Sometimes when I sit down to thump out a post, I'll be flying down Main Street then suddenly find myself running in and out of cul-du-sacs with my head bursting with ideas and information. That's what happened today. So, please forgive the road construction and detours.

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Several weeks ago I mentioned to Willow that I've always lived on the fringe. As I spoke, I wasn't weepy, but it was an emotional admission... that I've never quite fit in. I've always been on the fringe.

Willow softly responded that she, too, has always been on the fringe.

Perhaps this is why we connect so well.

(Premature postscript: The lovely woman who has moved into my loft occasionally introduces herself as Willow. I've suggested that she use Willow all the time. She's such a Willow! She's gentle and graceful and beautiful and bends to resist resistance. So, any of you who have met Lee, she was really Willow and will be using that name.)

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Several weeks have passed since that conversation with Willow and I've thought about it every so often. I now smile when I realize how quickly I determined what a gift being a fringe person has been for me.

For purposes of this post, I consulted Merriam Webster and have plucked a few definitions of fringe:

It's an ornamental border consisting of short straight or twisted threads or strips hanging from cut or raveled edges or from a separate band.

A group with marginal or extremist views

Examples:
a lampshade with a fringe
a fringe of moss around the tree
a party on the political fringe

Synonyms:
BORDERLINE, BOUND, BOUNDARY, BRIM, CIRCUMFERENCE, COMPASS, CONFINES, EDGE, EDGING, END, FRAME, BORDER, HEM, MARGIN, PERIMETER, PERIPHERY, RIM, SKIRT, SKIRTING, VERGE

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I guess over the years I've pigeonholed myself as a fringe person because I've never felt like I belonged. Yet I'm not all that edgy. Um, well I guess I do have some edginess coursing through my art collection:





But moving on...


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I was chatting with my 87-year old father the other day and he was reminiscing about a musical production he'd seen just the night before. It was South Pacific. He was quite reflective and sentimental as he talked about his favorite songs - all the while fringing the conversation with humming.

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I'd already come to the overdue conclusion that being a fringe person wasn't as negative as I'd originally thought. We fringe people are the icing. We're the excitable punctuation. We're the rickrack that zigs and zags to confuse the ordinary. We obliterate ennui! We're the stage whispers that accent a play with bonus laughter. We're the shtick in slapstick. We lavish the gossipmongers with the best ever gossip. We give judgmental people the opportunity to tsk tsk tsk as a hollow means of embellishing their own vapid lives. We never intend to flaunt that we are different, but originality and creativity and occasional genius aren't easily concealed. Yup, we fringe people can be a pretty scary bunch.

So there! Nani-Nani-Gnu-Gnu!


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It was while talking to my father that I raced down the cul-du-sac of Surrey with the Fringe on Top from Oklahoma.





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Rest-of-my-life Detour: Dang, I miss those simpler times - the innocence in entertainment and songs that sang about surreys or corn as high as an elephant's eye and stuff.

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Time to go to the Piggly Wiggly. There's always a story or two traveling those aisles.

Thanks for stopping by.