Uncategorized

Good Morning, Moonshine

/ roughwighting / 13 Comments

 I open one eye and read the yellow-tinted clock – the one I’ve wanted to move away from my night table for years, but never do.

 1:45 a.m.

 I sigh and open the other eye. Really? Because right now my sight is rather blurry. Maybe the clock says 9:05. Ah, that would be bliss, to have slept through the night, an unlikely occurrence for most women over the age of, well, over that age.

 When I think about it (and really, I might as well think now, because it’s unlikely I’ll get back to sleep), we women have a bum rap. Finally, when we’re over that certain age – too old to have babies screaming for a bottle or teenagers breaking a midnight curfew – so we can finally sleep undisturbed, our bodies won’t let us!

Just another example of why God must not be a woman.

I laugh at my idiotic mutterings. However, as I listen to my husband snore softly next to me, having absolutely no problem with sleep, I wonder if I’m not so crazy after all.

I stare out the window and close my eyes. 100  99   98   97

       “Cheep! Cheep cheep!”

My eyes snap open. Birds? At a quarter to two in the morning?

          “Tweet cheep chirp chirp chirp!”

An entire melody. Impossible. Isn’t it? I always thought that birds woke up with the sun. So what’s the singing about?

I rise from the bed as husband rolls over, comfortable as a dog; in fact, I almost stumble over our golden, who is flat on his back on the floor by my side of the bed, legs open wide, eyes closed, mouth in a wide grin. Men! They are blessed, I mumble.

But then I realize that it’s light enough so that I can see the dog’s happy torpor. Maybe the clock is broken, and I’ve slept six full hours to wake with the rising sun. Yippee! I race to the window and gape.

 A spectacularly bright half moon gleams back at me, as pleased as the slumbering dog. Huh, so the moon is male too! And the moon is so bright, the birds got confused and woke up and began to sing their version of “Good Morning Starshine, The Earth is Alive!”

I stumble toward the kitchen and the oven clock. 2:03.  Drat.

I pause, wondering what to do now. Warm up some milk? Munch on a cookie? I open up the cookie tin and pick up a chocolate chip bar made earlier in the day. As I stand on one leg, then the other (working on my yoga balance), I stare at the refrigerator door, full of family pictures made into magnets. Our kids, grandkids, friends, all smiling out at me. Thank goodness we never bought one of those ‘new’ silver steel fridges. If we’d gone modern, we’d never be able to slap our life onto the front of it.

I bite on another chunck of the sweet gooey bar as I peruse the photo of our sweet grandson. There’s a picture of him as an infant. Just a few days ago I’d spent a couple of hours playing with the 1-year-old. As I left to return home, the toddler wrapped his arms around my neck and opened his mouth wide, like a fish, and pressed it against my mouth – his kiss goodbye. God, I’d melted like ice on hot tar.

Now I tiptoe back to the moon-infused bedroom, dog unmoved, husband still in dreamland, bed inviting me to join them in mindless slumber.

What the heck, I’ll try.

Good morning starshine
The earth says hello
You twinkle above us
We twinkle below

Good morning starshine
You lead us along
My love and me as we sing
Our early morning singing song   (by Oliver, in Hair)

What I Didn’t Do on My Summer Vacation

/ roughwighting / 2 Comments

What did you NOT do this year on your summer vacation?

Mid-August this year, I reflected on last year at the same time. Even more, I focused on what I wasn’t doing this year.  I did not drive cross country, steering away from a settled 10-year-home in Boston to a bayside town on the other side of the country. No desperate packing of ‘must haves’ after the even more difficult job of getting rid of so many items – furniture, rugs, books, antiques, hard-object memories that I simply didn’t have room to keep in our downsized near future.

Not wanting to release negative energy, I learned a year ago how to say goodbye with a smile: goodbye to the stiff old chair my father’s sister bought in the1950s; goodbye to the piles of notebooks that journaled my life for the past 15 years; goodbye to the rug that son Sean stained when he dropped the bowl of blueberry buckle; goodbye to the crib that Sophie, our first granddaughter, climbed out of when she was 10 months old; goodbye to the double bed with cherry headboard that once gave sleepy shelter to my 80-year-old mother and 16-year-old niece, together, during a stormy Thanksgiving night. Mom claimed that Stephanie kicked her for 8 long hours; Stephanie moaned that her Nanny snored louder than the wind.

But memories stay with us, even if the objects don’t. So what I didn’t do on August 8 this year, was push the essentials into our 1 car – essentials like 2 suitcases, 1 work computer, and 1 large golden retriever with water bowl and blankie, and drive with my 1 essential husband out of the town we’d called home for 10 incredible years.

