Often I get ideas for prompts from real life. Like last night. I won’t say too much about what led me to this idea; I’d rather hear what viewers think of it, and would especially like to hear where other writers might take the idea. Feel free to share! Here goes:
It was 1:00 AM when I heard the squall.
I’m a project kind of girl. I like doing projects, thinking about projects, designing new projects.
I think I like projects so well because they provide a service while allowing me the freedom to express myself in a multitude of ways. Some of the kinds of projects I’ve done include:
drawing mandalas, knitting, crocheting, quilting, basket making, origami, embroidery, cross stitch, photography, card making, scrapbooking, book making, rug hooking, gardening, and various other crafty type things.
That’s just a quick list. There have been a LOT of them over the years, but there have been other projects as well, like fundraising projects. That happens a lot when you’re an educator. I’ve fundraised for sports programs, class trips, guest speakers, worthy causes, not so worthy causes, and materials for other projects. I’ve organized book sales and bake sales, car washes, auctions, carnivals and circuses, magazine drives, bottle drives, hikes, canoe trips, camping trips, and whale watches.
It seems I begin a project when I have a need for a thing or an interest in it.
Or because someone asked me and I was too stupid kind hearted to say no.
Some of my projects are not very long lasting. Basket making, for example. I wanted to be a purest about the whole thing and tried soaking an ash log in a nearby stream and then pounding the hell out of it. I ended up with a lot of various size strips of ash, but nothing that would make a decent looking basket. My heart wasn’t in it.
I have figured out that I like to make books but I’m not so fond of scrapbooking. I find crocheting easier than knitting, and I can combine cross stitching and quilting quite nicely. Gardening is a lot of work but has the best payoff. So far.
One of my biggest projects in recent years has been writing, and I’m sitting here now trying to figure out if that is a project or something more.
I am an educator and while that isn’t a project (or is it?) it does consist of a lot of small projects. For example, at this point in the school year I needed short term, stimulating, and educationally relevant projects to carry my students through these last exciting weeks. So I did a project creating two projects to do in a three week period – book making and a class yearbook. Now the classroom is filled with people doing projects.
Being me I decided to look up the word project: a task or planned program of work that requires a large amount of time, effort, and planning to complete (Encarta)
That’s not exactly how I would have defined it, but it makes sense and I guess that means my writing is a project too – or a series of projects.
Hey, life is really a gigantic project, isn’t it? If I think of the process of one person growing and learning and living over a lifetime that fits the definition, right?
So I guess we’re all project girls (and boys) – project people.
Three year olds are great. Most of the time. I have a three year old granddaughter and she cracks me up. No one on the planet has a better imagination than a three year old. Imagine how much fun life would be if we could maintain that three year old way of looking at the world.
Just last week my daughter in law posted on facebook that Natalie had decided it was my birthday. She made me an invitation and told her mother they had to get to my house so they didn’t miss the party. Well, I have no problem with that. Having more than one birthday every year could be a lot of fun. And a lot of presents. Bring the cake and let’s party!
This was Natalie’s first year of dance class. She was in the pre ballerina class. She liked it. Especially the pink tights and leotards.
Last Christmas Eve, at our annual family get together she was showing my eighty one year old father in law some of the new dance moves she was learning. She ad libbed a bit and showed him some moves I’m quite sure her dance teacher never taught her.
They involved lying on the floor and doing some rolls. But, my father in law, who clearly has maintained some of his three year old imagination, went along with her.
Here they are, ‘dancing’ on the kitchen floor.
It’s a beautiful thing to see an adult encouraging a three year old’s imagination.
I recall my own children at that age. When my oldest was three I watched him in the driveway after it had rained. There he stood, next to a mud puddle, holding his little arms out straight for a minute or two and then suddenly pulling them back over his shoulder. He repeated this maneuver for nearly half an hour before I went out to inquire.
“Whatcha’ doing?” I asked.
His simple reply. “Fishin’”
Ah, I thought, who but a three year old could entertain themselves in such an imaginative way. Trying to make the moment last I asked if he was having any luck.
