This story’s prompt, contributed by Noelle Vignola, is from the poem Emerald Spider Between Rose Thorns by Dean Young: “Imagine, not even or really ever tasting a peach until well over 50, not once…”
 

Peach on a leafy, sunlit tree.

(Creative Commons image via flickr)
 

Young people in Texas are supposed to be adventurous, so I wasn’t at all surprised when my brother Davey grew up to be an oil worker. I never had a clue what got into him three years ago, though, when he moved to Alaska to work in the oilfields of the Arctic Circle. He had plenty to say about the beauty of the midnight sun, the aurora borealis, and the caribou herds thundering across the tundra; but as for me, well, I wouldn’t take all that in trade for one perfect peach from Gran’s backyard tree.

Davey got married last year. He met his bride Rosa, an Alaskan Native who grew up in a small village, when she started working for the oil company as an industrial nurse. Just before the Fourth of July, he brought Rosa and her mom Celeste here to Amarillo for a week’s visit. Both mother and daughter smiled a lot and were short and plump; they had lovely smooth complexions and big, dark, alert eyes. Celeste hadn’t ever traveled outside Alaska before. When I gave her a fresh-picked peach, she closed her eyes in delight after the first bite, with the juice running down her chin unnoticed.

The week went by all too fast. After we took our visitors (and how strange to think of Davey as a visitor!) to the airport for the return flight, Gran shook her head in pity as we started walking back across the parking lot. Her steel-gray curls drooped in the waves of heat rising from the asphalt.

“Just imagine, Lori Beth—imagine, not even or really ever tasting a peach until well over 50, not once. Oh, I suppose they must have grocery stores in Alaska, but really,” and Gran waved a hand dismissively, making clear that she wouldn’t count rock-hard peaches in grocery stores as real fruit or anything close to it.

I was just about to agree with her, and then I started thinking about when I’d first come here. Davey and I were born in San Diego. The first time we ever saw snow was when Mom brought us to Amarillo for what she said was a Christmas visit, just as a ferocious winter storm blew in off the prairie. We gleefully ran around building snowmen and snow castles, never thinking about why Mom crammed the old Ford’s trunk full of all our clothes if we were only staying for Christmas. Every time one of us asked when we’d go home, Gran just said, “Well, bless your heart, child,” and sent us out to play. We had no idea what was going on until some kids at our new school explained what a divorce was.

“I never saw snow till I was five,” I said, watching a plane’s takeoff as it circled around to the west, its long curved trail streaking into the setting sun.

Davey had told me that Rosa and Celeste’s ancestral language had dozens of words for different kinds of snow. Heavy and wet, powdery and light, a soft fresh snowfall on bare ground, old snow half-melted and then refrozen smooth as glass—when I thought about it, I saw how there could be so many words. But living in Texas, I’d never had occasion to think about it before.

Following my gaze toward the departing jet, Gran shook her head again. This was a different motion—a quick, impatient tossing of her curls as if to shoo away unwanted thoughts, like a mare plagued by flies.

“Well,” Gran finally said,” bless your heart.”

My house has a hardwood entryway, and last year we replaced the rug inside the front door. Not thinking much about it, I carried the old rug down to the unfinished storage area in the basement and put it on a pile of carpet remnants. While my husband was looking through the remnants recently, he took the old faded rug off the pile and put it down on the concrete floor.
 

Faded off-white rectangular rug with a floral pattern in the middle. 

When I went into the storage area and saw the old rug, my first reaction was “Gah! Why is this still HERE!” Not only was it frayed at the corners, the colors had faded more than I remembered, the sides were uneven, plus it was all dusty after more than a year in the basement. All I could say was YUCK! I just had to shake my head and wonder, what on earth was I thinking when I kept it?

About Clutter Comedy: Every Sunday (which I envision as a day of rest after a productive week of de-cluttering) I post a Clutter Comedy article describing my most memorable clutter discovery of the week. Other bloggers who wish to join in are welcome—just post a link in the comments! There’s no need to publish any “before” photos of your clutter, if they are too embarrassing. The idea is simply to get motivated to clean it up, while having a bit of fun too!

