That’s the descent of fog over a field, in case you wonder. In response to Weekly Photo Challenge: Descent.
Month: Oct 2014
Scottish Humour
There are so many reasons to love the Scots. Scottish humour is one of them.
Wetlands
Muddy Waters
In the Woods
Iron Stream
Enchanted Path
Red Lake
Mud
Song of the Reed
Treacherous Terrain
Patriarchy
Cut off and kill
Her expanding mind
It must be
Circumcised
Mara; or, Child in the Woods
It’s a minor miracle that I survived my childhood. I was born female, grew up to be feminine, but acted like a tomboy in the first grade. We lived at the edge of the woods, and for lack of other play ideas, I played in the woods. Alone. The scariness of this arrangement is somewhat relieved by the fact that at first I was only allowed to stay within clear sight of the house. Our house was a huge cube with five large windows facing the woods, so I could spy on my mother doing chores through the windows while I was playing in the woods. The moment she opened the middle top window and yelled my name, I had to report back immediately. When I made her yell at length, Maaa-raaa, hooome, nooow, I was in trouble.
Do you know the tree houses from American films? Well, forget it. That’s what we call a fancy summer house in Eastern Europe. A real tree house is a tree that you carefully pick to spend your play time around. You sweep the forest floor around it, you bring stones and stuff to decorate it and when you’re done, you climb it and contemplate. The best feature of my tree house was a thick low branch that worked as a swing. That is, until a big kid from the neighbourhood intruded my house and broke the branch. He didn’t find my treasure though: a set of toy kitchen utensils buried in the tree’s roots and containing actual sugar, salt and coffee that I stole at home. It horrifies me to think I mixed it with water and ate it. The coffee tasted particularly revolting.
When in the woods, I was always on a mission. I was a prehistoric gatherer. I gathered leaves and twigs, bark and pebbles, flowers and berries. I was at least smart enough not to eat these. My mission could be circling around a molehill and waiting for a mole to peek out. It never did. Or it could be clearing from obstacles a tiny stream that was springing from the ground at one spot and disappeared in the earth again a few hundred feet farther on. My favourite mission was very unsavoury. It consisted of crossing the road that cut through the woods and trespassing on a local dump. For some reasons I thought it was amazing to rummage through other people’s waste, and there were awesome things to find, including dresses and toys.
Sometimes the woods scared me to death. When I climbed the board fence enclosing an area with freshly planted trees, I was frightened by the noise of something big and heavy moving nearby. I was wondering if the thing was inside or outside of the enclosure and if it could be a boar, which were spotted in the woods before. I was sorry to die, and I experienced an unpleasant epiphany that my mother was right to warn me from going so far from the house. I never learned what it was, but it didn’t kill me, and I could live with that. Speaking about past tense, once I quite literally stumbled on dead deer. It was staring at me with one huge brown eye as flies were feasting on it. Seeing that I couldn’t bury it, I prayed for the corpse. This must have been ridiculous, because I wasn’t instructed in religion, so I made up a prayer for dead deer on the spot.
This was in summer. Winters were less fun because the slopes of the woods grew too slippery to climb, and it was really too cold to hang out on a tree branch. There were two sledging hills behind the house. The small one was parent-approved, and it took about two seconds to slide from its top to the bottom. The big one was a different thing. It was a long and winding cleft in a hill, potentially dangerous to manoeuvre. I went down it on a sledge several times, and it was exhilarating. Until I made a manoeuvring mistake and hit a tree. The tree was fine, but I got briefly unconscious and spent weeks in the hospital with a concussion, a swollen eye and half my face grazed by the bark. I made a full recovery, but the woods were never the same again.
Tongue
For my anniversary fiftieth Caturday, here goes Ella sticking out her tongue.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Cover Art
If I were asked by some misguided soul to produce cover art for a work of art, I’d go with the above photo of Olomouc for the song below set in Olomouc. Both the photo and the song are quirky and stylised, hence a match.
In case you wonder, Olomouc is a small town in the Czech Republic, a miniature Prague. The song appears to deal with an elderly married couple playing sex role games in a hotel room, but I wouldn’t know.
In response to WordPress Photo Challenge: Cover Art.
Test Yourself
I love tests, the sillier the better! Here are some silly and some smart ones for you to try out too.
Your Victorian Penname
This test is designed for writerly ladies, who would need a gender non-specific pseudonym in the Victorian era. Or else they could just claim that their work was a translation because apparently, female writers were a shame, while female translators were okay.
Get your name here.
Your Reading Speed
This test tells me that I read 84% faster than American national average, which however equals to the speed of an average college student. Disappointing.
Test your speed here.
Your Procrastination Level
This test didn’t work for me because it insists that I don’t procrastinate that much. They’re fatally wrong.
Test yourself here.
Flowers
Simple
Colourful
Flower Impression
Daffodil
Tulip
Tulip Field
After the Rains
Rose
Unplugged
Dis
connected from me
Un
connected from my
self
Follow-Up
My modest poem has inspired verse responses by creative fellow bloggers, which turned out to be much better than the original! Check it out below, in order of appearance:
By Ronovan
Dis
enchanted with me
Dis
enchanted with my
self
By Mother Hen
En
Tranced with your writing
In
Spired by this haiku…
By Julie
Be
Comes the time to empty the trash
To
morrow is garbage pick-up day
Mara Eastern 