Chapter 1.5

Mrs. Engle was mortified. She left her breakfast untouched and sat at the table biting her fingernails instead; fixated by the idea that her reputation was on the brink of collapse.

“You cannot live on fingernails alone, dear, and they serve a greater purpose on your hands than on the floor. Make a husband happy and eat some toast. ” Mr. Engle pleaded as he quit the table. How could she help feeling agitated when the banquet which marked her debut performance as hostess Mrs. Bethany Engle had resulted in such horror and humiliation? Mrs. Engle was sure that the whole community must by now be blaming her for the accident and strongly doubting her abilities to keep the staff in order. She could see them all rolling their eyes and shaking their heads at such novel inexperience. Or perhaps people would be wondering whether the ruby-ridden torte was a ploy to eliminate for her husband the temptation of Miss Rosewood’s attractiveness.
Mrs. Engle was so insecure and so obsessed with appearances that she insisted on planning another function in a few days time with the hope that impressions from the first of that season would be erased. She gave the invitations to be delivered, and admonished every cook and baker to meticulously inspect all intended ingredients in future, at the risk of instant expulsion.

Chapter 2.

"But how is it that you were given the ruby? If it wasn't claimed by anyone, shouldn't Miss Rosewood have received it as a sort of recompense for the trauma she experienced?" Robin and Edith had reached the Spanish Oak on the far side of the lawn and were enjoying a short respite.

"That would have been the end of the story, and who could settle for such an ending? Who could consider such an occurrence to be 'just another time when a mysterious gemstone materialized inside one's torte'? Of course, this was to be prevented at all costs. I announced that some effort must be made to discover the ruby's true owner and how the gem could have strayed as far as Mrs. Engle's kitchen. Mrs. Engle could not have tried harder to diminish the party's interest in such particulars (such an event was, no doubt, of great embarrassment to her), but her hushing was not to be supported. I was all curiosity, and set about interviewing everyone with a contagious level of earnest. Once a proper buzz was in effect, I made it known that I would be traveling around the county with the gem to make inquiries, and that, as they all knew I would be taking it, there was no risk of its suddenly going unaccounted for."

Edith was quite used to the her cousin's stubborn impulses, though they sometimes gave rise to concern for the futurity of his good reputation. He was well-liked by the other families in the area as he was handsome, well-mannered, and a sparkling confabulator. It was also common knowledge that he was next in line to inherit the family fortune. Therefore, his attentions were much more assiduously sought than those of the other bachelors in the area, and in this Edith found great amusement as he was liable to be awkwardly enveloped by an effusion of saccharine smiles and fawnings at almost every social function he attended.

"So, my dear madame, is this malevolent gem at all familiar to you?" Robin held it up with feigned formality for her to inspect. It was the largest gem she had ever seen, with a diameter of almost two centimeters. Its cut was stunning and when the gem caught a beam of light glinting through the budding canopy, it glowed a red so rich that for a moment nothing else was known to them

Edith smiled and shook her head. She had never seen anything like it.

Storytime......

The door opened and in blew Robin with enough enthusiasm to dissolve Edith’s reveries.

“I bring extremely good news.” Edith sat upright and cocked her head accordingly.

“Well,” he continued, “ I say ‘good’ because it is of the most peculiar kind.”
“Excellent. My imagination is long overdue for a good stretch. Let's here it."
“Last night, at the Spring Banquet hosted by Mr. Edwin Engle, (where I could not but notice your absence- after, you can explain this to me) Lady Rosewood was said to have been nibbling a fiddlehead torte when her front tooth was most shockingly broken off by the unyielding surface of a large ruby disguised therein.” He crossed the room to the bench where he often sat during his visits with Edith, and removing an apple from his pocket, contented himself with the ration while she stared silently into space.

“Am I to understand that this gem wasn’t claimed by Lady Engle and that it didn’t merely fall from its setting in Lady Rosewood’s necklace onto the torte? Also, I am surprised you should forget; my allergies to tulips are too severe to permit my joining any of Mr. Edwin’s Spring parties. He practically supplants his dining hall with his greenhouse. I would not have lasted five minutes.”

Robin nodded as he tossed the apple core into the fireplace.

“So no one has any idea where the jewel came from? The bakers were questioned?”

Robin replied that, yes, Mrs. Engle's entire staff was brought forward, but to no advantage. The servers, cooks, and bakers were all very puzzled. The party did learn, however, that it had been the only fiddlehead torte to make it to the table. According to the head baker, who seemed particularly angry with one of his underlings, the batch of tortes had been neglected while in the oven, and the one containing the ruby had only just survived. These details had failed to remove anyone at the banquet from a thoroughly nonplussed state. Though, Robin suspected that the one of Miss Rosewood’s teeth felt it the most.

“Poor girl," sighed Edith. "I can’t imagine this will help to expedite a proposal from Mr. Wallis. What an unfortunate turn for her.”

