Category Archives: Personal Essay

Memorable Characters

Posted on by
Reply

How many stories have you read that contain characters who do not resonate with you? When you finish the text, you can’t recall a single striking detail about that character.

There is nothing unique about him. Brown hair and eyes. Medium height. Slim build. Pleasant personality, but not engaging.

As a reader, you might not have read to the end out of boredom or dissatisfaction. Why do this to your readers?

You must create individuals that are unique in important ways. Give her freckles across the bridge of her nose and a loud, booming voice. A sultry walk. A gift for music. Place her in a restaurant, playing the piano to an engaged audience.

Make her familiar to the reader: someone that the reader might have known back in high school. Maybe she wasn’t class president, but she was one of the smart ones. You studied together in the library during lunch. You played on the same team, and while you excelled, she persevered.

When your reader comes in contact with her, there is a pleasant vibe. A glow or hum. A feeling of empathy towards the character’s situation.

Your character is likable, but has flaws. He speaks calmly, yet forgets names and important dates. He loves his spouse but still looks dreamily at others passing by.

Make your character someone that demands attention. Someone so worthwhile that readers are compelled to follow that moment in the person’s life. The reader doesn’t have to like the character, but does have to care about him.

As time passes in your story, the reader will either root for or against your character’s ability to achieve her goal, even if that goal isn’t something that the reader would want for herself.

When we read, we want to follow the character through her day, be a part of her world. Be thankful when good things happen to her, cry when tragedy strikes.

If you do this, if you create a character who is memorable, then your readers will be fully engaged throughout the telling of the story. They will root for or against the character each step of the way. And when the end comes around, the reader will feel satisfied.

That’s your goal.

Reasons Why You Should Join a Writer’s Group

Posted on by
2

Let’s face it, writing is a lonely profession.  You sit in front of your computer, concentrating on what words should come next, all alone. Just you, your keyboard and your monitor.

If you are lucky, you have s significant other who will read your words and give feedback, but many of us do not.

So you work on, thinking, typing and maybe even wondering if what you are creating is worthwhile, if anyone, anywhere, would want to read it.

If your friends ask what you do in your free time, they don’t know what to say when you respond, “I write.” Maybe you’ll get a, “That’s nice. What are you writing?” before they smile and move on.

So, what do you do to get the feedback and support that you need? Join some type of writers’ group.

The following are some excellent reasons why you need to take this step:

  1. Everyone needs motivation to keep going. When you know that a meeting is coming up and that you will be expected to share newly created work, you write.
  2. Ideas have to come from somewhere. If you’re lucky, your brain is able to come up with enough new ideas to keep you going for a long time. But what happens when you get stuck? Reading and critiquing the work of others and having your work critiqued as well, gives you an opportunity to see what others are doing. You get to ask clarifying questions, share ideas to see what others think of them, and even spend time brainstorming new places to take your story.
  3. What happens when you write yourself into a dead end? Who do you turn to? That’s another advantage of belonging to a writers’ group. You can ask advice about how to move to the next point, or to choose between beginnings.
  4. There is nothing that feels as good as a pat on the back. That’s what a good writers’ group will do for you. They’ll mention specific phrases that they like, descriptions that make a scene come alive, characters that are multidimensional. Hearing praise makes us want to work on, to move into the next segment of our story.
  5. If you post your work on a blog, you, hopefully, will get feedback from an even wider audience. That helps you see what is touching others beyond your narrow circle of readers. This is especially true when writing for a target age group. Say you’ve written the next hit Young Adult novel. How else to find out if it reaches the teenager unless at least one of them reads it? You don’t have to have a blog, but you might be able to find an online group in your genre.
  6. Belonging to a group that enjoys what you do, that writes and critiques and posts work, makes you a professional. Isn’t that what all writers want to be? You can also join your local writers’ club, such as the California Writers’ Club which has branches all over the state.

 

There are probably a host of additional reasons why you should join a group. Go online and research. I’ll bet you can find a hundred more.

I hope this helps.

 

The Importance of Tone

Posted on by
3

Tone is an important component in any piece of writing. Tone is set by conveying emotions or feelings through the choice of words. The way a character feels about an idea or concept or event, or even another person can be determined through the facial expressions that character uses, through gestures such as movement, action and arm waving, and even in the voice used.

 

The following are three examples of tone. the protagonist, Nicole, is the same in all three, but her attitude as she approaches a mundane, but necessary task is what changes the overall tone of each piece.

Version #1

 

The house was a mess.  The kids’ toys were scattered all over the family room floor, random socks hung abandoned across chair arms, and dishes in various stages of decay were piled high in the sick. Nicole looked at the mess in disgust. She knew she should do something about it, but lacked the energy to tackle the project without first taking a sustaining sip of her favorite drink: whiskey.

She poured herself a wineglass full, turned on the television, then sat in her husband’s recliner. She pushed back, sending the footrest high, leaned back and settled in for her soaps. All that television drama fortified her belief that there was no such thing as a good marriage. After all, look at her own.

Her husband, a handsome, successful businessman, left home before dawn and came home after the kids were in bed. He did nothing around the home, not even picking up his own dirty clothes. He seldom spent time with the kids on weekends, and when he was home, his phone was glued to his ear focusing on solving one crisis after another. Nicole often wondered if he was having an affair, but she was too tired to care and too terrified to ask.

When her shows were over and the whiskey long gone, Nicole began work. She flung the toys in the direction of the toy box, not caring if they actually fell within its sides. Next she tackled the socks, picking them up one by one, then tossing them out in the garage, where they landed in front of the hamper. The dishes were so disgusting that Nicole didn’t want to touch them, but she had no choice. If she didn’t wash them, no one would.

