Week 11 mostly up

This ought to be Week 12, but I’ve been ill and busy.  Anyway, the visual is a pair of shoes I redecorated and the writing is just some unedited/unproof-read musings on childhood autumns.  I’ve only got about 640 words, so I’ll have some more musings of some sort up tomorrow.

Everything on this post is copyright me (Kathryn Walton), please don’t steal it to make money or claim it as your own.  Thanks.

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Week 11 Written:

I was thinking the other day about the nostalgia of autumn, about what I associate with the dying season.

One of the first images to come to mind is a massive pile of leaves.  Strangely, it’s not the generalized pile that’s an icon of American fall-time.  It’s not shadowed by a father figure with a rake getting ready to compress it into a bag made to look like kitschy yard décor.  No, my pile of leaves sits on a strip of green urban landscaping between my old neighborhood and some government buildings nearby.  The trees seemed to belong to no one and the whole space was dubbed Maple Park.  I’m not sure if that was actually its name or if my sister and I just used our talent for literal names to title that play-space.  Either way, it was a remote extension of our minimal backyard and always provided sufficient leaf-fall to build autumn’s necessary jumping pile.  Because that’s what a pile of leaves was for.  It wasn’t the end result of cleaning a space.  It wasn’t to prevent the grass from becoming thick with decomposing brown mush.  And it certainly wasn’t to provide stuffing for creepy plastic yard figures.  Leaf piles were for jumping.  First, you had to make sure that the pile was big and deep enough to create a landing pad for your whole body.  Then, somewhere in the back of your brain, feelings and memories ticked over and created the anticipation of the ‘crunch’ and ‘rustle’ and airy ‘whump’ of wallowing in skeletal plant-matter.  Then… plenty of room to run?  Yep.  And you were flying through the air before you were surrounded by something like earth-toned wrapping paper.  The loud sounds and the musty smell made the world abstract for a moment.  It didn’t matter that the landing was never as cushioned as you bargained for.  What mattered was the sense of tradition, the simplicity of the game, and the tactile joy of being literally all mixed up in the key ingredient of autumn: parchment paper, sunset colored, earth scented leaves.

Another set of sensations that remind me of the months following summer is the smell and feel of new clothes.  Specifically, the smell and feel of new school clothes.  Fall was always the time to reinvent yourself or reconfirm the image you left everyone with last year.  Even though the natural world started over in spring, the social world started over in autumn.  School started over in autumn.  And a new school year always meant new notebooks, pencils, maybe a new lunchbox, and definitely new clothes.  What’s interesting about this treasured memory of acquisition is that I was a child who loved my clothes to death.  I would attach myself to pieces of clothing fiercely and wear them over and over until they simply were too wore out to be of any use.  Despite this, I was never a big clotheshorse or teeny-shopper.  And, despite that, I loved new clothes.  I was a clothing paradox of sorts.  How do I explain this?  Well, when I say that I wasn’t really a clotheshorse, I mean that I didn’t care what everyone else was wearing.  For instance, one shirt I clearly remember wearing to softness was an oversized purple tied-dyed t-shirt bought at a neighbor’s garage sale.  When I say that I loved new clothes, I do mean store-bought new clothes.  But, again, I loved them for what they said to me, not because they were considered ‘in’.  No, the concern with what others thought came later.  I simply adored new clothes because they smelled and felt new.  Why I liked the impersonal smell and sheened feel I couldn’t tell you.  I just did.  I hugely enjoyed clothes that smelled of home and felt soft with repeated washes too.  Maybe I just liked sensory input.  Who knows?

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Week 11 Visual:

BEFORE

AFTER

Week 11 Visual Done

I finished the visual for week 11: redecorating a pair of shoes.  Unfortunately, the batteries for my camera are dead, so I have to wait to post when they’re recharged.

I’m afraid I haven’t written anything yet.  I’ll have to get that done and up tomorrow.

