Snow as Art, An award, and yes, a wee story

All my favourite artists have an ability to disconnect from the present and plunge out into the future and their art.

This is why I love snow after the storm. As an artist Miss Nature is brutal, selfish and startling.  She is very fond of mixed media too. She is my favourite artist today.

A wee while ago a very beautiful and generous blogger passed the Leibster Award across to me. Aimee at Soul Dipper is a gentle and kind, compassionate woman who genuinely loves mankind and is a lovely writer.  A rare gift. She is indeed one of a kind. And I thank her for her gentle sure  words both for me and the others she mentions. 

I have chosen a few bloggers  to pass the Leibster award to who love the land. They are at the end of this post waiting for you. Some are very new to me and  a few not so new.  One I have been following since July 4th when I started this blog. That is old!! I will tell them that the nomination is not a chain letter. I only want to highlight them as memorable and worth visiting. I do not want to add to their workload!!  So they may pass it on if they choose and when they choose.  Life is all about choices.  I  think that if you have time to pop in they will stretch our wee blogging bubble a bit.   A bonny blogging bubble.  Hmm..  That is an Alliteration. I love the word Alliteration. Alliteration reminds me of a moment many years ago.

The day I  learnt the word alliteration it was summer. School had just resumed after the New Zealand summer holidays and I was 11.  In class that day hearing and understanding that word was like a light bulb going on  above my head.  Suddenly  I knew this word, I could say it and spell it and I knew what it meant.  I owned it. I could have it and keep it. It made sense to me.  I was thrilled to bits at this massive discovery.

It was a big old school.  All varnished wood or clean cream  and blue paint.  It had one long L shaped building, with one wide indoor corridor  that ran the length of the building turned the corner and ran down that side as well.  It was very wide, about four kids laid head to toe with their shoes on wide.  The corridor was  light, as the top half of the exterior wall was entirely made up of  generous windows stretched right  to the ceiling. The highest windows were open to the pine trees laden with summer scent. It had  hundreds of  brass pegs  under the window sill- dark with age, maybe they had been brass once. Their tips shone brassy. These pegs were to hang our schoolbags (mine was brown leather and I hated it as it was a hand-me down of my brothers and I hated him too because I also had to ride his hand-me down bike from the beach to the town school. Secretly I did not mind about the boys bike but appearances had to be maintained even when  eleven years old).

Hey out of the bike shed with you and back to this corridor. The pegs also ran the entire length of the corridor.  Hung with the motley collection of dark bags.  Now, way below the hanging bags and also stretching as far as I could see  and further (they still had not realised I needed glasses at this point), was a shiny wooden boxy bench. So a child could sit on this bench under his hook to do up his shoe maybe. Or drop her bag there when she was lazy until she was told to hang it up on the hook – that is what they are there for.  The bench had to stay clear.   This was a rule.

On the interior side of the corridor facing these huge light windows were the classrooms, they had high windows  along the wall too, also open today to catch the breezes delivered from the corridor windows. Spaced evenly down this side were the classroom doors.  Each door had a number on it and a classroom stuffed full of children and a teacher behind it.  So the corridor with its gorgeous hardwood floor was long, wide,  full of sunlight and delicious fresh early summer air, the scent of pines and leather and waxy floor polish.

For some reason on the morning that I learnt this word alliteration, I was walking this corridor alone. Everyone else was still in class. Maybe I was delivering a message or coming back from the loo. I cannot remember.  I DO remember that I began to walk smartly, swinging my arms and legs, saying the new word softly to myself.  Alliteration. Then I broke into a kind of shuffly dance jog, my roman sandals catching on the floor, tripping down the glowing corridor, letting the word gain volume and speed. Then I began to leap up and down,  up and down,  on and off this bench as I took off and raced and flew down the corridor, jumping over the puddles of sun, singing alliteration, up onto the bench turn and weee off the bench. A rhythm developed , a dance gallop, a leap. Alliteration I called out with each jump!  Then shouting it at the top of my voice.  ALLITERATION!  The sound rung wonderfully. The acoustics were gorgeous in this big wide light empty sun filled corridor. Alliteration took form and that form was me and we leapt and shouted and flew down the corridor together.  Then bang, bang, bang. Doors sprung open and out popped teacher after teacher, growling like awoken bears, cuckoo clock rumbles. What is this commotion.  No running in the corridors. Who shouted.   Then doors gently shutting.   One tall teacher had  sent all the others back in with a flick of her imperious finger. She remained in the open doorway of her classroom.  She beckoned me with her one long finger.

Caught mid leap, I stumbled across.  You are a noisy child.  What do you think you are doing? Her words precise. Her diction perfect, her back ramrod straight.  Did she strap the rod on every morning. That ram rod. She was the scariest of them all, her hair absolutely white, in a tight white french roll. She was a Miss  somebody and taught French to the Clever Kids. Her glasses were on a chain.  Her cardigan buttoned and matching.  Pearls. Have you anything to say for yourself? She peered down at me.  Oh the contrast – me with shirt hanging out, skirt askew, socks fallen, all elbows and knees, curls wild and I do mean wild.  I had pale blue eyes and freckles and a nose that was always sunburnt.  Panting. You can see it now can’t you. I looked back up at her, grinning like an idiot. Heaving with delight. Not even Miss Whatever Her Name Was could subdue me that day. I had a Word.  Well? she said.  Have you anything to say for yourself?  Silence, she looking down the perfect line of her nose. My  head bent backwards a bit further,  trying not see up her nose.

Alliteration, I said very quietly.  Letting the T sound tickle.  She raised her eyebrow at me.   She could raise one eyebrow, it was very impressive. She pulled her lips together, and twisted them hard to the side.  What is your name? Cecilia, Miss, I said.  Another pause as I was accessed. Back to class, Cecilia. No running. Then much to my surprise she  turned back in to her room and there was the sigh of an obedient door closing behind her.

I ran as slowly as I could back to class and to my complete delight My teacher was discussing onomatopoeia. She nodded to me to sit at my desk. Wow. I whooshed back to my seat. Onomatopoeia. I wanted that word too!   The delight. 

These bloggers  are great teachers.  So many great teachers in the Blog World.

Mud Ranch

Jomegats

GaryBuie’s 

Kenleigh Acres

Life at the End of the Road

Dawn and 8F (yes -that is –12.7) another 2 hattie, 2 pairs of gloves and 2 pairs of socks morning.  No wind though.  Clearing skies. Time to get to work.

Good morning

c