With furrowed brow, Nicole decided to tackle the dishes next. The easiest ones were on top, for they were from breakfast. She had fixed the kids pancakes which they drowned in syrup, now a sticky sludge. She scrubbed it off, sometimes having to exert a little muscle. She scraped off as much food remains as she could, then rinsed each dish before setting it in the dishwasher. It was a tedious task.

Next down were the ones from last night’s dinner. Spaghetti. Thankfully the sauce rinsed off quite nicely. Stacked next to the sink were the pots and pans. Now they were a huge mess. Crusted sauce. Hardened batter. Bits of hamburger stuck to the bottom of the skillet. Nicole kept at it until everything was either clean and put away or stacked in the dishwasher.

That was not the end of the job, however. There was dusting to do and changing of the kids’ beds. She went into the boys’ room first and stripped off the blankets and sheets. One set she put in the washer. The other she left on the floor. Back in the room, she sprayed the mattress covers with Febreeze and then ran a dust rag across the tops of the chest of drawers and around the legs of the beds.

In her daughter’s room she did the same.

Next on tap was the bathroom that the kids used. It was a mess. Damp towels in jumbles on the floor. Dried toothpaste in the sink. A dirty ring around the tub. While Nicole cleaned, inwardly she clenched her stomach, fighting the revulsion that threatened to erupt.

She loved her kids, but hated cleaning up after them. They were all of an age where they should pick up clothes and toys and change beds, but Nicole didn’t want to upset the family order. She was a stay-at-home mom with nothing important to do, so, according to her husband, she should be the one to attend to those details.

It made her so mad that somedays she thought about leaving. Considered packing a suitcase full of her favorite clothes and walking out the door while the kids were at school. She wouldn’t call to check up on them, wouldn’t come by the house to see if it still stood, wouldn’t email or text or make any attempt at contact. But where would she go? That’s what stopped her.

While she waited for the last load of laundry to dry, she poured herself another whiskey and settled in front of the television. She watched a mindless interview-type show in which brokenhearted ex-lovers aired their woes to millions. There was screaming and yelling and insults being tossed back and forth, to the enjoyment of the live audience.

Nicole would love to have the gumption to tell her husband what she thought of him. To complain about his lack of involvement in the family’s lives. To yell about all the things he does not do around the house. To slap him in the face and kick him in the shins. But that wasn’t her style.

She kept it all bottled up inside, telling no one how she felt. Abandoned. Ignored. Used. Taken advantage of. Unloved.

Nicole got up when she heard the dryer buzz. She gathered the sheets and blankets and made her daughter’s bed.

Then she went into the kitchen and began preparations for dinner. She’d just started browning a roast when her kids burst through the door. Their smiles, their energy, their hugs. That’s what she lived for. That’s what kept her going.

 

 

Version #2

 

Nicole loved spring. Birds sang out merry tunes as they built nests and prepared for the hatching of the eggs. Trees sprouted buds, harbingers of bright green leaves that would soon provide comfort and shade. The grass grew in the yard and flowers bloomed. It was a time of high energy. A time to do things.

For her, it meant cleaning. Many of her friends moaned about time wasted dusting furniture, and a few even hired housekeepers to spare themselves of the task. But not Nicole. She loved the smell of furniture polish. Loved the waxy feel on the rags. Admired the shine on the table tops and legs and the tops of dressers and vanities.

She disliked cobwebs, but loved taking her whisk into corners and across the beams, removing every trace. It felt terrific to see all remnants gone. Her walls and corners free of evidence that a spider had ever been there.

Nicole’s favorite room was her newly remodeled kitchen with its honey colored cabinets and granite countertops. She whistled as she scrubbed the doors and drawer fronts, taking time to ensure that all finger smudges were gone. Using her special polish, she worked it into the countertops, rubbing until the surfaces sparkled.

After doing all that, it was time to take a damp mop to her wood floors. There was something cathartic about erasing footprints and going over and over every inch of the floor until it shone.

Finished with that project, Nicole got the vacuum cleaner out of the closet and pulled it down the hall. Her bedroom was the only room in the house that still had carpet. She plugged in her machine and pushed it around the room, bending over to get it as far under the bed as possible. Nicole loved how the vacuum made each fiber stand up tall.

She left the most challenging rooms for last: her kids’ bedrooms. Her daughter was a tidy little thing. Her treasures were neatly aligned along shelves her husband had built and hung. Her clothes were folded and in drawers, her shoes matched under the bed. Even her bed was always made. Nicole hated to disturb her things, but dusting had to be done. She was careful to put each item back in its spot, each shoe in alignment. After washing her bedclothes, she made sure that all corners were tucked properly, the pillow fluffed and the comforter centered.

Her sons was not as organized. Their baseball mitts were tossed on the floor next to dirt encrusted cleats and grass-stained shirts. Books were piled on the floor next to each bed, the top ones with lying upside down and spread-eagled.  Nicole bent to pick up random socks and crumpled shirts left under the bed and across the floor.

She striped each bed and carried sheets and blanket to the garage. Once the washer was going, Nicole returned to her sons’ room with dust rag and polish. She cleaned all surfaces, singing to herself a little tune that she sang to her kids as she tucked them into bed each night: “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” Not a particularly childlike tune, but one her kids loved.

Nicole saved the bathrooms till last. Her husband, thankfully, cleaned all the toilets. That was something they had agreed on before they got married. He also scrubbed the shower and tub because it was easier for him than it was for her. That left the sinks and floors. Nicole didn’t mind removing the bits of toothpaste her kids and husband left behind. It reminded her of how much she loved them, how happy she was to have them in her life, how pleased she was to be there for them.

When her work was done, Nicole took one last walk through the house, looking for things she might have missed. She did find a spot of dust on the front of her husband’s chest of drawers and a cobweb high in the corner of her daughter’s room. These she quickly removed and then put away her cleaning supplies.

Finished, Nicole got herself a cold soda, turned on her computer and began to write. She composed a poem that spoke of the beauty of spring, of familial love, of commitment and devotion. She smiled.

