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Sunshine
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Listening to every heart

0 posted 2002-02-24 05:04 PM



From the Soddy Journal – His Return

I had walked the plains today, waiting his return.  I knew he would come, for he had been gone one day too long, and all I could think was, the snows had held off.  Thanking God on this Sunday, the snows had held back, but the northern wind was starting her bluster.  She made me pull my shawl tighter around my shoulders, closer to my breast.  The weather had been uncommonly kind of recent, which only tells those that have been here long enough to know, spring will not come in easily.  The springs were running, the frost had gone off the ground and the roof, the trees of peach and apple beginning to swell with bud.  

However, I am like him in that way – get done what needs doing while the weather holds.  I left the children behind in the Soddy, the eldest attending to the youngest, where they would stay warm, and dry.  We needed some drinking water, and the spring had started running, so no need to walk to the well.  That is what a warm spell will do in February.  Get one’s hopes up, plant thoughts in one’s mind of what needs to be done before the proper season really gets here.  That is why he went to town, to get supplies for the spring planting, yet weeks off.  His blood got to running.  His hopes were up for a good year.  Will he get home before the snow falls?

The wind died down a bit, as it does toward dusk.  I will never understand why it does that, only to wake us in the dead of night, howling across the plains.  Thank goodness, our walls are thick.  The holes recently daubed fresh, with the chinks filled.  We aired it out for a day or two as well, which is good.  The air was getting stale, but with the lightweight feel of the enclosed space now, we could go another two months, which is good, because the clouds look heavy with weight.  I am glad I do not mind the wind, but I look forward to his plans for the new house.  Once ours is completed, he will go to help the neighbors with their raisings, and they are the ones with which I concern myself.  One of the wives is deathly afraid of the wind.  She mutters things about it taking her soul.  I am the opposite.  It gives me mine.

He asks me, now and then, why I keep these journals.  I guess it is for the children.  For those who shall come after us.  Father always said that the young do not know, and need instruction.  My mother died too young to give me all of the instruction I would ever need, and left no notes behind for me to read.  I am healthy now, but I worry, what if I were to succumb to weather, or illness?  What would my children know of me?  

As the candle sputters, he is not yet home.  With the spring water, I have prepared his tea, steeping, now, waiting for him, and wonder if he will be home in time to enjoy some.  I am fretful, but I am not worried.  Or so, I tell myself.  Sometimes it is interesting to see my thoughts transpire here on this paper.  Like talking to a friend.  A silent friend, of course, but a friend all the same.  It comforts me to put my thoughts here, even my worries.  Sometimes he reads of the times where I wonder if all will be well, and he chuckles, and tells me I am as sturdy as this Soddy is.  Nevertheless, just as he made the Soddy sturdy, it is his will that makes me sturdy.  

The Horses!  I hear the horses!  I pour his tea.


Sunday Evening, February 24, 1867


© Copyright 2002 Karilea Rilling Jungel - All Rights Reserved
Janet Marie
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since 2000-01-22
Posts 18554

1 posted 2002-02-24 09:27 PM


The wind died down a bit, as it does toward dusk.  I will never understand why it does that, only to wake us in the dead of night, howling across the plains.  
==================================
One of the wives is deathly afraid of the wind.  She mutters things about it taking her soul.  I am the opposite.  It gives me mine.
===================================

Well..I thank you...this moth was too tired to drag out the knee pads
Dear Sun...at the risk of offending a certain keeper of the fire *L* ... I must say you write these like you actually walked in her shoes cross the soddy floor. If I didnt know better I'd think you had a time machine
these are wonderful...so rich with elements of a lost time and a womans longing and her coming into her own.
Now keep them coming...and you know who can throw another stick on the fire

Martie
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since 1999-09-21
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2 posted 2002-02-25 11:46 PM


Karilea

So much atmesphere and the depth of knowing the inside of your character's heart...you feel it and give it to the reader.  It is a gift.

Mysteria
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since 2001-03-07
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British Columbia, Canada
3 posted 2002-03-25 11:07 PM


Oh....I loved these lines, and I am like her, it gives me back my soul and my freedom!
"
One of the wives is deathly afraid of the wind.  She mutters things about it taking her soul.  I am the opposite.  It gives me mine."

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