Letters From The Barn
Forget-me-notsThe other day I followed the creek quite a-ways-away to where it gets much deeper, wide enough to swim, even. I should confess that I followed it down the highway in my pickup truck. I did not, as the teenagers are want to do, merely walk its anklebreaking rocks til I found a nice swimming hole.
When I got there, I found a nice spot after walking a bit through some horsetail. I let the dogs lose and set down to read a bit. I had brought The Country Diary Of An Edwardian Lady. Edith Holden was born in the late 1800's. She kept a vivid journal each day for a year, intending to use it to teach her students more about nature. In amazing detail, she writes about what she saw from birds to plants and creates the most beautiful images of each. You really must see this yourself. It's a complete reproduction of her journal, complete with her own handwriting and notes.
She died at a young age, but her family passed it down through the generations. Finally, one took it to a publisher who brought it to the rest of us. Really, do buy it. I get no kickback if you do. Because if I did, I'd have you reading something in a long series, to keep my residuals coming.
While I was enjoying it, I found some forget-me-nots along the banks. I impulsively picked a few and pressed them in the pages for the appropriate season. I thought perhaps my pressed flowers and tiny notes here and there about my own exploration could be a dialogue between me and this long passed away English lady.
When I got home, I noticed that I had amazingly stuck the flowers on the same page as she had drawn her own forget-me-nots back in 1906. More than a hundred years later, I had literally pressed my own wee, little blue flowers on the exact same page. I know this was an unlikely accident. But, please, whoever is in charge of such things, do fill my life with more accidents like that. The congruence of two souls, long apart, united in pressed flowers in an old book. Forget-me-nots, indeed.
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Meriwether O'Connor is a columnist and short story writer. She works one on one with folks trying to get their writing where they would like it to be. Please contact her through this ungodly contraption called the internet if you'd like your own writing to be quicker and less painful. She'll sit down with you weekly over tea, the telephone or the godforsaken email and surprise you with how much a small chat can help you when you need it most. meriwetheroconnor@hotmail.com.