ohhhh...my life!

So, the passerby (I didn't even get his name), the shelver, and I were all dripping wet; but, the kitten was safe, and I was trying to find a cardboard box in which to place the kitten, until it was time for both of us to go home.  By this time, the shelver was fully committed to the process.  We found a box and a tablecloth.  We placed the kitten in the box, folded the box top so he had air to breathe, and placed a book on top so he didn't escape during the program.  Within minutes, the traumatized kitten was sound asleep.

I quickly ran to the bathroom and tried to hand dry my soaked hair with less than hour to spare before the program started.  Now, the rain was coming down in sheets, I had a sleeping kitten in my office, and my clothes looked like they belonged on a clothesline.

And, nobody came. I should have canceled.

It was a dark and stormy night...Where exactly did that line originate?  The introductory clause is part of the opening sentence of the 1830 novel Paul Clifford written by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. According to my online research (mostly Wikipedia), the phrase is considered to be purple prose ~ a type of florid, melodramatic style of fiction writing.  The phrase has been described as the literary poster child for bad story starters, and yet it ranks #22 on the best first lines from novels.

So I looked up purple prose. After reading an article entitled Purple Prose: What It Is and How To Avoid It located on the website, The Advanced Edit, I learned that this type of writing is self-indulgent, clouds the meaning behind your writing, doesn't flatter the writer, turns off the reader, and in all its flowery craziness, is an example of vivid imagery gone awry.

Wow. This morning I am most definitely purple prose. My melodramatic style, in all its flowery craziness, is self-indulgent, to say the least. I know at times, my purple prose turns off the people around me. My purple prose doesn't always flatter me and often clouds the meaning of what should really matter in my life. I am a perfect example of vivid imagery gone awry. Oddly enough, I have never learned how to avoid it.

It was a dark and stormy night, and I should have canceled. Period. End of story.

...WELL, NOT QUITE:  Like grandmother, like mother, like son...the little black kitten is a child to Linus, who turned out to be a Lucy, Jr., the daughter of Lucy, who had a similar experience a year ago ~ Blog Archive, August 2012.

Ode to the life of purple prose...

Dianne ; )