BloPoMo Day 10: It’s Dangerous Out There. Take This With You.
BloPoMo Day 9, Part 2: Facts, Fiction, and the Truth of Them
Methos glanced at the address in his hand as his cab pulled up to Bulfinch Street in New York City. Woodland Luxury Apartments. Yep, this was the place. He paid the cabbie, shouldered his bag, and made his way through the great iron gates.
A smiling man in uniform greeted him at the door. “Good day, sir, and welcome to Woodland.”
The old man nodded in reply. “I’m here to see Miss White.”
“Of course. Please, just step into the lobby and the attendant will call her for you,” the doorman directed, still with a large smile.
Nodding again, Methos stepped through the open door in the sumptuous, old-fashioned lobby. Following the doorman’s directions, he spoke to the person at the security desk.
“It’ll be just a moment or two, sir,” the guard said, hanging up the phone.
Methos declined to sit and just waited near the staircase, glancing around. As he stood there, someone came tromping down the stairs and bumped shoulders with the old immortal as they passed.
“Hey! Watch it!” It was out of Methos’ mouth before he could suppress it. Blast it all; didn’t he usually try to avoid confrontation?
The man who had bumped into him paused in the midst of pulling a battered old trench coat over his shoulders. He turned and glanced at Methos, a cigarette clenched between his teeth, his eyes narrowing slightly as he finished pulling on the coat.
Methos didn’t feel threatened, more like the man was trying to recognize him. The man leaned towards him as though to speak but, instead, he sniffed the air around Methos.
“Heh,” he finally grunted. “Didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” With that and nothing more, the man turned and strode out the door.
Methos barely had time to be nonplussed, for a voice rang out halfway up the stairs. “Adam! Adam Pierson, is that really you?”
He glanced up to see a woman coming down the stairs towards him. As long as he could remember, the only way to describe her was “lips red as a rose, hair black as ebony, and skin white as snow”.
“Well, don’t just stand there like a hobo waiting for a handout, come on.” She smiled and led him up the stairs and down more than a few halls. “My office is this way. Welcome to Fabletown, by the way.” She smiled over her shoulder at him.
Let’s just say Methos was more than happy to follow form, so to say.
Once they were in her office, she closed the door behind them and Methos proceeded with gaping.
“This isn’t an office….it’s…Ali Baba’s cave!” he gasped, as they stepped into the yawning space that Miss Snow White called her office.
“Close,” she laughed in reply.
“Ooooo, Miss White, do we have a visitor?” Methos suddenly found himself face-to-face with, of all things, a flying monkey.
“Yes, Bufkin. This is my friend Adam Pierson,” Snow introduced Methos by his “mundy” name.
“Call me Methos,” he rather stuttered.
“Oh, lovely to meet you,” Bufkin grinned. “I’ll rustle up some tea for us all if that’s all right, Miss White.”
“That would be wonderful, Bufkin, thank you. Where’s Boy Blue?”
“Out to lunch!” the monkey threw over his shoulder as he flew down the corridor.
Methos let out a low whistle as he glanced around Snow’s office. “Impressive. I never thought…”
“You just thought I was insane, didn’t you?” Snow said, chuckling. “A girl who claims to be the Snow White and to run a community of fairytales and fables.”
“Well…I’ve never been much for fables. After all, I was one.” Methos smirked, sitting in one of the leather chairs across from her handsome desk. “Oh, speaking of your citizens, I passed someone on the stairs. Rough looking guy, trench coat…?”
Snow nodded knowingly. “Bigby. Bigby Wolf. He’s our Sherriff. Don’t worry, he’s that way with everyone.”
“You mean, he sniffs everyone he passes?”
Snow cocked her head to the side and raised an eyebrow questioningly. “No…not necessarily. He did that?”
“Yeah, rather strange. He spoke like we’d met before but, honestly, I think I’d remember. He’s too much like another person I know,” Methos added
“Perhaps you have met before, just not while he looked like that,” Snow suggested, lifting teacups off the tray that Bufkin had just brought.
“What did he look like before?”