“Indeed. Every time she smiled at me thereafter I was tormented by the desire not to look away but to revel in the change a missing tooth has given her countenance. Though, she deserves credit for such composure; parting her lips in public at all! I applaud her self-assurance.”

Though Robin seldom made these sorts of remarks in public, he was at ease to jest in such a way with Edith whom he had known from infancy and who he enjoyed provoking without the fear that offense could be taken.

“And where is the ruby now?” Edith rose and opened the windows to the racket of a great many starlings pecking through the lawn below. It was a perfect day; Mild, dry, and bright, and on turning around to ask Robin if he’d care to go walking, she was astonished to see a glimmering red thing stuck in his face. He released the gem from his scrunched eye with a laugh, and Edith, who couldn’t help but giggle, attempted to scold her cousin as they made their way out of doors.

Getting back on the blog...or the pen.

It has been a while. I have still been writing; though, only in journals and on random slips of paper in my pockets. The style has been different. This is due to the fact that I rarely write short stories or lengthy descriptions for myself alone...especially when there are other formal tasks at hand.
Therefore, this blog will become more of a reflection of my thoughts lately.

This is a mind like a cloud. It never settles. It never resembles exactly the same shape to anyone.

It can't stop blowing to other vantages. So what.

I have difficulty understand how people can remain attached to a single idea for their whole lives. How can this be done and the thrill of discovery not be done away with? The glory of anything soon fades with too much attention. Like a star under one's direct gaze. For those like me, the peripheral is most often what is truly seen. Thank goodness that art of all kinds is allowed, and often revered. Rational behavior is one of life’s most unfortunate demands. If the freedom to express what lies outside of sensible boundaries was withdrawn, a smile would be a very rare thing.

The mind is not free anymore. It is minion to the gods of competition and money. Those that are brave enough to stand in the sunlight of their own imagination and ideas are considered lost, worthless, irresponsible. How is this? How have people learned such self-denial so well as to scorn self-love, self-acceptance in others? No, ……we all must work one another into the ground.

In the afternoon,.......

I stopped along the path to observe a male blackbird rummaging for his lunch under the frosted brown leaves that coat the earth. He snatched and threw them over his bird-shoulders, occasionally having to drag a larger, frozen clump away from his buried booty of wintering worms and insects. After each muscled throw of debris, he looked up at me. Without knowing better, I would have thought he were trying to impress me with such a display of brutish bird strength. ('Behold, poor human, the many leaves my mighty beak displaces! And do you have a bright orange beak? I think not!')
Of course, I am aware of my own dubiousness in the eyes of smaller creatures- even hearty blackbirds- even the predators of predators of hearty blackbirds. He was only keeping a wary, orange-encircled eye on me.
Now I sit on the marble base of an impressive metal statue featuring a robust male deer. He stands assertively on a kind of knoll between divergent roads amid the beech and rhododendrons. The cold stone stings my gluts to numbness, but the feeling of being watched over by an alert buck is a pleasant irony.
Having caught my fill of glinting sunlight, I slip along down the path of frozen leaf pulp to a certain artisan's shop where Santa follows vicariously.

Digging up the new roots...

"Are you for sure not coming back after Christmas," asks Ursula with rolled R's. She is Austrian, but the papers are Italian. Italy claimed a section of Austria in the beginning of the last century.
People are leaving Bergen. Ursula's contract is finished, as is Nicholai's.
But, others are here permanently. It seems like an early uprooting (for everyone), but it was wonderful while it lasted.

Ursula plays the violin, is 32, and has been moving around-working temporary positions and gigging since she was 23. Though she claims to "have nothing in life", she can turn a room upside down with laughter and overwhelm Ingrid Bergman's beauty any day. I hope to see her again sometime.

During the last few weeks, cordiality's chrysalis has been shed. A flock of freshly-winged friends flutter socially about. Polite dinner parties have become late evenings after the concert- sitting with wine or soup on the bed, which is Nicholai's and my only accommodating piece of furniture. I made a wreath last week to add a fresh scent to the entryway and elevate everyone's spirit with holiday hints. The mountain has plenty of kindly-needled firs. Our door is metallic, so the wreath is sneakily hung from the inside wall to dangle surprisingly in the air when the door has been opened. As guests depart they are informed that a glance from the inescapable hoop spells a long, happy life. Not living a long, happy life after getting into the hallway is, therefore, near impossible.
When I am home for Christmas we will dig up the young roots of our tree. For a while it will be inside, which doesn't suit trees so much, but afterwards it can continue to grow anew on the property. For people, I think that the roots are the others they bring into their lives. The loved ones. Family or friend. And it makes for a lush life when your friends are just around the corner or just that many more.

Bergen's Ancient Wharf and more....

Greetings, fellow Bottom-dwellers!

This cafe feels like it could be nestled in a tree far from the forest floor.

