Eureka Springs - grace grits and gardening

in His sight

November 3, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

Remember those church songs from childhood— Jesus Loves Me and Jesus Loves the Little Children? We sang them in Vacation Bible School and church camp. They were the first lyrics we memorized, words we couldn’t forget if we tried.

red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight…

Spring Street, Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Yesterday, I thought about those songs while walking along Spring Street. It was a glorious autumn day with summer’s sidewalks buried under layers of leaves.

I searched for that perfect yellow leaf, brighter than all the rest, golden among scarlet and orange.

Unable to pick just one, they were all beautiful. Each different.

Precious in His sight—absolutely.

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Musical Pairing:

Jesus Loves the Little Children

Demented Dairy Hollow?

November 1, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

For four nights in a row I have slept like the dead. My Dairy Hollow cabin is chilly, yet I nest comfortably underneath quilts and blankets snuggling with my feather pillow from home. Good sleeping weather.

Above my rooftop, a canopy of trees, a forest dense and dark. The branches are woven and twisted together, growing as one. The stars twinkle beyond the treetops, but from my spot they are concealed. I am concealed.

The hunter’s moon glows, a giant orb in the autumn sky. By day, the mountainside boasts brilliant fall foliage. By night, the forest mutates into a haven for predators and a hiding place for prey.Especially on Halloween.

On Halloween night I went to bed early, exhausted from the day’s activities. Drifting off easily, I slept until something stirred me, waking me with a cold chill. A noise outside my door. A scratching sound. Maybe a limb against my window?

A glance to the bedside clock showed 11:57 p.m. Almost midnight.

Thinking it my imagination, I dismissed the noise, but sleep would not return. My nerve endings were on full alert. With blankets pulled to my nose, I watched without blinking, listened to hear what wasn’t there.

Another unfamiliar sound. It was not my imagination, I was certain.

My heart raced as my mind conjured images of ghouls prowling outside my cabin.

In the distance I heard the shriek of a bird, maybe an owl. Haunting. Eerie. And I sensed something, someone, footsteps? The rustle of leaves?

Outside my kitchen window, a slight change in the darkness, a shifting shadow. Was my mind playing tricks?

Weary and empty, I felt devoid of hope and happiness. Devoid of myself. Morning would never come.

I summoned the courage to tiptoe to the front door, my heart pounding in my throat. Through a corner of the blinds I saw darkness. Nothing. Coldness. A reflection of my own frightened face. Flipping on the outside light and shoving open the door, something moved away. Or floated away. Disappearing. Restoring my sanity.

And then I slept. A deep silent sleep. I dreamed of Dementors.

talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Musical Pairing:

Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban, Dementor Test

“Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

What Happens at Dairy Hollow…

October 31, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner

The following is a guest blog by my new writer friend Tom Sweeney. Tom is from New Hampshire and writes mystery, science fiction and even a bit of romance. He is working on a series of three mystery/crime novels.

It was wine-thirty at the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow--time for our daily afternoon get-together, and we residents were gathered on the deck. Writing is a solitary endeavor, hours spent cooped up in a small room, attempting with varying success to wrest that one telling detail from our resistant brains, the single apt metaphor, the bon mot that will bring our prose off the page and into life.

These gab sessions interacting with other writers are a major reason why the Writers’ Colony works so well for me.

Someone mentioned my roomie, and we all laughed. We don’t have roommates, particularly not roommates of the opposite sex as neither spouses nor visitors are allowed here at the Colony.

Then again, as I retorted, “That’s what they say, but you notice that each studio has a big double bed.”

Everyone laughed. Someone joked, what happens at Dairy Hollow, stays at Dairy Hollow…

Half a carton of wine later (and only a Diet Dr. Pepper for me), we headed back to our rooms to write. Four hours after that, following a post-dinner impromptu critique session, the two walkers among us decided to see Eureka Springs at night, so we headed downtown.

A half mile from the Colony, we turned a corner of winding Spring Street and saw the gorgeous neon sign of the Palace Hotel and Bath House. The hotel itself was an impressive granite building. We peeked in the window of the lobby and tried to open the door. It was locked, but as we turned to leave a woman appeared from behind the desk to welcome us in.

Her name was Lucretia (perfect Halloween name…) and she was the great-niece of Allen Parmer, who rode with Jesse James. Providing a tour of the hotel, she explained it was the last of many bath houses one time lining Spring Street. The hotel has its original structure and architecture intact, including magnificent woodwork and a finely detailed tile floor.

Tom Sweeney

Writers, both of us, we could not help fall under its spell. Imaging what it must have been like as a Victorian resort, we each drafted a short story in our minds, stories set here at the hotel.

Writers sometimes get lost in their own reveries, though.

As Lucretia gave us a tour of one of the rooms, complete with king bed and two-person Jacuzzi, my friend turned to me and said, “Honey, we should get this room.”

I was taken by surprise but quickly realized…ah, she’s a fiction writer too…

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