*Sniff*

I’m afraid I’m feeling pretty unwell this weekend, so I’m putting off doing Week 11’s stuff until I feel a bit better.  Could be tomorrow, could be later…

Week 10

This week I tried making a puppet.  It turned out okay.  I made a mistake half way through painting and I wish the body hadn’t come out so muddy as a result.  But you live and learn.  The writing this week is a short, but complete (I can’t believe it either!) story.  It isn’t actually a full 1000 (but rather 963), but I’ve gone over on other weeks so I figure it all evens out.  I tried fitting in more words, but I liked the story as is for the moment, so I didn’t want to keep stuffing in words and ruin it.

Everything on this post is copyright me (Kathryn Walton), please don’t steal it to make money or claim it as your own.  Thanks.

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Week 10 Written:

“Your nipples are like quantum physics.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, see, they only become, um, alert when you check to see if they’re alert… see?”
“Riiiight.”
“Quantum physics.”

I kissed her because there is little else you can do when your girlfriend starts comparing your body parts to areas of science most people find unfathomable.  I suppose there’s a compliment in there somewhere…

“What do you want to do tonight?”

Because, honestly, compliment or not, I wasn’t going to spend the entire evening discussing either nipples or quantum physics.  One was a dead end and the other was, like I said, unfathomable.

“We could break into the observatory.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, not break in exactly.  Laurie knows how much I like stargazing and had a copy of the keys made for me.”
“Isn’t that, um, really, really illegal or unprofessional or something?”
“Probably, but she did it anyway.  It’d be a pity to let the wickedness go to waste.”

She gave me her most devious grin and I couldn’t help but give in.  The problem with my girlfriend is that, like quantum physics, she has this tendency towards a twisted type of logic and the strength of will to make it convincing.  She also knows how to torture with tickles.  So we packed some chewy granola bars and a couple bottles of orange juice before grabbing our bikes.

Let me make something clear before any guys reading this get too excited.  By bikes I mean bicycles, not motorbikes.  We aren’t, sadly, a pair of hot leather-clad lesbians riding around on roaring machines.  Got that out of your head?  Good.

Rather, by the time we were nearly at the observatory, we were a pair of sweaty, puffing lesbians who couldn’t wait to summit the hill the it sits on.  Reaching the building, I leaned my bike on the wall before leaning myself there to catch my breath; except I didn’t have the breath to catch my breath.  Fucking hill.

“You okay?”

Maybe only one sweaty, puffing lesbian.  My star of a girlfriend seemed fine.  In fact she hopped off her bike like this was the corner shop and she’d ridden fifty yards.

“Peachy.”

We found a lamppost to lock our bikes to before she pulled out her jangling bunch of unauthorized keys.  They opened doors like clockwork.  Well, actually, they opened doors like keys, but my point is that we were through several sets of doors pretty quickly.  Laurie had been true to her word.

Once we made it to the actual telescope, I thought of a question I wished I had asked back at the house.

“Do you know how to work this thing?”
“How hard can it be?”

I wanted to tell her that it could very well be quite incredibly hard.  It could be tremendously complicated, but instead I settled for, “Why don’t we try calling Laurie before we break something?”

“We can’t.”

My girlfriend had gotten far too near to a lot of buttons and dials for comfort.

“Why?”
“Because she’s out of the country.  She went on a vacation down to Mexico for two weeks… or maybe three.  I can’t remember.  Anyway, she’s not reachable right now.”

Now she was touching the buttons and dials.

“So, you mean to tell me that if we get caught here or break something, we won’t even be able to call Laurie and have her explain?”
“Well, we could have her explain when she got back…”

My girlfriend is lovely and wonderful, but she doesn’t always think things through.

“I don’t think the police will want to wait that long.”
“I suppose.”

Nope.  I’d lost her.  She was deeply absorbed into figuring out how to operate the telescope.  I watched her peering at it for a minute and then sighed.  We were here now.  Might as well see it through.

“Can I help?”
“No, I think I’ve almost got it.”

She was actually twiddling things by this point and I clenched my teeth as I watched her treat what I knew was an incredibly expensive piece of equipment much in the same way she treats my nipples.  Again, must be a compliment in there somewhere.

“There.”

She turned to me with a huge grin on her face and I couldn’t help but smile at her triumph.  Leave it to her to make her beating a puzzle more important to me than worrying over whether we were going to be in jail by morning.

She beckoned me over while she squinted through the viewfinder and adjusted the controls.

“What are you looking for?”