 

 

Version #3

 

When Nicole arrived home after an exhausting day at work, the dog greeted her at the door. This was a harbinger of things to come, for the dog was supposed to have been put in the backyard right before her husband left the house. She bent over and patted the dog on the top of her head, gave her a few kisses and told her how much she loved her. And then Nicole noticed the smell.

It was an acrid stench. It seemed to be coming from all directions at once. Nicole knew what had happened. The dog, in desperation, had urinated and pooped in the house. Now Nicole had to find the deposits, remove them, and cleanse.

Tears fell. She was too tired to deal with this. It wouldn’t have happened if her husband hadn’t been distracted. He must have gotten a call from work, telling him to come immediately to put out some new fire, and then rushed out of the house, forgetting all about the poor dog.

She pulled out her phone to call him, to complain, to whine, but then realized how childish it would seem.

“Oh, well,” she thought. “Might as well change clothes first.” Nicole went into her bedroom and slipped into her work jeans and an old, sloppy t-shirt.

It wasn’t the dog’s fault, but Nicole did not want to look at her for fear of striking out in anger, so she put the dog outside and locked the door. It was like punishing an innocent, she knew, but it also made a statement as to how she felt about the mess left for her to clean up.

Then the search began. She found two piles of shit on the bathroom floor, which she scooped using a plastic bag. Then she mopped until the floor sparkled. She cussed and swore as she worked, letting the words fly with each movement of the mop.

There was more shit in the front room, nicely deposited in front of the television, in a spot that she would never have missed. It was a runny glob. The poor dog must be ill, Nicole thought. She fell into her recliner and let the tears flow. The mess. And now a sick animal.

Where would she find the time to take the dog to the vet? Her husband should have to do it. Hold up his end of the deal. She hadn’t wanted a dog. It’s not that she didn’t like them, but Nicole felt it wouldn’t be fair to leave a dog home alone long hours while they went off to work. And then the dog would have to be boarded when and if they traveled. She had protested, but her husband won the argument. He brought home a beautiful black lab puppy. All wagging tail and smiling eyes.

Cute as a tiny puppy, but too big to be trapped indoors for hours on end. Nicole had insisted that a run be built in the backyard, so her husband had hired a contractor. It was perfect. Shade. Fresh water. Shelter. The dog hated it, Nicole knew, and it made her cry to put the dog out there, which is why she left it up to her husband.

By the smell, Nicole knew she’d find more evidence of the dog’s discomfort if she could just get up and get going. Instead she turned on the television to the horrors of the evening news. She cried when she heard about the murder of a teen who was doing nothing more exciting than walking home from school. More tears fell when the news spoke of soldiers killed in a battle in Afghanistan. Again she cried at the mention of a wayward whale that had washed ashore and died on the beach. In fact, it seemed all she did was cry.

Nicole did not react when her husband came home. She didn’t respond when he called her name, nor when he bent over and kissed her cheek. “What’s wrong?” he asked as he gripped her hand in his. “Are you feeling okay? Is something wrong? Can I get you something?”

“Oh, hi,” she said. “Nothing’s wrong. I mean, the news makes me cry and I’ve no energy to finish cleaning up after the dog.”

“The dog?”

“You forgot to put her out. She made a mess all over the house.”

He stood and looked about. There was a puddle on the kitchen floor. A damp spot on the carpet near the back door and that runny pile in front of the television. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll do it while you rest.”

He busied himself about, cleaning and scouring and scrubbing and even fixing dinner, while Nicole sat and cried some more about the news.

 

 

My Opinion About Politics

Posted on by
Reply

I hate politics, yet follow it faithfully. I understand that our democracy works because individuals can get on a public stage and brag about all they have accomplished and all they plan on doing, just so that the voters know who best represents their interests.

It’s like a bragging game in which the one who has the most to say, that offers the best package, wins. That person may not be the best for the smooth operation of our government, but the process has to play out.

There are those who choose not to vote as protest against the candidates, but that is dumb. Whether or not we like an individual, we have the right to mark a box for or against. Even if the one we wanted to be there is not.

This season is rampant with braggarts and bullies and haves. There are never any have-nots running for office as it takes tons of money to do so. If this is true, then none of the candidates truly represent the vast majority of Americans. None of them come from homes where food was not always plentiful and sometimes bills had to be postponed. None of them understand the life of everyday Americans, yet there are dupes who think they do.

Politics is about convincing voters that the candidate will do something for us that no other has ever done. I heard one individual from a small town saying that he was voting for a certain braggart because he knew that the candidate would reopen the bowling alley, the only entertainment in town.

I’m sorry to say, but that guy is sadly disillusioned. None of the candidates are going to reopen bowling alleys or rebuild theaters or give money to small restaurant owners. None of them are going to bring manufacturing jobs back to America as long as the minimum wage continues to rise and labor costs less overseas.

And what is even worse, as we’ve seen the last seven-plus years, is that Congress is so polarized that nothing gets accomplished. Every single incumbent thinks with the ballet in mind. Getting elected the next go-round. He/ She does not vote with Americans in mind. That we need roads rebuilt and strong education systems and jobs that offer dignity and housing to shelter our growing numbers of homeless.

None of them will do anything about the proliferation of guns because the organization that supports gun ownership has too many politicians in its pocket. Or at least in the gun sights.

I may be disenfranchised, but I still vote because it is my constitutional right to do so. If I didn’t, then I would have no right to complain about whoever wins, especially if the least objectionable of the options loses by a narrow margin. That would be my fault and the fault of every last person who fails to submit a ballot.

American politics may be a mess, but it is the best that we’ve got. This is still a democratic country where our rights are protected. We cannot let a few demigods strip away the rights that we’ve fought so hard to get. We cannot let the rich play with our money without considering the needs of the majority of Americans. We cannot let the government stay at a standstill just because politicians think with their pocketbooks.

