Blue Lily, imagination and fragments of family we all miss

I’m writing at the moment. Sunk deep into a story. It occupies my thoughts when I wake and whispers to me in sleep. I have the idea mapped out in my mind and anxiously look forward to each moment in front of the computer.  But in-between the imagination and fingertips is another universe, and as I get to the end of each chapter I realize nothing is exactly as I’d envisioned it.

The story takes on a life of its own and I am merely a guest on it’s journey.

I wonder how I can assert so little control.

I wonder why I don’t know what will happen until it taps itself out on the white screen.

I wonder who is really writing the story.

My current project is named, Blue Lily, a nod at my great grandmother who went by the nickname Lily and whose hair was so black it was blue in the sparkling sunlight. Her given name was Carol, like mine, but more. She was Carolyn.

I feel simple and small beside her memory. She was adored by her granddaughter, my mother. And two lifetimes after her Lily’s death my mother can still cry. “You never get over missing family,” she explains and I know exactly what she means.

But I wonder if I am speaking as me or as Blue Lily.

Who are you missing?

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