Curse of the Stone Arms: Kitty-Boy's Tale

From the desk of Gothika, Dark Lord of the Grimalkins aka Kitty-Boy

                “It was a dark and stormy night.”

                No.

                “Once upon a time, in a land far away. . .”

                Oh drats! How does she do this? And why? Slavering for public approval like one of her hulking outdoor “pets” – is nothing beneath her dignity?

                 Actually, it was a rather ordinary night, but for the enormous Iah,  (which modern humans, tapping into their full  literary and imaginative potential, have dubbed “the Supermoon.” *sigh*). I had watched its ascent across the night sky, and had fallen asleep contentedly on the kitchen table (the Man having gone to bed hours earlier) when I was awakened by the horrible shrill of my human’s Pavlov Response system. (Please see footnote#1.) Inevitably, the humans shine at classical conditioning exercises, and I watched with some pride as they hurtled from their bed, donned boots and clothing, and scurried from the house. Their performance was marred only by a brief collision in the bathroom doorway. Both snarled and swore most impressively. My Human showed her teeth.

I did not see them again until the lovely Iah had disappeared over the hill. They came home positively reeking of house fire, their noses black with smoke and their eyes circled with it. Most alarming of all, My Human had turned to stone from wrists to elbows. (Please see footnote #2) She seemed most vexed at this transformation ie, more colorful swearing; she is truly well versed in language skills. The Man, as is often the case, was also quite vocal about the inciting incident, and implied that the entire fiasco could have been avoided had My Human slowed down and looked before you f**ng leaped.

                I haven’t the faintest notion what My Human leaped into, but the results have been catastrophic. She has the temerity to pat my head with her stone hands! I very nearly chipped a tooth whilst defending myself. She is hit-and-miss with my food dish and her attempts at scooping my litterbox have been dismal. In the spirit of generosity, I left my latest offering on the floor next to the toilet and the ingrate swore at me! Who would have realized the tenuous connection between human hands and brains? Is her mind turning to stone as well? I fear it is a possibility.

                My Human knows I must have ice in my water bowl at all times, and yet she is failing at even this simplest of tasks. When in desperation I stand on the (dirty!) dishes in the sink to drink from the faucet, she responds in the vilest manner by trying to lift me bodily with her concrete arms. I will not stand for it!

            Alas, I fear for my well-being. If you are reading this, please send help. Preferably in the form of salmon.

Pink, Alaskan salmon. Fresh.

Canned tuna offerings will be summarily rejected.

#1 Nine-one-one page to a fire.

#2 Arm casts from wrist to elbow.

Those Who Have Left Us

All Soul’s Night creeps upon us in new darkness, the sun snuffed before six thirty as effectively as calloused fingers pinching a faltering flame.

Light, then; we’re seeking light.

And we find it, in a fashion. Here in these old wooden pews where the same families have sat for generations with the stained-glass saints gazing impassively from above, already immortal. Here in the scent of candle wax and cool, moist brick. Here in the words, the kneelers, the lovely ritual.  

Eternal rest grant to them oh Lord. And may a perpetual light shine upon them.

Ah. Them. Those who have left us. If you’ve lived very long, you have them; if you’ve lived well, you loved them and you probably still do. Everyone here carries this with them. Think about that for a moment – all of us here, suffering that quiet loss together and yet still so alone. I could name you . . . ah well, they’re gone.

My line of work loans itself to the occasional death; my keenest losses are sometimes total strangers, and I don’t know if that makes it easier or harder. I only know that it is. And so, I am thinking of the hands I have held, the comfort I have tried to extend, the way that death slides over a face as implacably as the lavender sky smoothing after the sun has set. I am thinking this when something the priest says reels me back.

“If we live to give God joy,” he says. “Then we live in joy.”

Such a lovely voice, this man – an even and perfect tenor that loans itself well to sweeping statements. He imparts this nugget as though it is ipso facto.

Is it?

Live in joy.

But no. Sweet October has blown away as quickly as it came, and with it the color, the laughter and the bright expectations. November is as gray and chilly as the Chicago lakefront; it knows no joy. And the dead are – whether by accident or design, holding your hand or not – dead.

Ah, but they’re not. We’re here, tonight, because of them, aren’t we? And don’t we feel them – the caress on our cheeks, the voices in our ears, the little breath of life stirring the downy hair of the child sitting in front of you?

Where they are, they are living in joy.

But it’s bigger than that. The priest is right. If we – all of us here, and everyone we knew – were to go forward in joy from this night on, then our worries, our sorrows, our carefully cultivated grudges – none of these could hurt us ever again. We’d have no room for hurt, or for tears, or for misunderstandings. Joy. Each moment, every breath, etched in gold. The utter certainty of loving and being loved. We could wrap ourselves in that and this fear – this fear of loss, of heartbreak, of dying – would cower in our wake until it finally disappeared altogether.

