Wonderful Storm

Last night there was another wonderful storm, lighting flashes, thunder crashes, wild winds and rain pelting down. I could close my eyes and imagine myself on the deck of the Jolly Roger, tempest-tossed by the sea. And it quickly quieted the after-hours crowd from the Blues Fest where I hear there was vomiting in the streets and much rejoicing. I, however, was in my little studio completing another story (yay!), this one only a year in the making (sigh!). Work goes slowly on the play, but I do have the beginning and the end, ha ha. And another new story begun here slowly creeping along, and an old one reinvigorated (I hope anyway). Plus, thanks to Gerry Henkel, it looks like I have another acceptance from New World Finn.

My muses were busy overnight and I rethought the ending lines of the story, as well as waking up with a terrific idea for a paper on the latest film version of Peter Pan. A quick search at the Call for Papers List yielded a perfect place to submit an abstract while the idea is fresh (and it's a collection not a conference, so I will not be adding to the already busy slate of conferences--yes, the schedule I said I was going to cut back on).

I felt so unaccountably energetic this morning, I was halfway up the hill before I realized it. Yet I did not really slow down. In fact, I headed further down Pivot Rock to see what I could see -- but it curves so much, all I could ever see was the next bend. It must have been the freshness of the air, the amazing clarity that a storm leaves behind. In most places, anyhow; in Houston a storm brings no relief, "but ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -- it gives a lovely light."

I finally remembered one of those Rosetta Stones of my childhood (wish I could remember the name of that orange-covered collection of macabre verses that both Robert and I checked out of the library repeatedly) that probably influenced me in subtle ways: Fog Magic. I don't recall the details of it anymore, but I remember it being one of those books that opened a hole in my head (that's a good thing), like Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and the Mary Poppins series. I suppose it has always been the case that, to borrow from Marlowe, "t'is magic, magic that hath ravished me." I will have to find a copy of Fog Magic and see what delight it offers now.