So, get out and vote. For someone who represents what America stands for. Equality. Safety. Freedoms.

Blood Red Days

Posted on by
1

Children aren’t supposed to get sick.  Romanticized images of childhood days picture little darlings running, jumping, climbing, laughing, living life as freely as a butterfly flitting from flower to flower.  Even in prayer, when most solemn, those cherubic faces glow with rosebud color.  So it should be, forever and ever.

Unfortunately strange bugs invade, causing any possible varieties of illness.  Most we understand.  Tonsillitis, ear infections, colds, cuts, bruises, and even the occasional broken bone fall into that realm.  Kids are susceptible to germs, primarily because they play with “germy” things, and so we expect them to fall ill. But we pray that those times are few and far between.

When your four-year-old child’s urine turns the color of burgundy wine, however, the only normal reaction is fear.  So it was for my husband and I when it happened to our six year old daughter.

When it first occurred, we tried not to panic so as to not alarm our daughter. What we did do was make phone calls and tons of doctors’ visits.   We began with the pediatrician who treated the early occurrences as bladder infections, with rounds of antibiotics as a hopeful cure. When that didn’t do the trick, we were referred to a family urologist who was used to treating senior citizens who would willingly allow tubes and prodding. Not our daughter. She fought him with the strength of an army, clenching shut her legs and refusing to budge. I didn’t blame her. I thought the doctor a little too interested in seeing what was between my child’s legs

Our next doctor was a pediatric urologist/oncologist.  Imagine the fears those words triggered. Oncology. Cancer. Curable or not? We didn’t know or understand what the doctor was going to do. How he was going to make the determination, but we made the appointment and went to see him.

Months had passed by now, and the color of her urine had deepened from a subtle pink to a deep, dark red. It was frightening, to not only us, but to our daughter. Even a small child understands that urine was not supposed to be that color.

For my daughter’s sake, we put on happy faces. We attempted to disguise our deep-seated fears.  When she was out of visual range, we gathered close together and allowed ourselves to cry.  Of course, we prayed.

There were days when her urine was a healthy golden color and we tried to convince ourselves that she was cured. We wept with joy and gave thanks to the Lord.  But the space between those times slowly expanded, until it was pretty much guaranteed that we would see red, and only red.

Antibiotics proved ineffective, and so the pediatric urologist ordered x-rays to search for the still unknown cause.

Off we went to Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, California, one of the finest hospitals in the Bay Area.  Our daughter, now five, was placed on a cold, metal table.  She was given huge quantities of liquid to drink.  The x-ray machine was lowered until it hovered above my little girl’s lower abdomen.  She was told to urinate, right there on the table, in front of five total strangers.  She couldn’t do it and I didn’t blame her.

The next step involved the insertion of a tube which would allow the urine to flow.  Pictures were taken and analyzed.  We went home and waited, impatiently, to hear the results.  When they came, we were terrified and confused. Because of the way her bladder was constructed, it was unable to fully close.  Surgery was recommended and schedule

Within days we drove to Children’s Hospital in Oakland, just as the sun was beginning to peak over the hills.  It was a peaceful scene which helped to ease somewhat our nervousness. It was short-lived, for immediately after completing the required paperwork, she was whisked away by an efficient, yet friendly nurse.

My husband paced the floor of the waiting room, talking to himself.  I prayed, placing my daughter’s life in God’s capable hands.

This operation was a success. Her bladder now would close and allow her to control the flow of urine. However, during the surgery, the doctor discovered that her ureters did not enter the bladder at the correct angle.  Not only that, but the flaps that prevented urine from moving into the kidneys were missing.  Another operation was planned.

Despite the negative news, my husband and I eagerly took our little girl home, hoping that at least there might be some reprieve from the tinged urine.  It was not to be.

Within hours, her urine turned from a healthy golden hue to a blood red, bone-chilling liquid.  Several phone calls later, another trip to the doctor’s was scheduled.  She was again put on a regimen of antibiotics, hoping to stem off any invasion of germs that might interfere with the next operation.

Good Friday found us, once again, in the waiting room of Children’s Hospital.   My husband paced the floor while I pretended to read.  Both of us turned our hearts over to the Lord, again begging Him to watch over our only daughter.

In the midst of one of many recitations of the Our Father, I felt a gentle touch on my right cheek.  Instantly a calm washed over me, settling in my heart.  I nodded, and whispered, “Thanks.”  My eyes filled with tears of joy, and a smile burst through.  I knew, then and there, that everything would be fine.

When the doctor came to us dressed in his surgical greens, he was smiling. While he was inside our daughter’s bladder, he discovered a blood vessel that was weeping, something it was not supposed to do. He cauterized it, forever stopping the flow of blood into her bladder.

Because of the severity of the operation, she had to spend a week in the hospital.  It was scary for us. Imagine how frightening it was for her, spending nights without her parents nearby. The good news was that every day she got stronger.  Every day her urine became clearer.  Every day I gave thanks to the Lord for giving my daughter another day of life.

Those were trying times, for sure.  I had no choice but to rely on my faith, as even the most highly trained, respected pediatric urologist had had no idea what was wrong.  To this day, I firmly believe that the Lord stood by, watching, whispering advice in the doctor’s ear.  How else did he find the exposed vessel, the incorrectly seated ureters, the missing flaps, and the enlarged end of the bladder?

While the likelihood of her bleeding to death had been slim, she could easily have died of kidney failure.  If we had known about this earlier, we could have acted sooner.  For some reason, the Lord kept her alive long enough for medical science to rise to the occasion.

Faith kept me sane.  Faith allowed me to put aside my fears.  Faith was my best friend and constant companion. Thankfully that operation solved the problem and our daughter grew up to be a wonderful woman.