A single room of pine walls, floor, and ceiling with century-old ragged pine rafters to support its slanting structure. Bryggen is an over-underworld of planked alleyways and staircases in a hive of ancient housing built to accommodate the lives and goods of sea-traders.

The city of Bergen was founded in 1070 by a certain King Olav Kyrre. Bryggen, as the city's largest wharf and trading center, was the best-established area of Bergen during medieval times. By the 13th Century, Bergen was trading with many countries, but the black plague entered through its port in 1349 and annihilated most of the city's population. Half of Norway's population was wiped out. About a decade after this, a Hanseatic trading office was established in Bryggen's wharf. For the next three-hundred years, Bryggen life flowed to the rhythm of Hanseatic culture. Norway exported fish. Ships imported grains and textiles. After a fire in 1702, which destroyed the entire city, Bryggen was once again reconstructed. What I walk through today is all that is left of Bryggen and also of Hanseatic trade housing.

The trade offices, storage spaces, and boarding rooms from this archaic period have all been recycled into airy shops of handmade luxury items, pub-cafes, and a few discreet offices tucked away on some tilting third floor.

Having been brought up in a completely different context, this landscape of invincible heart wood, bare and weather-worn, through the open-air walkways of the second and third stories, reminds me of a tree house neighborhood.

To others of a saltier imagination, it could very well lend itself to revelry in the sea and sailor-beaten surfaces of an old wooden ship.

The gently restored cabin which hosts the cafe has been perfect for such an afternoon escape. Cars, Concrete, and city sounds are nonexistent in this harvested forest. Bryggen is an island of wood in a sea of cobbled and paved routes. The barista is wearing black, boot-shaped slippers. I, too, would wear slippers if wide, creaky boards lived under my feet as I moved through the day.

Back at the apartment crows appear outside of the windows, positioning themselves to be flung by the lofty gusts of wind at exactly sun-down. 3:54. The trees near the middle of the mountain seem to be a favorite landing spot. A pit-stop on the flight back to their roosts. Of course, we know that birds never make that kind of pit-stop. Otherwise, they might have a better reputation. There are no nests in the branches of these bare trees, but at this time of day the topmost twigs and branch-tips are weighted by dozens upon dozens of the vigilant scavengers. It is a coup d'air

Grieg Hall before the concert.

Perfumes and pressed clothes.

Showered people

Programs and polite laughter.

Greying hair

Coffee or wine.

Comfortability. 

Mild excitement.

Glancing men

Automated chimes.

Minds gathered to be carried elsewhere.

Unexplored thoughts to be temporarily visited.

Traditions to honor.

Images to maintain.

Ideals to uphold.

Monotony to break.

Generations to impress.

Loved ones to support.

So many reasons and whims for an audience to attend to

Mozart and Brahms.

Observations on a mountain walk and at the kitchen table.

Fireweeds of Autumn are no longer bright purple and pink. They stand solemnly with white curled hair. Seeds for next year. Fallen beech leaves on the flat sides of rain-slicked boulders spell out the philosophy of Autumn. Detachment. A necessary willingness to end. Freshness with each Spring's luminous new set of unfurling leaf-buds is only possible through the voluntary release of the previous year's leaves. Insects forfeit their lives at this "fall" bend in the cycle to ensure that the next generation may also make the same loop. I make the meandering loop up and down the mountain, descending just as my hands begin to tingle uncomfortably with cold. Glad to weather another approaching Winter.

Back at home, I sit at the table and wonder who I should be and what that person would be doing at this second. The old adage "Be True to Yourself" floats into my head wearily. Like an old clown. The clown seems still to carry some secret. I try and cipher its magic.

To be "true to one's self" is a quite popular directive meant to reassure people that they can choose to do what they feel compelled to -be who they feel compelled to be. Many of us, myself included, find it difficult not to be very "thoughty". If our thoughts aren't always repetitive- in a closed loop- new ideas often join the slideshow and shake us, skew the menagerie, but at the same time renew us. These new experiences and their "aftermath" can be comforting or traumatic, but we need it all to grow. Actually, we need it to be alive.

Being alive (which, in my opinion, doesn't mean sitting on a pillow with eyes shut) is all bonding and reacting. With every impression, there is a reaction. With every reaction, we live.

To be true to oneself isn't to be true to a single idea (of oneself) but to be true to a real, living self; a self whose image isn't the main concern and whose entire being is available and honest for the world. A living self is one with mental and emotional reactions taking place. 

It can be tricky when one's ideas of who his or her "real" self has proven to be in the past battle for the present title. However, being true to an idea of oneself- is different than being true to oneself.

This is why being one's "true self" is being aware of one's present surroundings, senses, and peers so that we can bond and react. When we react to what is going on around us, however we feel compelled to (without checking with some computerized hardware conception of ourselves) we reveal the self. So, self and thought should not be confused. Self is awareness, and in being true to that, all we can do is react.

Makes sense, I think.

With that, I see that this table needs tidying and feel that it is time for lunch. 

Enjoy yourselves!!!