where’s my were pen?

July 28, 2008

   I packed, unpacked, and re-packed.  I wanted to be sure I had everything I would need for the trip to Mudjimba.  The only problem was that I had no idea what I’d need, because I wasn’t really sure where I was going.  

   “Triton’s coral? Check. Granola bars? Check. Change of clothes & shoes? Clean socks & underwear?  Check & check. Sunflower seeds? Check.  30 SPF sunscreen? Check. Chocolate? Check.  Ibuprophen? Check. Water bottle? Check. Extra juice? Check.”  I wasn’t sure what would happen after I arrived on the island, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t starve, get sunburned, or be dehydrated.  I was ready for anything. I hoped.

   I swam through the beautiful blue waters and surfaced on a gorgeous beach, perfect temperature, puffy cottonball clouds, bird calls I didn’t quite recognize.  I had landed in paradise!

Mudjuimba Beach, Queensland

 

   I slathered myself with coconut-scented sunscreen and walked along the beach, picking up pretty sea shells, playing tag with the lapping waves.  I followed the shoreline, and as I came around a cove, I saw her:  the Sand Dreaming Woman.

“Drifting with the Current” – Sand Sculpture in St. Petersberg, Russia (Yahoo News Story), by Tatyana Kuznetsova and Vsevolod Averkiev

 

   I wondered who had built this, and why.  A local woman was standing behind the sculpture and said, “She’s a beaut, all right.”

   “Yes,” I agreed, “but who is she?”

   “She’s the Sand Dreamer.  She sits and she watches the tides go in and out.  Day and night, good and bad, then and now, she’s seen it all.  Whatever happens, happens.”

   “What if there’s a storm?  She’ll wash away.”

   “Then she washes away.  Nothing lasts forever.”

   “That’s sad. They should build a wall, like a levee, to protect her for posterity,” I suggested.

   “I don’t think the Sand Dreamer would want that.  The story goes, Sandra Coomer was a real woman, whose motto was, ’This, too shall pass.’  If Sandra were happy, she knew that joy would fade before long.  If she were heart-broken, she knew, if she could just hold on awhile, some day things would be better.  Even on her death bed, Sandra said, “My life has been a great, strange dream, sometimes odd and frightening, sometimes mysterious and beautiful, like the mesmerizing coral reefs under the sea – but I wouldn’t have missed it – even the hard parts – for anything!  Yet, as I always said,  ’This, too shall pass.’”

   I thanked the woman for telling me the Sand Dreamer’s story.  I reminded myself not to waste time, to stop and appreciate the gift of life often.  “Every day is a blessing,” “Nothing last forever,” “This, too, shall pass,”: I wanted to write these sayings down, like a prayer or a chant, before I forgot them.  I dug in my pack and found my journal, but…

   I couldn’t find my Were-Pen!  “Claire, where are you?  Were-Pen, I need you!  I know I packed you! I checked! Where are you?  I can’t write without my pen.”  I was in full panic mode now. 

   I looked at the silent, serene Sand Dreamer sculpture and muttered, “Yeah, I know, ‘this too shall pass’, but you don’t understand. I’m a writer – I live to write and write to live!  

   “WERE-PEN?  WHERE ARE YOU?” I yelled.

double rainbow

 

     Gertie fed me a wonderful dinner of greens and cornbread.  She had already informed me I would be spending the night at her cottage, no arguments.  So at least for now, I knew where I would lay my head, and what I would do for the rest of the evening.

     “Rest up, child, you don’t know what tomorrow will bring,” Gertie said.

     I helped Gertie clean up and then she said, “There’s nothing more I love in this life than to watch the sun go down, with a glass of wine in my hand.  Join me on the back porch.”

     We walked outside to an evening that was cool and pleasant, with a slight breeze.  It had rained while we were eating supper, so there was a fresh scent in the air, and the glittering of crystal droplets on the grass and leaves.  We sat down, poured wine, and clinked our glasses together:  Gertie announced, “A toast – we witness this day as it draws to a close – and we are thankful for it.”

     “Amen,” I said, taking a sip.  Looking up from my glass, I saw the most beautiful sight before us:  a double rainbow.  “It’s a miracle!”

     “Every day is a miracle – this day just happens to have a frame around it.  The rainbow is a blessing – all those colors, embracing the light…”

   “Sometimes I think the world is such a bad place – so many bad things happen – and then I see something like that…”

   “You know what they say, it takes both rain and sunshine to make a rainbow…The world is both good and bad, delicious and devastating – but it’s the only one we have, so we have to honor it and protect it.  This is it  – for better or worse, love it or hate it.  I choose our world, this life – the whole package – rainbows and tsunamis, falling in love and breaking your heart, a baby’s to smile and saying a last goodbye to a pet in too much  pain – we take the bitter with the sweet, the joy with the sorrow.  The best we can do is to be present each day, and, like my mother always said, do our best to make the world a better place if we can.”