That’s so big, it’s probably too big for us. But maybe we’re meant to try.

Outside, darkness has set in with a vengeance, the tiny pools of crystalline light from the stained-glass windows fading completely before I have gotten to my car. But I crank Sister Hazel on my iPod, and I sing along, all the way home.

Lovely and Forever: Rest in Peace, Harper Lee

Art by SSC-Art

Harper Lee died today, and that has me a lot more bummed than I would like to be.

So I pour a cup of coffee and I take it with me to sit on the stoop at Fire Station B, where a fierce Spring wind is scouring the prairie, warm enough to plant images of dandelions over the last vestiges of gray February snow.

I shouldn’t be so unhappy over the loss of someone I’ve never met, but I feel bruised inside, and I want . . . My fingers comb my pockets for the memory of cigarettes and come up with a small scrap of creased paper

.

Ah. I know what it is without opening it, so I leave it folded and return it to my pocket without looking at it.

The paper has last week’s accident victim’s name on it. She had a funny name, foreign, and I had scrawled it out painstakingly at the ER in order to have it with me when we did the report. I’ve actually washed these pants twice since that encounter, and each time I return the paper to the pocket without asking myself why.

Evidence of burn out maybe.

Maybe coping mechanisms slipping just a little.

No matter. The patient died, and now she is here with me while I think about Harper Lee.

That dead woman colored my childhood. Her words strung through my soul like the gentle drift of fireflies and illuminated within me the biggest desire of my life. The desire to write, to create . . . to take a piece of my own humanity and keep it, lovely and forever preserved for anyone who wanted to come in and look.

Lovely and forever.

So there it is. These deaths – the accident victim, the death of my beloved hero author – highlight nothing so much as the fleeting nature of life and the way we try so hard to hang onto it. We set the book on the shelf and we keep the paper scraps in our pockets and we pretend we know nothing at all of who God is and where the dead people go.

They do go. They do.

And that is okay; it is in fact exactly as it should be.

My fingers find the paper scrap, wad it carefully into a tiny ball and toss it into the wind.

RIP

~*~*~ 

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Rise Above

I received the most incredible one star review of my novel the other day. It dropped onto my virtual doorstep early in the morning and lay there like a steamy bag of poo until I finally gathered the courage to examine it more closely.

                Whew! Such a reek of animosity, such a stream of vitriol. So unnecessary.

                And it occurred to me . . .  at this moment, somebody, somewhere, is doing CPR on a stranger, and they are pushing every ounce of their will power, their entire essence, into making that chest gasp and heave on its own.

                There is a worthy endeavor.

                Someone is building a homeless shelter, someone is holding a child’s hand, someone is rescuing a raccoon from a foothold trap; and these are all good things.

                But.

It also occurred to me that the collective weight of negativity on our planet may well be our undoing, and if that is the case, then we’ll deserve whatever we have coming to us.

                Rise above, people, rise above.

                It’s not a good thing to hate, even in the virtual world, okay? That sort of thing eats away not only at your own soul, but the souls of everyone you touch.

                If you are actually sitting at your computer somewhere spewing endless streams of hatred, you’ve got to stop. Because we’re all connected, right? Your hand in mine, like it or not, is the only way we’ll get through this life intact, and right now you’re weighing the rest of us down. Pick up your chin, look around you, and understand . . . it’s coming down to brass tacks, isn’t it? We live in a world where the unborn die by the thousands, the refugees cry at the gates, and gun sales are through the roof.

Some would say the sky is falling down around us.

                Please, please understand. The world needs you. And it is not okay to waste your time huddled over your laptop spewing nastiness at all and sundry. You’ve got to jump into the fray, you’ve got to make your life count for something. What you think of an anonymous writer’s novel – or of Caitlyn Jenner’s boobs, or the Starbuck’s coffee cup - is moot, and these are unpardonably silly topics to have frittered your time away on.

Rescue yourself.

We Loved October

 I’ve always been a bit startled by the concept of a God who demands an accounting at the end of the day. The notion of “Where did you err?” is a frightening one, and the list, alas, all too long. But here - what if the question is “What did you love?” Will the list, again, be unending?

                I hope so.

                But for now, let’s stick with October. Dear God, we loved October. Every glorious, gold-tinged, sweet-smelling moment. We ate popcorn in the bleachers at the football games; we kicked leaves all over the yard; we laughed, hard and often.

                October found us strewing decorations all over the house like madmen. Jack-o-lanterns, witches, twinkling orange light strings. To hell with the diet, we gained extra pounds in cookies and millions of teensy candy bars.