Last week I realized that I’d had a bit of calendar confusion and had made plans to attend a fun activity at the same time as a responsible grown-up activity. Leaving out the details to protect a not-so-innocent party (me, that is), I’ll just say that I came to the conclusion other responsible adults could handle the latter activity without any need for my presence, so I shouldn’t feel obliged to pass up an opportunity to have fun. In short, I decided to play hooky.
 

Wooden sign "Gone Fishing" hanging on a wall with wooden siding.

(Creative Commons image via flickr)

As it turned out, the would-have-been ditched event got rescheduled anyway, so it didn’t matter except that it gave me some food for thought. Often we feel guilty if we don’t follow through on every obligation—but maybe we shouldn’t. After so many years of being responsible parents, employees, volunteers, etc., and constantly burdening ourselves with one task after another, an occasional day of playing hooky could be just what’s needed to lighten the load!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Once upon a time when I wasn’t so concerned about whether I should be doing more important things instead, I wrote goofy stories in response to challenges posted on creative writers’ lists. You know, stuff like “Write a story where the main character’s lines come from the lyrics of a popular song.” But I got busy with other things and didn’t write much fiction for a while. After that, I found it wasn’t flowing as easily as it once did, but instead felt more like a slow stream lazily meandering through mossy rocks.
 

Stream flowing through mossy rocks.

(Creative Commons image via flickr)
 

Then I was reminded of how much I once liked challenge stories when the author of the cheerful blog Nuggets of Gold recently invited her readers to post ideas for story topics in the comments, and she would find something to do with them! So I’ve decided to give my creative writing a boost by joining in the fun with a new weekly feature, Tuesday’s Tales. Even if I end up with a lot of silliness, at least it’ll keep me from taking myself and my writing too seriously.

Readers, please feel free to post challenge topics here. What would you like to see a story about?

When my husband and I bought a new washer and dryer last year, keeping the old set (from 1998) seemed like the practical thing to do. After all, it still worked (though noisy and rusty) and our daughter was graduating from college, so we thought she might want it. We put the old set in a corner of the basement where it was out of the way. I am not sure how a carpet remnant ended up on top of it…
 

Old washer and dryer, unplugged in a basement corner. 

Our daughter is still living here while she ponders going to graduate school to become a nurse practitioner. She is making good money in her job at the hospital, and it’s highly unlikely she would ever want that rusty old washer and dryer after using our nice new front-loading set for over a year. Trying to be practical just meant clutter! Definitely time to call a thrift store that picks up donations.

About Clutter Comedy: Every Sunday (which I envision as a day of rest after a productive week of de-cluttering) I post a Clutter Comedy article describing my most memorable clutter discovery of the week. Other bloggers who wish to join in are welcome—just post a link in the comments! There’s no need to publish any “before” photos of your clutter, if they are too embarrassing. The idea is simply to get motivated to clean it up, while having a bit of fun too!

The orange trumpet vine along my backyard fence (also shown here and here) has one last bloom remaining at the very top. All the others have turned into big, heavy seed pods hanging down above the grass. Hummingbirds love these flowers, and I took a quick picture with my phone camera on a gorgeously blue morning, to mark the end of the season.
 

Hummingbird hovering beside orange trumpet vine with the neighbors' roof in the background. 

Wishing everyone who reads this post something beautiful this week too!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Way back behind some cake-decorating stuff on a kitchen shelf, I discovered a toy trash can that held Halloween candy once upon a time. After the candy got eaten, the container ended up buried at the back of the shelf, where it might never have been found again…
 

Miniature metal trash can on my kitchen counter. 

The lesson here is obvious enough—real trash cans need to be taken out regularly, and so does all the random clutter that builds up in the house when nobody is paying attention!