The Call of Books

Posted on by
1

I love books. I love the weight of them in your hands. The way they balance so nicely, with little effort, falling only if you let it happen. And I don’t. I worship books for they take me into worlds where I will never go, into situations that I’ll never experience, into characters’ minds that, with luck, I’ll fall in love with.

I love the way a new book smells. Crisp and fresh as a spring breeze just after a storm. The pages turn with effort and often times stick together, making me work for every word. The binding, not yet creased, so that it almost squeaks when opened for the first time. The difficulty reading the syllables inside the crease…making me appreciate even more the effort the author put into the work.

I love owning books. I cannot go down the aisles of Target without stopping in the book section. I gently pick up a book, examine the cover image, imagine the story, turn it over and read the back. I open to the first page and read a paragraph. I can tell by that little encounter whether or not I’ll like the book. Whether it will speak to me, enticing me to delve in as if for a swim. I always buy at least one book, then take it home and add it to my pile.

We do not have a bookstore here, where I live, so when I am able to go into one, my eyes light up and adrenaline flows. It’s the same rush someone gets before climbing El Capitan in Yosemite or skydiving out of a plane. My eyes dart here and there, latching onto titles that are intriguing and covers that beckon. It doesn’t take me long to pick up a book and cradle it to my chest. To carry it with me through the store like a mother carrying her brand new baby.

I go from one section to the next, skipping some, stopping at others, always searching for the prize. I know that I could walk out with ten books, twenty books, maybe even fifty if I didn’t exercise self-control.

My love of books did not begin as a child, for we had no books at home and did not go to the library. My parents did not read to me and there were no relatives living nearby who took on that role. When I began school, I was introduced to reading. It did not come easily to me. Vowels made no sense and consonants jumbled together in so many different combinations that I could not formulate them into words. My teachers must have grown tired of saying the same things over and over to me, of sounding out the same words time after time.

It was not until fourth grade that it suddenly made sense. Thankfully I had a kind teacher who let me borrow books and bring them home to read over and over again. I don’t recall how many books I borrowed, but it must have been quite a few, for by the end of that year I was an excited and fluent reader. And then we moved into the country.

In order to get to school, my mother learned to drive. This turned out to be a blessing, for she sometimes took us into town to the library, where we could research topics for school as well as check out books. I began with nonfiction, reading everything I could about Native American people. From there I branched into stories about horses, reading entire collections by select authors. Back to nonfiction and biographies, where I learned about men and women who overcame odds to accomplish wonderful things.

One summer a most wonderful thing happened that forever changed my life. A bookmobile came into our neighborhood and parked a few houses down the street. At first I was only allowed to check out four books, which I easily read in the week. Soon the librarian allowed me five, and then six books as I always returned them in the same condition they had been when I checked them out.

I was hooked. Each book carried me away from my home life and into magical worlds. Worlds of real people doing marvelous things as well as fairies and monsters who battled for the salvation of humanity. I read with the abandon of an escape artist, giving my whole self to the story, enchanted until the very end. And then immediately picking up the next book and beginning a new adventure.

I don’t know what I would have done in life if it weren’t for the gift of reading that my teachers gave me. My mom had an eighth grade education and while my dad graduated from high school, he never went beyond that level. In my family, girls married at fourteen, dropping out of school to tend babies and home. And that was their life. Which would also have been mine, but through reading I discovered possibilities and opportunities that went far beyond marriage, motherhood and home.

Because of books my life is richer than it would be without them. I always have something waiting in the wings to enchant me. Something to carry me away. Something in which to immerse myself from the first page to the last.

I cannot imagine a world without books.

Thinking Back

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been asked what I would do differently if I could go back in time. First of all, I wouldn’t do that. I didn’t enjoy my early years, hated middle school and despised high school. I didn’t start to truly enjoy life until I met and married my husband. The years we have had together have been the best ones of my life.

As a child I was sulky and miserable. I was born eighteen months after my brother and walked in his shadow even beyond college. I knew that my mom worshipped and protected my brother, and so I wanted to be exactly like him. I played sports of all kinds as a kid, which meant endless hours of kickball with the neighborhood kids, whiffle ball in our backyard, along with badminton, sledding,  and snowball throwing. While I was a decent athlete, I could not throw as hard as my brother did and so found myself with reddened palms time after time.

I was one year behind my brother in school, which meant being held up to his academic standards by teacher after teacher. I don’t know how much time my brother spent studying. For me, reading, writing, science and history did not come easy. I didn’t learn to read independently until fourth grade, but once I mastered the skill, you couldn’t keep a book out of my hands. Spelling didn’t make sense. How can cow, how, now and show have the same root, but sound differently? Science and history required memorization, something which did not come easy to me. I spent hour after hour on homework every night, rereading the same passages time after time. There were two subjects in which I excelled: math and languages.

We were as close as kids could be. Partly because we spent many hours together inside the house during the winter, during which we played board games, that I always lost, built castles with Lincoln Logs and had epic battles with armies of plastic men. We built igloos and had epic sledding hills that crossed three backyards. We explored the woods behind our house, jumped off boulders and climbed trees.

Neither of us had any mechanical skills, so while my brother was a disappointment to our father, I equally disappointed my mom. My brother had no interest in changing oil or tires. I had no desire to learn how to cook. Both of us spent time watching and getting yelled at when we didn’t pay attention.

I did not play with dolls. In fact, the only dolls I ever owned were several of the fancily dressed kind that simply rested against my pillow and a mechanical one that rolled about on skates. I was not allowed to play with the first because my mother feared that I would mess them up. She was probably right. The skater required batteries, which were expensive, and so not available. Barbie came out when I was a young teen, but I could only afford a cheap plastic cut-off whose arms fell off and whose “skin” was translucent.

My sister was born when I was seven. There was enough distance between us that we had little in common, and so we did not spend time together other than the sharing of a bedroom. It was probably my fault, as I put no effort into befriending her, finding her unable to do and uninterested in the things that I enjoyed.

