You never know where you will find your tiger.
I don't know where my tiger is, but I
found an opossum in my hen house two nights ago. He's gone now—and my four hens
are alive, with fewer feathers, one without a tail, but traumatized. I let the
chickens out during the day, and they put themselves into bed at night. I go
out after dark and shut the pen. Well, I waited too long that night.
One hen was wandering around lost. The
other three had found a safe spot. The opossum was hugging the back wall of the
second story of my little chicken house, and no matter how much I poked him
with a 4-foot long 2 x 2-inch board, he would not budge. He would snarl and
bare his teeth, though. I caught the hens and secured them in the other little
house within the pen (it came with the property), and all's well. The opossum
sneaked away while I set up a live trap for him. He must be home now, tending
his bruises or visiting the neighbor's chickens.
That's on the home front. On the book front, I once
stated in my little book "Where Tiger's Belch," that my protagonist
decided she would find her purpose where tiger's belch," and thus
she set off to find that spot.
This week, I stumbled upon two books: John Strelecky's
The Café on the Edge of the World and Return to the Why Café.
I loved them both. A third, The Safari, I just
ordered. It was described as when your heart, soul, and story link up in
perfect harmony. That's what I want for myself and my writing. I recently
decided to write a series of short books and continue Jo's journey after she
heard a tiger belch.
Strelecky asked the same questions I had asked, Why
are we here? What's my purpose? I was enheartened because he is a best seller—that tells me that people are hungry for his sort of
books, ones that inspire
and ask the hard questions in a simple story. I aspire to write that sort. This
came as a conformation to me that people do read those sorts of books, people
do want to read of good things not bad.
We've been jerked around for some time now. I do not
want to play in that playground anymore. One of Strelecky's players asked
a lady customer in the Café, "Are you playing in your playground
yet?"
She wasn't. She was unhappily playing in someone
else's playground—the corporate world's playground, where she was unappreciated
and overworked.
As I walked through life, I passed many gates to
playgrounds, peeked inside and said "Nope," not for me, and continued
on my way.
I heard of a new playground last night; the
"kids" of that playground found that the vilest thing they could
write on Social Media got the most hits. And getting the most hits was the name
of the game.
Pass on that one.
We are all travelers in this life—we are all together
on the journey – although walking in different directions, not speaking the
same language, nor following the same philosophy, religion, or mojo. The Jo of
my Tiger book is traveling, something she feels drawn to do; she trusts her
intuition that this will work out for her. She is playing in her own
playground.
She is traveling the world.
I changed the final chapter a bit to make it clearer.
