Wednesday Night at the Inn

A drawing I made for a story I wrote... the link to find it is at the bottom of the page.

Well it's Wednesday night at the Inn. Went for a walk after I got home from work.  I  made a delicious green smoothie filled with good things like spinach, sprouts, a clementine, flaxseed, coconut milk and a energizing mix of protein powder that I got at the health food store. Eventually I am hoping that all of this effort will pay off and I will get stronger again. I have a lot of shovelling ahead of me this winter. I  can just see myself trying to shovel my way out of the yard at 5 a.m. Oh well such is life and I will just have to trust life.

So back to the Annie Wright story.  If you have found this blog by chance, I am writing a story  one entry at at time, so you will have to go back and  catch up on the story.

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From her handwritten manuscript.... 1956

So  what was I doing  inviting a stranger into my parents house and into my well planned life.  Bobby was expecting  me to be his wife and my  father was expecting to increase his business profits and  settle down his daughter. My mother was expecting more grandbabies and my sisters were going along with it all because they never had a choice in their lives either. My sister Janet had ran away with Peter Richards. She was so in love with him but my parents told her  that  they had no intention of letting her ruin her life with the likes of someone like him. See he was a drifter, or so that's what father called him. He had joined the army and quit so of course his life was ruined ...according to my father. He was a no good for nothing character without any plans for a decent future. Father wanted what was best for his girls and that meant them marrying a rich well respected son of one of the town's respectable families.  So he found her, brought her back and threatened  poor Peter  enough to send him on his way. I  have always thought that he paid him off as well.

And so Janet settled down with a man that I know she did not love, in a life she still lives to please my parents.  They lived  in a beautiful house and had three children.  She spent her days baking brownies and going to school meetings. Of course she went to the beauty salon twice a week because she had to look good for her perfect husband, who  spent very little time at home. He was a nice guy  to have at  family gatherings but I suspect that he is a cold man at home. Janet never says anything but I have known her all my life and I can see her sadness.  Poor mother, I wonder if that was how she ended up with Father. Was hers an arranged marriage? Did she ever love her husband or was it  just what was expected of her as well.   Maybe she never knew what it was to fall in love and therefore could not understand her daughters.

So there I was falling in love with a stranger who I knew  very little about, yet he was more familiar than anyone I had ever met. In the few days that we had spent together, I told him everything about my life.  We laughed  together and I cried from the sheer overwhelming happiness that I felt being near him. His kindness, his tenderness and deep dark eyes made me weak and strong at the same time. For the first time I felt  the courage to want something enough to go against my parents.     In that short amount of time, I  knew I was in love. I was ready to give up everything to spend more time with him. I wanted to walk away from all the responsibilites of being Annie Wright. I knew for sure that I could not marry Bobby. I could not settle down in this small town and live my sisters' lives. I could not live my life just to make my father proud of me and give my mother more grand children to talk about to her friends.  

Yet at that time in my life, I had nothing of my own and was totally dependent on my parents. The little money I had saved was spent on a typewriter. The delivery of what I had so desired and saved for had brought me something totally unexpected.... my first taste of love and soon to be sorrow.

Okay folks that is all for tonight.  I wish I could write for hours but it is time for bed. These early 4:30  mornings means I have to get to bed early or else I will struggle through my days in a fog.  I promise to write on a more regular basis  as I have a hundred more stories to tell. Unfortunately like everyone else, I know I have an expiry date so I must not leave this earth with the stories untold, therefore I have to spend more time here writing.

Thanks Teresa, I appreciate your kindness!!!

http://www.etsy.com/listing/100727989/the-fisherman-and-the-salmon-a-fabled


 

Where have I been?

Princess Louise.....  this is a book in progress 

Hi everyone, well here  it is Sunday night again and  the weekend is over. I wanted to do so much and although I never stopped, it seems all I  did was  housework.. you know laundry, vacuuming, ironing etc. Then I had to do the outside work as well. Bringing in wood, picking up everything in the yard before the snow falls, feeding the birds and trying to get a walk in to stay healthy. At this point in my life, it is all about trying to stay well. I cannot afford to be sick for two reasons, I have to work because I am alone to pay the bills and I cannot get sick because there is no one to take care of me. 