That is one thing that I would change. I would find a way to embrace her, to search out those activities that we could have done together. She was into playing with dolls, walking them through pretend worlds and relationships that I could not understand or relate to. But what if I had tried? Would that have erased some of the years between us? Would it have brought us closer together? Part of me wants to believe that it would, but another part of me remembers how much my mother cared for my sister. How much she protected her and fussed over her, and then I’m not so sure.

School was one of many places where I felt most alone. I did not have playground friends, so spent much of my primary years sitting on a bench against the wall, watching others laugh and giggle and run around like nuts. I remember hating Valentine’s Day. While I had cards for everyone in my class, I seldom received cards in return. I was never invited to birthday parties and only once went to a sleepover when I was in middle school. My mom bought me new pajamas for that affair, as mine were old and faded. But I had been sheltered from the world of teen magazines and gossip television shows, so when the girls talked about kissing and hair and clothes, I had nothing to contribute. I felt even more isolated after that.

In eighth grade I transferred to public school and fell in love with my teacher. Mr. Bennington was kind and patient, two qualities that I desperately yearned to be the receiver of. When asked to do a research project on a college that we might like to attend, guess what I did? I found Bennington College in Vermont. I was proud of myself until I turned it in, and then I was too embarrassed to talk about it in front of the class. That is something else that I would change. I’d find a college closer to home as my target and report on it.

I went on my first date in eighth grade. Our school had a prom-like affair in mid-year. A dorky boy asked me out and I accepted. (Of course, I was also a dork!) I did not know how to dance and was uncomfortable with his touch. The evening was long and painful.

I was a shy child, not just in Kindergarten, but all the way through most of my college years. I was the kid in the class that no one knew. I did not raise my hand to answer questions, did not seek help from my teachers, and did not go up to the front of the room for group activities. In fact, I remember scooting down in my desk when my reading group was called and sitting there while all the others had the teacher’s attention. Yes, it held me back. As I sat in my chair, I yearned for the teacher to notice that I was not in the circle and call me forward, but she never did.

If I could have chosen my desk in middle and high school, I would have sat at the back of the room, I so feared attention from the teachers. Unfortunately teachers generally assign seats by alphabetical order of last name, so I ended up somewhere down the second row. That is something I did change when I returned to college as an adult. I always sat in the first row so as to better hear and be seen. It helped me build confidence and so I succeeded. It is also something that I did not do as a teacher. I let my students pick out their seats and then left them alone unless they were being disrespectful of the right of others to learn.

One thing that I would change, if I could go back in time, is to make a better effort at finding and keeping friends. Because I was shy, I was not one of those kids who was sought after to be part of a group. On occasion, someone did approach me and initiate conversation, but I never was the initiator. Imagine how different my life would have been if I had had the courage to walk up to someone and simply say, “Hi.” Wow! Even now this is hard for me.

As a college student I had more success in building relationships. I did not get to attend the college of my choice because my parents would only let me follow my brother to the one he had chosen, which, it turned out, was a good thing. He joined a fraternity, which had a support group called Little Sisters, and they took me in. Because of being a Little Sister, I had invitations to parties, actual dates to events on campus, and a place to spend Friday and Saturday nights.

Unfortunately I chose an impractical major. I entered as a math major, thinking I’d study statistics and find a job working with data. I pictured me sitting in a room with charts of information before me and knew that this was something I could do. The problem is that when I went to college, the women’s liberation movement had not yet evolved into a force, so it was no surprise when the math department chair called me into his office and told me that no company would ever hire a woman because all we wanted was to find a man and get married. I left his office and changed majors.

If I could repeat that day, I would defy him, earn my degree in math, get hired, and work long, happy hours doing something wonderful with numbers.

Instead I took a serious look at how many credits I had in each subject area, keeping in mind that I had to graduate in four years as that was how long my scholarship lasted, saw that only in Russian could I do that, so chose that as my new major. I told myself that I could get a job as a translator, without taking into consideration that I was too shy to ever speak Russian outside of the classroom. And that there were no jobs for Russian translators.

What I should have done was stuck with math and defied the chair, but women didn’t do that back then. We were raised to be compliant and to think of being wife and mother, not employee.

After college I returned home and joined the real work force. The one in which the only work experience I had was sitting behind the desk in a college dorm was meaningless. I had a hard time getting a job because I had no office skills. I was a poor typist and could not operate any of the machines in use at that time. When I did finally find work, it was at a furniture store, unfortunately as a customer service operator. I had to answer phones and had to pacify upset callers. I hated the job!

I’m not sure what I could have changed about that except for going way back in high school and sticking with my one and only typing course, honed my craft, and then I would have had marketable skills years later.

After that I was hired by the IRS as a tax collector. Not a job for a shy person, but I will credit the experience as helping me move past my fear of meeting and interacting with unfamiliar people. I had to knock on doors, walk into businesses and drive around San Francisco, up and down those hills and in and out of all types of neighborhoods. I learned to sit in my car and practice what I was going to say before walking into those situations. It was valuable experience for later on when I became a teacher.

There were two great things about that job. First, I made enough money to buy a car and then rent an apartment. That gave me freedom to simply be. I was in charge of my own life, had the ability to get myself places, and made decisions about where and how to spend my money. I learned to cook rudimentary things, just enough to survive. The second most wonderful thing was meeting Mike, who later became my best friend and husband.

Being married to Mike is one thing I would never change. He brings light to my life. He has been my strongest supporter in everything I have set out to tackle. He has been a role model for how to be as a person, wife and parent. Without him, my life would have been unrecognizable. He has never once held me back, never discouraged me from trying something new, never stopped me from tackling college courses or conferences or workshops.

