Today's Tendril...

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Today's Tendril... "Contemplate the Universe"

Copyright 2020 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Today's Tendril...

Worry less about the fog outside your window, and more about the fog inside your head.

Today's Tendril... "The Fog"

Copyright 2019 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

This text composition is a work of fiction. Names, places, institutions, events, incidents, characters, persons, personas, locations, contexts, scenes, scenarios, symbols, glyphs, iconography, scientific-like elements, medical-like terms, psychological-like conditions, institutions, and/or organizations either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Full Creative Writing Disclaimer.

The Darkness of Doubt

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Copyright 2018 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Addicted to Dreaming

The world outside your window has no true appeal.
As far as you have seen, there's no fun in the "real."
What's best is to be connected and to be dreaming online.
It's more than just a digital domain — it's a reality divine.

Copyright 2016 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

This text composition is a work of fiction. Names, places, institutions, events, incidents, characters, persons, locations, contexts, scenes, scenarios, symbols, glyphs, iconography, and/or organizations either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Full Creative Writing Disclaimer.

Today's Tendril...

O, Balance, where have you gone? You've left me waiting by the window, and the candle has nearly burned to its bottom.

Copyright 2016 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Today's Tendril...

When opportunity knocks on your door, answer the window, ask for two forms of photo identification, twenty-five references, and notarized letters of employment and residency. Verify, then "trust."

Copyright 2016 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Today's Tendril...

When truth is a window, be careful not to be thrown out of it.

Copyright 2016 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Today's Tendril...

Satisfaction is a cup of hot chocolate sipped slowly when wrapped in a blanket of melancholy, And the world outside your window is raining leaves, And the mood of the day has been painted in soft shades of sunset somber.

Copyright 2015 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

One Christmas Eve

One Christmas Eve,
When I was a young boy,
I tried to stay awake
To catch a glimpse of Santa Claus
     Sail across a starry sky.

But the Sandman was stronger than my will,
And I fell asleep,
     Santa cap and all,
On folded arms,
     On the cool window sill
          Of my cozy little bedroom.

I didn't see Santa that night,
But I dreamt of a majestic reindeer,
With antlers of silver and gold,
Walking proudly through powdered snow,
     Towards a blue-white light
          That twinkled just above the horizon,
While the Moon's midnight rays softly rang,
     Like bells and chimes
          Being played,
          By the wind,
          Using only
             The feathers of angels.

 

 

About

An unused tendril to the vignette: At one point the reindeer stopped, turned his head, and gently nodded.

The accompanying image is based on a photograph of a shadow of a Christmas decoration.

One morning the sunlight hit the decoration just right and the shadow on the wall became the shadow of a story.

© Copyright 2012 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

The text composition is a work of fiction. Names, places, institutions, events, incidents, characters, persons, locations, and/or organizations either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Full Creative Writing Disclaimer.

Life in Too

Life's too short to walk the long path of despair.
    Write your pain on a piece of paper,
       Then tear it into a million pieces.

Life's too precious to cheapen it with lies.
    "Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth;
        Keep watch at the door of my lips."†

Life's too open to box yourself in.
    Lift the lid;
        Let in the light.

Life's too big to go at it alone.
    Be guarded, but not isolated.
        Let someone in, eventually.
            (Other than the undertaker.)

Life's too easily missed trying to "do it all."
    Stop and smell the roses.
        Trite, but true.


† Ps. 141:3

© Copyright 2010 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Tendrils 7: Fallen

If the possibilities are truly endless, then they're only gated by the locks of the mind.

 

Finished, complete, and done are merely states of relativity.

 

Tendrils of the imagination come and go like a ghost in the night; like a ghost in the mind.

2022 Remix

Tendrils of the imagination come and go like the wisps of smoke that rise and vanish from the flame of the candle that’s illuminating the page — and the moment.

 

Hope not only renews (the heart, mind, and soul), but it adapts to the world outside our windows — and to the worlds within our minds.

2022 Remix

Adaptation and renewal work for nature and hope alike.

 

Passion becomes intensity. Intensity becomes rapture. Rapture becomes everything.

