The quiet pastime I enjoy as much as writing is daydreaming. This blog banner is a picture of what I see when I sit up in bed each morning. There's a Victorian candelabra from my grandfather's family, a stained glass window of my birth month flower, small stained glass pieces from my uncle, a wind-chime, a fascinating plastic "lily" formed by a boat fire and found on Ka`a`awa Beach, my collection of antique bottles, a jar full of small shells and sea glass, some driftwood, and a bouquet from my garden. A conch shell and a channeled whelk are below the small shell on a string that I use to control the angle of my outdoor thermometer so the squirrels can't use it to launch their raids on my feeders. These are random fragments of a champagne lifestyle on a soda-pop budget.
On the days I love best, I awaken slowly to watch the birds at my feeders, the rising or falling of the tide in the creek, the swans that swim up and back when the tide is high, the sweet-gum trees swaying in whatever breeze or hurricane comes along. The Clapper Rails hold raucous congress in the marsh grass and a couple of Carolina Wrens come to my meal-worm shelf and scold me if I have not presented an offering before they arrive. Often they call from the woods or serenade from my chimney to let me know they're coming for breakfast. It is a peaceful view of the world that encourages meditation, intense gratitude - and the writing of random thoughts.
According to my son, I am gifted in the random thoughts department. If you want to know how you are in the world, your kids will usually tell you. When he was thirteen, I was such an embarrassment!; when he was fourteen, I was weird; fifteen, I was crazy; sixteen, I was cute, and then he went away to a boarding school for his senior year. When he returned home, he worked and spent a summer wandering around Europe before entering college. During that time, I was a dinosaur - hopelessly behind the times in every way. Then while he was in college, I was declared an eccentric but apparently had regained some cuteness. Finally, when he graduated from college with his degree in psychology, I was lovingly diagnosed as a random eccentric. My daughter and others have corroborated that assessment with knowing nods and smiles.
"They" also "have always said" that I should publish. I've been a writer all my life and I have a small collection of rejection slips. With this blog, I become a published author - a randmxcentric author. Now you can judge all those assessments for yourself.
About Me by Abby Freeborn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Comments may be addressed to randmxcentric@gmail.com