There are things I did as a parent for which I am proud. For one, I always prepared breakfast for my kids. Most days it was a hot meal, but there were times when they preferred cold cereal, and I let them eat it even though, nutritionally, it was not the best choice. I packed their lunches except for once a week when they were able to buy lunch at school. I drove them to swim lessons, soccer, baseball and softball, all of which I supported as team mom, scorekeeper, coach, and referee. I attended parent-teacher meetings when needed, and even though I was working, took off to go on some field trips. During the summer months, when they were younger, I worked with them on academic skills in between swim lessons and soccer practice.

On the other hand, there were things I wish I could take back. I was not the most patient of parents. When my kids got angry, I didn’t know how to handle it. In my growing up years, anger was met with anger, tantrums with spankings, yelling with hurtful, cruel yelling. That was the only model I knew and so, despite what I read in parenting magazines, when my patience ran thin, I resorted to the poor models of behavior that I had benefited from. I wish I could replay those events and this time, instead of reacting poorly, simply walk away. Calm down. Allow my kids to calm down. And then later on, talk about what caused the anger and seek out appropriate solutions. If I could have done this, I would have been a better parent.

I am glad that we cannot revisit the past just to do it all over again. There is no way that I would choose to repeat any of my previous years of life. It would be terrifying to be a child today, faced with all the terrors that today’s kids deal with. Drugs, alcohol and tobacco were not the temptations back then. Kidnappings probably happened, but the news was not filled with story after sad story. I feel sorry that today’s children do not have the freedoms that I had to ride my bike through neighborhood after neighborhood, going miles from home, without worry.

I would not want to be a teenager who wants nothing more than to be a mechanic, being forced into college prep classes because that’s all that is offered. To want to be a nurse’s assistant, but having no opportunity to learn those skills. To want to be a doctor but unable to take advanced placement classes because my school does not offer them.

So, to answer the question, would I want to go back and redo my life, the response is a resounding no. I have worked through the issues that burdened me as a child, teen, and older adult, am happy with who I am at this point in time. I love my husband and my grown up children. I love my grandchildren. I love being able to write, to having enough savings to travel, and spending time with my husband doing things that we both love. I have a good life, filled with things to do and people to see. What more could a person want?

 

Moving On

Posted on by
2

The Ghost Whisperer is an older television program in which the recently deceased could not go into the afterlife due to unresolved issues. The whisperer met with the deceased, figured out the issue, and then encouraged the spirit to move on.

Last night I had need of her services.

My mother died several years ago, my father last year. My dad had remarried and his wife intended to live on in the house my parents bought. Now she has decided to move.

Last week my husband and I were at the house and went through a couple of cabinets, searching for things that were meaningful.

My parents owned no antiques, no fancy jewelry, no expensive art work. They were hard-working, every day people. They shopped at thrift stores, and when they did go to the mall, bought from the clearance rack.

Anyway, last night I dreamt that when my dad’s wife sold the house, I was there when the new owners removed the old one in order to bring in the new. As I stood there, I became aware that someone had set up lounge chairs in the carport. In front of the chairs were arranged candles, books and a selection of plastic knickknacks that my mom had collected.

In my dream, my parents’ spirits were living there. My mother was distraught due to discord in the family, and so neither of them could move on.

I awoke feeling quite sad as well as powerless. I wanted to send them off, but there was nothing I could do.

This dream reminded me of how important it is to support our elders as they age. To make sure that they are at peace when they die. That we have been kind to our family members and respected their diversity of decisions and opinions.

I hope that my parents find peace and are able to reside comfortably in the afterlife. I wish them peace.

 

Not Just a Story

Posted on by
Reply

 

My mom seldom talked about her past, but when she did, her stories were riveting.
She was born a child of poverty, the second oldest amongst a passel of children. Her mother, my grandmother, stayed home and grew all different kinds of herbs, vegetables and flowers. She was a quiet woman who wore soft, well-washed cotton dresses up until the day she died. The only house that I knew my grandparents to live in was primitive. There was a wood-burning stove in the kitchen and a pump for water. A tin cup hung by the pump for anyone who was thirsty. Heat was a coal pot-belly stove in the main room. It terrified me. One time an uncle picked me up and threatened to throw me in. I screamed and cried and so finally he put me down.

My grandmother made lace and sewed by hand. She made quilts, and one time when my brother smashed my doll to pieces, she made it a body, slip, underpants and a dress. I still have that doll today.

My grandfather was a tenant farmer who moved his family around to wherever he found work. Mostly they lived in southern Ohio, near a town called Gallipolis. Sometimes they crossed over the Ohio River into Virginia. My grandfather knew how to hitch a mule to a wagon and how to grow crops, mostly corn. He never spoke in my presence. His house overlooked the river and if you leaned forward far enough, you could watch boats going through the locks.

I never understood why my grandparents weren’t more loving, even after my mom explained that they were embarrassed because they could not read or write. My grandfather understood weights and measures, though. Every day he would walk down the road to the store and buy whatever they needed. He watched as things were measured and packaged to make sure he was not cheated. When things started being canned and bottled, he was dismayed. One time he made the store owner open the can of coffee and weigh the contents. Only then would he bring it home.

My mom did get to go to school. She was not the best student, but she enjoyed her time in the one-room school. Often she had to walk through deep snow wearing only a thin coat, cotton dress and leather shoes. When the weather was better, she walked barefoot, her shoes tied and dangling over her shoulder. It was important to take care of shoes, for without them you could not go to school. When she completed eighth grade, her parents did not have the money to send her away for high school, so my mom repeated that grade three times.

By that time she was old enough to move into the city to live with a sister. She got a job at Woolworth’s, a five-and-dime store, and worked there for many years. When World War II started, my mom enlisted in the Army. At one post, in Florida, her main job was to carry buckets of water to palm trees. Eventually she learned to be a phone operator, which meant connecting calls using cords that plugged from one hole into another. She must have been good at it, for that remained her job until her enlistment was over.

