Tag: difficulties

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

If you are with a large or small family celebrating, I am thinking of you.

If you are celebrating with a friend or two because your family has rejected you, your family is too far away, or you have no family, I am thinking of you.

If you are spending time in a hospital, prison, or other institution, I am thinking of you.

If you have to work today, I am thinking of you.

If you are alone, by choice or chance, I am thinking of you.

If you are missing loved ones who have died, I am thinking of you.

If Christmas is difficult because of an abusive family, I am thinking of you.

If you feel hopeless today, I am thinking of you.

If you feel lonely, even around others, I am thinking of you.

If your Christmas doesn’t look like the Christmas in a Hallmark Christmas movie, I am thinking of you.

If your Christmas celebration includes traditions your neighbors would think are strange, I am thinking of you.

If you are of one of the groups who don’t celebrate Christmas, or observe it in a secular sense only,  I am thinking of you.

All of our experiences of Christmas are equally valid, equally real, equally ours.

May you find what you really need this day, and all the days of your life.

A short excerpt — I’m on a roll on a difficult part

I have a couple hours to write before work today, and I want to get moving, because my mind is playing with a difficult part/concept: What if your first memory is of being full-grown, but totally bewildered by your surroundings:

The faded man sitting next to me introduced himself as David Burris, Valor’s son and Justice’s brother. It seemed odd to me that he looked as if he could be Valor’s father, not vice versa. Then he asked a question, a nonsequitur that nonetheless resonated more than a stranger’s question should have:

“What’s your first childhood memory?” he asked, his gaze searing into me.

My mind spun in panic — I had no childhood memories. I couldn’t get to them. The first thing I remembered in my life was a dream of standing up in my parents’ living room, in the old house where they used to live before they disappeared from society. Durant — my father — wasn’t there, but that wasn’t surprising; I had always known he came into my life later. Three people sat in the room: my mother; plump and curly-haired; a man, tall with long black hair and implacable eyes; and another woman, short and slender, smiling like a grandmother. My mother and the man were bundled up in bathrobes and blankets like they’d just come in from the cold. I couldn’t understand. I stumbled away.

“Come here,” the dark-haired woman said, with a curious gesture of her — I looked down at what I quickly learned was my hand. “Let me look at you.”  

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I stepped backward. “Here” came with the woman’s gesture toward herself. “You” — I guess that meant me. 

*******
So this is obviously written in first person, and the person is a Nephilim but doesn’t know it. Nephilim are born full-grown and biologically learn very, very quickly such that in a week, she understands everything in that room and shows proficiency. But, at the moment she describes in the memory, she knows literally nothing. So I have to write the scene dividing her observations into two parts: things she can describe and understand at the time of reflection, and things recalled at that exact moment. Tough, huh?

Thanks for reading, friends.