Doctor Who and me... bit of a ramble but hey...

You know, this is one thing I can completely and totally blame my mother for. Thank you, Mom.

When I was born she was a Doctor Who fan, not in a fandom way like you see today on tumblr. It was a routine kind of thing. As a kid a lot of the typical kids shows.... well, I had a recurring nightmare based on a Sesame Street skit, that might merit a post all on it's own. I still remember it vividly, though I must have been younger than 4 when it happened the first and most terrifying time.

But Doctor Who was imprinted in quiet and relaxing snuggled tv watching from the time I was born. It feels like it at least. When I was of the age of "having to go to bed" I could still hear the sound of the Tardis, the credits, the lull of the voices on the tv creeping into my sleeping mind. Around 8, I started hunting it out on PBS to watch by myself. It was great, this was the best and ultimate excuse to stay up past bedtime on a weekend... "But Doctor Who doesn't come on until 10!". I had found a loophole to bedtimes in a way. Mom never did discourage me staying up to watch it. Most of the time I would fall asleep just before the end so there are a lot of episodes of Tom Baker years that are kinda sorta stored up in the old noggin, bits and pieces that filled in on reruns. Because they played it all the time. BBC would give us these seasons and PBS ran two shows a week, one new and one rerun, this was kid Who heaven.

I grew up with Tom baker as *my* Doctor, he still is and always will be. He is the first Doctor I remember and I cried unabashedly when the end came. I had that small little girl fantasy that someday... someday when I was "mature" or just older I would hear the sound of the Tardis outside, race down steps to burst outside and see him leaning against the Tardis with a bag of jelly babies going. "I think you're ready now, shall we? lease remember not to wander off though... dreadful. Jelly baby?"

And off we go.

I am still waiting for that sound and TB to be ready to go.

Part of me always will be.

When Peter Davidson took over, I was so irritated, all I could think in my head was "Tristan! Shouldn't you be on a farm with your arm up somethings wazoo??" He was All Creatures Great and Small and *not* the right kind of doctor! How could a farm vet take TB's place? He eventually won me over, except for the silliness of the bit of celery on his lapel...

But I grew accustomed to him, he grew into the role, the farm faded and he did *become* the Doctor and it was grand.

I grew older though and when Davidson left... I was all fire and rebellion and the new guy, Colin Baker, just did nothing for me. I stomped away from my childhood series like I tried to stomp away from childhood in general. I was too old and too cool with other things to do. Better things!

Not really, but hey, I was 11 at that point, I knew so much better right?

By the time CB left I was still checking in, hopeful for the Doctor, wanting to be able to watch and enjoy still. I just never could get into that guy though. Sylvester McCoy... now I liked him, he was great, lacking in the companion sense (Never really did like Ace, kept hoping she would become alien food) but I was seriously hitting the teen years and not at home enough to make a habit out of watching. I couldn't convince *most* of the group I was around that it was cool. Except my first real boyfriend, he was a Doctor nut too, had all the comics and in what must have been a rampaging moment of teen hormones gave me the entire set. Yep, teen love, ain't it grand? But it was one person and we had other things to go and do usually...

Then came meeting the kids dad, marriage, the first born, life in general. By the time I was really thinking about "Hey, I want to watch the Doctor", well it ended the same month my oldest was born. It was gone. I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye really. Amanda must have been around 6-7 months old and curled into me one night when I tried to find it with no avail. Pre internet too so I had to try and hunt it down and never found it again.


Fast forward to 2006, I hadn't thought of the Doctor in years, I never read the books or followed the radio version. Something I still want to catch up on at some point when I have hours and days of free time. Retirement maybe, heh.

Someone mentioned it and I was off again. How had I missed this? THIS of all things?? I searched, found and dove headfirst back into it without a moment's hesitation. I have gotten the kids hooked though they pick and choose when to like it, they can take it or leave it but at least they do not roll their eyes too much when I boot everyone away for this 45 mins 13 times a year. I have introduced it to friends who now go back and search out the older ones to see what they have missed. I have found a touch point to new friends who are Whovians in every walk of life I can imagine. This... is the good stuff. Each week I have my time with the Doctor.

I still listen for that sound though...

If I ever hear it I will run and hope beyond hope that a curly headed Doctor with an impossible scarf and a crumpled brown bag will be waiting.

This old rock

There is this old rock that's been kicking around my various houses for years. Rainbow painted on one side, fading colors being worn into the rock. It almost looks as if the rock bled the colors in an attempt to stand out and be taken home by some amazed child. Even the knowing that my daughters hands laid them in place with the wide strokes of a brush one summer day, baked there by the sun, I can still imagine it wanted it this way...


