Category: creative

Okay, so she thought about the care and thought that must have gone behind the reasoning of laminating maps. Sure it keeps them clean and they don’t rip at the folds. But that’s what makes a map cool. The wear and tear of the paper the diminishing lines that mark the streets and towns. The disappearance of places just like in real life. She worked with a woman once whose brother-in-law was a mapmaker. She never asked but wondered if he worked from an airplane? After all how could you really do a good job with out seeing the entire thing? There had to be pictures at least.

Mowana-Winky popped in and out of her life from the day she met her. Mowana was quiet like she was and didn’t need a lot of taking care of. She for a young one was pretty self-sufficient she thought, even for an 8 year old. But a close eye was always on her. There was a lot of land and trees to wonder and get lost in. Even thought she never went far, usually to the lake, someone was always near.

When she was ten she was allowed to use the small boat that was on the lake. But she had to take lessons on how to be safe. She thought that kind of odd since it was just a lake and not the ocean. It didn’t have the big waves like the ocean and you could see the other side of the lake unlike the ocean. At least the pictures she had seen of the ocean, she was never able to see the other side. So she knew that it was big. She thought it would be great to just row out and lay in the bottom of the boat and watch the clouds roll by. And listen to the water slap the bottom and side of the boat.

Lessons were fun and easy. Fun because her father actually was the one who taught her to use the boat and took her out three days in a row. Now as she thinks back it his lessons where easy and not complicated at all. And he spent more time just rowing around the lake than talking about how to be safe. It was then that she knew her father liked the water as much as she did. He started to tell her stories of ocean liner’s and big boats on the ocean. He told her about the ocean liner he went on when he was a little boy. When he was eight his mother’s father passed away and they left New York for England on the Queen Mary.

Their room was one of the bigger ones and had a door that went outside. He told her that he stretched out as far as he could so that he could watch New York get smaller and smaller. He hoped that he was able to see London as they came into port. He told her stories about the people on the boat. The fancy dinner’s the games played during the day and how people walked around and around on the deck.

But mostly while in the little boat they just floated and rowed around the lake. She never asked why her father was home for three days in a row. She just liked being in the boat with him and it didn’t matter. It was cool, peaceful and relaxing.

One day after her lessons when she as allowed to go out on the boat by herself, she was laying in the bottom of the boat looking up at the blue sky. It was the perfect summer day. It was warm but the breeze was just right. What she really wanted to do was be out on the lake at night to watch the stars. She knew she would have to be older to get to do that.

She closed her eyes and thought about the water. Wondered what it would be like to live under water. Not inside of something under water but under water like a fish. She thought that it had to be the most peaceful place on earth. And because the water surrounded you like a blanket it had be feel safe and comforting. But then she thought about the temperature of the water. Did fish get cold? She knew the water had to be cold in the winter because last winter it actually froze over a bit it got so cold.

What would Thursday bring? She still had the image of those laminated maps in her head and wondered if she retraced her steps if maybe she would see him again. Maybe she would ask him where he got the maps. She didn’t want to embarrass him by asking about the lamination; she thought just asking where he got them might reveal how they got that way. But it would be totally out of character to ask or even approach him about it. She would talk to others when they initiated the conversation, but she was never the one to start the conversation, especially with a stranger.

She didn’t think that she was interesting enough to engage other in conversation or banter. So felt that if they were compelled to talk to her or ask her a question she was more than happy to oblige. It made her a bit uncomfortable to put herself out there like that.

She was actually fine with just wondering and making up her own story of why or how the maps came to be. Maybe he was allergic to paper and had to have it covered so that he could hold it. Maybe he was one of those people who ate paper? So lamination kept him from eating it. Maybe he had a crazy aunt who gave him a laminating machine for his birthday and he hated not to use it so he did. Maybe she would get a laminator.

Serious was in her DNA. But she could cover it up with an acceptable amount of humor. She was able to make people laugh. In fact, that was what she missed about her isolation, that guttural laugh that she on numerous occasions produced with friends.

About her isolation, one has to wonder why. To that moment when everything shifted. Well maybe it didn’t “just” happen? Sometimes things just evolve and are what they are. They don’t have to have any great break trough or break down. They just happen.

She knew that she like being alone. She was never lonely. And she could go days and only interact with that grocery store clerk or the gas station attendant. It was calming to not have to participate sometimes. To not have to be present. Because to not be present in a conversation or in a relationship, what is the point of either. So she had always given 110% when it came to both. Never regretting either or any. But liking the ability to keep some for herself. To store up if you will.

Maybe that’s where the story is or was. Hidden or bubbling just below the surface. Which makes her sound shallow. Which she was never really accused of. But it was a way to avoid it.

She kept herself so busy with others that she didn’t have to pay attention to herself. She could give everything to those around her and then not have time or the energy to bother with anything else. She didn’t mind that. Kind of liked it. But she knew she needed to do what she was meant to do. She hoped that it was writing?

What if after all the thinking, contemplating and preparing to get herself perfectly aligned to write she had no real talent or ability to carry a story or an idea and she would forever just pound out words on the page. Words that never went anywhere or meant anything that no one wanted and most certainly didn’t want to pay for! What then? Where was the idea that would stick?

That day on the bus was just another day. The weather was good and without incident she bought her four apples, three bananas and a yogurt. It was Wednesday after all.

Later that day while on the streetcar she noticed a nicely dressed young man. Maybe thirty, not much more than that. She noticed that he had a map of the streetcar out and unfolded. He was looking at the map and then up at the map in the streetcar. As she looked closer she realized that the map had been laminated. She had never seen that map laminated before? Had he gotten it that way? Or did he do it himself. She then noticed his brief case. She thought that he must be either very successful or very important. The briefcase was one of those very sturdy one, aluminum maybe? But it was a light color of brown. Very nice, she thought. She watched as he folded the map and opened his briefcase to put the map back. As he opened the case she noticed that for the most part it was empty. Except for 3 other laminated maps.

Her father had a briefcase when she was a child. He was very important and she only saw him on Sundays, sometimes during the week, but rarely. He was a gentle and quiet man, but very busy and very important. She knew he was important because of the crease between his eyebrows. He was very serious all the time. He was also gone frequently, traveling on business.

She didn’t see much of her mother either. She was busy planning party’s, at the club or traveling with her father. So mostly she saw the maid, the cook and her nanny. And while well cared for and watched over closely she was left to do just about what ever she wanted. As long as she went to school and made good grades, which she did.

The house they lived in was big. Not enormous, but big for the town that it was in. It actually was most of the town. Close to 800 acres. There was a stable for the horses a green house, a church and houses for the people who worked the land and building for her father. Many of the people who lived in the town worked for her father.

When her father was home on Sunday’s breakfast would be served on the sun porch. They would walk to church then back to the house for reading, maybe a game of cards and supper. Sometimes they would have company for supper. None of her parent’s friends had children. Well they had children but they were older so none of them really cared to play with her so she was once again left to her own imagination.