I didn’t know about these gems until I took piano lessons a while back. After my teacher refurbished her piano, she gave me the piano guts she would never need again. But I needed these beautiful wooden treasures that made a piano work. I took an entire box then pondered what to do with them–the action/repetitions inside a piano.
Anyway, from them, I made “The Painter”
Note: This is why I’m a packrat, damnit, and I’m sticking to it!! 🙂
(Four Quills of a Tale is a folktale about losing one’s creativity and the struggle to regain it)
Where was she, my precious girl who stood by my side village after village? Who filled me with such light!? Such color!? Now, my trustworthy companion, my leader, had left my side.
Hours, perhaps days later, I heard the distinct and distant sound of her honk. It lifted me from the cold ground and my feet followed where my ears lead.
A swirling fog of color engulfed me as if I were trapped inside a tube of colored glass. My arms flailed and, clearing the fog from my vision, I happened upon an old wooden bridge. I hesitated, but only for a brief moment. Goose’s honk continued calling me forward.
On the other side of the bridge, my body became heavy and light at the same time. My eyes were drawn to a beautifully welded lamppost reaching toward the stars and alive with a small, enticing flame.
At the post’s base stood a bald man of abbreviated stature. How curious he was! With one eye, he stared in his hand-held mirror’s reflection and seemed to look behind him with one eye, while staring forward at me with the other.
“Name?” he asked, rudely.
Katarina by CDW
(Four Quills of a Tale is a folktale about losing one’s creativity and the struggle to regain it)
My hand cramps and I must stop. Not from fatigue, but sadness. How can a great storyteller lose her voice, her color, her light, her purpose in life? Because I, like the rest of you, are fools. Although we would like to believe otherwise, she is not immortal.
The goose-feathered quill quivers on my desk and pleads for me to continue. I pick it up and point the nib to the fine parchment and allow it to take control.
I had been walking both old and new countryside for so many years that, whenever I chanced upon a pond’s reflection, I scarcely recognized myself. The lines in my face became more abundant. My once beautiful auburn hair was laced with coarse gray. Even my thoughts became barren as if poured out of a once beautiful and ornate decanter.
And, my sweet Goose. Her feathers were also withering as if in sorrowful response to my countenance. Or, perhaps, I withered in response to her feather’s atrophy. Who is to say? And which answer matters?
Remorsefully, feeling I had little if nothing left to give, I finished a brief story then left the crowd of villagers awaiting more.
I am unsure as to whether Goose followed me, or I her. But my heart says it was the later. We continued to wander and the further we traveled, the more my footsteps played a sorrowful tune. Needing rest, I discovered a large rock to serve as my pillow. I laid my weary body and soul on the crisp, dying grass and watched as Goose pecked around for silverweed and clover roots before she settled beside me.
Hours, perhaps day later, I awakened to find the empty space beside me where Goose had last been.
(Four Quills and a Tale is a folktale about losing one’s creativity and the struggle to regain it)
As you can imagine, I was agog with surprise and confusion. I had traveled miles and miles in search of the mystical Katerina and there, in that small cottage, my journey ended with an old woman who merely handed me a box of quills and folio of parchment.
Now, as I stare at the items before me, I can only muster the shake of my head. How can these things help me discover what happened to the Great Storyteller?
I do not, dear reader, relish the idea of keeping you in the dark, nor do I intend to quicken your despair. I do, however, require you be provided with a parcel of background about our magical storyteller, thereupon allowing you to not only feel her heartbeat, but its unfortunate absence.
Katrina traveled far spinning her tales so clearly that villagers felt like clay being molded by a gentle potter’s hand.
After departing each village, her cascading auburn hair and multi-colored skirt disappearing into the distance, her tales kept the residents alive with exuberance as if she had dribbled potent nectar from a sorcerer’s cup over the entire town, leaving them enraptured.
The oft-feuding townsmen became docile. Fussy children played with a new aloofness. Hardworking laborers rejoiced as they leaned over hot melting irons or carried objects twice their weight. Women washing clothing in the river disrobed, danced, and splashed one another as if small children.
Katerina had given them something they had all been longing but were unaware they lacked – something new and tantalizing. Something fresh. Exotic stories of gold raining in a forest, a two-headed serpent who entertained himself by singing opera while he ate, a feathered boy whom the red-beaked eagle thrillingly hunted.
Then, after time, Katrina disappeared and it became my life’s focus to find her.
And now, I stare at the quills next to this parchment and work up the courage to pick up the first of four.
If my newfound knowledge was an honorable truth, these four newly acquired quills upon my desk will finish the tale. Then you, and I, will finally discover the truth of what happened to this beloved woman.
