Home From Work- Friday Fictioneers: 30th March, 2023.

Right from birth, Karen had never understood her creative, dreamy daughter, Matilda. A marine biologist, her entire world was classified into the natural order of things while Matilda didn’t fit into any category, and she couldn’t get a diagnosis!

“Matilda!” she screamed after stepping on a wet painting.

Battling long covid, now more than ever she questioned:“Why couldn’t I have a normal child?”

Karen fell into her chair, immediately leaping to her feet. The neck of Matilda’s violin had snapped like a dead man hanging from a noose, and Karen had become “The Scream”.  

That was it! No more violin.

….

100 words PHOTO PROMPT © Amanda Forestwood

I was delighted to see this week’s prompt as I play the violin, although I stop well short of calling myself a violinist these days. Practice had dropped off before my lessons stopped during covid, but I’ve been picking it up a bit again lately and am practicing Peter Allen’s hit: “I Still Call Australia Home”. My mother used to play it on the piano and I’m wanting to play it with her and I really do love the words of the song.

The Scream by Edvard Munch

When I was growing up, Mum would occasionally lose patience with the eccentricity of the rest of us and ask: “Why can’t this family be normal?” Mum played things pretty much by the book but the rest of us didn’t even know where to find it. As it turned out, in my mid-20’s I was diagnosed with hydrocephalus and had a shunt inserted to sort things out. Being creative, I wasn’t exactly “fixed” but I was a new improved version of myself and at least I wasn’t falling over all the time.

It wouldn’t surprise me if my husband had told me not to leave my violin on a chair in case someone sat on it; and I’m probably lucky my violin’s still in one piece.

This has been another contribution to Friday Fictioneers hosted by Rochelle Wisoff Fields at Addicted to Purple.

Best wishes,

Rowena

Violin Concert 2015.

The Morning After – Friday Fictioneers

“Forget a Hail Mary, Mike. Make that a Bloody Mary, with an extra shot of Vodka.”

“Hair of the dog, eh Meg? You okay?” Tim the barman asked. Bloody Marys were a well-known hangover cure. Meg was sous chef at their two hat restaurant, and she’d been on a bender. She knew he knew, but neither of them said a word. However, she’d never hit the bottle this early before, and it wasn’t going to happen on his watch. He left out the vodka, made a Virgin Mary to go, and grabbed his keys. “Meg, I’m taking you home.”

…..

100 words

This has been another contribution to Friday Fictioneers hosted by Rochelle Wishoff Fields https://rochellewisoff.com/ PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wishoff Every week we write up to 100 words to a photo prompt, and we’d love you to join us.

Best wihes,

Rowena

 

Fractured Fairytales

“Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a lost kingdom of peace.”

Eugene O’Neill

Quite often, indeed far too often, life deviates from the plan or what we thought we’d signed up for and quite frankly, we wouldn’t mind a refund. We didn’t realise and certainly weren’t consciously  thinking we’d signed up for a fairytale or some kind of fantasy but as evidence mounts up to the contrary, it feels like we’ve been sold a fake or indeed a dud. The Prince and Princess find themselves living in a tent. instead of a castle.Their horse and carriage turns out to be the local bus. Not quite what they’d had in mind!!

Culturally, we perpetuate many ongoing fairytales such as Cinderella who finds her Prince Charming but motherhood and parenting have also been portrayed as quite the fairytale where we all play happy families. Happy families who know nothing about divorce, domestic violence, child abuse, poverty, homelessness, chronic illness, death. After all, aren’t we all just meant to keep smiling?

So much for the fairytale. School holidays can be explosive!

Surprise! Surprise! The prospect of having that perfect family holiday or having the school holidays go without a hitch can be just as much a fairytale as finding Prince Charming. Screams of: “Can’t you lot play happily together?”, “If you can’t share, it’s going into time out”, “Go to your rooms” resonate throughout the the burbs along with regrets and reflections on where it all began and wondering how it ended up like this.

The Happy Family

After the consumption of all that Easter chocolate, I guess I should have anticipated trouble but they’ve been really good over the last couple of days and caught me off guard. There are kids visiting next door and they’ve all been playing exceptionally well together building elaborate engineering structures in the mud and gravel at low tide. They had a fabulous time but the kids went out today and ours were bored yet not wanting to go out or do anything either, which is when things really start to go wrong. That said, Miss did venture into the freezing swimming pool in her wet suit and actually managed to stand up on her surfboard , which was a very exciting achievement and I would have been totally over the moon if the morning hadn’t worn me out.

However,  it’s not just the kids who can ruin a family holiday. In case you’ve forgotten the Griswalds in European Vacation, parents can be just as guilty:

[In England]

“Ellen Griswold: Clark, you’re on the wrong side of the road.

Clark Griswold: Yes I know, honey, I’m also on the wrong side of the car.”

So here I am in Palm Beach which is pretty close to paradise but feeling frazzled. You could say it’s time for a Bex and a good lie down. However, experience tells me that lying down could be catostrophic. With the kids at large, something tells me I wouldn’t be singing: “je ne regrette rien” www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Kvu6Kgp88. I’d be lucky if the house is still standing!

Freddie the Front Door Frog.

On that note, I’ll just add that prior to my frustrations this morning, I was intending to write about Freddie the Front Door Frog who is an Australian Green Tree Frog. Freddie lived on the window ledge underneath my in-laws kitchen window, near Byron Bay for something like a decade. A firm believer of “if you’re on a good thing stick to it”, the kitchen light attracted a smorgasbord of insects providing Freddie with a very steady diet. He was one plump and very happy frog who, unlike so many of his kind, was actually benefiting from interaction with people.  he’d developed what you’d call a mutually beneficial relationship. While not as well known as his furry compatriots, Freddie is an absolutely gorgeous Australian.

Actually, it’s a shame Freddie is so far away. If a kiss can turn a frog into a prince, perhaps it could also bring the fairytale back to life as well.

As I head off to bed after further dramas thanks to the dog, I remind myself that “tomorrow is another day” and who knows? Perhaps, it might just be a fairytale after all!

“Every man’s life is a fairy tale written by God’s fingers”.

-Hans Christian Andersen

This post is part of the Blogging from A-Z Challenge which is taking place during April.

Love & Best wishes,

Rowena