"Damn! This is hard!"
"What's hard?"
"Writing a blog post. I have nothing, but I need something."
"Why?"
"Because I made a commitment to myself to keep a blog."
"Why?"
"Are you going to just sit there and keep asking me 'why, why, why?' Why don't you give me some constructive suggestions."
"Why don't you write about us. Write about our relationship and how we met and how I make your thoughts a little bit...more interesting. You could start out by introducing me."
"I guess I could do that although I'm not even sure how I would tell it."
"Isn't that the best part of story telling? Sometimes the writer doesn't even know how it will play out let alone end. Write about me and how we met. Don't you remember?"
"No, I don't."
"I don't either, but you could just make something up! It's called a story, right?"
"Right. It's my story..."
"And you're sticking to it!"
"Right. I need a title."
"Why?"
Sigh...
"The Puppeteer's Magical Muse and How Spontaneous Function Takes the Cake
"Is that the best you can do?"
"What do you mean? That's what you told me to write."
"I suppose that's how you interpreted it, but, well, okay, whatever."
"Hmm, it's the cliché 'takes the cake' that's bothering you, right?"
"Yup."
"So let's hear another one."
..
.
."Um? Hello? Are you there?"
"I never left.Try again."
How Spontaneous Function Crashed the Party and the Puppeteer's Magical Muse
"Better?"
"It's good for starters.Time for a nap. You know the rest of the story."
"I suppose I do."
How Spontaneous Function Crashed the Party and the Puppeteer's Magical Muse
When I was a young girl left to her own devices, I had ways of amusing myself through play and pretend. Plush animals and hand puppets made themselves at home and talked incessantly. Invisible creatures lived in tall grasses, clouds formed into parades of sculpted wonder, the wind in the trees, the stones in the streams were alive and spoke of longing while babbling to me. I was never lonely and I was never alone. I have fonder memories of me doing nothing than I do while up to something.
"Yawn. You definitely were always up to something."
"Ah, you're back from your nap so soon?"
"I wasn't really napping. I'm always listening in."
"I should realize that. Can I continue?"
"Continue."
As I grew up, I found friends who also welcomed pretend and was able to point to the unseen and hear the whisper of voices sending us to another world until the adults called us back down; back home.
"We were hardly whispering."
"When no one else can hear you, it's like a whisper, but yes, right now you are speaking in a normal tone and volume."
"Except no one can hear me but you."
"Right."
My family was pleasant enough. We always sat together for dinner each night but I couldn't remember or tell you what we spoke about. I remember looking at potato skins that looked like elephant ears, or broccoli that looked like trees. I had the ability to visually distort my immediate surroundings. I could make people or objects that were close seem very far away.Their heads would be smaller than their bodies. It was really very odd, yet exhilarating to have this entertaining gift.
"That was weird when you did that."
"I know. I've only been able to do it once in my adulthood by accident, but never again since."
Dinner was over and I was excused, later to reluctantly return and help with cleaning up. My sister would wash and I would dry then I would disappear again to play outside or slide into the sanctuary of my bedroom and do the things that made me content and comfortable.
"Let's get to the part where you let me out and put me down on paper!"
"I'm getting to that."
"Eating toadstool and rocking rolls is good for your complexion and penmanship."
"I'm getting to it!"
I am of adult age now. It is not the same as saying I'm an adult now. My age is inconsequential, like yourself, I still think and feel like I always have. My settings have changed and my experiences have broadened my world, but I will always see myself as a child with attentive wonder and I never want to miss the moments where I can delve into the heart of carefree play.
"Very well said."
"Thank you. I've been trying to figure this out."
"I've been with you all the way."
"Some days your naps are longer than I'd like."
Now certainly I can pretend I'm somewhere or someone else right now, but it's difficult and different. Along the way I have accumulated other, shall I say, darker voices who have filled my thoughts with doubts, fears, shame --"
"Not me!"
"No, not you.They definitely come from a place of modern day madness."
These harboring barnacles tend to settle in just when the gods have spread open a wide sheet of a new day before me and say, "have at it, karen!"
"That was me, saying that."
"That was you, wasn't it? Are you the gods?"
"No, I'm just the voice inside your head, let's not completely lose ourselves. Instead, let's learn how to rid ourselves of these 'harboring barnacles'. Many a tale has been spun surrounding the heavy burden of these terrible tyrants of truth."
"Okay.Talk about losing ourselves. Anyway --"
There is the voice of wisdom and whimsy; play and pretend. There is the voice of deceit and dismay; torment and trepidation.Then there is your voice.
"I love your voice."
"You do? How sweet."
"I love you."
"I'm blushing now."
"Sally felt flush when she turned the raccoon into a souvenir."
Getting back on track, I know my own voice has the strength of a million suns and can roar like thunder, shatter glass and rock mountains.
It is the same with you, my reader. You just have to find it.
"My voice doesn't do those things."
"No, it doesn't, but the gifts you share help give me the gifts I share and strength is achieved to match up with any barrier or dark life force that dares to bring me down and for that I thank you."
"Woa."
Right now I am pretending to know what I'm talking about. I'm writing and occasionally this puppet comes into the frame of the conversation and speaks when you least expect it. Having these two way conversations is not in the least bit wrong and if it is, keep it to yourself, your puppet is waiting. So, hey, I always dreamed of being a puppeteer.
"I know what I'm getting you for Christmas."
"I can't wait!"
"How did you know what I was going to say?"
"I'm the ventriloquist, remember?"
"Standing in line, Stu heard the horned owl hoot and ran off with an avocado."
Spontaneous Function: {noun} a string of words that relate to disconnected chaos pertaining to the action of persons or objects in random places doing strange things.
"By the light of the gods! You just officially defined Spontaneous Function!"
"Yes we did."
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