We need stories to explain the unexplainable. From this need comes myths, fables, old wives’ tales, urban myths, and religion. We need stories, period. Some stories stick while others fade. I read the book The Borrowers when I was in middle school. I confess that I don’t remember the plot of the story this many years later. However, I do remember that the book gave an explanation of where things go missing. The missing sock, the missing thimble, the missing box of matches. The Borrowers are tiny people who live in the walls of houses and use everyday items for their furniture among other things. Those missing items? The Borrowers took them. I tried not to fret when I couldn’t explain the disappearance of an item ever since I learned that the existence of the Borrowers can explain so much. Over time, I learned that they have a limited range. In the town where my husband grew up, they did not have the Borrowers. Perhaps it was the walls of concrete, lacking insulation, that discouraged such populations. Maybe it was the poverty. I don’t know. However, that does not mean that they did not have stories to explain the things that go missing. A young man in the town, Bolo as he was called, was known to steal a wandering chicken or two or items off the clothes line; so much so that whenever anyone was missing something, they blamed him. Why Bolo needed the half of so many flip flop pairs was never fully explained, but that did not matter, Bolo was the only explanation anyone needed. We moved from Panama in 2000, and as far as I know Bolo still lives in a small village in Panama. This does not stop us from needing his story for any number of small mysterious disappearances.
0 Comments
I promised myself to write while I am on break. Even if only for five minutes. I can do anything for five minutes. Except, man, I have to pee. I will be right back. I think I am hungry even though I just ate some lunch. Is there any chocolate anywhere? Maybe I should check Facebook again or was it Instagram. Oh, yeah, I wanted to see what was new on Twitter. What was I doing? Right, I was writing. Andi said that if you write for one hour you can usually write four pages. She did not promise four good pages, but simply some pages. A page would be good for me, even a sentence or two. Hey, look, there they are. If you are reading this then you know I wrote some sentences. Probably now is the time to apologize for wasting your time. Nevermind. Forget the apology, no one forced you to read this far down on the page. Besides, if you have read down this far, you are probably procrastinating, too. Listen to that, do you hear the voice from the kitchen? There is a question forming and I am the only person who can answer it. It could also be answered by Google, but why try the obvious when you can bother me with a question that I probably won’t know the answer to so that you can wait for me to try asking Google, #LMGTFY. I guess my annoyed voice is soothing. I can spend hours in my home and no one talks to me. But, let me sit down with my computer in my lap and suddenly I am the most popular person in these four walls. Next time I feel lonely or ignored, I need to remember to put a computer in my lap. Does it work if I want to be disturbed or do I put out different wavelengths when I want attention? Wow, look at that! Two whole paragraphs. Except maybe you could ignore the previous paragraph of whining because now the voice from the kitchen is offering to make me some tea. Maybe I do want attention when I put a computer in my lap, only I have unwritten rules of the kind of attention I want. I am almost always happy to receive the offer of a cup of tea kind of attention. And, no, not the consent cup of tea. That is a metaphor or was it an analogy? I am talking about a genuine offer of a warm cup of tea. Okay, so maybe I won’t make it a full hour. After all, I need to sip on my tea. |
To Blog?Why not? Categories
All
Archives
April 2022
|