                In Galena, we drank too much wine and sat on the porch of our cabin with the owls hooting and the crows cawing all around us. All night, we talked, laughed, reminisced.

                Three birthdays in October! Beautiful faces reflected in candlelight, family and friends gathered, another year whooshing past like the leaves blowing off the hill.

                We sang around a bonfire, we scavenger-hunted, we played dress-up with the delight of small children. We sat transfixed before the millionth showing of “Hocus Pocus” and got goosebumps crossing the yard in the dark after “Nightmare on Elm Street.”

                Halloween! The gem in the crown. The rush, the exuberance, the very air alive with expectation. Could there be anything better?

                Chocolate, rum, granny smith apples – all sweeter in October.

Life – yes, sweeter.

                And that Oogey-Boogey Man November lurking just around the corner? BOO! It's here.

Summer Imp

Summer is for the child in us. You know her – the giggling, golden imp who sleeps until ten, wakes up with her hair in a tangle and doesn’t look back on her way to the lake. Bare feet, brown shoulders and sand in her swim suit bottom, that’s her.

I’m an adult.

I do adult-speak, adult thoughts, adult action all day every day, and sometimes I think I’ve completely forgotten the language of the child. Do you remember that easy happiness? Big, belly-aching laughter, tears on your cheeks, feet kicking with sheer exuberance?  The wonder found in waxing moonlight, Daddy’s Pall Malls and first kisses? The cold rush of creek water around your ankles, the whisper of ghost stories beside a campfire?

Summer beckons us backwards, calls us home.

Ah God, what heaven, to give up taxes and jobs and the tangle of relationships. To have a conversation that has nothing to do with car payments or dead people.

The child in us remembers, she knows how. If we let her out, she’ll play music on the car radio so loud your eardrums will burst. She’ll kick off her shoes, curse like Davy Jones and drink rum through a straw in a paper cup.

It’s summer! She’ll scream it before she belly-flops from the raft into the mossy green lake water. No school, no job, no bills . . . No worries.

Ah, there it is. No worries. That’s why she laughs.

And here is where we butt up against the impossibility of ever being her again. Because the adult has learned the fine art of worry and is loath to turn loose of it. Worry, it seems, is intrinsically bound up with every article in our grown-up arsenal – our spouse, our children, our house, our jobs. Our happiness?

Ah no. Draw a line. The worry could go – couldn’t it?-  if we let the laughter back in, if we allow ourselves to be mesmerized by the flash of minnows in creek water or the swoop of barn swallows above the hill. It’s still summer – it’s not too late – and I propose a compromise. Give the imp just a toe in the door. A day off work, a double scoop ice cream cone, pink toenail polish from the dollar store.

Soon enough, the leaves will fall and the taxes will come due. I say, let’s laugh while we can. Let’s eat watermelon and dance in the moonlight and for a teensy window of time, just be.

No worries.

Happy August.     

~*~*~ 

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Home to Maycomb

"Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by night fall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum."

I was probably ten when I first stepped into Maycomb and felt the drowsy July heat on the back of my neck. The light was different there – hazy and green, filtered through the lace of leaves and pink magnolia blossoms. The air – limpid and thick, sweet with Mimosas and sprinkled with fireflies. I padded barefoot though the soft dirt between the collard greens, shivered in Boo Radley’s shadow, and never wanted to come out again.

I have, in fact, returned every summer, and turning that first page always feels like coming home. Because Harper Lee’s magic is twofold; in reading her, I am transported not only Scout Finch’s childhood, but also to my own.  Open the book, and I am curled again on my grandmother’s couch. Sunlight is warped through the multi-paned windows; it throws rainbow prisms across the pages and the maple wood of the coffee table. Through the screen I can hear the indolent hum of bees and the long whistle of a bobwhite; from the kitchen the muted chatter of conversation. Water droplets traverse the length of my pink lemonade glass and Scout’s honeyed voice is as Southern as Brer Rabbit.

Anyone who denies the power of the written word has not read To Kill a Mockingbird.

Whenever the cynical half of my soul decries the value of an author career, I have only to remember the ten year old on the couch soaking Harper Lee into her soul the way sun tea takes on color. This woman’s words made me want to fashion my own; to create from sheer nothingness a world as layered and nuanced as the one I inhabited seemed a magic beyond comprehension, and I knew, even then, that I would have to try.

I’m still trying, and even on my most wretched day I’m forced to admit how much I love the by-now familiar process. Words, you see, are a gift.

"Since Atlanta, she had looked out the dining-car window with a delight almost physical. Over her breakfast coffee, she watched the last of Georgia’s hills recede and the red earth appear, and with it tin roofed houses set in the middle of swept yards, and in the yards the inevitable verbena grew, surrounded by whitewashed yards."