About Clutter Comedy: Every Sunday (which I envision as a day of rest after a productive week of de-cluttering) I post a Clutter Comedy article describing my most memorable clutter discovery of the week. Other bloggers who wish to join in are welcome—just post a link in the comments! There’s no need to publish any “before” photos of your clutter, if they are too embarrassing. The idea is simply to get motivated to clean it up, while having a bit of fun too!

After wearing my worry beads as a bracelet last week in hopes of gaining more insight as to what was going on with a sore wrist, I did a body-awareness meditation in which I asked my body whether it wanted to tell me anything. As I focused on listening to my body, I began to notice little achy feelings not only in my wrists and arms, but also in my ankles, knees, and hips—as if I had been holding up something much too heavy for much too long.

“I don’t want to bear the weight.”

This sentence flashed into my head. It wasn’t a reference to anything literal; I rarely carry heavy things, and I am not overweight. Whatever my subconscious mind was trying to tell me about weight had to be meant in the metaphorical sense. There are plenty of metaphors relating to weight—overburdened, weighed down, carrying the weight of the world.

Where might that have come from? At present, things are going pretty well for me; I have no problems that I would describe as heavy burdens. But like everyone else, I “bear the weight” of all those cultural expectations and past criticisms that sit in the back of people’s heads passing judgment on whatever thoughts go by. Trying to push them aside can feel like standing under a huge tree in a forest, with branches looming overhead everywhere, and trying to push it out of the way.
 

View of large tree from directly underneath it.

(Creative Commons image via flickr)
 

Of course, in a forest there are always paths around the trees, and the same is true of the barriers created by limiting thoughts and attitudes. We don’t have to let them block our paths or weigh us down, and there’s no need to be constantly in fight mode chopping at them with battle-axes either; we can simply choose to walk around them.

Instead of trying to push or drag obstacles out of the way, often it’s best simply to take a step back and look around for other paths. Just like trees in the forest, they’re not blocking the only way through, and they won’t be there forever. As time passes, nothing will be left but old forgotten trees with vines thickly covering the branches, until the rotten wood falls and there is no one around to hear it.

Today still felt like summer here, warm and sunny; but there’s no mistaking the change of seasons when the days keep getting shorter. This morning I put some Pumpkin Spice coffee on the K-cup carousel, taking the place of my Raspberry Chocolate Truffle summer favorite, so as to get ready for the chilly mornings that are forecast for the weekend.
 

Coffee carousel with new pumpkin spice K-cups centered in the photo. 

Although I generally like the long days of late spring and early summer the best, there is always something to appreciate at any time of year! Seasonal flavors—whether they’re of coffee or anything else—are a tasty reminder that nothing ever stays the same, and we should enjoy life’s carousel as it turns.

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

The ancient coffee table in my living room is not, strictly speaking, clutter. It still holds coffee cups, pizza boxes, etc., just fine. The wood is solid and mostly in good condition, except for the top board in the middle, which has veneer that has gotten chipped. But even though it is not really clutter, I made it this week’s post because it represents an area of my life that has been neglected.
 

Old wooden coffee table with chipped veneer. 

The table was a gift 30 years ago from friends who no longer needed it. My husband and I meant to buy new living room furniture after a while, but when we were raising two kids, there was always something else that had a higher priority! And more recently, we looked online and couldn’t find a replacement table that we liked. Coffee tables just aren’t made in those dimensions anymore, but after so many years we’re used to that size and would not feel comfortable with something very different.

So rather than putting up with the annoyance of veneer coming off and those “old stuff” vibes every time we sit down to watch TV, we’ve decided to take the coffee table to a furniture restoration shop and have it redone as good as new. We are not antique collectors and generally prefer a more contemporary look, but there’s an exception for just about everything!

About Clutter Comedy: Every Sunday (which I envision as a day of rest after a productive week of de-cluttering) I post a Clutter Comedy article describing my most memorable clutter discovery of the week. Other bloggers who wish to join in are welcome—just post a link in the comments! There’s no need to publish any “before” photos of your clutter, if they are too embarrassing. The idea is simply to get motivated to clean it up, while having a bit of fun too!