Continued

and then there was...

Merrick has taken up yoga. He found that the quiet of a darkened studio and all the new shapes he was trying to master had helped in his creative process. He had prepared well for the busy season. His designs had started to bend, they looked more appealing and less rigid. Seeing his remaining works scattered through the store when he took in the next consignment lot, gave him the satisfaction of a year of hard learning. Rewards come in different packages.

Ollie helped him carry in the merchandise some days. The pieces that needed 2 people to make it through the door. One holding the door, one squeezing through. Some months ago, there had almost been a disaster, which would have cost Ollie more than his pride. The toupée was put away forever.

He had been fortunate in having a long term career and now appreciated the benefits of a guaranteed pension. He looked forward to helping his son occasionally, it was nice sometimes to have a break from retirement.

At his farewell event, which he had requested be kept simple, he was applauded for his contribution to decades of students. Ollie had never coveted the limelight, he appreciated the kind words but was relieved when the night was over. His rewards for his long service came at the unexpected meeting with old students. The ones he had “pulled from the brink”, the undesirables, the unlikely and the just plain odd.

For the most part, he was happy. He had a number of books, that he had shelved for this future.

The curly haired girl spent some dramatic months with a man with a white truck and a temper. Big vehicles and short fuses are rarely a good combination. She had been caught up for a while in how wonderful they looked together, sort of like beauty and the beast.

You would think that she had learned something by now, but her barriers were solid and thick, she was not going to give them up easily.

Several times she had picked up her phone to contact Merrick, but each time she knew that he wouldn’t have changed.

The Story - today

I too, have wondered what has happened to these people:

 Grace hadn’t reached for the Teddy Bear in a long time. He had been a gift, along with a “easy” wine bottle opener. The colleague had recognized what she would need as she faced the divorce.

The Teddy had instantly been given the name Dexter, his horn-rimmed glasses and bow tie and vest, left room for no other consideration. Then that horrible TV show came out, Dexter the Murderer; blood, slashing, knives, weird, weird, weird. She had gently placed the Bear on a shelf in her cupboard. He was at this time, Nameless.

She and Grace became friends.Through the spring and summer and now at the tail end of the year, they coffee-d and attended continuing education classes, dropped in to free events at the local library and talked.

In spite of the seventeen years between them (years that conceivably create a whole grown up person), they enjoyed eachother’s company. Their lives started to mesh, the painful void that each had been feeling, started to ebb. (It was a consistent but not overwhelming friendship. Days and sometimes weeks went by, when neither made contact. But when a plan was made, it stuck, it was sacred.)

Her sadness was replaced with optimism and the light became so much brighter at the end of the tunnel.

She made dinner once in awhile for Ollie. She tried out new recipes and bought a new slow cooker. Last time it was, Cranberry Chickpea Curry . Ollie appreciated her attempts and ate it all. He always brought flowers and dark chocolate with nuts for dessert. He had now permanently removed the bad-fitting toupée.

The Story - repeated

If you didn't have a chance to see this Story unfold, here are the posts all in one spot.

The characters in our lives are our companions on a journey that we are in together.
We act together in unison without having conscious knowledge.

The Ripple of our Life - Grassi Lakes, Canmore

Our stories have no beginning and no end. It’s mysterious, and downright spooky sometimes how people come into and then leave your life. Sometimes they travel great distances with you, and sometimes you are connected and don’t even know it. The joy of connection cannot be forced, it is magical, it is unexpected, it is to be celebrated.

That is how the curly haired girl, Merrick, Grace, Ollie and She that we all know came to be. But even make believe characters take a break.

We all need to redefine, and reemerge into something new. At times we are forced into it, whether it be the end of a work term, a health crisis or a pending divorce. But we are always given the gift to choose our reaction, and the ability (however difficult) to step back and consciously set our next path.



Choosing our Reaction - Grassi Lakes, Canmore

Act

No Longer an Act
Grace
Blown in Glass
Transparent Houses
Ollie
Her
Reflected in Coffee
Clouded Poetry
Turning Back the Pages of Time
Crumpled dreams
Some kind of progress

Some kind of progress – 12

She and Ollie met several times over the next few weeks. She realized that their friendship and the ease they felt with each other had not diminished over the decades. He had walked her home once, to her building with the striped awnings and eyebrows of cream coloured sandstone. A building she had loved instantly, because it had reminded her of the old, brick buildings that were common in their hometown. It even had radiators.

Once she had arrived for their coffee and met one of Ollie’s neighbours, a woman who lived one floor below him. Grace had smelled of vanilla and had the cheery, open face of someone that practised smiling often. She sometimes gazed to her left as though she was pondering carefully, giving her answer serious thought. They talked about art and Ollie, it was as though they were connected somehow.

Early on, she had forgiven him for being the messenger.

She told him about how when her position changed to day-time she had become more aware. It was so much easier to hide her sadness in the comfort of the dark.