I can see it, can’t you? Harper Lee is back, blowing through our lives like the sweetest Alabama breeze, whispering in our ears, bringing with her the all of the old magic. Never, ever, has a sequel been more anticipated.

My copy of Go Set a Watchman has been ordered and should be arriving in the mail any day now, at which time I’ll be off the radar for a bit.

I’m going back to Maycomb.

~*~*~ 

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Uniquely American

Art by Henri Peter

We put our flag away the weekend after Memorial Day, and here we are, unfurling it again on this gorgeous lavender evening, twilight hour thick with lightning bugs and the smell of fresh -cut grass. Down the block someone sets off a bottle rocket – whine and pop, laughter – and through the open screen I can hear the Jimi Hendrix version of the Star Spangled Banner. When we wrestle the flag pole into its bracket, the brilliant stars and stripes are glorious against the smooth purple sky.

            It’s good to be here, isn’t it?   Here, barefooted in my front yard in the middle of my town in the middle of my country. 

            And I love tonight – the carnival lights and the stink of spent firecrackers, the facepaint, the music, and all the rowdy raucous hullaballoo that is so us. 

So noisily, uniquely American. 

Here, tonight, we won’t question ourselves. Let’s not bemoan our property taxes, the healthcare system or illegal immigration. Instead, let’s remember who we are, where we came from.  We the people. The first ever, anywhere, to believe that a dream could be shaped into a government and made to work not just for a few, but for all.  We the people who absolutely could not wear the cloak of oppression, could never bow before a king or accept a class system. We the people made up of different religions, colors and ethnicities but yes, all us. All American.  

            Tonight, we’ll cheer about that. We’ll sing about a flag that waves in every hollow, on every mountain, across the prairie of this, our home. 

            Happy birthday to us – may we never take us for granted.

~*~*~ 

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A Father, to a Daughter

In my dream, it is a perfect October day. A sky hard and blue as ceramic, the whole world on fire with the crimson death of summer, harvest in full swing; it is the sort of day that a child takes wholly for granted. 

I am sixteen and I’m driving the best tractor known to man, an International 806. Pulling a full wagon load of corn up the incline to the main road and not thinking about the yawning ravine off to my right. Until I throttle the engine back and it dies.

Here is where the dream veers into the realm of nightmares. There had been noise – the growl of tractor engine, indistinct radio static, birdsong – but now there is silence. My hand reaches of its own volition, moves languidly, like a fat bass under water, and turns the key in the ignition.

The engine stays dead and the tractor begins a slow roll backwards. 

I am going to die.

But then a miracle happens. The wagon strikes something hard. The tongue bends - the crash of metal on metal exploding into the quiet - and the tractor comes to rest, cockeyed, back tires just on the edge of the path. A handful of corn dislodges from the load and drops off into nothingness, brushing elm leaves on its way down the abyss.

My legs are jelly, but I jump from the tractor, roll once in the hard dirt and sit up to see . . . my dad.

He had been following in the grain truck, had seen my dilemma and accelerated to catch up, stopping my roll with the nose of his truck. 

Fathers, you see, stand - always and implacably - between their children and the stuff of nightmares.

A mother is the indispensable giver of hugs and kisses, the untiring listening ear, the arms that hold you when you cry. Fathers don’t know what to do with tears, but they will single-handedly slaughter every demon in your universe and they will, if you let them, give you all the tools you need for life. 

My own father taught me how to work and how to dance. How to play poker and how to pray. When I couldn’t balance a check book he got out his pencil; when I drove home drunk he summoned an awesome and righteous anger. 

He has been, and remains, the only hero in my universe whose feet aren’t made of clay. 

Father’s Day . . . well, it doesn’t quite cut it for most dads, does it? Chocolate, or socks, or a blue work shirt hardly say what needs to be said. 

But I think he knows. A father, to a daughter, walks amongst the gods, is the brightest and most infallible star in her sky. Although he would laugh out loud if he were to read this.

And then I would be embarrassed.

Happy day, Dad! I love you.

Mothers are the Weavers

Mothers are the weavers. As indispensable as water, sunlight or oxygen. Their role is at once concrete and nebulous - undefined, and yet, somewhere, surely, carved in stone.

Here, I think, is the gist of the project: She must begin the weave with the threads from the past -  light and dark alike, gossamer silk as well as good, durable fishing line.  The threads my mother received from her own mother were as varied and colorful as the prairie land birds. Bright strings of flowers, art, and music, shot through with solid browns of practicality and fortitude. The courage thread is surely pink – neither neon nor pastel, but the deep, lovely shade of crab apple blossoms. It is an old thread, handed down from a grandmother who survived a train wreck and a mother who counted green stamps during the Depression.

