Go Ahead and Jump

I am trying to get my muse back.  Every once in a while I catch a glimpse of her.  A shadow here or or flutter there, ever evading and hiding.  Then I went over to Theme Thursday and saw that this week's theme is Jump.  Well as luck has it...

Gladys stood on the precipice teetering using her arms for balance. She didn’t dare look down or she might lose her equilibrium and then she would find herself spiraling into the abyss.


She stood atop the rocks feeling as if she alone were queen of the world. She looked across the vast wasteland of the desert that stretched out beyond the rock wall and breathed deeply. She knew she shouldn’t do it but she couldn’t resist. She knew she could fly if she just tried.

She closed her eyes and pictured her arms spread and her neck stretched long in flight. She would fly out over the canyons and the cactus. She would soar above the Skyway Tram and down through the pass. She would glide over Thunderbird Mountain. She knew she could do it.

It didn’t matter that she had been found under a rock. It didn’t matter that she was only 5 years old. What mattered was she believed she could do it.

She took a deep breath. She spread her wings and she threw herself from the rocks with all her might. It all happened in slow motion. She felt the wind in her face. She smelled the heat coming off the hot sand. She positioned herself just as she had seen Superman positioned in flight.

She was doing it! She was flying. She had taken the jump and she was out there. Should she flap her arms? Should she move her feet as if swimming? She floundered. She wobbled. She spiraled.

The next thing she felt was the sharp burning pain and the hot sand on her face. The air was jarred from her lungs and she felt the sun burning down on her back. She had jumped. She had fallen and now she was hurt.

She heard footfalls behind her and felt the hands on her back and head. “GLADYS! What on earth were you doin? One minute you are standing on this lil’ ole rock ledge and the next thing I know you make like a baby bird and dive off of it.” Gladys rolled over to see her older sister sitting next to her in the dirt “I was tryin to fly. I know I can do it I just need to get back up there and try.” Matilda shook her head and reached out to help her little sister up “you silly goose. You can’t fly. You ain’t got no feathers.” Gladys grabbed her sister’s hand and said “Superman ain’t go no wings and he flies.”

“Yeah, but you ain’t Superman, heck you ain’t even Supergirl” Matilda replied dusting the dirt off her knees. “No, but I am Lightening Girl” Gladys retorted then stood. She screamed in agony and her sister grabbed her “WHAT’S WRONG?” Gladys grabbed her leg and said “I think I broke my leg.”

Matilda bent down to examine the offending limb and proclaimed “It ain’t broke! You can’t break your leg jumping off a rock curb.” Gladys tried again to put her weight on it and screamed again “I think it’s broke!” Matilda shook her head “it ain’t broke it’s sprained. We need to put some ice on it.” Gladys cocked her head to one side “but that was what I was doin. I was spraingin off the curb so that I could fly.”

It Is The End Of Days for Gladys

I have been AWOL for awhile. I have wanted to write. I have needed to purge but some how, some way I have found a reason not to write. First it started with Big Bertha, my laptop, being REALLY slow. No really I’m talking dial-up slow. I am talking 386 1993 slow. I’m not really sure what happened it just decided one day that it was no longer a spring chicken. I’m not sure why since it is only 6 years old. Shouldn’t laptops last more than 6 years? Shouldn’t you be able to download a bazillion songs and a gazillion pictures, a couple of movies and lots and lots of documents and it still run as fast as the day you got it? Oh wait it is 6 years old! It wasn’t THAT fast to begin with. Then came the holidays and really who has time during the holidays what with traveling and cooking and cooking while you travel it just all gets very messy.

Then it rained. Hey that is an event here in Southern California! Everything stops. Everyone goes into OH SHIT mode and we get nothing done because “it’s raining.” As in “I would have cooked supper but it was raining” or “I am so sorry I didn’t do the laundry, it was raining” or “I couldn’t do my Christmas shopping because it’s raining” or my personal favorite “I can’t come to work today because it is raining”. You see I have all kinds of excuses but what it really comes down to is I lost my muse.


I’m not sure where she is or who she is visiting but it is time for her to come back. She used to wake me in the middle of the night with tidbits to add to my unfinished novel. She used to nudge me at the laundry to write down my observations to use for future musings. She used to SCREAM at me to write about the characters in my life and now there is just quiet. So if you have my muse would you please send her back my way?

Then as I was checking my emails the other day I clicked on to MSN and I saw it. I saw the reason why I am going through such a dry spell. It is the end days. The apocalypse, no not the one with Gabriel Byrne.

It was right there on the front page. Wait is it still considered a page even though there isn’t any paper? Would it be the front screen? Which leads me to another side bar; do they still yell “STOP THE PRESSES”? Wouldn’t they yell “STOP THE ENTER BAR”?


Where was I? Oh yes, there on the screen was a woman with the message to SAVE THE DATE on her car saying that the world was going to end May 21, 2011. Now wasn’t that nice of her to let me know exactly what day the world was going to end? This makes it so convenient for me. I can go charge my credit cards up to the max because, hey come May 21 it won’t matter any more. I can also do that car shopping I have been wanting to do. I’m torn between a Lamborghini and a Testerosa. What? I can rack up all the speeding tickets in the world, it won’t matter.

It is freeing knowing that the end of times is May 21. I am no longer worried about getting that plastic surgery on my drooping body parts. I canceled my hair coloring appointment. Sorry Lola,

but if the world is ending what difference are a few grey hairs? I have given up doing laundry. Hey it’s the end of the world I’ll just buy new clothes everyday until it ends. I’ve given up on eating healthy. I’m eating what ever I want when ever I want because come May 21 it won’t matter anymore.

Kahuna began to worry a little and said “Honey, Baby, Sugarplum” (because he talks to me like that) “what if that woman is just, um, a little off by a couple of hundred years?” I hadn’t thought about that. I mean my muse left and I just can’t think abstractly. He had a great point what if?

Panic set in. I ran and looked in the mirror and realized that all those Pienear Woman’s recipes using tons and tons of butter had made my butt the size of Montana. I glared at the wrinkles, jowls and grey hairs and began to sob. I had put all my stock in the fact that this woman was right. That it truly was the end of time. I walked into the bedroom and clicked on the television to check on the weather when there it was the confirmation that it was the end of times. Hundreds of birds were falling out of the sky and fish were floating belly up. It wasn’t just one incident but numerous incidents of these apocalyptic signs. This was it! This is why my muse left and why I haven’t had a coherent thought in weeks.