Mice, Ash, India?

I awakened this morning with my mind awash in memories.

I was running events through my head to find the one memory that would volunteer to open my memoir. You don't have to begin a memoir with "I was born in …" It can start anyplace. Playing in my mind, what fun! Often, when I come to my office, I get distracted, but in bed, memories flow.

Ideas, so said one writer, are like shooting ducks (Don't do it!), but the idea is the same: shoot quickly for they will be gone in an instant.

I hit a memory of my daughter who found a nest of baby mice in an old chest of drawers she wasn't using. She and her son thought those babies were so cute—they had fur, but their eyes weren't open. And since my daughter and son feared that the mother wasn’t coming back, they began feeding the babies with a teeny bottle.

My daughter had planned a birthday celebration for herself, which included a two-night stay in a hotel with a room that featured a jacuzzi tub. She didn't trust her son to take sufficient care of the baby mice or me either, or didn't want to bother me, so she took her little stash of mice on a trip, smuggled them into an upscale hotel, fed them, had her stay, and smuggled them out.

The mice thrived, and when they were old enough — with eyes open and eating regular food — she and her son took them to a field near a pond and ceremoniously released the city mice to take their chances as country mice.

I have heard some people say that the best thing you can spend your money on is something to make memories.

Last night I completed a novel where the author said, "It takes a lot of funds to be a Vagabond."  She wished she could travel the world. A present, she was being a paid companion for a disabled girl. They were following a trail from the girl's mother that led to India. What a description of India: "The land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendour and rags, of palaces and hovels…the land of a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions…" --Mark Twain.

India: After a 14-hour flight six of us from San Diego landed in New Delhi, India.

Three were seminar leaders quite devoted to the “Holy” man we were going to see. We three women were not Devotees, but considered ourselves open-minded. One woman left early, so that left Florencia and I as traveling companions.  (I loved her, one couldn't ask for a better traveling companion). We opted for the chance to visit a guru, who, so it showed us via a movie, could produce vibhuti (holy ash) from his hand, and kept a giant jug flowing with vibhuti as long as his hand kept stirring it. (Don’t get me, I’ve seen better magic acts.)

So, we visited an ashram and slept in a cement room, ate cayenne pepper coated cashew nuts and drank lime soda, for we were afraid to eat the food. (We did eat in their cafeteria once, a rice dish all participants ate with their fingers.) Following that, we traveled by train across the countryside to visit the Taj Mahal. On the way home we made a few airline stops. Yet when we landed in New Delhi, the windows of the airport looked like my car window after the dog's nose had circled it a dozen times, and walking outside, the scent of baby poop hit me. It seemed to permeate the air, and if you remember, baby poop has a basic sweetness layered with others.

I understood why the Indian people are strong on incense.

These descriptions are cryptic; I’m saving the full ones for the memoir, which, instead of calling it a memoir, I prefer to call it "A journey."

A memoir sounds so staid. A journey is fun, an adventure, and isn’t that what life is? There was a time when being a Vagabond sounded appealing, but for now, I'm letting my fingers do the walking, aka typing. My memories are like a river flowing through my mind, and I never know where it will splash next.

  

 P.S. This past week I ordered the teeny paper book Where the Frogs Sing Café’ I have been talking about. It came in two days. Whoa, and that was with on-demand printing. 

It cost me $4.60, so see I am starting out in the hole.

An now I found that the price went up to $5.20 after I joined UK.

It is presently being offered for FREE on Kindle Unlimited, and to purchase the Kindle version is 99 cents. Remember, I am keeping my WHERE series under 10,000 words, so as I said, the book is small.

Since not everyone has a Kindle, I am offering a FREE transcript on a private site that I will link to you via your email address. 

Click here: Yes, Please 

 

 Yep, there is a physical copy in on my desk.

“Are You Playing in Your Playground?"

 

You never know where you will find your tiger.

 

I don't know where my tiger is, but I found an opossum in my hen house two nights ago. He's gone now—and my four hens are alive, with fewer feathers, one without a tail, but traumatized. I let the chickens out during the day, and they put themselves into bed at night. I go out after dark and shut the pen. Well, I waited too long that night.

One hen was wandering around lost. The other three had found a safe spot. The opossum was hugging the back wall of the second story of my little chicken house, and no matter how much I poked him with a 4-foot long 2 x 2-inch board, he would not budge. He would snarl and bare his teeth, though. I caught the hens and secured them in the other little house within the pen (it came with the property), and all's well. The opossum sneaked away while I set up a live trap for him. He must be home now, tending his bruises or visiting the neighbor's chickens.

 

That's on the home front. On the book front, I once stated in my little book "Where Tiger's Belch," that my protagonist decided she would find her purpose where tiger's belch," and thus she set off to find that spot. 

This week, I stumbled upon two books: John Strelecky's The Café on the Edge of the World and Return to the Why Café.

I loved them both. A third, The Safari, I just ordered. It was described as when your heart, soul, and story link up in perfect harmony. That's what I want for myself and my writing. I recently decided to write a series of short books and continue Jo's journey after she heard a tiger belch.

Strelecky asked the same questions I had asked, Why are we here? What's my purpose? I was enheartened because he is a best seller—that tells me that people are hungry for his sort of books, ones that inspire and ask the hard questions in a simple story. I aspire to write that sort. This came as a conformation to me that people do read those sorts of books, people do want to read of good things not bad.

We've been jerked around for some time now. I do not want to play in that playground anymore.  One of Strelecky's players asked a lady customer in the Café, "Are you playing in your playground yet?"

She wasn't. She was unhappily playing in someone else's playground—the corporate world's playground, where she was unappreciated and overworked.

As I walked through life, I passed many gates to playgrounds, peeked inside and said "Nope," not for me, and continued on my way.

I heard of a new playground last night; the "kids" of that playground found that the vilest thing they could write on Social Media got the most hits. And getting the most hits was the name of the game.

Pass on that one.

We are all travelers in this life—we are all together on the journey – although walking in different directions, not speaking the same language, nor following the same philosophy, religion, or mojo. The Jo of my Tiger book is traveling, something she feels drawn to do; she trusts her intuition that this will work out for her. She is playing in her own playground.

She is traveling the world.

I changed the final chapter a bit to make it clearer.