Thursday, July 11, 2019

A Holy Story, The Best I Know

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Have you ever wondered what my handwriting looks like? I didn't think so. Now, however, you know.

Even I have trouble reading it.

The doodle is of a trickster and, for some reason, I wrote the beginning of what I characterize at the bottom as ...a holy story. The best I know.

Here's how the story begins: And then the years blur into one another. I remember staying up all night, afire with inspiration, one Friday, typing, typing, typing, & when I finally ran out of inspiration realizing first that it was Saturday morning, next that I wanted to fall into bed and sleep for eighteen hours, and finally that I had no clean clothes [indecipherable]. So I could either sleep and,  awakening on Sunday, put on my sweated clothes and take my stuff to the laundromat

I have no idea what that story was doing in this particular notebook or why I cut it off midway through. I won't go into detail here because I've narrated it elsewhere. But what happened was that on my way to the laundromat I ran into a young woman I knew who was sitting with her visiting father upon her stoop, both of them eating ice cream cones. I said hello, apologized for my unshaven and disheveled appearance, and explained why I looked (and smelled) so bad. Then I went on to the laundromat, cleaned my clothes, went home, and crashed.

I made an impression, though. The young lady's father went home and told her mother about this remarkable young man he'd met, leaving an indelible impression that never quite went away.

And the young lady? Reader, I married her.


Above: For those who came in late, as a way of drawing attention to my newly-published novel, The Iron Dragon's Mother, I'm serializing the Image Book I put together as a way of helping me to visualize Faerie and its inhabitants. This is the 93rd of 108 images.

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