Thoughts about story hummed all through yesterday, story not as diversion or means of making sense but as lifeline.  

It had been a black morning I couldn’t shake, with blue bite marks on my arm from special-needs Sadie and my stirred-up spirit not letting go of the violent storm. I shook my fists at the thief, the unnamed neurological thing that robs smiling, delighted child and brings a shadow of angst and impulse and then confused regret. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” I rock her in my arms, I know, I know.

My insides felt raw, burned and scarred, not unlike after a bad high school breakup. (Note to self: Let me not belittle my teenage girls’ heartaches when they come. The feelings are dire, even if the circumstances are not.)

I knew the day needed a good story. The ugly and the unsettled stayed until I got lost in one. It was family movie night and I forced myself to sit and stare at the TV screen. After about 30 minutes, I was a French girl living on a farm in the war-torn countryside, a soldier flying for the first time, a boy finding out just how brave I could be. After a couple of hours, I was me again, the me who could pick up a Bible and pour over more Story, cry out to the Story-maker, and drift asleep calm.

With the holidays over, it’s time to get back to my story, and I wonder how this one will differ from the first two. It may fall flat on its face, but I sense it will be more sweeping, less small. The stakes will be higher, if I get it right.

I want to get lost in it, not just in my girl, this one named Adele, but in her crazy, other-worldly world. There is method acting. Maybe I will method-write, going around with a Cornwall accent and an (as of yet) undefined mission—in my head only, of course. The fireside and our two dogs and walks with them in my Wellies will help set the atmosphere. All this will translate to a faraway, glazed-over look and unexplained mood swings and more general flakiness than usual.

What if I had to live in reality’s realm all the time? What if while I was driving around town all I had to think about were facts? Do people do that? I don’t know how. Is that bad?

Side note: I’ve developed a movie-watching addiction that greatly annoys The Spouse. I like subtitles with my films, and not just the French ones. It’s hard to hear every word sometimes, especially with British accents (my movies) or fast-talking cop lingo (his). I want to catch every word. “You’re supposed to watch movies, not read them,” Luke groans. (But doesn’t he get tired of “What did he just say?”)