Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Week(s) (02/10/11)
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TITLE: True Blue For a Second Born | Previous Challenge Entry
By Nancy Bucca
02/15/11 -
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One wave of my little pinky sends the legless chameleon wiggling behind a rock, from whence it sticks out a cyan-tinged tongue, baiting me again.
I should say no, but on I go, all five senses snared.
Scorning to breathe the smoke of its double-hued ambivalence, I fail to discern the charcoal shadows shrouding my fickle emotions. This chase is a mistake, I think. Exhausted from the hunt, I welcome a fortnight's rest to ease my aching phalanges. And so I lay my head upon a rock until mid-October. No new topic fills my indigo dreams. Yet I remain addicted to this race.
Why is that?
Suddenly it comes to me.
Blue. That's why. I crave blue. Just like Jacob of old. But like his wife Rachel I find red clings to me. Like a nail to a magnet.
Second born, second place, second everything.
It's back now - my blackened POV, that is. Hounded by a bloody trail of prints unedited due to years of hope deferred, it glides upon the telephone wire like a serpent in need of a shoe.
I have to let it go. But I can't.
In hot pursuit I climb the pole, scratching through each sign, billboard and poster that veils the inner person. Once on the tightrope, I juggle three diverse scripts: writing a letter, face-to-face conversation, and cyber communication. But all I get from Mister Been-there-done-that Blue Jeans is a yawn - as if asking him to cheer my small triumphs equals idolatry.
That's ludicrous.
Because, you see, I never asked to be his number One. Let God be first, I'll take second. Yeah, right. I see how it lines up. His job (the overachieving Leah) gets top billing, followed by 1,2,3,4 kids. Add me in for decoration and you've got the perfect multicolored fruitcake.
I hate fruitcake. Unless it's blue. But blue, like life, is more than food.
You see, somewhere beyond my sapphire birthstone lies a golden road, the reward of many long 24-hour days spent slaving over fair media masterpieces. According to some rumors/gossip I'm a winner. Which means - Wait a minute!
Me - a winner? Sounds so foreign it tilts my body language a bit too far to the left. Down I topple from the wire straight into the poison ivy of another lovely communication breakdown.
Ouch!
My face breaks out in cranberries, as I wait for the other "I told you so" to drop.
How shocked I am to find my back massaged with kind words from the better half! "It's okay, Sweetie, I know you're stressed. Plop your tush on the couch while I make us some popcorn."
Awash in a sea of once-in-a-blue-moon stress relief, I thank my bright Morning Star for a second chance, knowing that my crazy actions should earn me His rebuke, not His pity (even if my frustrations as a second-born and a female do warrant a boatload of sympathy no matter what the ERA gals may say). And yet that beast called Envy did tempt me.
Every week it tempts me, and every week I yield, pouring my heart into each theme as my budding page turner gathers athlete's feet inside a soiled sock drawer.
In my rush to be top dog I've chewed a bigger hole in my priorities than the Golden Retriever we don't have.
And in so doing I've forgotten my first love - Jacob's golden Ladder, who is my Only way to heaven, the fount true blue that shed blood red to quench my thirst for first. He, the second Adam, took last place in order to make me a winner. Red, yellow, black or white, in His sight I'm always precious no matter the time or season.
As for that cute little blue ribbon, I fear it has become an idol - unworthy to compete with the Most Humble for first place in my life. And so it's time I bid my favorite challenge farewell.
For another seven days anyway.
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ERA - Equal Rights Amendment
Jacob's Ladder - see Genesis 28:12-13, John 1:51, and John 14:6
POV - point of view
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