So - first the fabrics and textures at hand, and then the unique new cloth of her own existence.  My mother wove in a blend of humor that laughs, always, at the inappropriate. A love of all things medical and all things mysterious. She filled our tapestries with cookies and Hail Marys, Band-Aids and hair ribbons. And love, always love.

A mother makes us who we are; only she has the bravery and the skills to shape a life, and never actually credit herself with the accomplishment of that monumental task.

The first lullaby sung to my first child was a gift from my mother, who had received it from her own mother and so on, probably all the way back to Eve. “Hush little baby don’t say a word”  and “Honey tie your shoe”. “Don’t eat an hour before swimming. Or communion” and “Never ask a boy on a date.” Along the way, the child became the mother, the new child the recipient, and the fabric of life brightened yet again. 

Mothers are life.

And so, to all the mothers, and especially to my own, who is the bestest, the brightest of all – happy day!  Joyous day! 

*Art by K. M. Berggren

~*~*~ 

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The Crux of Childhood Easter

My childhood Easters were all about dressing up, which, for me, made it the less-than-favorite holiday. I was more of a Scout Finch kid, comfortable in over-alls and bare feet; a dress, any dress, could only itch.

My mother, however, delighted in this highest, holiest of Catholic days – and showed her joy in the display of six clean and lovely offspring. Three boys in suits. Three girls in matching dresses, jackets and shiny black Mary Janes. We swore that she pinned the lace head cap right into our skulls.

Mass? By Easter Sunday we had been half a dozen times in as many days, had observed the fasting rules (staying up until midnight on Good Friday in order to eat  M&Ms) and kept our Lent promises. (I give up pop, television, calling my brother bad names.)  Holy Week was at last behind us, and soon, soon, the dress could go back in the closet.

But here is the crux of childhood Easter. We were better people then.  There are days, I think, when I would sell my soul to be the little girl with straight bangs and an itchy dress again – she exists, in my memory, so whole, and in my mind I can trace her Easter route from start to finish.

Church. Latin words that I hadn’t yet prayed for solace, because I had never needed solace. So – just a drone unremarkable as the noise of honey bees.  Sunshine through stained glass windows and incense tickling the nose. My mother’s unmitigated soprano soaring in glorious praise, my father’s occasional cough. (Dear God, let him get hiccups, I would pray my sole Easter prayer. Nobody got hiccups like my dad.)

Mass at last finished, we would go to Grandma’s. Tulips in bloom, and bird’s nests cookies. Gossip at the kitchen table, and the surreptitious teasing of the fat housecat. 

From there to my aunt’s. Uncle Don was probably six feet tall, but he seemed as big as the sky to us; he could lift us all the way to the ceiling. 

Older cousins who teased, aunts who scolded, the smell of peppered roast and mashed potatoes and the lull of adult conversation, and all the while . . .  I think she knew. The restless little girl in the stiff linen knew even then how fast it was all sliding past. 

And while she wanted the hell out of that dress and the day was dull beyond measure . . . Ah, wouldn’t it be good to have it back now? To see us as we were that day? 

But Easter is all about joy, isn’t it? Cleanliness and that simple rock-hard goodness that, in adulthood, is as elusive as the last egg. How did my parents do that? How did they keep hold of that solid, essential all-is-wellness? 

Another Easter. Tulips in bloom and little girls in dresses. Hot, drowsy sunlight through stained glass windows and my daughter’s voice the perfect echo of my mother’s.  Holy holy holy. 

Ah, life is still good, people. Jesus still loves us, and here we are, having straggled whole through another year. Take heart.

In fact, be joyful, people.

Happy, happy Easter.

~*~*~ 

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Know That This Is Transient

February in Illinois is a splendid and confounding mix, comprised of blizzards and silvery rain showers, northers howling over the prairie and tentative crocus tips peering up through the snow. We’re never quite certain we’re going to make it, are we?

But Lent is already upon us, and to me this is a beacon in the darkness. I’ll tell you why:

“Lazare veni foras.” 

 Lazarus, come forth. Best story ever, people. And the reason for this is not so much that beautiful blaze of glory when the man emerged from the tomb as what proceeded it. Jesus wept.

That sticks in the mind, doesn’t it?

Why? Why would this man - this Jesus who was to become something at once as glorious and mundane as a household name – why would He weep?

Well . . . why do we weep? It’s not so hard, is it, to follow that shitty path of discouragement, despair, loss? If you’re reading this, then you’re alive, and if you’re alive, odds are, you’ve been there. We weep because we’re at the end of our rope. Because winter is eternal, because we are exhausted, or maybe because the worst has happened and we will never hear the beloved voice of a friend, a spouse, a parent, a lover, again. 

We weep because we’re lost, because we can’t find the light. 

