Dominoes #SOCS #StreamofConsciousnessSaturday

There’s something incredibly tactile about dominoes, chess and draughts pieces, isn’t there? You just want to pick them up, feel them in the palm of your hand. The game itself is almost secondary …

it’s holding them that’s the thing. Polished smooth wood or clay, the old fashioned ones that is, they were reassuringly substantial in a child’s hand. Counting the dots, putting them in order, or moving the chess pieces round the board in your own mock battles long after the official game was actually over.

Nowadays when I play dominoes or chess with my kids (very rarely chess, it makes my brain hurt too much) I’m always conscious of how small the pieces feel, perhaps because as a child myself I used to spend so much time, post-game, making up my own games with the pieces before I finally put them away. I wonder how many of us do that? Making rows or patterns of dominoes to knock over is probably actually more fun than the official game of matching up the numbers. That’s what the phrase ‘domino effect’ means after all, nothing to do with that number matching, but that chain reaction of one piece knocking over the next knocking over the next… and it’s such a great metaphor for adult life, isn’t it? That chain of consequences, how every action, every step we take leads to another – except when we’ve planned wrong and sometimes the course we thought we were going to take just stops in its tracks. Life, unlike dominoes though, has a habit of moving on, even after we’ve reached a dead-end.

Written for Stream of Consciousness Saturday hosted by Linda G. Hill. This week’s prompt was a word beginning or ending with dom. If you’d like to take part the rules, borrowed from Linda’s site, are as follows:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” “Begin with the word ‘The’,” or simply a single word to get your started.

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people can come and read your post! For example, in your post you can write “This post is part of SoCS:” and then copy and paste the URL found in your address bar at the top of this post into yours. Your link will show up in my comments for everyone to see. The most recent pingbacks will be found at the top. NOTE: Pingbacks only work from WordPress sites. If you’re self-hosted or are participating from another host, such as Blogger, please leave a link to your post in the comments below.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. As a suggestion, tag your post “SoCS” and/or “#SoCS” for more exposure and more views.

8. Have fun!

#SoCS #StreamofConsciousness

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