challenge me...i dare you

the wall i discussed earlier is tricky, one brick at a time reconstructing its form. it appears stronger, as if it has learned from its previous deconstruction to create distractions allowing the mortar time to set. those distractions weave themselves into the cracks left behind furthering its stronghold.

Eric issued the challenge: write a children's story before the end of July, it does not have to be long and he will illustrate it. i agree and with the following breath inhaled resentment, pride, and fear.

there are times i choose the wall. i even, after trying to wage war against it come to a certain acceptance of its existence and relevance in my current station as mother and wife. at the moment before the challenge was issued i had been out with Atticus laying on the damp evening grass watching with amazement the volume of fireflies that flew among my garden. i wanted to write about the fireflies, i wanted to construct stanzas with flippant rhyme & meter, void of reason and now was tormented by the countless echos of 'once upon a time...' !

a few days later Circe was asleep as i sat with Atticus, his eyes fighting sleep and voice little looked up and said "Momma tell me a story". i have waited for this moment for his whole life. why now after the reconstruction, i don't have a default story...breathe, don't forget to breathe.

ONCE UPON A TIME...(that is how all stories that children ask you to tell them begins isn't it, or at least a launching line) unfolded into "The Tunnel in the Tree that was Laying Down" and that night it was told three times and for a week after. there have been three or four others that have been requested, told, changed by the respective parent, but more importantly remembered and soon to be written down.

i saw his challenge and raised the stakes. i realized in the breath before 'Once Upon a Time' that i have misplaced the ability to focus on nothing but the cohesive (or not) flow of words, abandoning any order of operations and trust the _______. i forget to begin in the middle or even the end to get to the beginning.