“Try the largest wolf you’ve ever seen and then multiply that by about 20,” Bufkin laughed, setting the teapot down. “And he huffs and he puffs…”
“Wait, wait! Big…by Wolf. He is the…”
“…Big Bad Wolf, yes,” Snow supplied, “So you have met before?” She reached for the teapot.
“No, allow me.” Methos took it from her and did the honors of the tea service as he spoke. He shook his head in disbelief as he did, smiling in spite of himself. “Long, long ago, when I lived alone in the woods, I came across a wolf in my cattle pen one morning. Sugar and cream? A huge thing, it held a bull down with one paw while it tore its throat out. One lump or two? Naturally, I tried to kill it but…”
The door crashed open as Methos hurtled through it. It was unusual for his small herd to be so restless, especially out here away from everything. But something had those animals spooked, because they were lowing up a storm.
His Ivanhoe drawn, he hurried to the cattle pen. It was probably thieves; couldn’t let an honest man live his life without butting into it and making things difficult.
“All I wanted was to be left…alone?” Methos felt something die quietly in his brain. There, in the cattle pen, was the single largest creature he had ever seen. A wolf. No, a leviathan. It held a bellowing animal down with one paw, staring at it for a moment before neatly snapping its neck in two, nearly severing the head.
Damn it. That was his only breeding steer and eventually starving to death was not a happy prospect. Methos lost no time moving against the wolf. As he leapt from the fence, sword held high, the wolf suddenly turned on him with a snarl.
When next he could think, all that filled his mind was the arm that the wolf had seized him by and flung him a hundred feet, crashing into a tree.
The arm was completely shredded, forever useless; if he had been mortal, that is. Methos heard the beast approach, the bull in his maw. The wolf just looked down at him from its towering height and sniffed at the man.
Methos was keenly aware that one of his ribs was lodged in a lung; he was dying, sure as the sun rose. He struggled to look up at the wolf and, he was just delirious, to be sure, but he was certain that he heard the wolf mutter around the bull in his mouth.
Later, when he would reflect on it, Methos would almost swear the animal said, as he died, “Idiot.”
“….needless to say, that was a battle I lost. I always wondered by he didn’t finish killing me.” Methos shook his head and chuckled ruefully as he handed Snow the cup.
Snow smiled, cradling the saucer. “We can tell what you are, almost like we would tell each other. It’s a different feeling entirely, like a different consciousness, but it’s there. You Immortals are as much a fable as we are, in a way. And Bigby never forgets a scent.”
The old man shrugged as he prepared his own dish of tea. “Lucky me, I guess.”
The two took their tea in quiet for a while before Bufkin started up. “So…Methos…you’re Immortal?”
The old man almost guffawed at the winged monkey’s attempt at small talk. “Yes.”
“Bufkin might be quite interested in what you’ve brought us, Methos. Shall we show him?” Snow suggested mischievously.
“Ooo, ooo! What is it?” The monkey perched on the back of her chair excitedly.
Turning to his bag, Methos opened it and pulled out a rather large, heavy book, setting it on Snow’s desk with a respectable thump. “Welcome to my world, Bufkin.”
The monkey’s eyes widened. As the Fabletown librarian, he had a fondness for books and knew where each and every book and document in the Fabletown offices and library were filed.
“Bufkin, this is Methos’ Chronicle; it’s his life story,” Snow began.
“Kept since writing was invented so I hope you’ve brushed up on your hieroglyphics and Ancient Greek,” the ancient finished.
“Methos needs somewhere safe to keep it; the Immortals are in more danger from Mundanes than we are, Bufkin. And he is the oldest of them all, if what he tells me is true.”
“And where else to hide something you don’t want found…”
“…than with people who don’t exist. Got it!” Bufkin flapped up over the desk and settled on the edge, next to the great book. “Let’s see, where shall I put it? History, Memoirs, or Languages?” he asked himself more than anyone else.
“Wherever you like, Bufkin. You’ll be the only one who remembers where it is anyway,” Snow offered.
“Yeah, that’s true,” the monkey agreed. After a few moments, he figured a way to heft the book and then flapped off into the depths of the library.
Snow smiled gently when he was gone. “We will take excellent care of it, Methos. The proof you exist is safe here.”
The Immortal nodded but, before he could say anything, the office door banged open and there was Bigby. “Snow!”