One night, as my mom slept on her cot in the barracks, she awoke to a feeling that something was crawling up her leg. In panic, she bent her leg at the hip, a poor choice, since she pinched a black widow spider. Of course, it bit her. She fell violently ill and, according to her, nearly died. Once she recovered, she was sent home in her uniform, which she wore proudly.

My mom moved back in with her sister. There was a USO in town that frequently held dances for the servicemen, even after the war ended. It was at one such dance where she met a handsome man. They danced and talked and then she brought him home to meet her sister. The man was hungry, so he went to the pantry and took out the last can of food, opened it, and ate it all by himself. The sister was angry at the man’s arrogance. My mom was intrigued.

They married within months, but continued to live with the sister until they found a place of their own. Within eight months my brother was born. Interestingly enough, my mother claimed that the pregnancy was full term, that he was not born prematurely, yet she also was not pregnant when they married. I know little about that time except that my mom stayed home with the baby.

A year and a half later I came along. My earliest memories are of a home in what my mother called the projects. It was a small house, with only two bedrooms, but a porch that stretched across the front. My mom did not work outside of the home, but being a housewife then was hard work. We were lucky enough to have a washing machine, but it was the old-fashioned type with a huge bowl and a ringer that terrified me. I hated watching my mom feed clothes into the ringers, fearing that her fingers would get caught and fall off.

By the time I was old enough to go to school, we had moved to a larger house in the outskirts of downtown Dayton. There was a large backyard, big enough for a swing set, a dog house and a garden. It was here that my mom learned how to drive. She had to, if she wanted me to go to Kindergarten. My mom decided that I was a slow learner, a backward child, who wouldn’t succeed in school without help. This was a difficult decision, as kindergarten was not free back then, and so it placed a financial hardship on the family. But my mom thought it was important, and so she drove me to school every day, even when the roads were deep with snow.

When I started first grade, my mom returned to work as a telephone operator at a hospital in downtown. She left for work about the same time that my brother and I headed off for school, and didn’t come home until after my dad. She fixed dinner, did the dishes, made sure we were clean and tidy and took care of the house. That’s what women did then, all the housework with no help from the man. My mom was not the best cook, but there was always food on the table.

When I was seven my sister was born. It was a rough time. We were told that my mom had had a nervous breakdown and that we had to keep quiet so as to not upset her. Thank goodness it was summer, so my brother and I spent hours outside. We were not allowed in the house from morning until evening for fear of disturbing her sleep. I saw very little of my sister during that time as she stayed in the room with my mom.

We moved again when I finished fourth grade, this time to a house in Beavercreek, Ohio. It was a rural area, far from the city. Nevertheless, my mom drove us into town so that we could attend the Catholic elementary school. She also took us to the library, all the time driving an old, flat-black business coup that had no backseat.

One time, just as we pulled into the library parking lot, flames shot out from the hood. My mom seemed to know what to do. While my brother and I went inside and searched for books, my mom sat in the car, letting it cool down. When it was time to leave, she got out, opened the hood, tweaked a few things, then started the engine. It worked! She drove us all the way home, probably smiling with pride.

That house also used a septic tank for waste disposal. The tank sometimes developed problems. After watching my dad dig into the dirt to reveal the lid, remove it, and treat it, my mom knew what to do. So the next time it backed up, she took a shovel and went to work. She bragged about digging up the septic tank for many years. It was something to be proud of, for it showed her determination and independent spirit.

During my freshman year of high school, my mom’s health went downhill. I didn’t understand what was happening, just that sometimes she seemed unable to breathe. Her doctor said that we had to move, that she had asthma that was triggered by the humidity,and so my dad sold everything and drove us to California.

Somewhere in the desert we developed car trouble and we stopped at a little service station. It was blisteringly hot and we had nothing to drink. We also had no money to buy water, so we sat in the car, waiting for help from a mechanic. The store owner came out to the car more than once, offering water, but my mom would not take it. She did not want to feel obliged.

Considering her humble beginnings, my mom did quite well in the working world. Once we settled in, she got a job at a little store and within a few years became the weekend manager. She kept track of register receipts, placed orders, and conducted inventory. When the store closed due to competition from bigger stores, my mom quickly found a job at a pharmacy, but it was a longer drive from home. She had to go by freeway, and that terrified her, especially in the fog and rain.

Her next job was with the federal government as a phone operator. Once again, she rose through the ranks and became a trainer. This was about the time that equal employment forced agencies to hire minorities and the disabled. Her office hired a blind man to be trained as an operator.

This was a real dilemma, for at this time, lines were still connected by moving cords from one lighted hole to the next. How was a blind man going to see the lights? My mom thought about this for a long time and played around with various creations. Eventually she designed a tool that allowed him to do the job. She received not just a certificate honoring her invention, but a little bonus. She was so proud. In fact, that was probably her proudest moment.

My mom’s story was probably not that unusual during that time. She was unskilled, with limited education, but with great determination and foresight. She was hard-working and willing to do any job, even the most degrading.

Her last regular job was exactly that. After phone operators were no longer needed, my mom got a job washing pots and pans at the local school district. It was not full time work, so she also worked at a community college. It was hard on her back, leaning over a deep sink, day in, day out, scrubbing out remnants of food. Her hands turned bright red and the skin peeled off, even though she wore thick gloves. Soap got into her eyes, causing burning and intense pain. Even so, she kept at it until physically she was unable to perform the job. By this time she was well past retirement age.

My mom did have one last part time job after her seventieth birthday. She discovered that she could get paid for delivering phone books. So during that season, she and my dad got up early in the morning, loaded up his truck with books, then spent the day putting them on porches and doorsteps. It was an exhausting, poorly-paid job, but she did it with pride and determination.

Once my mom was no longer able to work, she collapsed physically and emotionally. Dementia set in, robbing her of her memory and her will to fight. She died in her sleep, a fitting ending to a life lived in extremes.