Tag Archives: Games

Growing Up

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In the excellent miniseries, Big Little Lies, there’s a scene where Reese Witherspoon’s character is talking to her teenage daughter. She says (and I may be paraphrasing slightly) ‘they don’t tell you, but you lose your children. The little girl whose hair I used to braid is gone.’ This line, and the way she delivers it, really hit home. I’m emotional now just thinking about it.

For my gorgeous girl is growing up. She starts secondary school in September, which I find hard to believe. It doesn’t seem that long ago we were counting cats on the way to school, pretending to be dragons puffing ‘smoke’ in the frosty air. When my dancing didn’t make her cringe, and the only phone she had was plastic and sparkly with a puzzle on the front. The gorgeous chubby cheeks I love to kiss are melting away, smooth cheekbones emerging, the legs and arms that once looked as though they had elastic bands around them now long and lean.

I’m excited, of course, for this next stage in her life, seeing her grow into the marvellous young woman she’s already showing signs of becoming. Every part of this process has been a joy. But oh, I get it now, when people shake their heads and say with a smile, ‘It goes so quickly.’ For it does, it does, and the change, when it comes, is sudden, a realisation that childhood days are gone.

For a variety of reasons, she is the only baby I’ll ever get to have, and I count my blessings every day. I’m so glad I got to dance, pick roses, blow bubbles and sing silly songs with her when she was small. Those moments are immeasurably precious, and always will be. I realise the teenage years will have their own set of challenges, and I can only hope I’ve given her a strong enough grounding that she can make good decisions for herself.

So now I must get past my tears, and look forward. For I am the stable bow, and it is time for me to help her fly.

‘You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth… Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness; for even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.’  Kahlil Gibran

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#writephoto – Spiral

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Sue's Spiral Stair

This morning I woke to the internet being down. Completely off. A recorded announcement from my supplier when I called them assured me an ‘engineer was working to fix the problem,’ which seemed fairly typical.

I use the internet most days, obviously, doing research and reading blogs, catching up on posts I’ve missed and posting work of my own. I’d planned to post a response to Sue’s photo prompt today plus do a few other things, but there I was, cut off.

And you know what? It was not a bad thing. In fact, it reminded me to focus on something I’ve been working on this year – the idea of bringing more balance back into my life. And so I pottered about, looking after family, moving through the day without the nagging feeling that I needed to keep checking this and checking that, a burden I hadn’t realised I’d been carrying lifted.

And then we came back online. My daughter, who’d been horrified when I informed her we had no internet, heaved a sigh of relief (she’s a bit under the weather today, so playing outside wasn’t on the agenda). My husband was able to watch the Aussie Rules football game. And I headed back into blogland, though a little more mindfully than before.

And so here is my response to Sue’s spiral staircase photo. I actually wrote two small stories, each around the 100 word mark. Both stories feature children and, even though I didn’t set out to do so, I think they might be linked. They are also quite dark, which seems to be a thing for me of late. I think as writers we need to sometimes let ourselves go into the darkness, so our books hold both light and shade. Sue wrote a post touching on that the other week, as well. Right. Enough waffling. Here we go:

Freedom.

She could feel its kiss whenever she passed the small window, a glimpse of blue and green, misted fields in early light.

Then her gaze turned upwards, the bucket heavy in her small hands, dripping on the worn stones.

And so she went, day in and day out, cleaning her lady’s chamber. The fields turned from green to gold as water dripped and dust rose, swirling to lie thick on the wooden floor, no matter how she shuttered the windows against it.

But one day, when ice silvered her bucket and the fields beyond, she did not wake, the deep frost taking her as she slept.

Free once more.

——-

‘Come on then!’ He clattered up the old stone stairs, his feet the last thing visible as he rounded the curve. ‘Scaredy cat!’

The words floated down and she frowned, clenching her small fists. ‘Am not!’ She could hear his laughter, faint, the sound of his feet receding. ‘Hmmph!’

She started to climb. Haunted tower or no, she’d see who the scaredy cat was when they got to the top. Then the screaming began, and she grinned. Serve him right, she thought, remembering the dead rat she’d hung there earlier that day.

Then the screaming stopped. And she saw his feet again.

Dangling.

Hugh’s Photo Challenge: Week 12 – Games

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IMG_0592Well, I snuck in at the last minute with this one! This is a Snakes and Ladders game at the Enchanted Maze, near to where I used to live in Australia. I thought it a really cool idea which is why I took the photo – I think I had some dream of one day having a garden big enough to host my own Snakes and Ladders game 😀 We last visited the maze several years ago, just before we left Australia, and here is Miss Five about to jump down a ladder.

IMG_0590

The Enchanted Maze is hidden high in the hills above the bay, and comprises lovely formal gardens, a large hedge maze, a native bush trail with games and more mazes, and, in the summer, inner-tube sledding in the big field, which is hilarious fun. There’s also a big sweet shop and a lovely restaurant overlooking the gardens, which are open to weddings and birthday parties (we had the gorgeous girl’s second birthday there, a big picnic for family and friends).

IMG_0578This probably doesn’t look like the sort of garden you’d expect to see in Australia – however the lush soil and rolling hills of the Mornington Peninsula are home to some of the best wineries in Australia, as well as other formal gardens and parks. There’s plenty of bush, of course – gum trees and moonah and ti-tree abound, possums and spiders and kookaburrahs part of life ‘down the coast’. I loved living there, and feel very fortunate to have done so.

This is for Hugh’s Photo Challenge Week 12, and the subject is Games. The deadline is today, so if you’d like to add your own, be quick! And thanks for reading.