She sighed. “Don’t you knock, Bigby?”
He ignored the question as he strode up to her desk. “Just got word from Wheyland up at the Farm, Colin’s run off again.”
Snow sighed. “That pain of a pig. OK, let me know when he shows up, because you know he will.”
“Always does,” Bigby grunted. Then he looked down at Methos. “How’s the arm?”
Methos looked confused but then recollection flashed behind his eyes. “Just fine, thanks. Mended perfectly, now that you mention it.”
“Yeah, would figure it did,” Bigby muttered around his cigarette. “So what are you anyway? Cuz you’re not a fable.”
“Well, he is…of sorts,” Snow offered, “Among his own kind.”
“And that would be?” When they both hesitated, he pulled the cigarette out of his mouth, exhaling heavily, “If I’m gonna protect this place, I need to know what’s going on. What are you, bub?”
“Immortal,” Methos replied.
“But not like us, huh?”
“No, not quite. From what Snow has told me, your immortality hinges on how much you are believed in, right?”
A grunt in reply.
“Well…our Immortality hinges in whether or not our head stays attached to our shoulders.” Methos’s mouth curled sardonically.
“Well, then, Methos. From what you’ve told me…I guess the three of us are going to be around for quite a time, huh?” Snow snickered, leaning back in her chair.
Bigby sort of grunted again and then turned towards the door. “Well, enjoy your tea, ladies. Some of us have business to attend to.” With that, he was gone again.
Snow sighed in annoyance, pinching the bridge of her nose. “And that’s when he’s polite. You have no idea…”
Methos raised an eyebrow, smiling in that infuriatingly superior way he had. “Oh, don’t I? Let me tell you about a guy named Logan. But they also called him the Wolverine…”
BloPoMo Day 9: No Worries
Original artist unknown
BloPoMo Day 8: What I Can Do, I Will Do.
Let me preface this by being very honest and admitting that I have not had a very good (does a quick count) almost twenty-four hours. I went to bed in exhausted tears last night (you know, the kind of tears that you don’t realize you’re crying until you’re in the middle of crying). I slept fitfully and was dream-harried all night, and then I woke up in tears, a nightmare shaking me to my core and filling me with heartache and sadness as I rose to go about my Sunday.
As I drove myself and my daughter to church, I found myself having a very candid and brutally honest talk with God. It’s been a while since I had a verbal chat with Him and was a little surprised when it just all came spilling out. If my girl was older, I probably would have kept it to myself, I think, but, as she was thoroughly occupied with her balloon and rocket drawing, the flood doors just sort of opened.
I won’t rehash everything that I talked about with God. In fact, I’m not sure I could rehash it all. But what it boiled down to, at the end of it all, was this:
While I might at times feel stressed, sad, overwhelmed, lonely, just rawr at the world, etc. (sometimes without even an explanation to be given), there is something I can choose to do. Something I have asked God to help me with especially.
“Please, help me to be what I think I need for someone else.”
Sometimes, feeling absolutely sucks! I don’t want others in my corner of life to have to slog through negative feelings or down moments alone if I can change that, even a little bit. I always have a choice in the midst of feeling of how I am going to act or react. So that is my personal challenge this week: to be what I think I need (company, listening ear, strong shoulder, comforting embrace, truth-speaker, etc.). And maybe I can make those moments and feelings a bit easier for someone else’s heart and soul.
From “Unglued” by Lysa TerKeurst
BloPoMo Day 7: Devotional Share – “I Want To Do Big Things” by Suzanne Eller
I will admit, over the past three years, what is talked about in the devotional below is something I have especially struggled with: the seeming smallness of my assignment, even if I am in the right assignment.
God, am I to be blogging more seriously, trying to reach more people? Am I to have a specific message? Am I to be sending out proposals and letters to agents, trying to write and publish books? Am I in the right assignment? Did I miss something big somehow?”
But, like Suzie Eller, I am always brought back to the realization that no assignment in life is “small”, no bag of silver too small to be multiplied and used well. It’s like the book that I read to Elizabeth, “There’s No Such Thing As Little”. I never want her to feel like she or what she does in life is little. If it’s for others, it’s for God.