We can’t even believe there is a light.

Death doesn’t pick favorites. It’s as random as the smile of a stranger in a crowd, as capricious as March sunshine. It swoops down and plucks one from among us, and there is no recourse. No chance to say “I love you” or to retract a cruel word, no familiar arms to hold us, no warm and lovely voice in our ear.

But there is something to take away from this, and it isn’t despair. Jesus wept that day because he had lost a friend. He was exhausted, discouraged, and ultimately certain of his own impending death. But then He stood up and He shouted.

“Lazarus Come Forth!”  

And Lazarus did. We know that he did.

Your loved one won’t. Not here, not now. But you can’t go forward thinking that this is the end.  The entire purpose of Jesus’s life was to show us that there is no end. Whoever you’re missing, whatever darkness you are traveling in, know that this is transient, that time shuttles us forward, always so rapidly you don’t even know you’re moving. You won’t be in this bad spot forever. 

Because there is another side, okay? There is.

Winter ends, the crocuses bloom and Lazarus heard the voice of his beloved friend calling him. Come forth. Come out into the sunshine and stand tall.

Notebook in Hand, Head in the Clouds

© Irene Owens

“I’m a writer, what’s your superpower?” The tee shirt advertisement screams at me from my Facebook page and I can’t click away from it quickly enough.

Well, it is silly, isn’t it? So much easier to get behind an occupation like firefighting. EMS. Or even motherhood. Writers are the nerds of the universe, let’s face it.

But lately it occurs to me that, at least in the beginning, the purpose of this blog was to promote my novel. (Sugar Man’s Daughter, for sale on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Oh please,  tell me you are here because you have read it and love it!) Anyway - somewhere along the line, the Crowe’s Nest took off and gained a life of its own, and it’s all about things like ambulances and chocolate chip cookies. Matchbox lyrics and Easter.

It’s all good! But today I think I’ll talk about writing.

I don’t remember not doing it.  My mother helped me put words to paper before I could even spell. I was always the kid with the notebook in hand, head in the clouds. I studied landscapes, emotions, and the small, nebulous bits of life that a lot of people don’t give much thought to – what, precisely, does a March wind feel like? How best to describe the scent of August corn? Or burnt brownies? People squirmed beneath my avid stare, never realizing that the silly bespectacled girl was trying to find the right words to describe the mole on their chin.

John Steinbeck was my hero. Still is. Such a beautiful magic, to take mere worlds and create . . .  a whole world. Complete. Every sense engaged, so that the reader sees what the author sees, feels what he feels.

I had to do that. And I say “had to” because there was no choice. The author in my head clamored to be heard day and night, restless, always restless, until the pen was put to paper.

I was never a poet, didn’t like short stories. For me, it was always The Novel. I finished my first one in high school – well over three hundred pages that my mother painstakingly typed on an old-style typewriter. Corrections in white-out. Imagine that for a moment, and you will understand how blessed I am that this woman loves me.

I wrote throughout my time at junior college. I wrote in the early/late hours when I came home from my factory job. I wrote when my kids were small and after they had grown. Through a marriage, a divorce, another marriage. I wrote letters to editors and essays for teachers. Journals for me and books for the world. I created characters out of thin air, and I made them whole, and now I can’t imagine a life without them.

God, I think, loves me as much as my mother does because today I am a published author. This is huge and exciting, and on the days when I am impatient with my publisher or upset over a late royalty check, I only have to remind myself that the miracle has already happened, and I hold my book in my hands.

To the world, this isn’t as exciting as screaming down the road in an ambulance. Or rolling up on a fire with the lights and sirens full bore. It’s not like a first kiss or the laughter of your child.

But it’s close, people, it’s close.

Yep. Remember the nerd factor?

~*~*~ 

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The Secret Recipe for a Happy 2015

©Mary Engelbreit Studios

Why does the New Year begin in January?

Google blames Julius Caesar, which makes perfect sense to me, because, well, Julius didn’t live in Illinois, did he?  Here in the Heartland we all know that the year actually begins in March – lovely gray tempestuous month, cold and warm and gusty and gentle all at once. Rainy winds and tiny slivers of sunshine, the days at last stretching out until we have an evening again.

But January? Oh dear. Cold and dark, so bleak and . . . well, January.

It’s hard, isn’t it, to get excited for a year beginning with frozen pipes and frostbitten toes? How to set goals when even daylight is confined to just a few precious hours?

Ah, but we persevere, don’t we? Thankfully, perseverance is a huge part of the human make-up.