 

Sometimes all we need is the tranquility of solitude, found beneath the moonbeams of a cold winter night.

 

Evolution is a historical view.

Adaptation is the here and now.

Expectation is a burden to carry.

Anticipation is a double-edged sword.

 

Every Autumn leaf finds its own path to the earth.

 

Simplicity is like the beast waiting in the tall grass, or the creature with many tentacles lurking in the depths of a lake, or the red-eyed thing moving under the bed.

 

Intentions are like ghosts: They come and go in the blink of an eye.

 

Patience and perseverance go hand-in-hand.

And are often accompanied by frustration and iteration.

 

About

-Tendrils 1 and 2 are based on text in the About section of the image, "Fallen (Possibilities)."
-Tendrils 3 and 4 appear in Today's Tendril… posts (2009.11.09 and 2009.11.29).
-Tendril 5 is taken from the text in the About section of the image, "Fallen (I See Red)."
-Tendrils 6 is based on the text in the About section of the image, "Fallen (Blue Serenity)."
-All other Tendrils are exclusive to this collection.

Updated 20220725

© Copyright 2009 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Today's Tendril...

Hope not only renews (the heart, mind, and soul), but it adapts to the world outside our windows — and to the worlds within our minds.

© Copyright 2009 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Fallen (Ever Green)

 

About

Leaves, ice, and a whisper of Spring in the bleakest of Winter, all colored by the imagination.

Hope not only renews, but it adapts to the world outside our windows — and to the worlds within our minds.

© Copyright 2009 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

You Know You're Sad When

You know you're sad when someone asks you,

If you were a tree, then what kind of tree would you be?

and you respond:

• A weeping willow
• A Charlie Brown Christmas tree
• A sapling
• Firewood
• Driftwood
• Petrified
• The kind that gets turned into a forgotten piece of paper

© Copyright 2009 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

The God Green

The world seems unusually vivid today,
   even though the sky is a soft expanse of undifferentiated grey,
   and a steady drizzle is creating an illusion of nearly invisible lines,
      shifting and sliding
         with the slightest breeze.

And then there's the green.
The type of green that only appears in Spring.
The virgin green.

It is seen in the plants,
   the trees,
      and the grass.

This is the green we mourn in Autumn,
and can't wait to see again
   when the whiteness of Winter
      swallows our feet.

This is the green we recall at the peak of Summer,
as the Sun bleaches,
   and burns,
      and browns,
         all that it touches.

This is God green.

And I am an ant on a leaf in the rain…

 

About

Weather and the world outside my window; another "mood of the day" piece.

A true story, except the part about being an ant. (Although, aren't there days when we all feel like an ant on a leaf in the rain?)

© Copyright 2009 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

Spider Branches

     At first my little brother and I liked the idea of having "spider branches" outside our bedroom windows.

     "Just pretend the spider branches are part of a magic forest and both of you are the brave knights that protect all that live in the magic forest," said Mom. Dad nodded in agreement.

     Mom and Dad sold us on this idea the day we moved into our new house: a 20^th century plantation-style abode, conveniently located in the middle of scenic nowhere.

     Now to two boys both under the age of ten (I was nine, my brother six), who just so happened to play Knights of the Magic Forest each and every day, Mom's idea wasn't just appealing—it was golden. We both cheered, "Hooray for the spider branches!"

     Things were OK that first summer in the new (old) house; or as OK as they could be for two rambunctious boys with active imaginations, and nothing but free time on their hands from sunup to sundown.

     Eventually summer ended, school started, and our spider branches kept being the magic forest outside our bedroom windows.

     Life was moving along normally and without fanfare – until Halloween night.

     My brother and I aren't certain what really happened that night, or why, but we'll never forget it.

     It had been raining all morning and all afternoon, and then right after dinner Trick-or-Treating was officially cancelled thanks to a severe thunderstorm warning bleep-bleep-bleeping its way out of the t.v.

     Sure, weather like this is perfect for grownups in B-grade horror movies, but it's lousy when you're a kid on Halloween night.

     So there we were, in bed at 9 PM on the most kid-cool holiday of the year, without a candy rush and no tales to recount of who actually scared who the most that night. At least Mom and Dad let us wear our costumes to beds (without the masks, of course).