Back in May, I watched my little two-year-old girl try to comfort a distraught little friend. When she didn’t know what to do, she ran to get Daddy because Daddy can always help. I could practically hear her saying, “Daddy, my friend is upset. Please, help.” What she did wasn’t small at all; she was thinking of her friend and acting with love, even as a toddler. That is HUGE.
What I do in life is not small. What I do with my writing, my letters and notes, gifts, encouragement, prayers, talks, coffee, lunches, etc., that is not small. And neither is what you do. I may not be “writing great books and making barrels of money” but I am doing my assignment in the best way I know how, to serve others in love and the God I believe in. And that is big. That is HUGE.
~ Melissa Snyder
“The master was full of praise. ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!’” Matthew 25:21 (NLT) Every Wednesday night, a handful of women gather around my kitchen table to laugh, eat and study the Bible together. These women haven’t had it easy. Life is downright hard sometimes, but they are feisty and fun. I can’t imagine Wednesdays without them. Not too long ago, I read an article about several Christian women who were making a difference in the world. One raised funds to dig wells in villages desperate for clean water. Another started a school for girls rescued from the slave trade. One after another, I read these stories of brave women who grabbed these assignments from God and ran with them. For a moment it caused me to look at my own life. God, have I missed my assignment? Is there something BIG I’m supposed to be doing? Before the words even left my mouth, I felt His gentle rebuke. I thought about the week before. One of the women around my kitchen table said there was a time when she didn’t know anything about Scripture, but now it was changing her. Just the day before, one woman wanted to take a walk after our meeting. As we trekked down the walking trail, we talked about Jesus and prayed together. My focus had almost shifted to the “bigness” of other women’s assignments rather than settling into the beauty of my own. In Matthew 25:14-30, Jesus tells a story of a man about to take a long trip. He called his servants together and entrusted each with a measure of responsibility. He gave five bags of silver to one servant, two bags of silver to another and one bag of silver to a third servant. While he was away, the servant with five bags invested it and earned five more. The man with two bags went to work and earned two more. But, the man who had been given one bag dug a hole in the ground and buried it. When the master returned, he was filled with praise for the two who had multiplied the silver entrusted to them. As we see in our key verse “Well done, my good and faithful servant,” he said to each. “You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!” His reaction to the man who had hidden the bag in the ground was much different: “Why didn’t you deposit my money in the bank? At least I could have gotten some interest on it” (Matthew 25:27, NLT). It’s worth noting that this story is not really about money. It was a parable Jesus taught to convey a spiritual truth. Jesus was about to leave the disciples. In His absence, each would have an assignment. Some would pray and watch miracles take place. Others would plant churches. Some would disciple new believers. Others would serve and love people one by one. Whether the assignment seemed big or small, it’s what they did with it that mattered. My treasured assignment is to love the four to six women who meet around my table everyWednesday night. I get to do that by fixing dinner for them and celebrating birthdays with a cake made just for that individual. I get to do that as we dig deep into the Word of God and grow in our faith together. Whatever our assignment, it’s BIG because every single person impacted by the name of Jesus counts. If you are teaching teens, mentoring or putting out chairs for a Sunday morning service, let’s celebrate together! If you’re feeding the hungry, singing sweet words over the heart of a troubled child, sending an encouraging note to a friend or praying for the leaders of our nation, let’s celebrate together! Whatever He’s trusted us to do, let’s celebrate together as we make a difference in the world in His name. Savior, today I take my eyes off anyone else’s assignment and I thank You for the beauty of mine. If I’m burying that assignment because of uncertainty or comparison, I hold it up to You. Thank You for showing me what to do and multiplying it for Your sake. In Jesus’ Name, Amen. TRUTH FOR TODAY: Colossians 3:23, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” (NIV) RELATED RESOURCES: Join Suzie Eller and friends today in a conversation on her blog about discovering our faith assignment as well as the chance to win a giveaway. REFLECT AND RESPOND: What is one way you desire to make a difference? How has God uniquely created you to do that right where you are? |
||
| © 2015 by Suzie Eller. All rights reserved. |
BloPoMo Day 6: Childhood Therapy
For the past two nights, I have engaged in an old childhood ritual: I have taken my daughter’s dolls and untangled and combed out their hair. I sit on the couch and comb out the dolls’ hair, feeling it smoothen out and grow silky under my ministrations. There is something terribly soothing about it. It reminds me of the simple contentments of childhood and of sweet moments brushing my daughter’s quick-growing hair when she was an infant. As I do go through these motions, I feel myself calming and a peace coming over my soul in the simple action of tidying up something and making it lovely (even if it is just a doll’s coiffure).
