Leaping Back Through Time

That's what I've decided to do.

No, I haven't built a time machine or a quantum leap accelerator- but I have decided I need to put my priorities in order and well, I know I'm in the middle of writing one story that I've left unfinished in my lackadaisical haze- set in modern times, but I'm contemplating submitting my historical romance with paranormal elements, so I need to get it in the best shape I possibly can.

And that's why I have given myself over to another time and place in recent days- rereading my manuscript and making necessary adjustments in late 1790's Virginia.

I'm wandering the sandy coastline, knowing the mist hides an apparition brought on by guilt, or perhaps a soul at unrest... I can't be sure. Chilled breezes sweep in, sand and surf enveloping me in this other world- a world that rose up within me and came to life the moment I set it in words with each clickity-clack of the keyboard. I've been away for a while, having forgotten myself as a writer, forgetting how this story haunted me until it was finished.

This one stuck to me like glue for months, even before I started writing it, all the while I researched the time period, it hovered around me during the day and then followed me to bed at night- not just the story, but the characters, the setting.

I guess it needed me... Needed me to tell it, to write it, to release it, just as all the stories I write do. For me it's such a personal process and though I joke that it's like having multiple personalities, sometimes it really IS like that.

A few years ago they wouldn't shut up, but for a while now the characters- the voices in my head- have hushed- absolutely clammed up. They've lain dormant for well over a year- since the infamous Misplacement of my Mojo and the Hibernation of my Butterfly.

I'm starting to think they knew I needed a mental break from them. You can only hear so many voices telling you this, that and the other before it makes you a little batty. Mwhahaha!

But, perhaps that's what I needed all along.

And perhaps now is the time for me to travel backward for a bit- into a time I can't possibly know, but that seems to know me, call to me, embrace me.

Perhaps the things I feel have gone missing will wash up on the shores of the past and I can pull them back into my present once I'm done.

Off to wander the misty haunted shores....

Where DOES the Mojo Go?

When it doesn't feel like you have "it" anymore, where does it go?

Does it disappear? Do we "lose" it?

Or does it simply vacation on us from time to time, hiding when Life overshadows it?

Mojo is different for everyone, but we all have something that drives us—something that, just like anything worth having, is worth searching for. Especially during those times when we feel the most lost- it's then we should seek it and draw from it or we might never understand our full potential or what we're truly capable of.

In the past year or so, I've not followed that advice—at all—I honestly hadn't been thinking about it that way.

So many times, Life sets our Mojo on the back burner or up on a shelf- one of those items that when we get so caught up in our lives, we sometimes forget where we placed it, even though it's essential to who we are to a great extent.

Well, my Mojo has been on vacation for a long time (too long) and I'm trying hard to find it again. This year I declared it felt like my year for change and so far, I've done nothing to prove to myself that it is. I swing back and forth between courage and fear—swing like a pendulum do—

And it's not just my Mojo who's gone missing. My inner butterfly has wrapped herself up in her wings and forgotten how to fly. Strong, brave and beautiful enough to soar toward her dreams, she is also fragile enough to fall and doubt herself more times than I care to count.

But there's a light at the end of this tunnel. I look for signs in all things around me and last week, during a yard sale we had while I was up visiting my family, there it was~ a sign—

Never in my life have I been able to photograph a butterfly SO close up, but this one seemed drawn to me and kept lighting on the quince bush near where I was sitting on the swing with my sister. I don't know what kind it is- the outer wings that you can see were a brown/gray with orange spots, but I was unable to get it to sit still long enough to capture the backside when it's wings were spread wide- the upper wings were still dark brown/gray, but the lower set had metallic blue. I've researched online this morning and the closest I've come to identifying it is as a pipevine swallowtail, though this one doesn't have the extra "tips" on its tails and it has a lot more orange spots than most I've found images of.

Either which way, it's a butterfly with metallic blue on it's wings (which is personally significant to me) and well, it kept coming back around and when I got too close it would fly toward me and then flutter away, as though it were playing a game of chase with me when I tried to take more pictures of it. Needless to say, it meant something. I'm not sure WHAT yet, but I'm looking forward to finding out.

Here's to finding my Mojo and to drawing my butterfly out of her hiding place, too. Happy Thursday!