     The rain was pelting our bedroom windows and the wind wasn't just whistling, it was yelling.

     There were thunderclaps so loud and so deep that we actually felt our beds rumble and shake on the floor. One thunderclap was so explosive that we nearly popped out of our beds.

     That's when it happened.

     The spider branches broke through our bedroom windows, grabbed us by our heads, yanked us out into the wet howling night, and tossed us about like a game of human hot potato.

     We screamed.

     They hissed.

     We kicked.

     They clawed.

     We cried.

     They laughed.

     We reached for each other.

     They pulled us apart.

     I thought we were goners…

     That's when Dad showed up with his giant chainsaw.

     I don't know how he knew we were in danger, or how he scaled the trees in the pouring rain with a giant revving many-toothed machine in one hand, but he did.

     And he sliced and cut those spider branches faster than the streaks of lightning that threw intermittent light on the grand battle that was raging. (How he managed not to halve either of us is a miracle.)

     Moments after his arrival we found ourselves on the ground, tears in our eyes, our costumes ripped to shreds, with cuts and scrapes all over our trembling bodies. But nothing loomed above us. We were safe.

     And there was our Dad, standing ten feet tall, idling chainsaw in his hands, giving us a reassuring everything's-alright-now smile. Strewn about him, in every direction, were bits and pieces of the spider branches. It looked like someone dumped a million toothpicks on our yard.

     The next morning Mom and Dad cleaned up the mess and that night we had a backyard bonfire. We made-up funny stories and toasted marshmallows. They were the greatest marshmallows my brother and I ever had.

     To this day I still don't know what really happened that horrible Halloween night, but I'll never forget the pain of the spider branches or the appearance of my Dad, the hero with a chainsaw.

     The End

© Copyright 2009 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

This text composition is a work of fiction. Names, places, institutions, events, incidents, characters, persons, locations, and/or organizations either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Full Creative Writing Disclaimer.

Doors

Winter's daylight yawns and crawls up the vines of the old sanitarium. Inside, the decor is a calming blend of pastel colors, smooth blends, and happy hues. Its walls are covered in a flowing tapestry of soft, diamond-stitched padding. Rays of fanned down from the glass ceiling, filling the corridors with streaks of white-washed yellow.

Corridors have three levels: top, middle, bottom. Each level has forty doors: twenty to the left and twenty to the right. Each door is fitted with a head-sized porthole window, perfectly centered at shoulder height.

When viewed end-to-end the corridors are a sprawling grid. Rows and columns—lines upon lines—frame, connect, and define the internal landscape.

The mind easily replaces the materials of the building—its brick and mortar, protected glass, hinged metal doors—with the honeycombs of a beehive. Visitors could easily become lost in this system of seemingly undifferentiated cells, if not for the doors.

Each door is decorated by its owner and reflects the occupant's fancy. Here, in this place, a door is more than an entry and an exit. Doors are a source of pride. They're expressions of individuality. They're signals and signs: When one is open it means "welcome!" When one is closed it means "do not disturb" or "go away!" When one is broken it means "danger within − enter at own peril."

From the vantage point of a doorway's threshold so much becomes known.

Inside one room the Lunatic cradles an Old English clock and smiles. "Time," he whispers, "a true partner."

Next door the ancient Expeditionist reminisces about the fierceness of an African safari, the world view at Everest's peak, and riding on the back of a giant stingray in the Bermuda Triangle. "Ah," he sighs. "Those were the days. Those were the glory days."

Down another corridor a would-be starlet hesitates, dramatically, and on cue. In her doorway a cockroach looms, ten feet tall, devil-red...and grinning. She can only stutter, "A d-d-demon in the door never kn-kn-knocks."

On the top level of the oldest corridor the slender, red-haired, green-eyed Bedchamber Mistress coyly laughs and sips her Thursday tea in the company of the Monastic Prince (a handsome fellow; refined and charming, though awkward and clumsy in the presence of a lady, as the tea stains on his lapel suggest).