     “And the world is a better place because you’re here, Gertie.”

     “And you, too, Kezza.  The world needs you, whether you know it or not.  You are at the nexus of here and now, of being and meaning.”

     “I’m just me.”

     “That’s good enough.”

     “Really?”

     “Yes, I think you’re good enough, Kezza.  In fact, I think you’re pretty good.  And you know what I always say…”

     “Pretty good is hard to beat,” I quoted, laughing with my friend.

 

(c) 2008 Kerry Vincent

find your inner were pen

August 12, 2008

So there I was, on the isle of Mudjimba, Old Woman Island, where somebody was supposed to meet me, and make all things clear, and show me the way to go.  At least that is what I had hoped would happen when I got to Mudjimba – so far I was just hot, tired, frustrated, and I had lost my beloved were pen.

I sat down on a bit of stone wall and looked out to sea, hoping watching the waves would calm me down.  “This too shall pass,” I whispered, as the Sand Dreamer taught, although I was still upset.  I tried to meditate, but my monkey mind kept jumping from topic to topic.  I tried to relax and focus on my breathing, but I got get an itch in the middle of my back I had to scratch it now, but I couldn’t quite reach it.  I tried rubbing my back against a tree trunk.  Just as I was starting to get the right spot, I heard a loud, throaty  “Unh-uh-uh.”  Embarrassed, I stopped immediately, opened my eyes, and saw a dark woman wearing a bright flowered sundress dabbing a wet cloth on her ample, wrinkled bosom, staring at me.

“I heard of tree-huggers, but I don’t know what you’d call what you’re doing to that tree – tree humpin’?” she said in her deep, raspy voice.

“I’m sorry, I just had an itch, I couldn’t reach it, so I thought the rough tree bark…”

“You don’t have to ‘splain it,” said the woman, laughing.  “It’s obvious, you needed someone to scratch your itch, but you should have asked for help.  I love a tree same as the next person, but you just actin’ silly.  She smiled broadly and said, “Hello, I’m Gravel Gertie.  Turn around, child.  Where you need that scratchin’ done?”

I turned and pointed to where the hooks of my bra were irritating my back.  Gertie gave me a good scratch, exactly were I needed it, and it was all I could do to keep from thumping my foot like a happy dog scratched just right.

“Sometimes you can help yourself, and sometimes you can ask for help.  This was one of those ‘ask for help’ times.  What’s your name, child?”

“Kezza.  Thank you, ma’am.”

“You’re welcome, Kezza, but please call me Gertie – ‘ma’am’ makes me feel like I should be an old woman in a church dress and rolled-up stockings.  I don’t mind bein’ old, but I don’t want to be prissy.  I’m a tough old broad and proud of it!  My wrinkles prove I’ve done some hard livin’ – I haven’t just been takin’ a nap down here on this planet.”

“No, Gertie, I can see you don’t take the easy way out.  No offense.”

“None taken.  How about you, Kezza?  How are you feelin’ now?”

“Pretty good,” I lied.  I was feeling a little bit better, but I was still worried.

“Pretty good is hard to beat!” said Gertie, smiling.

I couldn’t help but smile too.

“But something is troublin’ you.  Tell old Gertie about it.  You’ve lost something – something near and dear to you.”

“How did you know?”

“I know lots of things.  I’m almost blind in both eyes now, but I can see things other people miss.  It’s all a matter of paying attention.  Maybe I can help you find what you’ve lost.”

“But I don’t even know where to start looking, Gertie!  I’ve lost my Were Pen – there’s not another one like it in the whole world!  My Pen has been with me through thick and thin, good and bad, highs and lows…I always keep it with me, so I can write in my journal – that is, if I ever get inspired again.  It’s been ages since I’ve had an original thought,” I complained.

“I’m sure you’re exaggerating, you have all kinds of interesting thoughts – let your readers decide what ones are good or bad.  Words take on a life on their own after you speak them or publish them anyway.  Like kids, when some words move out of the house, they never look back.  Readers bring their past experiences to your work, so the stories that you put down may remind a reader of something that happened to them years ago, that has nothing to do with what you wrote, but it means something special to them.  We never know what our words might mean to someone else.  Give your readers some credit – trust them a little bit.  The good ones will amaze you and the lazy ones don’t matter that much.”