Even though, tonight, I am weary and tired from a full day and I feel a touch on the weepy side, I can take deep breaths and sink into the sweet simplicity of this act and just be.
BloPoMo Day 5: Aloha in My Heart
It has been many months since I have cried at hearing “Aloha O’e”. I grew so used to it with my daughter’s fondness for “Lilo & Stitch”. However, as it played on the TV just now, I turned to see my little girl rocking her stuffed Stitch, singing along with the song in her little toddler voice, and doing the motions of holding the flowers and hands and then releasing them. And I started bawling here in the kitchen, absolutely bawling.
That lovely little moment has triggered something inside me, not entirely sure what, that is making it a bit hard to stop crying, honestly. And I don’t particularly think that it’s a bad crying either. Something deep down tells me that whatever I am crying about has something to do with “aloha”. As you surely already know, “aloha” means hello and goodbye and what I am feeling is definitely a goodbye.
A Real Man is a Good Man
Written by a woman I consider a good friend, I agree with every word of this and I am so thankful that she put it out there today. And thank you to all the men in my life who live this proof every day. ^_^
BloPoMo Day 4: Amethyst Flashes in Autumn
Now, as I drive home along the highways, I am met with a beautiful sight. Amidst the paling grass and slowly changing trees, there are brilliant flashes of color in the brush of the side ditches, fence rows, and treelines. It’s a brilliant purple flower that grows in bunches that shock and delight me, making me want to pull my car over and collect them in massive bouquets to fill my home with spring color in the midst of autumn warmth. I do not know for sure what they are and neither does my 4H-for-lifer husband. But, according my research, my best bet is that these could be vernonia or Prarie Ironweed. I will not pick them without knowing for certain–as I would not anything else–but, for now, I will just enjoy their stunning splashes in my day and the smile that always comes with their waving amethyst heads.
BloPoMo Day 3, Part 2: Décolletagic Tales
Author’s Note: Yes, I absolutely made up an adjective for my title. I found the first portion of this story set in a post that I made a year ago today and was delighted by it all over again. So, today, I decided to write the story that goes with it. And what do you know? I ended up with a story format that I had never planned on or even thought of since I was in grade school. Here you go! Choose you own décolletagic adventure. And there shall surely be more.
= = = =
“You ready to do this?”
“You mean, are me and my boobs ready to do this?”
“You know, I had never thought of your décolletage as having an individualism of its own but, in that outfit, I think you just might be battling them for attention.”
Me being five-foot-something and a D-cup, my bust line could indeed be an entity unto itself since I refused to swath myself in turtlenecks year round. And her wit was as dry at the autumn leaves outside.
“Eh, I’m used to playing second fiddle to my breasts; they are the lead singer in this one-woman band.” So was mine.
Ending 1:
Just then, the doctor entered the room, a genial smile on her face. “Okay, we are ready for you,” she said to me.
“Really? You’re sure you’re ready? Many a man had those exact last words,” I quipped.
The doctor looked a little surprised but then chuckled and didn’t stop chuckling all the way down to the mammogram room.
Ending 2:
“Just…don’t steal the bride’s spotlight,” she reminded me with playfully-narrowed eyes as I settled her veil like gossamer wings down her back.
“Don’t worry. I will hide behind my bouquet,” I assured her, “Or under your train. No one will even notice.”
She laughed outright at that and I felt her butterflies dissipate. Achievement unlocked! Maid of Honor skills for the win!
Ending 3:
“If it bothers you, you could always take a header off the stage.”
“I could,” I agreed, “But then you’d have to transport my broken ass back home in a wheelchair through several international airports. Want to do that across a few continents?”
She eyed me for a moment before smirking. “You’ll do great,” she said, “Go get your damn Nobel.”
MWGS: Mom, Writer, Geek, Superwoman 