Nonchalantly he said, “Yeah, look,” pointing to the ground beside him. I wasn’t sure if his imaginary pile of fish was huge or mediocre, so I responded with a quiet, “Wow, nice job.”
“Thanks,” he said as he snapped his rod and began to reel in another one.
My youngest was three when he imagined himself a writer. I was in graduate school at the time and spend a lot of time typing papers. (Anyone remember the electric typewriter?)
Asa was fascinated with the clickety clacking and bell ringing sounds the typewriter made and was constantly asking if he could type. Sure, I’d say as I put in a clean sheet of paper. He would then sit for a few minutes and ‘type’ before suddenly whipping the paper out of the machine and running to show me, begging me to “Read it!” I was no great story teller back then, but I would babble some little tale I’d make up on the spot since the paper he handed me looked something like this:
udowiur9w480-09qm /v pweuirtpqretupmjldshfoie[pw-=wqjfvjmiiotoas;d koiokoierfpowqn d fvasdjifpokt
tujpwtprijn. dfa.sdpoerujpwjha;./.,czpujopepjagnmsl/.mojp9u-=a;emw.//,vboj .
I’d watch his eyes get bigger and bigger as I bluffed my way through his stories.
This went on for a few weeks, until one day he had figured this whole process out. As usual, he ‘typed’ a story and ran to me, begging me to once again, “Read it!”
As I blathered on about what I thought was a reasonable facsimile of a three year old story, he sat down on the floor, hard. He had in him that look he would get when he was really upset and about to have a meltdown.
“What’s the matter?” I queried.
“That’s not what it says,” he wailed.
*Long pause* as I thought ‘Uh,oh, now what?’
“Well, then, I guess you better read this one to me,” I said, hoping he would oblige. He did.
*heavy sigh*
I could go on and on for days telling stories of three year olds. I suspect anyone could who has ever been blessed to know a child that age.
It’s a holiday weekend, so I think I’ll celebrate by trying to get in touch with the three year old that I know still resides within me somewhere. If that doesn’t work I’ll go find Nat.
Over a year ago I lost my Lucy, a beautiful Bearded Collie. She was sixteen when she passed. She began to be less active and more contemplative from the time she was about fourteen years and that’s when I wrote the piece I’m sharing today in Writing.
I’ve chosen to share this piece today because last night I dreamed that Lucy came back. It’s the first dream I’ve had about her since she died. When I awoke this morning I decided two things; it is time for me to take her ashes out to the field and spread them along her favorite path, and I would post this piece on the blog.
I hope you enjoy it and I hope you have been fortunate enough in your life to have had the love of a special pet.
How rare it is to see sheep in the field in front of my house. Yet it doesn’t stop my Lucy, a Bearded Collie, a Beardie, from guarding that field for sixteen hours a day.
Lucy has watched over my home for more than thirteen years. She begs to be let out as soon as I rise in the morning and begins her day patrolling the perimeter of the property. Watching carefully, I see her stop from time to time to check the new smells – the neighbor dog’s feces, tracks of animals that have passed in the night, new holes to the homes of untold inhabitants of the field. When she has completed her initial tour she settles herself on the bank where she can survey her entire domain all day.
Lucy is a Bearded Collie, a Beardie, whose Scottish heritage begs her to round something up. Her ancestors have not worked as herding dogs for decades, yet she seems to know what is expected of her breed. I imagine, as she sits at her post high above the rolling fields of hay and clover, that she is watching over vast numbers of invisible sheep. At times she will bark at something not seen with the human eye, and racing to the middle of the field, circles round a time or two before moseying back to her perch. I am convinced she has gathered a stray back into the fold, so I call out a ‘good dog.’ She turns, smiling and panting at me, pleased I have recognized her success.