She didn’t say anything, but just stepped back and gently moved me to the viewfinder.  What I saw was worth a few days in jail.

Light stared back at me in more tones and dimensions than I had previously thought possible.  Great sweeping trains of lights interspersed with tiny flakes of brilliance made my eyes hurt and hungry at the same time.

“You like it?”

I tore myself away and turned around the meet her cocky smile.

“It’s… well, it’s all the clichés available about beauty.”

What else could I say?  I kissed her and turned back to try and get my fill of something I doubted I’d see again anytime soon.

Behind me, I could feel her beaming with satisfaction and it was one of the best places I’ve ever been: gorgeous celestial sights before and the one I loved pleased beyond words behind.  Not bad.

After I’d decided that my eyes were going to drop out if I didn’t give them a break, we settled down at a table in the next room to have our late night snack.

“So, what do you want to do tomorrow night?”

I eyed her.

“Have any more keys from unethical friends?”
“Might have.”

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Week 10 Visual:

Week 10… is on its way

I did manage to do my visual piece tonight, but my camera batteries are near dead, so a picture will have to go up tomorrow.  I haven’t done the writing, but will try to get it done and posted sometime tomorrow.

As a side note, I cringe slightly at last week’s writing.  It seems rather overdone.  Sorry.

Week 9 – Last of written piece

The cloaked figure raised its head to regard the opening door over a shining bridge of a nose.  The housekeeper and the young lady guard sucked in chill outside air when the eyes behind the mask met their own.  The woman, for they could now see that it was a woman, blinked once and stepped inside.  She said not one word, but continued past the two stunned people who had allowed her entrance.

Behind her, the housekeeper gathered his wits enough to shove the door closed in relief.  Then he and the young woman, guard duty forgotten, followed in the woman’s path.  And a path she made, a parting of forces, truly.  People seemed to sense her presence approaching and stepped out of the way.  Only when they turned and saw the gold mask flashing back the light of hundreds of candles did they know what they were moving for.

The mayor was, perhaps, the only one who noted her approach with his eyes and not some unknown sense.  He stood, disregarding the static of regality pouring from his guest.

“Who are you and for what reason have you opened our doors to danger?”

The woman stared back at him and blinked, once, slowly.

“Answer me!” the mayor demanded, red lines forming on his offended face.

Instead the woman dropped her cloak to reveal a dress shifting with every hue of shadowed tones imaginable.  Continuing to hold the mayor in her level gaze, she smiled briefly before opening wide her red lips.

From her throat there rose the most exquisite sounds the people had ever heard.  Low notes caressed tired feet and bright sparks of sound twisted smiles from the grimmest face.  On and on she sang in layers of sound impossible for one person to achieve.  And as she sang, the ceiling above the people’s heads was obscured by a strange phenomenon.

Week 9 – Written (700 words, 300 more to come)

No one remembers why they hide from the night, but each dusk they flood, shadows in double-time, into the great hall.  No one sleeps.  Drifting into rest is done while the birds trill recitations of avian dreaming: early in the morning, as soon as the light returns.  Who would sleep at night, alone at home, when the city is deserted and the hall is full, blazing with laughter and light?  A fool only and nobody wishes to be a fool.

The hall is the world when darkness falls.  The darkness is a hard wall of nothing outside the grand old doors, so the inside is everything.  Carved with suns, beaming faces, and industrious people, the massive oak panels are designed to keep out the night.  The people feel safe when the deep sound of the latch falling reverberates through the floor.  Then the dancing may start.

The dancing is followed by singing players by feasts of golden and russet food by yet more dancing and so on until the bell rings signaling the sighting of the sun.  A single person is chosen each night to watch through the empty air for any hint of light.  Everyone must have their turn, but some will do anything to avoid the task.  Some will even keen all night in fear at the unknown before their senses, hoping to be pitied and relieved

Yet no guard had ever been faced with a human arrival, until one night so devoid of color that it seemed to stare back at the young woman sentinel.  It was late in the fading of summer and she felt grateful to have been picked for one of the shorter shifts of the year.  To be truthful, she was so caught up in dreaming of long dances in the winter to come that the pounding of a fist on the doors below sent her up in the air like a wet cat.  Once she regained the floor, the girl leaned her head out far enough to peer down at a cloaked figure standing imperiously before the hall entrance.