In the room across the way, huddled in a corner, the Wretched Insomniac secretly and amorously admires the little tea party. To himself he seethes, teeth grinding, "Not again. Not again! Why does she pick him and not me? She cavorts with a loon. I should be her audience. I am her chosen! It's not fair. Not fair!!!"

At the center of all things, and in the center-most cell of all things, is the resident Messiah, forever lost in tongues. His hands raised high above his head in unconditional welcome. His body bobbing in place to an unheard rhythm. His eyes wide and wild and distant and focused; his heart filled with a fiery passion; his body a golden chalice that runneth over.

His neighbor, the Beeswax Artisan, trembles at the sonic power of the utterances. Figurines rattle on their shelves. His soul is chilled by the prophecies he can never understand and the imminent doom that lingers nearby.

From behind a rainbow-streaked door the lovely Muse sobs in silence; her voice lost to a mysterious ailment. Her tears are filled with unspoken poems and profound inspiration, which can only drip and splatter onto a cracked floor, and eventually evaporate into the nothingness, becoming the "never was."

But the cast of characters does not end there, for there are more doors and more residents behind their doors —

The Philosopher – A great procrastinator vis-à-vis words and an obscurantist bar none. He pontificates at great length to any passerby, and when the mood does strike him, turns to his door and vents in confusing soliloquy.

The Pupil – Always nipping at the heels of the Philosopher, never adding anything to the meat of the meaning; his pliant will ever changing by the words he hears.

The Comely Onlooker – A witness to every scene, in order to be seen, she speaks of the obvious and the droll, by choice, as neither puts her heart or mind at risk.

The Eavesdropping Interloper – Appearing like a shadow, or an ant, or a piece of lint, he becomes part of every conversation. To the great benefit of others he has experienced everything they have, only in more severe, more extreme, or more vivid ways.

The Purple Ghost – A squat, box-like figure, forever cloaked by a purple sheet, moves with absolute grace within the cell, as if floating on the very nature of air. No one has seen the form beneath the sheet. And no one knows if it is a Mister or a Miss.

The Restless Coward – Constantly trying to pick a fight with the things in the shadows, but losing his nerve whenever they bare their pointy teeth.

The Scrivener – Forever writing in notebooks, days and nights are spent jotting and sketching, and writing and revising; thinkering and tinkering, and twisting and turning. One idea bleeds after another, until the throb of the mind-storm subsides. To him every thought is a tendril and every sentence a life. None are left behind.

The Vigilant Maintainer – A portly man who sweeps the floor with a broom that isn't there and then flies into a rage when he can't find the dust pan.

Each misfit in his or her (or its) own way arrives at a state of intimacy; a place where they can steal a peek into their soul pockets and admire the trinkets of their dream treasures.

Outside the sanitarium the snow dies, but inside its walls the lives of the residents grow and unfold through the constancy of their conversations, and the swing of their doors.

 

About

Words became characters in my mind, though they were more descriptions, adjectives, and impressions than fully formed entities.

Still, I imagined a time and a place where those characters, or at least their impressions, lived together and lived out their uncommon lives. A community of so-called misfits.

And those misfits, the ones in my mind, eventually became the inhabitants of "Doors."

P.S. A note slipped under the door: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7

© Copyright 2009,2012 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.

This text composition is a work of fiction. Names, places, institutions, events, incidents, characters, persons, locations, and/or organizations either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Full Creative Writing Disclaimer.

Seclusion into Emergence

And the time of darkness had passed, and the skies of foreboding grey gave way to unbroken sea-blue, and the fear that covered the land like a down blanket was lifted.

The long months of seclusion were no more.

A cool, refreshing breeze swept across the land – the broom of God.

Doors and windows and hearts opened wide.

The locked-away and battened-down emerged with eyes opened wide, hearts opened wide, and hope opened wide.

A single step transformed them; transformed them all.

Yesterday was banished and the promise of the moment was given rule over them.

As gazes fell upon the flowers in early bloom, they could dare to dream again.

The Winter demons and darkness were no more.

The Angels of Spring had arrived on clouds of silver lining.

Voices rejoiced.

And laughter from the young to the old, from the most simple to the most wise, echoed far and wide.

© Copyright 2009 Christopher V. DeRobertis. All rights reserved.