Rats

Posted by

0

I have delayed long enough.  Time to restart my posts.  I did not intend to take off this long.  I was going to post in January and in February.  Here it is March and I am just now getting something going.

I had a rat turn up in January. Literally.  I have a small storage shed in the back yard.  I used to keep my “attic” boxes in it.  I didn’t have an attic at the house where we raised our children.  He bought me a building in which to keep Christmas decorations and canning jars and odds and ends.

After we moved to this house, I have an attic and more closets than I can keep up with.  I have actually forgotten about a closet on occasion when trying to remember where I stored something!

I didn’t need the shed any longer.  I thought.

He used it to store feed and seed until the mice drilled a few holes and set up housekeeping.  So, we emptied it out, moved it closer to the house and I started using it to store yard tools and ice chests.  Mouse-less as far as I could tell.

This past Christmas, getting things down from the attic was more challenge than this fifty year old self wants to face.  I decided I could clean and rearrange my little shed and use it for my Christmas decorations and things again.

I did not know that it had become a pack rat condo. Not the human kind of pack rat.  The rodent kind of pack rat. Corn fed fat. Literally. A mostly empty bag of deer corn was left on one of the trailers parked near the shed. He found it.  I know he did, because there was a lot of it inside the shed where he dropped it.  In the process of clearing out my things, I came across the loose corn and very large droppings.  Knowing it was not simply a mouse, I continued cautiously clearing things.  Finally, I realized where his nest was located. Right in plain sight. But, camouflaged with flowers he had scavenged from the ones I had laid on the shelf previously.

He finally appeared when he was between me and the door. I did not know if he went out the door or behind the ice chest below the shelf that had become his condo.  Well, he didn’t go out the door.  That is how I saw him creeping his obese self along the back wall of the shed.

I called him on the phone to tell him to not forget to get chupacabra poison. Not just mouse poison, RAT poison.  He assured me it was already in the truck.  The creature does not appear to live there now.  He consumed a large quantity of the bait.  I presume he went on to his reward.

I have let other rats set up housekeeping in my life. The rat of uncertainty.  The rat of laziness. The rat of self-condemnation.  The rat of insecurity.  I have set out poison for those rats, too.  His Word is good bait to get rid of those kinds of rats.  I must keep feeling my way along, even when I don’t have “enough light for the step I am on”.  Even in the darkness of indecision, I can press on.  Do what I have been doing until a new way opens up.  Just keep going along until the path is shut off and no passage can be found.

I don’t have to know the way. I don’t have to know the how.  I just have to show up at the appointed place at the appointed time.  Where is that place?  On my spiritual knees in prayer to Him.  Seeking the Spirit’s guidance and strength and wisdom and discernment.  But, then get up and do the thing that is due.  Without any idea of outcome or expectation of satisfaction.

For me that seems to be here at this keyboard. Typing. Or even in my journal. Scribbling. I just scribble a million thoughts one after the other.  I hope someday something cohesive might come together.  But, if not, the scribbling helps me be better able to meet the world with compassion and understanding.  And the typing connects me to a few people I love more than my very breath.

The rats will keep coming. I will continue to battle them.  I am so much stronger than I thought.  I am going to keep fighting, even in the dark.  Against the rat of doom that sometimes makes me feel life is too sad.  Against the rat of sorrow that threatens to set up a condo in my heart. Against my own rat of attitude when my compassion fails and I just want to make my nest tight around be to ward off people who make me sad and angry.

He went in the shed and got the rat condo out for me. He put it on the fire pile and burned it to ashes.  He does his part to help Him take care of me.  Even when I act like a rat, piling things up around me to keep myself insulated from the world.  So far neither of them has decided to use “bait” on me!  I must still have some redeeming qualities or some certain purpose to fulfill. I will ease along then.  Seeking the next step to take no matter how small.  And if I stall like I did with my posting, I will get them to help me clear out the rat’s nest in my mind and heart and get moving again.

 

 pink flowering tree

Hiatus

Posted by

0

After some weeks of deliberation, I have decided to take a hiatus from weekly posting.  I will “take off” the rest of December.  I am changing my schedule to the first Monday of the month and allowing myself to post randomly if so inspired.  Look for me again January 2016.

After a particularly difficult post, a friend asked me why I even bothered to publish that post.  I made a commitment to myself to post every Monday regardless.  Good, bad or indifferent.  Just show up.  For almost two years I have showed up regularly with few exceptions.  I am writing this on Tuesday rather than Monday because I was too ill to write coherently yesterday.

Having satisfied myself with the first exercise, I want to focus now on quality and depth.  I almost without exception have posted “off the cuff”.  I would just sit down, open my computer and start typing.  I found I easily reach 300 or more words in a sitting.  I often bring some closure to my thoughts.

I am finding myself holding on to things that need writing.  They need writing in my story rather than randomly in a weekly blog.  If only my inner circle has opportunity to read it I will be satisfied.  Because I will have finally done it.

I am still staring at the first tentative page in longhand of a story that needs to be written.  I believe I have begun because it contains dialogue.  I have never written dialogue.  I have not written fiction since elementary school.  I don’t know what I wrote, but back then we were required to write a short story from a prompt from time to time.  I don’t write dialogue because I have difficulty recalling what others say in a manner to quote verbatim.

I have a sense of what I want to tell.  The feeling and idea and concept I want to convey.  I need to get an idea of how to convey the message.  It will be fiction.  But, I don’t think the ending will be exactly happy.  I want to be real in the sense that life doesn’t stop at happily ever after but that a sense of wholeness is possible even after tragedy.  Even on the final day.

I doubt I will get overly religious, because I am not overly religious.  I am a believer in Christ.  I struggle to be a disciple.  But, I do know He has carried me through more heartache than some would believe possible.  He has restored my belief in myself as well.  He and he worked in tandem to bring me up from the depths of sadness and break the grip of grief that had such an icy hold on my spirit.

I will have to rely on him to help me through my emotional turmoil when I am writing.  He will have to be patient and understanding.  He will have to know I am fine, but my characters are not.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Meanwhile, I will try to bring more substance to Raining Orchids.  Just less often.  Thank you for reading and supporting my effort at fulfilling a lifelong ambition of being a writer.  See you after the holidays….

IMAG1366