My mind is starting to freak me out a bit. It’s a bit like being married forever and a day and then your spouse suddenly does something to throw all your preconceptions out the window. You realize in that flicker-flash of an instant that you don’t know them near as well as you thought you did.
I’m looking at my mind kind of askance, wondering should I edge slowly away so that maybe people won’t think we’re together. Guilt by association is such nasty, embittering stuff, isn’t it?
Neil and Emma have winged off to his family reunion and Becca and I spent the evening at mine. My family are camping and cabin renting at a lake about half an hour from here, and I sped drove out there to be sociable and to wear Becca out before bedtime.
Oh, and I missed my family and wanted to see them. Yes. I wasn’t at all tempted to stay home and work on rewrites instead. That would be horribly self-centered and selfish and I just can’t stand that sort of….okay, so I’m laughing now. Put bluntly…I am the lowliest of the lows.
Anyway, I was sitting on an old lump of driftwood by the lakeshore, finding very little to appreciate in the summer sun glinting off the water. Directly into my eyes. No matter how I positioned myself.
The shoemaker’s children were unshod. And the Optometrist’s wife does not own a pair of sunglasses.
I turned my attention to the scenery, enjoying as always my escape from the monotony of housewifedom (though I could’ve done without the bugs). Suddenly my imagination revved up from zero to a hundred and thirteen in about three seconds. The gently sloping hills rising up from the lakeshore were simply covered in evergreens. There wasn’t a single discernible hole in the greenery.
They look like great big chia pets, I thought to myself.
Chia Pets? What?
You know, those ceramic thingys that grew grassy stuff out the top of them. Popular in the 80’s. The commercials for them always came on after the commercials for The Clapper?
I know what they are, but good grief (my mind has been heavily influenced by Charlie Brown, apparently), where on earth did that thought come from?
And I just gave the mental equivalent of a shrug and sat there staring at the hills feeling like a complete twerp. And yet feeling at the same time that I really, really needed to write that image down so I could use it in my next chapter.
I am so weird. I’m really not sure I want to be seen with me anymore.
Writing this wasn’t nearly as cathartic as I was hoping it would be.
I feel weirder, actually.
What do you think?
No Trackbacks
You can leave a trackback using this URL: http://temporaryinsanitybykym.com/2008/07/mysterious-ways/trackback/
20 Comments
Hooray for imagery! You know my feelings on this subject. But I know what you mean about writing it down. When an image strikes me that I like, I immediately want to stick it in a story. But sometimes the words don’t frame the picture right, or sometimes the picture looks wrong in the story. So then I have a dangling image that doesn’t fit anywhere. But it should. And then I’m sad because the image is homeless. So I like an evergreen covered hill as a Chia pet. It has been duly noted and published in my imagination today and for at least a few minutes, has not been homeless.
Personally? I think it’s fantastically wonderful that when you’re sitting in a place like that you find things that you want to write down… Keeps the ideas coming so you don’t run out. Sometimes it’s nice to turn it off, though… when you go to sleep, for example. :)
I think you should embrace the absurdity … and keep using the word twerp, because I like it.
thank. goodness.
girl, your weirdness is making my weirdness feel right at home.
our minds can hang out together, while we slink off to visit The Land of Normal People. i hear it’s nice there.
Actually, Nic, the Land of Normal People is way overrated. There is absolutely nothing fun to do, people just do this “work” thing all day, and then go home and watch reruns of CSI. It’s really nothing to look at. IMHO.
Yay for the Land of the Wierd People!
Welcome to the land of weirdness, where all writers live. Enjoy.
I was reading this and finding absolutely nothing weird about it. It’s actually so similar to the way i think(constantly), once again you’ve made me feel a kinship to weirdos (you) like me out there. :)
I think I am weirder. As I was reading, this song ran quickly through my head from the Sound of Music.
“the hills are alive, with the look of chia” Ah ah ah…..
See, now that’s weird. You can take a deep breath now and relax and feel normal. It’s all better now. But I will come and haunt you if I drive around the country and all I see is chia everywhere!
I love random thoughts like that . . . similiar to (but not nearly as annoying) as those pop-up windows some ‘net sites give you! LOL
Speaking of Emma and Neil being wung (is that the appropriate word?) away to places yonder . . . what’s their itinerary . . . they stopped by yesterday when we were out . . . any chance we CAN see them after the reunion?
I see Chia Pets everywhere! And I secretly wish I had The Clapper for my car keys. I think it’s bizarre how deeply embedded pop culture resides in our psyches.
Enough with the twerp-ness! You are a spectacular person. You are a writer with a terrific imagination. Don’t forget my dad’s quote: “Worry is mis-use of imagery.”
Good to know there are others with random strange thoughts out there! You’re brain and mine should meet, I think they’d get along famously! Oh wait, they ARE meeting in 21 sleeps (and yes I counted them just now) : )
Yes, you are weird. But so am I.
I love you for it!
There’s nothing wrong with painting a picture for yourself or others! Nothing wrong with it at all!
I think the chia pet connection was incredibly inventive and creative and brilliant. (Am I now your new best friend?)
Now, I wonder what would happen if those giant chia pets came alive and started eating campers…
That is a bit random, but hey, just means you have a quick, sharp witted, imaginative mind. (really I just made that up, but it sounded really good, and I think it’s true!)
i like the imagery. stuff from the 80s can’t be bad…can it?
oh – AND – i am the wife of an american studies lecturer who knows PRECIOUS LITTLE about american history. that’s mainly what he teaches. oh and you’d think being an american i would have a handle on culture. no, again, he has a much deeper understanding. the american studies lecturer’s wife gots no significant american knowledge. okay, it’s a stretch but i’m trying to empathize.
although really i don’t suppose i care too much if i know all the jfk theories or not. it doesn’t change the fact that he was shot….
kuDOS on going and grabbing a bit of outdoorsy time. do that and your rewrites will be much richer! although they had a pretty rich starting point…
Being weird is simply much more fun than being ‘average normal’!!
Now I’ve got the Chia jingle in my head. Ch-ch-ch-Chia Pet! (ah…the soundtrack of my youth!) :)
Strange. Very Strange.
And yet. . .
All in day’s work.