“What you just said – your words – are wonderful, I wish I could write them down!”  Out of habit, I reached in my backpack and pulled out my journal.  I gasped.  As usual, my Were Pen was clipped to the journal’s spiral binding, right where it should have been.

“But, but, I could have SWORN I checked that again and again and it wasn’t there before!” I said.

“What’s all the racket?” grumbled the Were Pen.

“I thought you were lost, gone forever, and I’d never see you again, Were Pen!”

“Don’t tease,” it said.  “I’ve been here all the time.  You must not have looked very hard.”

“Sometimes we try so hard to find something we look right by it.  Sometimes, the things we need, are right there with us all along,” said Gertie.

“And sometimes we’re taken for granted,” the Were Pen muttered.  

“Gravel Gertie, meet Were Pen.  Were Pen, meet Gravel Gertie.”

“Pleased to meet you, Were Pen.  I believe this problem is solved, Kezza.”

“Yes, thanks.  Now if I can just figure out where to go, what I’m supposed to do next.  But first, I would dearly love a nice cup of tea.”

“It’s not much, but my home is only a little way from here.  Why don’t you come home with me?  I’ll put the kettle on, and later, if you’re hungry, I’ve got a nice pot of mustard greens that have been simmering all morning.”

 “I’m starving!  If it won’t be too much trouble…”

“Not at all.  I don’t get much company these days; I get tired of talking to the same four walls.  It’d do me good to have visitors.  Besides, it will drive my nosy neighbor Izzy crazy wondering what’s going on!”

So I carefully re-packed my Were Pen and followed Gravel Gertie home to her little white cottage by the sea.  She had a beautiful garden, packed with color, best described as “controlled chaos”.  Beyond the flowers was a trim vegetable patch and a clothesline where the loveliest, most colorful cotton quilts I had ever seen were blowing in the gentle breeze. 

 

(c) 2008 Kerry Vincent

arrival at rainbow beach

            I had been sleeping ever so nicely on the magic Metro, dreaming of a wonderful, fantastical Story Land, where the writers were always inspired, where the verbs were always active, the plots always  plausible, the characters always fully-developed, and the endings came full-circle.  Never a cliché or a trite phrase, and the painters I met said their colors never muddied.  Singers always hit the high notes and guitarists never broke a string.  I liked it there.  I never wanted to wake from this fictive dream…

        “Wake up, wake up, we’re here,” said the Were-Pen, poking my arm.

        “We’re where?” I asked, yawning.

        “Next stop on your tour of Lemuria, maybe the most beautiful sight of all:  Rainbow Beach.”

        “Oh, no, Pen – may I call you Penny?”  The Were-Pen cursed, “May all my ink go dry instantly if I let you refer to be by that horrible diminutive moniker!”

        “All right, you don’t have to blot yourself, I won’t call you Penny,” I said.  “But please, Were-Pen, tell me, what’s so special about Rainbow Beach?”

        “See for yourself.”

        I opened my eyes and looked out of the window at the most beautiful beach I had ever seen.  I got off the Magic Metro and walked onto the soft, deep sand, which was gently rippling like a wave of warm pastels.  The light kissed each wave and glistened off the powdery sand.  It looked like I was standing inside a cleaned pearly, abalone shell.  

        The Were-Pen took a little bow and said, “I present to you, Rainbow Beach.  Not only is it beautiful, it is a place to relax, be inspired, and meet friends.  The Ladies of Lemuria like to gather here.”

        “To work?  To pray?”

        “Yes, and also to, ahem, ‘hang-out’:  that is, tell ghost stories, go to the Drive-in, tackle time lords, and imbibe a special green beverage.”

        “Sounds great!  When can I meet them?”

        “Soon.  We’ll walk along until we hear raucous voices, laughter, dancing, and a gypsy tambourine – Enchanteur and her entourage will be at the epicenter.”

 

(c) 2008 Kerry Vincent

 

Dreams for Sale!

The sleepy basket girl

walks through the pink Lemurian mist

each early morning,

singing out, in a sweet alto voice,

“Dreams for sale!

Look in my basket,

full of pretty dreams!

Pick any one you like!

Only cost you a quick kindness,

don’t cost nothin’ to look!

Old dreams, new dreams,

anything you can dream of!

Anything can happen today

in the City of Ladies!

Come on, now, my dears,

you beautiful Lemurian dreamers,

Try one of my fresh dreams right now -

today could be amazing! (Stay tuned…)”

And where she walks she leaves a magic trail

of pink and purple glittering pixie dust,

a few sand dollars, some pretty shells,

the heavy, sweet scent of longing

for what could have been,

and just a hint of what may yet be…

by Kerry Vincent (c) 2008