What does your 2015 look like? Are you a goal-setter, a trend setter, a roll-with-the-tide type?  No matter your inclinations, I’ve got ideas for you, and they are mostly along the lines of feeling better even in January. They look something like this:

1.) Sleep more. Seriously, people, aren’t you tired of being tired? Everyone I know is exhausted – work and run, run and work, and no end in sight. So pull the shades, snuggle your teddy bear, and just lay down. Pure heaven, try it for a few hours once in a while.

Or maybe until March.

2.) Rum. And brownies. All right, maybe not every day, but once in awhile won’t kill you. Think of it as a social thing – a drink with the hubby, a snack with the kids. Lay aside the soul-draining low carb restrictions and taste life now and then. Great stuff, chocolate. Rum, even better.

3.) Exercise, yes. Throw snowballs and build igloos. Wade in the creek, ride your bike, hike up the hill. Drag that old treadmill out of the basement and to local scrapyard – and then do the spider dance when you realize you have cobwebs in your hair. Exercise is good.

4.) Love more. Love everything more – your people, your pets, your bugman, your supper. The thing about love is you have to apply it liberally. Big, sloppy paintbrush, spread that stuff around everywhere. There is no shortage, okay? You can’t run out of it.

Sleep, food, exercise, love. There you have it, the recipe for a simple and lovely 2015. And no more being mean to ourselves, people!

We are, after all, supposed to be happy.

I'm Dreaming of a ....Multicolored Christmas?

I’ve been allergic to white Christmas trees for years. They make me itchy, make my nose sting and my eyes tear up.
Maybe it’s the lack of smell. Or the sparkly paint on the stiff dead branches, more glare than glisten.

My fourth grade teacher had a miniature in a pot on her desk, all trimmed out in tinsel and red glass ornaments. I elbowed it to the floor on my way to the pencil sharpener and sometimes, forty years later, I still wake up in a cold sweat, having dreamed of her face in that critical moment.
Fourth grade was brutal.

In 1986 I worked fourteen hour days as slave labor in a greenhouse that specialized in Christmas décor. We sprayed white snow and shiny lacquer on pine branches until we were dizzy with the fumes. I had hives all over my body and fluid in my lungs, and I swore I would never, ever go white at Christmas.

A dear friend had a “life” sized white Christmas tree. Her fiancé had purchased it for her on a post- holiday sale, and he died, very suddenly of a heart attack, before Christmas came around again. I helped her decorate the wretched thing the following December, and amid tears and scattered branches and way too much rum, we finally reached an accord of sorts with the white tree.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said. “It won’t bring him back.”
“He would’ve wanted it,” she sobbed. “He loved white at Christmas.”
“One of these days.” – fanning a branch and sighing - “This sort of thing is going to get easier. For now, we'll just decorate the side facing the living room”

White lights, white pines, white snow, bleh. What about a real tree - big gaudy retro lights, red and green and blue? Candy cane stripes and glitter, homemade ornaments? Or . . .

Ah hell, it’s not about color, is it? It’s not about trees, or cookies or candy canes, and we know this because Linus tells us every year.  “ . . . the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, 'Fear not! For, behold, I bring you tidings of great joy. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you: Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger . . .' "

Probably the baby wasn’t dressed all in white. The swaddling clothes would have been whatever blankets his mother had managed to tuck away for the journey. Maybe the baby himself wasn’t even white.  But we know, don’t we, that He shone with a brilliance, a beauty, a love that He would carry with him throughout his entire life and even after.

There it is. He is our “white” Christmas, people –  brighter than the Macy’s Christmas tree, shinier than the Chicago Bean. Gorgeous and perfect and wrapped all in love.

And love, after all, is a multi-colored beast, no?

~*~*~ 

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Halloween Magic: Behind Our Silly Adult Masks

Art by Julie Jamison-Lewis

I’m pretty sure time stands still on October 31^st.

Every Halloween, all of our lives, frozen still in amber. Here we are as little children, grinning behind the old plastic masks – cowboys and Indians, back in the day. Casper and Sylvester the cat.  We lit jack-o-lanterns with tapered candles that our mom had cut into halves, sticky caramel on our fingers, cold wind in our hair. Running, always running, through the crimson blitz of autumn, gold leaves spinning in a smoky twilight sky.

November as far away as tomorrow.

My daughter was a week old on her first Halloween. She wore a teensy black cat costume, and I took her trick-or-treating in her stroller, winding full-speed through our trailer court with maple spinners crunching beneath my tennis shoes. Already smiling, already caught up in the enchantment. The child she was – the child I was – they are still here, suspended in perfect bursts of autumn color.

Three gorgeous kids, years and years of costumes and cookies and scavenger hunts. Bonfires, buckeyes and bob-for-apples. Every year, a year older. Every year, still magic. We did Build-A-Monster, cemetery walks, the town parade - and always, always, the air was crisp as a new apple, the moon a sharp crescent in a broad and purple sky.  Dizzy with laughter, drunk on excitement, we zoomed from house to house and never seemed to touch the ground.

