Catching Idle Butterflies

Yes? . . . No? . . . Yes? . . . No?

Having had enough fun splashing around in her kiddy pool, the little 4 year old girl decided to go into the air-conditioned house for a while.

She stepped out of the pool and began to run toward the sliding glass door leading to the kitchen. But she stopped. With the sun lowering in the sky and lengthening the shadows, this little girl, we’ll call her . . . um . . . Andra, couldn’t tell if the screen door was open or closed. She watched her parents making lunch inside and decided that the screen door was not shut. She took off running again, only to pause one more time to check once again. Nope. No screen door in the way.

So she ran with all speed through the doorway, to be stopped by the heretofore invisible screen. It gave in just a tad before hurling her backward and onto her back not a half a second later. Her parents, not knowing why the heck their little girl had done something so silly, came out and asked if she was all right.

Andra was unhurt, just embarrassed. As her parents laughed, she stood up and walked . . . slowly . . . inside.

I haven’t changed much since then. Although I don’t run into closed doors anymore . . . well, not often anyway . . . I still run headlong into things, only to hesitate for a while, take off again, pause, then take off full bore, many times with my eyes closed, hoping and praying that door is open.

This happens mostly with writing opportunities. Pete sent me the character list for the play I mentioned in "Puzzle Pieces" , and I still like the character with whom the woman committed adultery with. Most of the day, full of excitement, I played around in my head with how I would develop the character, what he would say, the things he would see, do, etc.

Then later on last night, I went through a pause of uncertainty. Thoughts like, “What if I can’t get into the mind of the character?” “What if he’s unbelievable?” “What if . . .” etc, etc.

At times like this I really have to push myself into thinking I won’t be able to answer those questions until I start writing the story. And so what if I don’t succeed in the first round? Pete’s a nice guy. He’ll let me know if I need to make any changes. Besides, it’s a church play, not a novel!

And if that door really is closed, running into it shouldn’t hurt . . . much. I just have to stand back up and find another door to test whether or not that one is open.