What to do?  Never before had there been any arrival after the doors shut for the night.  Never before had the young lady even set eyes upon a human out of doors after the sun had set.  It was beyond her, admittedly limited, imagination and yet here was a standing, breathing somebody with the cool hush of darkness close at his or her back.

A strangled “wait” was called down to the unknown person and the guard took herself in a flurry down to the mayor.  As he was contentedly enjoying some excellent chicken while the musicians played his favorite waltz, seeing the drained face of his one and only lookout was not accepted gladly.

“What do you want, girl?  Why aren’t you at your post?  Daylight is a long way off yet!”
“Please, there’s someone at the door.”
“Nonsense.  Night visions.  Has someone been sneaking you wine up there?”
“No, your graciousness.  I am very sure there is a person waiting outside.”

Her voice and face appeared so earnest that, in spite of the absolute impossibility of the situation, the mayor summoned up his housekeeper and sent him off to inspect the claims.

Long ago, no one remembers when, some craftsman had thought of putting a peephole in one of the looming oak doors.  People had often laughed at the notion as no one could conceive of it ever being needed.  No one came after the doors were closed!  The idea!  And yet here someone supposedly way.  The housekeeper swung the cover stiffly away from the hole and put his squinty eye to it.

Beyond doubt, there was certainly an individual of some description staring down the doors, as if eyes could open them simply through strength of will.  The person wore a heavy gold-colored half-mask with a beak-like nose protruding from beneath the cloak’s hood.  Brightly red lips pursed beneath and the cloth of the cloak shimmered silky in the lamplight.  Clearly someone with riches, influence, or both.  The housekeeper decided that it would be best not to anger such a person and put his instinctual fear aside long enough to crack open one door and admit this mysterious stranger.

Week 9 – Unfinished

I’m afraid I totally forgot about 52 Weeks this week until yesterday.  I managed to promptly sit down and paint, but was feeling singularly uninspired about writing.  So, for today I have only 250 words and will try to churn out the other 750 in the next 24 hours.

Everything on this post is copyright me (Kathryn Walton), please don’t steal it to make money or claim it as your own.  Thanks.

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Week 9 Written (250):

No one remembers why they hide from the night, but each dusk they flood, shadows in double-time, into the great hall.  No one sleeps.  No one dreams.  Drifting into rest is done while the birds trill recitations of avian dreaming: early in the morning, as soon as the light returns.  Who would sleep at night, alone at home, when the city is deserted and the hall is full, blazing with laughter and light?  A fool only and nobody wishes to be a fool.

The hall is the world when darkness falls.  The darkness is a hard wall of nothing outside the grand old doors, so the inside is everything.  The hall doors are carved to keep out the night, with suns, beaming faces, and industrious people.  They feel safe when the deep sound of the latch falling reverberates through the floor.  Then the dancing may start.

The dancing is followed by singing players by feasts of golden and russet food by yet more dancing and so on until the bell rings signaling the sighting of the sun.  A single person is chosen each night for this more terrible of duties, watching through the empty air for any hint of light.  Everyone must have their turn, but some will do anything to avoid the task.  Some will even keen all night in fear at the unknown before their senses.

Yet no guard had ever been faced with a human arrival, until one pitch ebony night late in the fading of summer.

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Week 9 Visual:

What happened to weeks 9 and 10?

Good question.  The answer is, I’m on holiday visiting my family and things have been very busy.  I don’t think it’s likely that I’ll make it up now and week 11 isn’t looking good since I’ll be a bridesmaid that Saturday.  So, the plan is to just skip these three weeks and call September 13th week 9.  I’ll then still go to 52 weeks in total.

Week 8

I’m cheating a bit this week because we’ve been trying to get a million things done before we leave on holiday.  For the written piece I’ve got about 860 words more of the Island Story from week 6 (unedited, as usual).  I also wrote 214 words of a poem, but don’t feel comfortable posting it in a public place.  For the visual, I’m just posting another bit of the wedding invitation.  I did this picture early this week.  It’s pretty much the same process as the one I posted last week except I didn’t trace the dresses (but freehand drew them) and I added some color.