Another year – pumpkins already on the porch, lights strung through the bushes, Jack Skellington climbing the hill again, bony silhouette against the fat yellow moon. Children grown and new steps going up to the cemetery. Endless busy days – work and college and meetings; and nothing has changed at all. Not on Halloween.

On Halloween, the world stops spinning while the moon comes up and the ghouls come out and the jack-o-lanterns leer from the shadows. We hold our breaths while the magic, the never-ever-failing Halloween magic, fills the air and fills us all. For an instant, we are grinning kids again behind our silly adult masks.

And so, my friends, the biggest, the bestest holiday of all is soon upon us. Wishing you all a wonderful, fantastical, beautiful night.

Look Up

“Oh wow, that is magic.”

Just the moon. Set unmoving in a broad and blameless early morning sky; it is perhaps a little red. So we huddle in the parking lot outside our fire station with our chins tipped up like the Peanuts gang on Christmas Eve, and we almost forget to breathe. Such beauty, so undeserved.

I’m not a Doomsday Prepper, but I have to admit to a certain fearfulness lately. Ebola, Isis, D68. Not just the evil that we foist upon each other, but the randomness of catastrophe. It’s a scary world out there, isn’t it? 

We’re hunkered down, frightened, so much of the time.

We have to remind ourselves to look up.

But more than that, we have to look for that same prettiness down here on earth, both boots on the ground.

Well here, it looks a little like this -

“I finally got my student loan money.” Oh yay, she has been waiting for this. Counting pennies, literally. But her voice is hesitant now, so I wait for the other shoe to drop. “I gave five hundred dollars to Operation Smile. It’s a charity that helps kids with cleft palates.”

Ah God, for a moment I am breathless. This girl, my child, isn’t wealthy by any standards; five hundred dollars, to a charity, is a drop in the bucket – to her it is, well, the moon.

I’m made small by this, I really am. I’m humbled by a kid who would give away the moon so another person could have a pretty smile.

And this –

The tones go off at the station, both fire and ambulance needed for a motor vehicle accident. My partner and I jump in the rig, and as we round the corner, here come our new recruits. Three wonderful young men, not a decent vehicle amongst them. They are on foot, running full-out to our station to answer the call. 

They don’t get a paycheck for this.

Wow, right? Are we not better than we give ourselves credit for?

So, here is the awesome news to hang onto today. In the midst of sickness, war, poverty and ignorance, we still exist. And by “we” I mean the cashier who recommended her favorite herbal remedy for your child’s cough. The elderly lady who brought cookies to the kindergarten book fair. The kid who found a twenty dollar bill and tacked it up on the bulletin board at your local convenience store.

Why don’t we look harder at the goodness in each other? And in looking, why don’t we take heart? We’re not small, ignorant, dysfunctional or petty.  We are – or at least we have the capability to be – good, shining and bright.

We just have to look up.

Late August at the Lake

August, don’t leave us yet!

It is true that I normally don’t feel that way about this month, but the weather has been kind to us this year, with beautiful sun-soaked afternoons and crisp evenings where the tip of the moon in a boundless pink sky makes you want to live forever.

 

And so, August has that bittersweet feel to me right now, that sense of wanting to cling to something as mutable as heat lightning, or the rush of creek water through grasping fingers.

Don’t go, don’t go.

But isn’t most of life this way?

Late afternoon, and my daughter and I drive to the lake for the first time – yes, probably the only time – this summer. So much of our lives, so many of our memories, are caught up in here in the sun-dappled water, and when I jump in it all washes over me in a rush. A thousand days, a million moments, every summer I’ve ever lived - here in the whoosh of water, the cool green depths.

Don’t go, don’t go.

 

If you’re lucky, raising children gives you a sort of second childhood, so that their “When we were little” meshes almost seamlessly with your own. So much of ours was spent here at the lake. So much made up of sand castles, the raft, sun-brown bodies tumbling in diamond water. Summer air so thick it was like breathing jello through a straw, and a pop machine that never worked.

We loved it here.

 

My kids are grown up now! My daughter, here with me today, is a brilliant, lovely college student. I remember holding her the first time and having this very same awareness of time hurrying on, rushing forward, pushing us onward. I thought then, and I think now – this moment, this here and now, will never be again.

 

But I think it is true that the best moments in our lives, the ones that we cling to the hardest, get stored away somewhere. I think of God keeping a careful tally and stashing those days away in a big boxes with names on the lids. And wow, when you get to open it, there it all will be – the first kiss, the tiny baby, the trillions of sweet and breathless life moments that skitter away faster than you can catch them.

 

This day, here. Late August at the lake.

 

 

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