Over the years she has proven herself worthy of herding dog status on many occasions. A particular behavior of hers that speaks to the power of lineage is her refusal to leave the field during thunderstorms. I have known many dogs to cower and run for the nearest indoor hiding spot during a storm, but not Lucy. She races to the field at the first rumble or flash and will not be coaxed inside under any circumstance. To watch her is to know the job of a good herder. She runs circles around the imaginary sheep, every so often detouring to a corner in search of a stray, barking incessantly, her white flag of a tail waving above the tall grasses to show her location. She is agile enough to make quick turnabouts and bound over the grasses with ease when a threat is seen.
Watching her perform this routine for 15 or 20 minutes causes me to worry about her health. I have attempted many times to get her in, where I think she’ll be safest. At the first crash of thunder I go into the yard and call her in my least threatening voice, sometimes even trying to bribe her with a treat. She never falls for it. Instead I watch her drop low to the ground, hiding in the grass. If I am foolish enough or mad enough to march into the field after her it is a waste of my time, as she easily outruns me.
For many years Lucy joined me on my early morning runs a few miles down a dirt road, passing a small farm. Often we would see the farmer beginning his chores before rounding up the cows for milking. One fall morning, as we neared the dairy, I noticed three cows in the road, Farmer Brown amongst them, hands thrown up in frustration. As we moved closer, he managed to get two of them inside the fence, but the third placed itself between us. With little thought, I said, “Lucy, get the cow, go ahead; get the cow.” Well, I’ll be damned if she didn’t head down the road, place herself at the heels of that bovine and begin to bark. What’s a cow to do under the circumstances but start moving? As it did, the farmer moved so the cow was now between him and the fence, and Lucy continued to bark the cow right back into the field.
“Wow, she’s good,” was his astounded reply.
As much barking as she has done over the years, in the name of protecting something, she did know when to keep quiet, as I learned one day when we were visited by a moose. Standing at the kitchen window I saw the imposing animal step out of the cover of trees in the far corner of the field. Expecting Lucy to bark, and not wanting her to scare it off, I went in search of her. I walked around the house with no luck and as I came back to the front I saw both the moose and Lucy walking toward one another in the middle of the field. Afraid to call to her, I held my breath as I witnessed the two of them tip toe in the direction of one another. Ever so slowly they came closer and closer until they were less than a yard apart. Trying not to breathe, I watched the two of them take tentative steps forward, lengthen their necks toward one another until their noses touched for the briefest of seconds. Each then took a step back, allowing room to pass one another, as they sauntered off in opposite directions, heads held high.
One other feat performed by this incredible canine occurred in January after it had snowed several inches. At the time we had a young cat who, because of a carnivorous fisher cat in the neighborhood, we had been trying to convince to be an indoor cat. On this particular day I’d gotten fed up with her constant yowling at the door, so opened it and let her have at the great beyond. She got as far as the middle of the field before she realized she was in over her head, literally. There she sat, covered in snow yowling louder than ever, this time begging to be rescued. Not wanting to trudge through the field of snow myself, I looked hopefully at Lucy and pleaded, “Go get the kitty, Lucy. Please? Go get kitty,” pointing in the general direction. Well, I’ll be damned again. Off she ran, straight for the field, picked the humbled cat up by the scruff of the neck and brought her right back to the safety of our living room.
Lucy is thirteen now, nearly fourteen, so her forays in search of errant sheep and cats have slowed, but she continues to stand guard, sole protector of house and home. Every day she positions herself carefully atop the hill, and though her eyesight and hearing fail, she has done this long enough that intuition is her guide. More often now, she barks at the frequent bikers passing on the trail. I don’t think she’s forgotten the sheep though. She sometimes sits and mourns; whining for the longest time, as if to say, “I miss them.”
I hear her bark now, either in greeting to a passerby, to reprimand an intruder, call an imaginary sheep away from the fence line, or to warn me of something out of sorts. This time the bark is chatty, continuous, and begins to fade as she moves away from the house. When I get up to look, sure enough, our neighbor has come to weed the shared garden and she is walking down to investigate. She will be back momentarily. She never leaves her post for long.
