Growing Pains 🏡

"I will think about it tomorrow". Proclaims Scarlett O'Allen. As the words echo, going, going - gone with the wind.

She who has many pages of finished and unfinished stories still in progress, and growing thicker every day...accompanied by a quaint, eclectic and diverse blend of partially written compilations of ideas for books and poetry still awaiting their day in the sunshine of publication.

I am a procrastinator... For many reasons which I try to convince myself are justifiable, but know deep down to be just excuses and my insecurity peeking through my desire to be perfectly written yet remain anonymous. But my pile keeps growing...new stories arrive, become written and move on to greener pastures. Old stories lie sleeping in my Library of Unfinished plots and chapters.

They never seem good enough, interesting enough, never measuring up to the title of greatness which I hope to attain..

Maybe I should consider writing under a pseudonym. That way I can save face if the stories fall to dust, to moth and become filed under 'obscurity'.

Anonymity, privacy and. like Scarlett...saying "I will think about it tomorrow" - among many other excuses.

Should I hold out on exposing my attempts at being an author...maybe wait for the great and wonderful 'Oz' moment...the moment which may never arrive...or should I run with the wind and let my stories soar free. Let the chips fall where they will.

.......

The Cross Keys Notebook Chronicles. Book 1.

Who am I...Begins one such story......

I was born in humble beginnings...in a tiny village where the soil is a reddish shade of crimson.

The perfect nurturing soil...where plants and human bodies supped from the gift of its spaces. Nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium and sulfur fueled the earth.

Golden sandy beaches are like paradise where the red dirt ends and sunlit relaxation begins.

Here, one finds a Juxtaposing of life...a place where one lazes in timeless sunshine and nearby - people planted the crops in the red earth that sustained their simple existence.

Such was country life where kindness dwelled...riches only for the few... no glory for the many...just life in its natural form, a simple existence, unfolding - following the way nature intended.

🌾 In This Ideal Countryside - time sighed and souls found stillness, existing in the quiet breath of dawn, where the land rolls unending beneath a sky so wide it feels positively old, new, ancestral and blessed beyond measure.

In this natural landscape of fields and meadows... where wildflowers tangle with tall grass and cornflowers, poppies and golden yarrow dance in the wind...I once ran barefoot and carefree.

Woodlands breathed prayers to the heavens...gnarled old trees clustered like old storytellers, their bark carved with vines and moss...their branches bending to the will of the wind and the romps of the youthful and unruly.

A slow-moving brook murmurs over smooth stones, catching the light - a mirror to unlived dreams.

🏡 The Personal and Human Touch blended with Ivy-draped cottages - hugging homes with crooked chimneys, their windows glowing like hearths of deep abiding belonging.

Gone are the days of Weathered fences with split-wood borders, more symbolic than territorial - welcoming rather than separating.

I miss the Winding paths...the dirt lanes lined with hawthorn and blackberries, each bend inviting a detour into the wonder of natural fruits and laughter.

🌞 I miss the atmosphere of light and dappled sunshine filtering through the leaves, shifting with clouds, listening for thoughts unspoken....words not needed here, just an understanding between nature and the pure hearts of the countryside.

Murmuring bees, distant bleats of sheep, and birdsong feels hand-written for the day. Earth scents overcome the senses after rain, elderflower cordial on the breeze, woodsmoke curling from a distant hill.

🏡Ah...The Spirit ...The Feeling...A sense that time listens here - that the air knows who you were before you ventured out into the wider, unforgiving world ... a world now asking you to be more than you are prepared to become.

You now remember...The Magic of Wishing stones buried in roots, weather vanes that turn toward childhood names, and the uncanny echo of something watching kindly...Reminding you to keep the faith...be strong and of good courage,

🏡

Still, this life can sometimes seem hard...especially for those who toil but always want for more.

That beautiful place where I experienced my growing pains...comes in-between the spaces - in the trembling quiet before the thunder of adulthood, the echoing footfalls on the bridge between “once” and “now” - where the soul sketches its most vulnerable lines.

Here one finds a portal. A soft ache wrapped in fog, like moss growing on old playground stones, or the forgotten swing that still moves on windy nights. There’s a sanctity in the pain of maturing and transitioning into your adult self...not just the tears or confusion, but the dreamlike trace of who we were and who we dared to imagine we’d be.

I am but an image that walks the liminal path of the shadows and myself.

I remember the quiet moments where sun-sighs lingered in the canopy, and the wind carried simplicity upon the leaves of trees. 🍃☀️

When remembering appears, I set it free to speak.

It reminds me of a memory, a spirit, or a phrase forgotten...but mostly of moments waiting to be written.

The Cross Keys Notebook Chronicles. Book 1

Processing.....

The remembering of the stories in the middle, after the beginning...becomes blurred...or maybe the pain of rehashing the past is the hardest part. Yet, in order to bring a story to its full potential, one must include the full sum of its parts.

All must be told in the Part 2 and onward..