Everything on this post is copyright me (Kathryn Walton), please don’t steal it to make money or claim it as your own.  Thanks.

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Week 8 Written:

This time, he was in line.  Normally Kendra took little notice of what she was ringing up, but it was hard to ignore the pile on the conveyor belt this time.  Nuts.  All nuts.  In fact, Kendra thought, probably every kind of nut they sold.  She looked up to see who was weird enough to buy nothing but nuts.  It was him.

Actually, she was surprised that she remembered his face.  Customers were a blur to her and she rarely recognized anyone despite locals shopping at the store again and again.  But she remembered him, maybe because of his odd question.  Now he looked earnestly at her.

“Nobody has them.  Kendi nuts, I mean.  I thought maybe they’re called something else here.”
“Right, you came in yesterday, didn’t you?”  Kendra pretended to suddenly remember him.  She didn’t want him to know that he had stuck in her head.
“It’s so strange, I woke up the other day and found myself craving kendis.  I haven’t tasted them since I was a little boy.”

He was talking an awful lot, like they were friends and not a checker and customer.  Kendra nodded in feigned sympathy at his plight.  What was with this guy and his so-called “kendi” nuts?  Kendra was concentrating hard on her decision that she must have stumbled upon the name of a real nut as a child naming things that didn’t exist.  Coincidences were weird right?  Or else this guy was out of his pretty little head.  But, then, that would be a coincidence too.

She gave him his total.  He paid, looked at her in a weird way and collected his bag from Tony.  Kendra had an urge to watch him leave the store, but the conveyer belt was full and she didn’t want to piss off the large lady who had been waiting in line behind him.

“You okay?”
Kendra glanced at Tony.  A freakishly tall teenager, he rarely spoke and Kendra liked that in a bagger.
“Yeah, fine.”

He gave her a compact nod and they went back to their comfortable routine.  Beep, slide, bag, beep, slide, bag.  Kendra concentrated on what she was doing and ignored the feeling that something in her life had just shifted.

*    *    *
Uncle Mike took Kendra back to work with him a lot.  The house with the island on the wall was old and complicated, so that was his workplace for a long time.  As a result, the island population grew and their culture (though she didn’t know to call it that) became more involved.

Kendra particularly liked the holiday she made up for the beginning of summer.  All the islanders would gather on the biggest beach and have a huge bonfire.  They would roast nuts and fruit named after their beautiful goddess.  If they cooked the delicacies just right, she would visit them in person and take part in the fun.  Kendra took the game home with her by arranging snacks of nuts and fruit in pretty ways on her plate (Mom wouldn’t let her roast them over the burner) and by wrapping brightly colored sheets around herself and walking royally through the house.  Dad once made the mistake of calling her a queen, but she quickly corrected him.

“And where is the queen off to today?” he had chuckled when she glided past him one Sunday.
“I’m not a queen.  I’m a goddess.” She turned her nose up in the air at the affront of mere mortals and dragged her beautiful robes off to her bedroom.

It was her favorite game, really.  Better than house, which she played with the girl next door.  Better than playing mountain climbing with the boys at school.  It was full of people she knew everything about.  It made her feel important and worthwhile.  Mostly though, she liked how the men in the building left her alone and never asked her to explain the grey lines on the wall of one room.

Except maybe they should have asked, because one day something terrible happened.

Uncle Mike came by as usual to pick Kendra up from her house.  Mom had some errands to do and had given Kendra a choice: Uncle Mike’s work or errands.  Kendra didn’t even have to think about that one.

She was practically bouncing up and down in the truck because she couldn’t wait to “build” the new playground she had planned for the islander children.

“What’s got you so excited, bug?” Uncle Mike gave her a sideways look and a grin, “You look ready to jump right out the window.”
“Nothing.  I just want to see what’s changed in the building.” Kendra lied.

Uncle Mike didn’t look convinced, but he left her alone and drove the rest of the way humming along with the radio.  You could count on Uncle Mike to take a hint.

When they pulled up in front of the building, Kendra hauled open the truck door and took the front steps two at a time.  Then she had to wait because she wasn’t allowed inside without her Uncle, who seemed to be suddenly slug-like as he collected some tools and locked up the truck.

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Week 8 Visual: