Cookie Days

Start with butter. Real butter if we’ve got it – otherwise, Country Crock works, twelve tablespoons for a monster batch. Each child gets to scoop the butter, so pull up chairs to stand on.

Sugar and brown sugar and . . .oh wow, no eggs.

Add a trip to the grocery. All of us in the station wagon - muffler is shot, and the front window stuck open; backseat smells like sour milk. And we love, love this old car. It’s like family.

Get your shoes on or you can’t go in!
Small town grocery. We can pay with piggy bank change, or even charge if we have to. Add four orange sodas to the bill. And a catnip mouse for the kitty, why not?

Home again, and the cat has his face in the mixing bowl, whiskers sticky. Add laughter here, lots of it. No sense getting mad on cookie day.

Okay, start over. Butter, sugars and everyone here crack an egg, we can put in enough flour to make it right.

Wait, we need music!
Add Jimmy Buffet, it’s summertime.
Vanilla – no don’t drink it! Just drop some in. Yep, that was plenty, don’t worry, it tastes good.

 Looking for my last shaker of salt. Dancing? Oldest child with the youngest on her hip. Middle child balances GI Joe on the edge of the bowl and then lets him flop in.

Add salt, baking soda. Rescue Joe and douse him under the faucet.

Nestles chips, the best part! Stir the dough and pretend not to notice the little fingers pinching at it, chocolate at the corners of Cheshire grins; we’ll all have belly aches and we don’t care.

Plop the dough on the cookie sheet by the spoonful and fill the whole house with wondrous scent of baking chocolate.

Sweet tooths and healthy appetites, and friends stopping by for a sleep-over.

Cookies gone by tomorrow, memories ours for a lifetime.

 

 

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Nicola Writes: "Dark Anniversaries"

Most EMS personnel have been on that call. The call that becomes, over time, a sort of dark anniversary, a still moment in time when we are forced to acknowledge the certain inevitability of death and our own inability to stave it off. My main character, Nicola Thomas, stepped forward this week to blog about one such call. I almost put the kibosh to it, given that it is pretty . . . well, dark. But then she pulled off a beautiful save in the last couple of paragraphs and I decided that maybe the viewpoint of one who had stood so close to death might actually be valuable as far as helping the rest of us to better live. Let me know what you think. I can always fire her.

The last curve ­­­on Kittideere Road is a broad hook, shaded by the arthritic arms of oaks and elms and scented, in the summertime, with the heady stink of joe pye weed. By July, the undergrowth at the roadside will be impassable, tangled with morning glory and maypop, and latticing over the little white cross - finally covering it in vines and blossoms and making it far more palatable.

Are roadside memorials unnerving only to EMS and fire personnel, or do they inspire a universal sort of flinching?

The Kittideere cross commemorates a truck vs tree, victim twenty years old and breathing his last on my nephew’s birthday. I arrived on the scene with the dazzle of three candles still in my eyes and had to blink against the white-hot glare of August sun before pushing my sunglasses into place.  Our patient was part way down a ravine, still in his truck and wearing a tree – the branches encroaching through the shattered windshield to pin him hopelessly, resolutely, against the seat, the cab squashed and flattened all around him.

He was alive, but he had plenty of fluid in his airway, and the irregular gurgling sounds were harsh against an innocuous backdrop of honey bee drone and bird chatter. Cantwell had already wormed his way into the cab and the final remnants of the birthday song faded from my mind as he began suction and Burwell started the Jaws.

Cutters and Spreaders and Rams – huge hydraulic tools that tear through metal like a toddler’s finger trenching frosting. Almost too heavy for me, but the adrenaline rush is an incredible thing - roars through the brain, steadies the hands – and we went to work.

Our patient’s legs were hopeless – splintered bone showing through torn jeans, blood already pouring from beneath the door and pooling on my boot. The dash was hard against his chest.
“Hurry as you can.” Cantwell’s voice was deceptively calm, encouraging in the way of a man pitching a ball to a child, and I was aware again, for only the fleetest of seconds, of the glorious summer all around us. The simple beauty of emerald leaves against boundless sky.

Then someone said “We’re losing him,” and we abandoned caution, finally snapping the door hinge and ripping our patient free from the glut and snarl of metal and elm tree.
He fell gracelessly to the woodland carpet – ugly tangle of gristle, tissue and bone – and we flopped him on a backboard and ran with him.

Of course he died. He had brown skin and a sunburst tattoo on his biceps. A picture of a little girl in his wallet.

And so, it seems to me that memorials can be a messy proposition, little white crosses maybe representing hopelessness and defeat, blood and loss.

Maybe not.

Because if simple thoughts are prayers – and I believe they sometimes are – then I pray for him each time I see the little cross set catawampus against the roots of the broken elm. This soul - the soul of a man I never knew in life - whispers to me whenever I traverse that familiar road; and it no longer seems like bad thing, this holding hands with that other world. Maybe my prayers for him are answered with his prayers for me, and so it goes, life and death and afterlife all in a continuous whirl. All of us related, all of us hoping and praying for each other, sending encouragement, hope and love across the virtual miles.

That would be a good thing, wouldn’t it? That would make it all worthwhile.   

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Top Ten Silliest Calls for Help

“Fire station,” my partner answers the phone while I groan in my sleep. “No ma’am, we don’t do that. No, the chief’s not here. I’ll pass that on, sorry.”

“Who?” I manage. 

“Lady on the East end. We didn’t pick up her garbage this morning. It’s garbage day and she wants to know why we skipped her.”

“But we don’t . . .oh hell, never mind.” 

Who calls a fire station and why? 

The answer might surprise you, and, to that end – with the help of my wonderful coworkers – I have compiled a Top Ten list of Silliest Calls for Help:

1) Garbage Collecting. It’s not in our scope of practice; it’s odd to us that so many residents believe it to be. In fact, we ourselves often forget to put our own garbage out, and have been known to come flying out the door with a Hefty bag while the truck meanders on past.

2) Pool Maintenance. We can’t fill your new pool with water from our tanker. That water is reserved for fires, and besides it came from the canal and, trust me, you would never, ever want to swim in it. No, we don’t know how to make it clean.

3) If you are the Captain and you want to offer us a cruise . . . We do want to go, we do! But no matter how long we “hold” you never come back.

4) Utilities. Beyond our control! And if you’re ComCast, we can’t add the fancy movie channels. Some of those might be inappropriate anyway. Our trustees are religious and they pay the bills.

5) We’re not always sure what time the post office is closed for lunch.

6) Or what the supper special at the local tavern is.

7) Or why there’s no school today.

8) We’ll be glad to set up the meeting room for the Cub Scouts, but we can’t help you with how many snacks you’ll need to bring.

9) The Chief will get mad at us if we let your children and Dalmatian puppy pose on the truck for a family portrait. You call him.

10) We would love to come and kill the bat fluttering around your kitchen but you’re not even in our district and if somebody here has a heart attack while we’re out there swinging a tennis racket . . . well, that could get ugly.

Which of course brings us to all the millions of good, good reasons to call us! Don’t wait if you have pain or sickness or fire! If your carbon monoxide detector goes off, your life alert beeps or your car door slams on your fingers! We’ve come for dogs in the canal and even cats in trees. We love you! We just can’t do anything about the garbage pick-up.

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Dandelions: The Flower of Life

Today’s Facebook question involves choosing a favorite flower. 
 “White roses,” it states, “represent purity and innocence, and are traditionally associated with weddings and new beginnings.”  

Carnations for divine love, Daffodils - unrequited love, larkspurs - fickleness.

Not a fan. 

Why are dandelions not an option?

I mean, here they are already, marching across yards and ditches, alleys and junkyards, shoulder to shoulder, yellow heads tucked against the blustery early May wind. Nature’s fiercest warriors, they know no boundaries, respect no lines, do not discriminate. They are plentiful and free to everyone. 

Has ever a mother accepted a handful of these lovelies from her little one with anything but the utmost exuberance? “Oh my!” we say. “Aren’t they gorgeous?” And then we inhale that sharp fragrance until our noses are yellow with it. 

They are beautiful! I don’t own a single warm weather memory that isn’t dotted with bright yellow, as essential as the blue of the sky itself. Childhood summers were spent weaving their stems into chains, staining our fingertips green. We studied the rudiments of  dandelion wine making, made a wish while scattering the feather seed balls, and chanted “mama had a baby and its head popped off” until the ground was littered with the beheaded beauties. 

Dandelions are forgiving – they come back.

My own children gathered them up by the fistful and set them on the counter in water glasses; and even though the bloom’s demise was immediate, we would keep the wilted stem for days. I have to admit (and I think most women would) that I have received roses with less enthusiasm.

At my aunt’s funeral, my cousin’s final act was to offer a dandelion – she stood for a time with her head bent, sunlight brightening her hair, and then she lay the little flower on the coffin, creating a memory so sharp, so poignant it will be forever linked in my mind with the first green of spring.

Weed, you say? Dandelions are the flowers of life, brave and resilient and absolutely glorious. They represent all that is good - round of face, bright complected. Shouldn’t we all be more like them, planting our feet firmly, squaring our shoulders against the opposition and raising our heads to the sun?

Perhaps a bit overboard, you say? Yes, maybe, but I will make my husband read this before he reaches for the Round Up.

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The Thing About Easter

Here is the thing about Easter. It’s never been my favorite. Part of me wants to blame the color scheme. It’s so hard to get behind a holiday that is all about pastel fluff – marshmallows and jellies and pink pink pink.

What if we were to color the day in crimson hues? I mean, bright and glorious – that shiny warrior color, blood-red like the sun coming up in a stormy sky?

 Well, that’s better.

The thing about Easter is, I think, that nobody shouts enough. It’s hard to get excited about bunnies and peeps and little rosy colored eggs. Shiny shoes and broad brimmed hats and long, long church services.

Yes, what if we shouted? What if we claimed the victory that is our birthright and sang about a never-ending life?

Maybe we should throw aside the eggs and the bunnies and (maybe) even the chocolate and just be . . . well, shouldn’t we be really happy?