Plain rock among the many just like it, worn away by the years of sun and wind on a more often than not cold Pacific Northwest beach. Year after year the hordes of walkers and children coming to squeal as they find bits and pieces that the ocean has tossed up to be take as it hits their fancy. The pretty baubles of shells and flotsam getting grabbed up in tight hands, tossed into buckets or even slid into the warmth of pockets in a rain proof coat. What else could a plain old rock do to become... noticed? So slowly, ever so slowly, the colors creep out along it's surface like a pastel bleed. Faded and worn and growing just that little bit brighter with each passing year until that one child comes along. The soft hands that encompass it and lift it free of it's ages old home to clutch it tightly. Treasure found! Can you just feel the excitement and noise of being loaded into a bus and careening around the curves of a steep grade at 10 miles an hour as the sing song of children's voices surround it? Oh that moment, the brush slowly and carefully showing the rest of the world it's striking face that she found. A rainbow, applied so that no color touches the others, straight lines that wriggle at the edges like she did in the chair as she worked.


This story in rock form kicks around my place now, laying in wait at the oddest moments to stub a toe, placed on papers to hold them down with a firm grip or having the thrill of dropped plenty of times just to see how much it would thump, the cry rings out after, "It was an accident, I swear!". Even when you just knew...it wasn't. The child has grown now, rarely does she kick or toss or drop this rock. Yet she is still fiercely protective of it, this is *her* rock. New hands grab for it now and she does allow him these magic moments of being "allowed" to touch her rock or carry it to where she wants him to place it. For years to come I think this rock will remind me forcefully in the middle of the night, as my toe finds it very solid in the liquid softness of night, of that small girl child racing along beaches until she had to stop. For this rock.

Hush a bye (poem)

Four lines
All strung into a low melodic soft touch of voice 
I sing to him, the newest in the line
As I sang to his mother
 All the sisters
Night after night after night
Always the same request came
Hush a bye please
Over and over it was sung, I could
And probably have
Sung this in my sleep
It's a deep in my fabric song
Sliver of my soul sings this always song
My heart can cry it silently song
Knowing it was sung to me to the call of
Hush a bye please
Over and over in the soft
Whisper song of my mothers voice low and deep and with a
 Gentle shhhhhh afterwards
I imaging the knowing
Of a soft voice of my mother
As a child
Calling out to my grandmother who surely
Surely
Herself
Sung these four lines
A cadence of bedtime magic
To lull a childs mind to sleep
I wonder how far it travels back
This simple song
Four short lines
In the soft hush of mothers voices
And I sing it to him
In the rocker on weekends, from the living room
Doing dishes and clean up
He calls out
My voice answers
Hush a bye

It's that time again...

I have been feeling the bug to write. So, old blog I don't really want to delete the posts from, you are going to be taking on a new form I hope. I am going to try this here 'riting thing again. So posts may or may not be non fiction life stuff, they may or may not be flights of fancy, I will try to remember to mark them so people can tell the difference. It might help. Just a little. So much has been filling my life with just stuff, stuff to do, stuff to clean, stuff to run around and get done, all this *STUFF*. That's life, I much prefer the stuff I have now for the most part. It's positive stuff, busy stuff, work stuff, kid stuff. I am trying to get a good balance of the stuff too. Writing is definitely one of the things I can do for me... that really is for me. Whether is a book review or rambling along thoughts, it is a time I can take for myself to enjoy the soft sounds of keys being hit, creating something. I really have been putting thought into painting or other creative work, then it hit me. I crochet for a reason.... I cannot draw worth a damn. But anything I could put on paper with paint and scrape, dab, fix and redo, I can do with words as well. Closing my eyes I can see the pictures I want to create perfectly. However, in reality, my stick figures usually wish for plastic surgery or an eraser to commit suicide. I will remind myself to not go on about kids and stresses to much, to let those things go and to simply...be...to let myself write. Some things may be funny, some may be dark, some days I may need to sit and just type out fuck, fuck, fuck a hundred times before I can move forward. I want to try for at least once a week, one post a week to get the juices flowing again. We will see. All that stuff I mentioned before? Yeah, there is a *lot* of it, comes with the territory of a 15 year old hell bent on independence and a 5 year old who loves to be moving and going. Somewhere under all that though, is me. I still feel like so many people all crammed into this head at times. I don't even know how half of them get along without wrestling matches or fist fights but hey, my head, no hitting is the rule. I have kept so many of the different puzzle pieces of me all sorted out into little boxes, the time has come to complete the puzzles. Of course, I may have to start with the edges and delve into the middle stuff later on. But if I can just get a border into place without loosing pieces I will call that a good start.