I’ve been called out, called back, whatever you want to call it. As LouCeel says:

This was just beginning to build into something really nice. New people joining in and all. Please don’t let it die. The 100 Words is a worthwhile endeavor. But it needs YOU.

It’s true. I’ve been more and more absent just as things were beginning to hum along and people were picking up interest in the 100 Words challenge. What’s the trouble? I could say the usual. Life. That would be true, and even more true because life is complex and my reasons for being absent are indeed complex. Life has happened and is happening in such a way that I would really like to write about it. The trouble is that I’ve never reconciled with how much to share and to whom. My number one struggle with writing has nothing to do with traditional writer’s block. I know exactly what I want to say, I just don’t know that I can say these things “out loud”.

A few years ago I met a writer in the town I live in. He had been published multiple times and his books were fictional, but largely based on his own family’s life and I could never get my head around how he was ok with calling family members out on their stuff, particularly from only his own point of view. “How did they react?” I would ask. “Doesn’t matter”, he would reply. I couldn’t get that. Couldn’t accept that.

What I’m trying to say is that I am at a crossroads where I’ve lost my desire to write unless I can actually write. Get down to the juice in the marrow. Yet I can’t bring myself to because it would mean revealing thoughts and feelings about others that I’m not sure they could accept or understand. I’m afraid “my tongue will tell the anger of my heart” (Taming of the Shrew) and some will not be able to hear it without transferring it all onto themselves.

True, there have been other things keeping me from regular blogging. A death, a sickness, broken limbs, too much work, too little money, the chores of day to day living as a single mother, and so on. I could satisfy you with those excuses easily, but the real truth is my inner division regarding writing.

That said, you’ve all been remarkably enthusiastic and supportive and I do love seeing how you each interpret each week’s challenge. So let’s get down to last week’s 100 Word Challenge, shall we? The word was Protection. In the words of Henry Ward Beecher (not a man I advocate necessarily), “The power of hiding ourselves from one another is mercifully given, for men are wild beasts, and would devour one another but for this protection.”

Adam is a newcomer to the 100 Word Challenge. Unfortunately there is no comment feature on his blog, but you could always comment here if you feel so inspired.

When perceiving a threat, the frightened and lazy-minded man knee-jerks into a fear-based mode of thinking, and moves to lessen the likeliness or degree to which he can be affected.

He has taken the easy way out, and in doing so he has forsaken the Good Fight of finding a resolution to the threat’s underlying cause. In effect, he has invited the threat to persist.

Screw condoms.

Screw airbags.

Screw insurance.

Screw unions.

Screw contracts.

Screw police.

Screw armies.

Screw balances of power.

Life should not be an exercise in fear management.

Scrap any system necessitating protection schemes.

Rethink.

Rebuild.

How true the last line of this piece by The Wandering Author is.

Sturdy walls of stone

Withstanding cannon’s recoil,

Shouldering dense green thickets,

Yet marked by something slight

As passing moments.

Amidst great guns firing,

Roaring deadly defiance,

Massive blocks of granite

Stood unshaken.

Beneath spreading roots

In thick soil awaiting hostile reply,

Roofs bear up unsagging.

Unyielding fortress,

Silent now,

Worn.

Not expected cataclysms of war,

Only time’s unceasing footfalls

Conquered island bastion.

Once blocking enemy ships

Astride harbour approaches.

Turning aside even thoughts

Of attack.

Now ignored, overflown

By aircraft, time’s little joke

On designers, builders.

Vital protection,

Outdated, abandoned;

Monument

To simpler years.

What bulwark can repel

Passing time?

This piece by LouCeel reminded me of a post I wrote about a year or so ago about a woman I often saw jogging on my way to work. There was something about her, something about the way she ran that made me think immediately that she ran for purposes other than fitness. Anyway, wow! Great piece.

She runs before the wind, the swells running with her and threatening to swamp her. Her sails full to the point of splitting, her mast straining against the lines which hold it erect, she runs for the harbor whose light beckons across the angry and swollen seas. The grey and angry clouds bear down on her like scowling old men, their wroth expressed in the terrifying gale which is trying to sink her. She runs for home, and harbor. She seeks the one thing the harbor offers her in this time of need; the thing she needs the most. Protection.

Fantastic little work of 100 word fiction by newcomer Susan at West of Mars. Hope we’ll see her again!

“It’s time,” ShapeShifter’s manager said. “You need to protect yourselves.”

“Sounds like it’s the girls who need to be protected from us.”

“Either way. You’re at the point in your career where you need to be careful. Paternity suits might be only nine months away.”

No one smiled. Trevor didn’t smirk. It wasn’t funny. This was about contracts and rules and following them, three things Trevor particularly hated. This was about growing up, which was one of those things Trevor had vowed to never do.

“If we have to, we have to,” Mitchell said. He wasn’t happy about it, either.

Oh Secret Agent Mama, how I do love thee.

In a cocoon, to be wrapped

Within a strong, silky embrace

Forgetting about the worries of the world

And all the challenges faced

Her main goal is protection

Through guidance, pattern, and prayer

Allowing mistakes to be learned from

Making sure to take care

Though there is constant fear, worry, and doubt

Her maternal instinct does truly hasten

As faith is embraced, projected, and reflected

On to the precious children

Swaddled baby, enveloped child

They will each break free and take flight, all on their own

While a mother sits and continuously questions

Making her steadfast and unwavering vigil known

Mama Bear Writes got me right under the ribs with this one.

Hold me close she begged of him,

Hold me tight for I feel fear stealing over my very soul,

Don’t you feel it?

The blackness so thick spreading ever closer to us,

It is eating everything that dares to cross its path.

I’m afraid, please just hold me tight.

He held her, as she trembled in his arms,

He saw nothing, felt nothing but concern for his lover,

He hated seeing that lost look in her eyes

Hated knowing he couldn’t beat an enemy

He never saw but knew was very real to her.

Protection, all he could give her.

~ Penelope Anne Bartotto

June 23, 2008

The Night Blogger was late, but so was I, so it’s all good. The powerful words of youth.

I have a dream, sometimes. It’s of a great stone wall that towers over everything, though in this dream “everything” is but the cracked landscape behind me. Nothing of import lives int hat barrenness. But nothing at all lives near this wall.

It’s just me. And the wind, and the dirt that hears the wind whisper in a language I can’t speak.

A feel of vastness, and life–danger. I perceive danger beyond the wall.

The dream makes me cry because I know that wall is my protection, and everything across it is what makes me want to live.

I got this one by email from Angelgal. Another newcomer so be sure to visit and say hello!

Babies of all kinds leave it,

And we all need it from then on.

We were told the words would do it,

The ideals that accompany them.

Laws are supposed to give it,

Police are supposed to supply it—

It’s believed bars will do it—

But really, for who?

And what about those who are

‘On the other side’?

She thought the piece of paper would do it.

He thought the gun would do it.

Hardening our heart is supposed to do it,

But really it keeps everything out,

And supplies none.

Its exact nature is found

Only in love.

That wraps up another round of 100 Words. I’m still reading House of Mirth but I don’t have that with me so I chose next week’s word from A Confederacy of Dunces, a book recommended to me by a friend long ago. The word is

Ultimate

Let’s have entries in by Sunday midnight, eh?

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