The Seven Senses

JUST CAME BACK FROM HEAVEN.

I had everything in the mountains. My family. Breathtaking sights. Incomparable scents. The taste of food cooked over a campfire. The feel of a flower placed in my hands. The sound of water tumbling, quakie leaves singing in the breeze, kids laughing. 

Heaven for my soul. 

Ambrosia for the senses. 

I want to build a cabin there right now. Why not? I'll go stake a claim like in the good old days. Have me a good 'ol cabin raising. 

Sigh. I wish, I wish, oh how I wish. 

I grew up camping in the mountains. They're a deep part of me, of my feelings for my family—my parents, siblings, and now my husband and children. 

You know what? 

I can use my experience in the mountains to fuel my writing. I don't have to leave it all behind. I'll remember the ambrosia to my senses and include every sense in my book. I'll ratchet up the happiness factor with deep, emotional ties—like how my family made my mountain experience truly heaven. And I'll add conflict and trauma because yeah, it's there too. It's all there and it's all going in my book.

MAKE YOUR BOOK AMBROSIA TO THE SENSES. 

THE SEVEN SENSES. 

YEAH, FIVE SENSES DOESN'T CUT IT — I'M INCLUDING THE MIND AND THE HEART IN THE COUNT. WHAT THEY SENSE IS RICH, LAYERED AND VITAL, AND THEY GIVE THE OTHER SENSES POWER.


AH, HEAVEN!

Weirdness is a Virtue

Ready to sing? Okay! One, two, three—belt it out!

I love the mountains

I love the rolling hills

I love the somethin’

I love the daffodils

Seriously, look at this! How can you NOT sing?

So I have this great pond down the road from my house and I love to walk, jog, skip there (Okay, so maybe I would only skip at night when no-one could possibly see me. Wait—just kidding, a skunk might think I need perfuming in the dark hours.) Anywho, I even stop my car in the road most times on the way past to gawk at the way cool birds. 

Sooooo, the other day, this brilliant idea struck out of nowhere—why not load up a couple of kitchen chairs in the back of the Burb (Suburban—for non-abbreviators) and have a comfy seat tall enough to see down into the pond? Yeah, why not? So I spouted the idea to my kids.

You would-a thought I told them I planned to dance in the road wearing a satyr costume and a daffodil clenched in my teeth—a couple of my kids anyway, older ones, who are attuned to embarrassment possibilities. They told me it was weird!

Well, I rebelled, told them I didn’t care a hoot if it was weird, and did it. You see? Look at that photo up there—I’m totally doin’ it. (The son who took the photo of us waited in the Burb the whole time, hunched down, bravely stepping out into the danger of embarrassment for a minute to snap a couple of shots for me—I’m an avid picture taker and I made him do it.)

So I’m sitting there enjoying the marvelous everything, and okay, hello, there's a road right there. People are seriously going to see me being so weird sitting there in my Good-For-Seeing-Wildlife chairs.

Ha! Tricked ya, didn’t I?! You thought I got embarrassed – that I caught a whiff of paranoia that people would think I was weird. Nope, I loved it, every split-second of it!

The birds hanging out there are so lovable—Blue Heron, Canadian Geese, ducks, more varieties of birds than I can name, AND . . .

PELICANS! LOOK AT THE PELICANS! I CRAZY LOVE PELICANS!

I must talk about them all the time, because I was out with my daughter visiting someone, and after we left she said, “Mom, I’m pretty sure you talked about the pelicans the last time we came to visit. Actually, you mention how much you love that pond, the pelicans, etc., every time we visit. And you talk about it to other people too, every time you see them.”

What?! I don’t do that, do I? I rewound my brain to the last visit—Aaaahhhh! I do talk about the pond and the pelicans all the time! I laughed. She laughed. It’s all good.

So people, I have this sage advice for you—

         Be weird. Makes life enjoyable.