I must inform you that I do not consider myself an author. I am a historian. Tis’ the reason I took it upon myself to discover how and why she disappeared and left the countryside in such deep despair that they deemed it “The Reign of Drought.”
Hence, I traveled this side of the globe gathering bits and pieces of her existence from contacts with perfect but willing strangers.
If the old woman in the cottage was correct, that she was indeed the last to see Katrina the Great Storyteller, then, according to her, these four newly acquired quills she gifted me will guide my weary hand without waver or indifference to me.
Yet, they remain untouched on my desk.
Yes, I stall to pick up the first of the four. I have traveled too far and if disappointment awaits …
I allow my mind to stray from the quills. I think of the nameless old woman with the silver hair who rocked to and fro in her chair, her thin hands folded on her petite lap, the oil lamp dimly lit in the corner of her one room cottage.
“Please ma’am,” I had said. “I have traveled many paths for an answer and carried with me many questions. Your path is my last. Will you unburden me?”
She peeled her eyes away from her lap and looked at me for the first time. “My dear Mr. Kent,” she said in a whisper of age yet one as clear as a robin’s song. “There is never a last path, nor a last road. Only a last breath.”
And then, she gave me the box.
I see faces in everything.
In the grains of a wooden table
In the markings on stone wall
In tiles on my bathroom floor
I even see a face in the shadows of a crumpled towel strewn on the floor.
I take a picture of cabinet doors and see a face.
Okay, I forced these:
But here’s the real question.
Why can’t I, for once, see a kangaroo smoking a cigar
or a flower growing out of a lima bean
or a mouse eating a shrimp?
I guess I’m not that creative.
(But, at least I don’t see dead people!)
🙂 🙂 🙂
It was a major undertaking but worth it considering what I found as I marched back into the 1960’s! I couldn’t stand the clutter in my office, so I began. First, I had to clean out cabinets and drawers and throw away a bunch of trash. I also have old decorative trunks so, I cleaned them out. Oh, and …
…I just can’t understand why I never used the rain and wind visor (FEATURED IMAGE) handed down from my mother. Who wouldn’t want to look like a dork while smashing your hairspray-ed hair into fine pulp. It’s still unopened so, of course I couldn’t throw it away! What WERE you thinking?
Next, I found this.
Anybody who’s anybody knows this is the original SKIPPER, Barbie’s little sister!
Here’s a hint to see if you know what this is. A treasure, I assure you! Ponder before you scroll down.
Any clue?
Maybe this helps:
Right! The original Beatles’ wig!
Okay next. Do you remember this cartoon?
Hanna-Barbera cartoon critters! I know one is Peter Potamus. Anyone who knows the name of the mouse, I’ll send a copy of one of my books.
Did I throw these things away? Hell, no!
Have I told you yet that I’m a pack rat? (or did you figure that out on your own?)
Three or so computers ago, I didn’t save to dropbox or that cloud thing. But I found the original hard copy of this:
Reading through it, I found myself liking it all over again. It has flaws and needs reworking. It’s a folk tale about a young woman who, long ago, traveled from village to village sharing her magnificent stories. Then, when her Goose muse ran off, and her words and creativity dried up, she began her search. (Sound familiar, bloggers and writers?)
Thanks for sharing this moment with me!
I blogged many years back and stopped. Maybe I didn’t understand it or maybe I just didn’t care. But I came back into “your” fold this past August because I was on a mission. I had a goal and I haven’t done such a good job achieving it.
But, as I like to say, “there goes that universes again” — because blogging has taught me things I didn’t expect.
I have to tell you. A few people in my life, including an attorney friend of mine, worries that “exposing” myself to the cyber world could be unsafe. That “many of those bloggers are not true to who they really are.”
If that’s the case with any of you, back up, Jack, and hit the unfollow button.
(But I think I “know” you.)
Unless I’m traveling, my world is a bit of a bubble. You know, routines and such. Not that I’m complaining. For the most part, I like my sac of familiar air.
But now I have cyber friends like you, who come from all over the world, who tell me through words or photographs about their life, and interests. Many of you share the same thoughts and ideals as me. And the ones who differ, teach me.
You are writers, strugglers, rebels, photographers, dancers, chefs, visionaries, travelers, poets, doctors, animal lovers, readers, humorists. You are mothers, fathers, new adults, aging adults, “in-between” adults.
And, here is the common thread: You are all thinkers who ponder and share the world as you know it.
So what’s not to like?
It’s not you. It’s me. I’m not so good at promoting my novels to make a “difference” in sales while sitting at this particular table.
But I like this wooden table. There is plenty of room for everyone.
And it’s round.
(And yes, it’s an electronic cigarette)
.
Carolyn Dennis-Willingham 