The town didn’t want to give us up. We’d understood that scary fact last August as roadblock after roadblock – literal and figurative – appeared. Organizations that promised to collect our valued goods – mattresses, headboards, tables and chairs – would call 15 minutes before pick up and say, ‘never mind.’ Friends who promised to take care of cherished plants changed their minds minutes before taking them home, crying “but what if Benji dies in my care – you’ll never forgive me.” Our one essential car broke down a week before takeoff, some rare car part gave out that perhaps my husband understood but I never did.

And then, on the day we were to depart, the car wouldn’t start. At all. New battery dead. In the driveway at 7:15 on a hot humid summer morning, where all was packed, dog settled in back seat, exhales allowed, the car said NO.

We did, somehow, coax it to begin again, but then, driving down Monument Street, the curving road lined with oaks and pine and cherry, stone walls and big solid brick houses, a behemoth streaked across the road, huge and feathered, looking
like a monster from another world. Husband hit the brake hard, and our getaway car shuttered to a stop. The monster stopped too and turned to stare us down. A wild turkey, with dark bottomless eyes that seemed to say, “I dare you leave
this place.”

Husband, never one for hyperbole or mysticism, whispered, “do you think it’s going to let us go?”

“The turkey?” I whispered back.

 “No, the town,” he said louder as he tapped the accelerator. The car lurched forward, our released sighs helping it along, and we finally, finally, drove on toward our future to the other side.

A Rhyme for All Seasonings

/ roughwighting / 3 Comments

 “Peas and beans

potatoes steamed.

That’s today’s news

Do you want some stewed prunes?”

My friend Alice, the waitress, looked at the two truck drivers expectantly as they sipped on their drinks. They both looked over their menus at each other, and then at her.  The guy called ‘Ralph’ began to laugh until his friend ‘Jack’ kicked him under the table.

“Well, ma’am,” Jack drawled.  “I’m not one for prunes. How ‘bout the burger and fries?”

“Burgers and fries cooked just right. 

Medium or done a little light?”

Alice acquired a Master’s in English with me once, aeons ago, but now she owned a funky diner in the middle of nowhere, U.S.A.  And she had certainly put her own twist, or seasoning, to the place.

“Uh, yes, I’d like mine rare please.”

Alice then looked at Ralph, whose mouth was spread open like a day-old newspaper.  He jumped when Jack kicked him again. “Tuna salad, I think,” Ralph mumbled.  His red beard trembled when he answered, and he looked like he wanted to bolt for the door.  However, the two men were sitting in a booth at the far side of the diner called “A Rhyme for all Seasonings.”  I had a feeling that Ralph was the kind who always picked a table near the door when he went out to a bar or a diner, but when they arrived, every booth had been full except this one.

“Celery and mayo is nice. 

How ‘bout some rye bread sliced?” Alice asked.

Ralph stared at Alice as if she was an exhibit at a high tech museum.  She stood there in front of him, light brown hair highlighted with silver, little white cap sitting on top like a tiny Easter bonnet, tight white uniform around curving hips and bosom, hands on her hips waiting for his answer.

“Huh?” Ralph responded.

“Do you want rye bread?” Jack asked with exasperation.

“No, white,” Jack answered defensively.

“White is pretty, wheat is better.

Haven’t you read the Surgeon General’s letter?” Alice replied.

“White!” Ralph barked.  “White. White. White!”

“Relax and smile buster. 

No need to spit and bluster.” 

Alice swung her ample hips away from Ralph, winked at Jack and me (sitting at the nearby counter), and swayed off.

“What in the hell was that?” spluttered Ralph. “This is a hell of a diner.”

“Hey, look around, Mr. Shakespeare,” said Jack. “This is one place we can get a little literary education while making a pit stop.  The guys love it here.  They feel smarter when they hit the road.”

Ralph looked at the packed diner.  “Well, I’ll be.  I just feel stupider.”

“Next time, order the wheat, stupid,” Jack replied.  Then he shouted, “Hey Alice, “how ‘bout another round.  The last one went too easily down!”

The diner burst into applause.

A Straight Line

/ roughwighting / 9 Comments

“Damn!” I swat at another mosquito and rub the raised red bump on my leg where a winged hellion has already drawn blood. “Damn, I hate doing this.”

Kneeling on the grass, dirt pile in front of me, garden tools discarded for the minute, I try to remember something. But between the sun beating on the top of my head, the little toad dancing between my shoeless toes, and the itching of my bug bites, I can’t retrieve what my brain and soul are dying to tell me. In fact, I feel a lecture coming on, one of the worst kinds, because it’s coming from myself. If only I could concentrate and get the nagging thought out of the inner reaches of my mind.