He asked her if she recalled their days together in college, of streakers, and pre-happy-hour drinks in the corn field adjacent to their college. Oh, those days of camaraderie had always stayed with her as the highlight between cramming for exams and hitchhiking to save on your finances.

As time went by, she opened up more, her smile no longer seemed a betrayal of all that she had lost and laughing didn’t hurt. Ollie even gave up his toupée. She didn’t mention it outright, she just said that “he looked especially fine” that day, he understood.

Some things don’t need more words. (Click to Tweet)

For the rest of The Little Story, read here.

 

Crumpled dreams - 11

and her page said:

Slow Dance in a No Name Town

A small dark motel with a curving bar
branded by fallen cigarette butts
carved with misshaped hearts
and crazy initials.

Old smoke condensed on window panes
sadly in need of a washing or two
bits of peanut shells ground into
the gaps of the floorboards.

What an unlikely place to fall in love.

The drive had been long

down winding dusty roads

bordered by swaying field on unknown crops

ending at this leaning porch motel which

blared melodies that we knew.

What an unlikely place to fall in love.

Time went on, song after song

the heat descended and the crowd grew dense

thunder rolled in, the doors both front and side were flung open

the songs disappeared amongst the chatter and only now and then

did we catch a familiar word.

What an unlikely place to fall in love.

Sitting alone, getting deep in my chair 

rain splattering on gravel outside

couples seeking refuge 

racing from the peeling picnic tables outside.

Silence.

A voice I recognize starts falteringly

gaining confidence with the encouragement of the crowd.

I turn in my comfortable chair

that's when I found my unlikely love. 

For the rest of The Little Story, read here.

 

Turning Back the Pages of Time - 10

If you’ve ever been in a situation where someone so distantly from your past emerges into your present, you will understand the shock that she felt as she approached Oliver.

Quick as her brain could go, her mind picked up the buried scent of wet, as she reached him. It had been a day of pouring rain when they had sat down over a hot chocolate in the Student Centre all those years ago. He had been wearing a heavy (wet) knit sweater, similar to a style that she had seen recently again on some young people. Everything old is new again.

As he stood, they embraced with the familiarity of a time when your friends were your family as you grew into adulthood. Ironically, they had lived in oblivion of personal pain and family struggles. Only many years later had she heard through the grapevine called Internet that Oliver’s father had died, estranged from his family and a

Clouded Poetry - 9

Flashback. She and Oliver had been good friends back in college. They exchanged quips, reading material and scribbled poems for the other's scrutiny,

The person she was dating, whom she eventually married and was unhappy with for a long period of time, went to another school. One day she had enthusiastically pulled out her latest poem for Oliver to read. So many decades ago and the image of it still vibrated in her head. He read quickly as was his style, each word floating across his face.

When he was finished he took her hand from across the table in the student lounge and said the words that had echoed and bumped around in her head all these years. He told her that the object of her affection was a rat!

Mr. Charming had been spotted on more than one occasion with another specific girl.

She had often wondered through the long painful years of the marriage and even since its end, how things could have been different if she had heeded Oliver's words.

Reflected in Coffee - 8

She had to stop looking over at them. They would think that she was stalking! But that smile kept drawing her back. Where had she seen it?

Ollie and Merrick adjusted themselves in their seats and started a new conversation. Their hands busy with shelling the peanuts which were forming an abundant mountain between them. Merrick got up and ordered a second coffee for each of them and made his way back between the tables, gripping the cups in each of his large hands.

She doodled in the large notebook that she always carried with her and did her best to be discreet. Her page had a lot of ??? on it.

Then she heard the laugh and her head sprang up. She knew someone who had had that laugh, but that was 35 years ago, on the other side of the country. She hadn’t heard that sound since then. She looked up and mentally erased the lines of time, and added hair (what’s with the toupé, she giggled to herself).

Yes, it must be Oliver.

She looked up and mentally erased the lines of time. (Click to Tweet)

For the rest of The Little Story, read here. 

Her - 7

We all know her. She just has different names.

She walked into the coffee shop on a whim. She usually worked night shift and had the advantage of being anonymous. With the promotion she would have to step into the daylight and her face would become known. She needed to process how this change was going to disrupt her life.

Too many changes, coming too quickly did not work well for her. They scared her. She had survived the death of her child, you would think that nothing further could have the potential to shake her.

She drifted to a corner table (her back not exposed to the room) and settled in. Two tables over, Ollie and Merrick were in the midst of an animated discussion. Father and son, both speaking and waving their arms in grandiose movements. They formed boxes with their hands and drew a curving shape on the top. They laughed, the older man slapped the younger on the back and they both slid in unison down their respective chairs.

She found something vaguely familiar about him. Where had she seen him? Why did that smile ring bells in her head?

She drummed her finger on the tabletop.

She usually worked night shift and had the advantage of being anonymous. (Click to Tweet)

For the rest of The Little Story, read here.