I did not expect to find myself alone again at this point in my life but  life is full of twists and turns and I have had my share of them. He left one Saturday night and he never came back. I know he is sick but  it seems all very strange.  There must be a reason I tell myself to be living this surreal situation and if I can just remain in control of  it all, I will find out at some point later in life. 

Things will fall into place as my Mom used to say but for now I am just trying to survive. No one really knows what another goes through, No one knows their thoughts and worries and the reasons they do what they have to do. Yet they do judge though and some do it with pleasure to fill the the empty spaces in their own lives.  No  wonder I understand women so well... I am my own walking textbook. 

Okay I will continue the Annie Wright story  but just not tonight  for I am feeling a little bit  too close to tears. The healing process takes time. I must not be too hard on myself... time will heal me once again.

A Sunday Night at the Inn

Well  what can I say but that I am so sorry for not writing lately. Life has been giving me a few challenges to deal with and I seem to be living within a story that seems impossible to believe, yet it is my life.

What is my story you may ask, well I will not reveal it at this point for I am still feeling the emotions that go with loss and I do not really understand it all, so I will keep it undercover while I nurse my little self back to strength.  Getting back on your feet gets harder as you get older believe me but that's okay as my goal is to live until I am 95 so I have  lots of time ahead of me.

Sometimes I think I have been given these many roadblocks in life, so that I could better understand the characters in my stories. I had to experience the pain, fear, loss and find the courage to start again. I thank God every day for my strength and I know that it came from watcing my parents go through their life.   Mommy may have been pregnant with me when this picture was taken for I  am the  next in line and not in the picture.

 Mom was an amazing woman as she never gave up despite her  many twist and turns.  She used to say " grab the bull by the horns and keep moving",when the going got tough Well that is exactly what I am doing.... anyway enough about me, lets get back to Annie's  hand written story.

  My father owned the town`s only grocery store and everyday he got dressed up and went to work with pride. He worked hard and I think he made a good living. He was well respected and seemed to be admired by everyone in town. Mother listened to everything he said and whether she agreed with him or not, she did what she was told. See  he was strict and expected everyone to live by his set of rules. My two older sisters were married  by seventeen and I sometimes think that they did so, to get out of the house and away from his rules.  They married young men from town who they had grown up with and who came from ``good families`` as  Father always told everyone. Brenda married the banker`s son and Janet married the son of  Thomas Brady who owned the sawmill. Both girls ended up with beautiful homes and made their father proud  as well as profitable business partners.

As for me, well I was well on my way to marrying Bobby Moore, son of Mr. Moore who owned the hardware store.  I admit he was tall, dark and handsome, well on his way to being rich, for he worked for his father. He already had his own home and was very in love with me. Between my mother and his, the wedding plans were already in the process of being organised. It was to be a big summer wedding with everyone in town invited. My dress was ordered  and Mother was making the final decisions for the invitations and stationary. I thought a pale  green would be nice but Mother said that it had to be blue. I agreed because I had no choice in any of the arrangements. The wedding would be held at the town hall  and no expenses were to be spared according to my father. This was another way to make him look good and appearances meant everything.  I was not allowed to cut my hair until after the wedding so that it would be long enough for a tied up  look. Mother had found a picture at the beauty shop on  one of her trips there and she brought it home and stuck it  above Father`s desk to get his approval.  

I went along with it all because I did not seem to have a choice.  Before finishing high school, I had told my mother that I wanted to go to college and become a librarian.  I will never forget the look on her face. It was as if I had said that I wanted  to become a street walker. She  shook her head and left the room without saying a word. That night at the supper table, my father made it clear that his daughters would make their life in this town for it had everything they needed. All I had to do was settle down, get married and bring up his grandchildren. There was no need to look elsewhere  for anything.  

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 Well that is it for tonight, hope you enjoyed it.  I will really try and enter two more post this week.  Hope you have a great week ahead, remember to spread some kindness, the world needs it  more than ever. Please look after our animals friends as well for we share the earth with them.