I sit all the way down now on the tickly grass, smiling. I’m like that Harry Potter character, what was his name? Dumbledore, or something like that. The high priest of Hogwarts, the school for witches. Anyway, Dumbledore needed to show Harry one of his memories, and he used his wand. I can’t exactly remember how (my memory really is getting bad – should I be worried?) but I think he put the wand in his ear ? and then cobweb-like strands came out, each a memory to be sorted out and re-lived.

Ugh, I don’t know if I really want to figure out what memory is niggling at me. I have that sinking feeling that it won’t be a good one.

I toss my head, shaking away all those cobwebbed memories, and get back to work. So far I’ve dug 30 holes for the 36 impatiens I bought at the nursery. Six more holes to go, but as I stand up to look at my hard work, I realize that my line of holes running down the garden is crooked. Crooked!

“I hate this!” I yell. Henry the dog, who’s been watching my so-called gardening attempts for the last 45 minutes with a bemused expression on his face, stands up suddenly, worried. I rarely raise my voice, and Henry probably figures something is mighty wrong to get me so riled up.

Husband thinks so too. He jogs over to me from the other side of the yard. He’s already raked an acre, pulled up 100 weeds, and planted a dozen herbs. I’m a slacker! A slacker!

“Uh, Pam. Lovie. You need a straight line.”

Okay, that’s it. I will either murder him, or leave him forever, right on the spot. Or both? What was wrong with doing both?

Instead, I watch him, engineer that he is, return from the garage with a roll of string and run a straight line from one end of the garden plot to the other. My holes are more crooked than a bad mouthful of teeth.

I gnash my own teeth and curl my hands into fists. “I am not redoing those holes. It took me almost an hour to dig them. I am done. Through!”

Husband begins to laugh, and I look around for something to throw at him. A shovel? A rake? Instead, I demand, “What’s so funny?”

“You said the exact same thing last year.”

“Last year?” I repeat, beginning to see where this is going.

“And the year before, and the year before that,” he continues, not seeing the glint of madness begin to creep into my eyes. “Every year you race to the nursery and buy exactly 36 pink and red impatiens…”

I glance over at the flowers – yup, pink and red.

“And every year,” dear, clueless hubby goes on, “you get mad at the mosquitoes and dirt and sweat running down your back, and you say you’ll never do this again.”

I am not laughing along with said husband. I’m too angry with myself. He’s right – how do I not learn from my past experiences? In the winter I chirp on and on with friends about how much I love to plant the pretty pink flowers and watch them grow and beautify the yard, and then when it’s time to really get down and dirty and do the deed, I hate it!

“I’m going in to wash up,” I now say to the man.

“I know,” he says. “Cause every year I end up planting your flowers.”

I smile at him then, happy. Because that’s the other part of the experience I now remember.

He always cleans up after me!

Sore Toes

/ roughwighting / 4 Comments

Rejection is one of the hardest things for humans to contend with, I think. (I added I think because the rule is to never end a sentence with a preposition. Obviously I think whatever I’m writing here – it’s my blog!)

Oh, can you tell I’m a bit testy today? I’ve received a rejection from a potential agent. She seemed quite interested in my book: the plot, the characters, my writing style, the ‘suspense’ genre, and even in me, the author. I tried not to stand on tiptoes while I waited for her yay or nay, but my toes were quite sore by the time I received her rejection the end of week 2 (an impressive turnaround from delivery of my 300 page manuscript and response – usually writers must wait months to hear back. That’s a lot of sore toes…).

The agent wrote an encouraging letter, ‘don’t give up,’ and ‘try someone else, maybe I’m wrong.’ Well, I’m paraphrasing since I can’t find the letter she sent. Not that I’m a sore loser or anything; it must be stuffed in the pile by my writing notebooks.

But what hurt was her handwritten addition at the top. “Sorry, I just didn’t care enough to turn the pages.”

OUCH. Tell me I used horrible grammar. Chastise me for using 1.8 instead of double spaced lines. Question me on the choice of the Caribbean for one of the book’s settings. But please, please don’t tell me my book wasn’t compelling. Over the best year, 8 different reviewers have sung praises about my Meredith, and Gregory, and Parker, and all of them complained that they stayed up all night because they couldn’t put the book down.

So who’s right? Everyone. We read what we love, most of us, and we love different genres, points of views, and tones. One of my friends reads only edgy books, the kind where a character lets off a swear word every other line, and at the end of the book, no one comes out happier, or wiser, or better off. Another friend can only stomach romances (the sexier the better); a colleague only reads books of action, action, action. Please, no character development or metaphor or universal theme!

So I picked the wrong agent. I need one who likes the idea of action and theme, of characters who contemplate midst the kidnappings, killings, and chaos. Sweet kisses and lonely lust. And, a happy ending.

For me, a happy ending is a necessity. Otherwise, we’d all be standing on sore toes for a long, long time.