 If the egg scheme is gone, and we are left with only the victory of life over death, then . . .  we should definitely be singing. Lol! Maybe we just need to pay more attention. To examine more closely the words of the dry little fellow on the alter, and then repeat them to one another. Joyfully.

He lives.

Because if Jesus died and then came back - and this we know to be true - that is huge. That is rock star awesome, and that victory should absolutely be vibrating throughout the whole universe.

So maybe this Easter we should pluck happiness out of the sky and hug it to ourselves just as fiercely as we hold our sorrows, our angers, our prejudices. And we could let those things go, because they cost too much anyway. We could dance instead of cowering, we could lift our faces to the sky and inhale sunshine.

And sing, beautiful people, sing hallelujah.

~*~*~ 

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Facebook Empath

*Artwork by Edward Dyas

“My mother died yesterday,” she writes. “She was eighty-seven years old, and I never told her I loved her. But I did.”

The post rears up from six-hundred twenty others and slaps me full in the face, such a sharp surprise I have to blink back tears. Who wrote this? I don’t know her. Her name is Sadie and she’s from Scotland .

My fingers float over the keys, and finally I type, “She knew it.” I hesitate, and then punch delete.

 

 

Facebook is such an odd microorganism of life! I almost feel anger at this woman for hurting me this way, and a large part of me wants to tell her that she should have laid the computer aside, just for a minute or so, long enough to say those three words.

 

What sort of society bares their souls to total strangers on little-bitty screens all day long every day? Are there studies being done somewhere on the long term effects?  Hang on, I need a cup of coffee while I think about this.

 

Okay, my Facebook may be unique in that, in addition to actual friends, I have crammed it full with authors, bloggers and firefighters from every corner of the globe. In short, people I don’t know.

Which is to say, they don’t know me either.

 

“Mmm-mmm, fried chicken and okra tonight. Jimmy should be home by six and this girl just wants to put her arms around him.”  They’re from the south. He drives a truck and she’s got three kids at home, one of whom broke his leg last week.  For a minute I can almost smell supper, hear Bandit scratching at the back door and see the first spring flowers.

 

“Lil girl didn’t make it but Tierra doing better, and God got his loving arms wrapped around that baby.” Chicago . The daughter lost her preemie, but they’ll be okay because they are so, so religious.

 

“Lost my freakin gloves in the field fire south of town. FML.” Okay, that was a huge fire, saw that on the news. Gloves should be the least of his worries.

 

“Day twelve without a cigarette!”      “Christian brought home a science project that is going to cost us forty dollars to build a friggin robot. Hate this school system!”      “Watching Chicago Fire with my hunny.”       “No fat shaming!”      “We’ve been pooping wrong! Asians squat on the toilet with their feet on the seat.”     Aaaaargh! The messages fly off the screen, take on accents and nuances, and, sometimes, lose all meaning. Facebook is no place for empathy or patience. Is it?

 

“I never told her I loved her.” Ah, Sadie, there you are again. I am so sorry.

Maybe Facebook isn’t so different from anywhere else? Maybe everyone is just clamoring to be heard like bus-trapped kids on a field trip – excited, happy, sick or disconsolate? Hear me! Listen to my story!

 

“I don’t know you, Sadie,” I type. “But I really hate this for you. I think it will get better in time.”

The knot in my chest loosens just a little. 

 

And I remember, then, that I’ve got a direct line to the Pope on Twitter. I’ll drop a note to him about Sadie.

 

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Little Girl Writes

“I’m so thrilled you wrote a book!” she says to me. “Do you remember how you used to read me your stories every day on the bus?”

Actually, I had forgotten. But suddenly it seems important.

“You always had a notebook in your hand, and you left spaces in between the lines in case you wanted to add more.”

She’s known me since childhood, and the rush of her enthusiasm has brought the little girl back to me whole, tousle-haired and slumped with her knees against the seat in front of her, a pencil eraser propped between her teeth.

I actually love that version of me; thank God she’s still here.

She is, you see, a writer – and I had almost lost her in the throes of trying to become an author.

Writers write. Much the same as “humans breathe.” It is an instinctual response, vital to existence. They write at kitchen tables, in bedrooms, on buses. During blizzards and heat waves, after house fires, before baptisms, during first dates. They can’t help it – they have to get story onto paper. Capture the emotion, freeze frame life. All of it.

Authors. Well, authors publish. They network, promote, sign books. They hire professional photographers to snap their photo and publishers to place it just so on the back of their novel cover. Authors edit mercilessly the writer’s dream words and then they join critique groups who help them to slice away even more. In a nutshell, authors boil the craft of writing into business, which is all well and good, and absolutely essential.

As long as the author doesn’t bury the writer.

Because the writer is susceptible to crushing injuries, and tends to crack beneath the weight of the author’s demands. Remember, she doesn’t write for money or recognition. She writes because she loves her craft - actually not so far removed from the little girl who cried when an incautious sibling left her notebook in the tree house during a thunderstorm.

To my bus buddy, I write on the inside cover of my very first real published novel. Thanks for helping me to remember. <3 Lucy Crowe