“You know Hobbes, sometimes even my lucky rocketship underpants don’t help.” – Calvin

I’m sorry I’m being quiet.  Work is bonkers.  It’s the craziest time of year for me.  If you are a teacher, think report cards.  If you are a sportsman, think championship game. You all know what I am talking about.

Work coupled with the way some people deal with the stress of work means that my work is doubly hard this time.  So I am not getting to write as much as I’d like – none at all in fact – and that is why this is a brief check in.  I’m too spent to do much more.

The stories are having trouble waiting though.  The next one is all there ready for my full attention on the weekend, so I hope to have another story for you then.  In the meantime, keep well, read something nice for me and i hope wherever you are, you are having a wonderful day.

with love,

megg

photo by Roberto Kusterle

When she gave herself time to sit and think about it, she wondered if perhaps there were other people who also had them.  They were a bit of a nuisance at times.  Sleeping on her back had become a distant, hazy memory. When she drove her car she had to put the seat so far back to get herself in that the seat belt barely reached around her.  On every journey she could feel them straining against the leather.  They wanted to know why she bothered driving at all.

The longer she had them, the bigger and brighter they seemed to get.  But that wasn’t all.  They had begun to get demanding.  “Fly,” they would whisper whenever she chose to walk somewhere.

“I can’t,” she’d whisper back through gritted teeth.  “People aren’t supposed to fly.  I’d attract too much attention.”

“Fly!” They demanded as she waited in long lines.  “Fly!” They would sing as she ran through the park.

But she could not listen to them.  People didn’t fly.  People were supposed to stay with their feet firmly on the ground.

But sometimes, late at night when the world was asleep, she would take off the disguise of ordinary human clothing and let them out for a stretch.  Then and only then they would dream together of everything she could be.  Her dreams dripped from the tips of them in swirls of colour and ink and light.  In the privacy of her room she existed in a world of possibility and potential.  Then, creativity appeased, they would fly together as high as the moon and laugh at all of the ways that she had tried to keep herself small.

In the morning she would pretend again that they weren’t there.  Occasionally she thought she glimpsed a pair under the clothes of a stranger, but she realized that other people must be as good at hiding them as she was.

Someday maybe she would be brave enough to show them to the world.  Someday maybe she would show everyone else the way.  But in the meantime she would keep them to herself, no matter how much they whispered, no matter how much they itched and no matter how much they wanted her to fly.

She would keep her secret because she remembered a time that was much, much worse.  She could remember a time when they hadn’t realized that they were there at all.

xo megg

“So off we go, down into a different world, under a different sky, with unfamiliar ground beneath our boots.” – Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The week before Mark and I got married our families hosted a rehearsal dinner for us.  Well I decided that I would rock some killer heels for the party and bought a fabulous pair of green shoes.  The confidence they gave me caused much hair flipping and sassy leg crossing until about half-way through the party.  I know that you all think I’m going to say my feet hurt, but they weren’t the problem.  No.  I actually began to feel uncomfortable being a different size.

Taller than my Dad, my Mom and my fiance, I didn’t fit into the space normally held for me.  At first I enjoyed the feeling, but as the night wore on I felt like I was taking up too much space.  When I had first arrived people talked about how great my shoes were but as my confidence shrunk they talked instead about how tall I was wearing them.

I took them off.

This week I have felt the same way: like I was taking up a different space.  Claiming my space as a writer felt so liberating, but as the days passed I felt a pressure to write something marvelous or put up a killer blog post.  Instead I played around on Pinterest and didn’t write a thing.  The ground I was walking on was too unfamiliar and I began kicking off my shoes.

Space once claimed however, does not go quietly!  Characters have been bombarding me and stories have appeared around every corner (literally – they have accosted me on my walk to work.)  I’ve sat them down in a circle and told them to wait their turn.  They grumbled a bit, but when I gave them stickers with numbers on them like American Idol contestants, they gave in.  And looking over the assembled I can safely say that this next book is going to be delicious.

So I’ve begun writing again.  With these folks waiting I haven’t got time to feel small.

In the meantime if you are on my mailing list, watch your inbox.  I might just send out a bedtime story or two.

xo