Last Month of the Year

And, for some of us--some of my extended family will know exactly what I'm talking about--it is the last day of the old year (not the calendar year). In Kunming we bought purple and pink candles and with some yarn and crochet hooks from a wonderful care package, I crocheted a circle of "greenery" (after a granny square, it was a cinch!). Tomorrow I shall set them up. Ah, my favorite time of year. And in a week...well, check the age on my profile in a week :)!!!

There's a really fun song on Atwater-Donnelly's latest CD (which we took with us completely, yay!!!) with the same title as my blog post. It is a really fun song. However, I have a runaway imagination, and so "Last Month of the Year" popped into my head as somehow being a very quiet, minor-key tune. Don't get me wrong--I love the real version. But nothing prevented me from writing some different words to this other tune I knew...

But actually, I decided I was going to stretch my storytelling skills a bit and tell a Native American legend about Mt. Rainier.

The Legend of Mt. Rainier

Long, long ago, when the world was young, and as yet there were no people, the mountains were giants. Now, Tahoma was a beautiful woman, married to the mountain in the west, and she lived with him in the west--and in that time, the animals and plants we use today for our needs were not in this place. They were in the west.

Now, one day, Tahoma's husband took a second wife, and she became jealous, because he became enamoured with his new wife and payed little attention to her. So one day she told him she would leave. And he said, "Fine. Go ahead."

Tahoma was shocked. She had thought this would make him realize what she was worth. But instead he cared not about her.

So she took a basket and gathered a bit of everything--all the plants and the animals that grew and lived there, and put them in. Then she hoisted her son up on her hip and set off. And every so often, she would turn and look back, hoping to see her husband coming after her to call her back.

But she saw nothing.

Eventually, she got to where she is now. She settled herself down, and began to scatter the contents of her basket around her--the plants and animals, and everything. They took root and grew, and are still there to this day. Then Tahoma picked up her little son and lifted him up so he could see where they had come from. And so they remain to this day.
-=0=- -=0=- -=0=-
Now, that's probably a mish-mosh from several sources inadvertantly made my own. Sorry. I just like the legend a lot. And, I don't pretend to tell it in any style but my own. Find a book if you want a more correct version.

And, happy new year.