Mysteries and Chai

This isn't a musing on the mystery novel I have been enjoying lately with a chai latte, that hot drink with a perfect blend of spice and milky black tea (Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries by Dorothy L. Sayers in case you were wondering - I am working my way through all of them; though 'working' isn't the right word. It's such a pleasure to read these books). My photo is what you might call a red herring - a clue that is intended to be a distraction. Although, I confess, the two are related. Nothing in life can be truly separate from other things - everything mingles up there in the far reaches of our minds.

I tend to make up stories (sometimes just a scene) in my head. The spark for said stories might form from an image of something I see, a tune or song I hear, or a place I might go. It could even be sparked by an object, or a book I am reading. Sometimes it is halfway formed in a dream, and I wake up eager to complete the story, or finish the scene (because I always wake up right when the scene is getting to the climax - - wait...then what happens?).

When I am making up a story, I add a mystery to it, which then has to be figured out. Clues may need to be gathered. Pieces may need to fall into place over some adventure. There is always something sort of mysterious happening. I do this without even realizing it. I always have. There is no story, to me, without a mysterious element. It doesn't need to be a murder to solve or a spooky haunted estate to explore. It could be something so everyday (i.e. realistic) like someone coming back from the past, someone you hadn't seen in 15 years revealing themselves to you with a specific message, and you are left with the task of figuring out this person's story. What is really going on?  

Or, it could be totally fantasy out-of-this-world kind of imaginative story where you are on another planet or in another world where almost anything can happen. This of course opens the gates to all sorts of mysterious things, from the nature of the place, the danger of the place, and the people. 

Most of the time these stories and scenes simply entertain my imagination for the day, and then disappear. Maybe it runs on for a few days. So it is very rare that I am ever bored, because my imagination goes with me wherever I go. I can be waiting at a traffic light going through a scene of  discovery in my head, and I frequently do.

It is no wonder I add mystery to my own life situations. I wonder and make up possible scenarios, just as I do with my imaginative creations. I like to discover mysteries in things, and then figure it out to solve it, or at least part of it. It is fun to break through mysteries to see into a truth. People are mysterious to me, and studying certain behaviors or relationships can be wrapped in shrouds to discover and think about. It is never a simple matter. There is always something deeper. Nature is a mystery, so I am drawn to the way the clouds rise through the different layers of sky, moving faster and faster the higher you go, the way trees and bend in the ferocious winds, how the red super giant star Betelgeuse is dimming in the sky because it is reaching the end of its life (and will one day collapse on itself resulting in a massive supernova), and the way glaciers are ever moving through fjords, continuing to carve the earth. 

My observant nature in my personality assists me here, for in order to enjoy a good mysterious situation, one must be careful to notice things in observations. Pay attention. Stay alert. Ponder things (like why stars die and why this chai latte is so smooth and delicious). Embrace the mysterious. It is all snippets of God's own imagination.