- Lately, it seems like Cloud Creek's magic has been working
overtime.
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- In addition to my face-to-face (well, OK, more like a
face-to-the-top-of-his-fuzzy-back) meeting with Draco the Ghost Dog, Gwen
the Beautiful and I have been dealing with some ghostly scents and a very
specific ghost sound.
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- The scents have been good, actually. Otherwise I would've
called them "smells." Or "odors." Said the right way,
the word "odor" means something most foul.
-
- But these scents have been "aromas." Or "fragrances,"
if you will. The first one is in what we call our Great Room, the big downstairs
area of our log house. The minute you walk in the door it hits you like
tobacco smoke from a well-worn pipe.
-
- And not just any pipe, either. It's the warm, soothing
scent of a medicine man's ceremonial pipe, passed around by Indian People
gathered in a sweat lodge, or at a healing. This makes our whole house
smell like a kind of healing. Warm and comforting. Whenever I'm at my desk,
I inhale and think of the times I spent with good friends on the Pine Ridge
Reservation in South Dakota, and the Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico.
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- Can a house be tender? Ours now is.
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- Over in the Annex, where Burl Jr. the New Groundskeeper
sleeps, we've got another new scent as well. Not food, although the trailer
was busy for about a year cycling through food faves in an attempt to find
one we'd love. No, this time it's what some snobs might call "cheap"
perfume, but I'll characterize as - oh, how about "inexpensive?"
-
- I've got to keep my response positive because this scent
too is familiar.
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- It's my late mother-in-law's perfume.
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- Entering the Annex has become just like walking into
Gwen's mother's house when she was alive. The first time Gwen sniffed it,
she couldn't help herself. Immediately, she called out, "Mom?"
-
- I was more formal. I said, "Laverne?"
-
- Miraculously, both of us were answered immediately. By
the sound from the wall clock that's the only one of my mother-in-law's
belongings we brought back here after she died. It's a QVC collectible
thingie that strikes the hour with four bars of any one of several Disney
songs in its repertoire. On this particular occasion it played Laverne's
favorite: "When You Wish Upon a Star." "It's Mom all right,"
Gwen said.
-
- "The magic of Cloud Creek strikes again," I
said. "It brought your mother here to live with Burl Jr."
-
- "His girlfriend's not going to like that,"
said Gwen.
-
- "Hmm ... come to think of it," I said, "he
may not like it, either."
-
- Regardless of how Burl Jr. feels about Laverne's presence
(and he's too smart a kid to say), I can tell you how I feel about another
magical occurrence centered in our house.
-
- It's a sound and, like the tobacco "smoke,"
it emanates from the Great Room. But from a specific place in that room.
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- The northwest corner.
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- My desk.
-
- And, even more than the scents, the sound is of something
Gwen and I know.
-
- Quite possibly, we know it better than any other sound
in the world.
-
- That's right. It's the sound of typing. Except louder
than any computer keyboard should ever be.
-
- Click. Clack. Clickity clack ...
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- In the wee hours of the morning. Like 3 a.m.
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- Clickity clackity click ...
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- While we're sleeping, and no other human is in the house,
and nothing - absolutely nothing - is anywhere near the computer, which
is powered down and still.
-
- Clackity click clack ...
-
- Has there ever been a film called "The Attack of
the Ghost Writer?"
-
- Well, someone should get on it. Maybe I'll call one of
my old Hollywood writer friends and invite him to stay here awhile.
-
- Better yet, I'll call and invite him to switch houses
for a spell. A spell long enough for Gwen and me to sleep straight through
just one night without -
- Click. Clack. Click-clack!
-
- I know I sound like I'm complaining. But regular readers
here know that's not the case. I'm bedazzled by the magic that pervades
the mountaintop property we call Cloud Creek Ranch.
-
- And I'm curious. So curious. Achingly curious, you might
say.
-
- I want to know:
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- What in the universe is causing all this?
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- What does it mean?
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- And, more than anything else, I want to know: Why?
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- As usual, if you've got answers I'd love to hear 'em.
Drop me an e-mail any time. Meanwhile, I'm on the case as well.
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- Larry Brody is an author, veteran television writer and
producer and creative director of Cloud Creek Institute for the Arts. He,
his wife and their dogs, cats, horses and chickens live in Marion County.
The other residents of the mythical town of Paradise reside in his imagination,
however, and any resemblance to actual places or persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.
-
- Larry Brody
- TV Writer.Com
- http://www.tvwriter.com
- Better writing makes better TV!
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