Author Archives: Kami

Unlocking My Diary

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Kami

My very first diary had a lock on it. Trembling with anticipation, I took the tiny key and inserted it into the locking mechanism and turned until I heard that magical sound. “Click!” The tab popped open and there before me, lay fresh, untouched, lined pages just waiting to have my story written on them. Where would I hide my treasured words, for surely a lock would not be enough to keep interlopers away. I had little brothers and sisters and a big brother, too. As a fourth grader, there were secrets to tell, stories to write, friendships to analyze and emotions to explore. At least I thought so.

Here is a sample of my writing from that diary.

“Today was a bad day.”

Later on that same month I wrote, “Today was a good day.”

Not my best descriptive writing.

The bad days clearly outnumbered the good ones. Fourth grade was not a good year. Ever. For anyone I’ve ever talked to. (But that topic is for another day.)

Further on in the year I resorted to smiley faces or frowney faces. Apparently writing my thoughts and feelings proved a task beyond my years.

Teen Angst

I didn’t begin journaling in earnest until I was thirteen. How serious could my writing have been back then? Serious enough to me that I wrote every single day. I filled pages and pages and pages of lined paper, front and back. I have several boxes full of binders that served as my journals through my teen years. Unfortunately on many of those pages I wrote in pencil. Or maybe fortunately, since I’m pretty embarrassed about who I was back then. Clearly in my teenage ramblings I was angst ridden, overly dramatic, too sensitive, lonely, shy, awkward, geeky, confused and sad. I was also naïve, gullible, suspicious, angry, silly and unusual. It takes some chutzpah to let myself read that stuff.

Remember yourself at thirteen?

I try to be kind to that young woman. She was simply trying the best she knew how to get through life unscathed. She had led a blessedly simple and fairly sheltered life. The teen years are a brutal, eye-opening, tangled path to make one’s way through. Writing about that journey helped make sense of some of it. Admittedly, from this many years looking back, there was some missing logic, some flawed thinking and some wrong assumptions that were significant and painful to navigate.

I’m thinking about rereading all of those journals. I’m not sure I’m up for it. Not sure my psyche can face those raw, bared emotions. It’s probably great stuff for use in a novel. Some of it belongs in a fire, a ritual burning with some kind of ceremony, like a cremation. Wouldn’t a formal goodbye, a letting go, be psychologically healthy?

Incriminating Evidence

Not sure I want my children or grandchildren reading about my life without some explanations, justifications, photographs, background info, apologies. It would be a really good idea to do some editing, some separating of the wheat from the chaff, winnow the merely embarrassing from the highly incriminating.

Maybe I could just write in bold black letters on the boxes, “To be burned, unread, upon my death.” There ya go. No reliving the past required if I do that. Ah, but would they, my children and grandkids honor that request? Would you burn your mother’s journals without reading them even if she asked you to? Me neither.

Slogging Through

There are three or four boxes of journals stacked in my closet. More than half from my “grown up” writings. Those others, emotion laden and heavy with more than paper, keep calling to me. So I’m considering the idea of slogging through the muck of my teen life and draining that swamp memory a bit. It’d be nice to clear some space in the closet. Even better, it’d be nice to clear some space in my head.

Journal Your Way to Stress Relief (everydayhealth.com)

Categories: Writing | Tags: Adolescence, Diary, Emotion, fourth grade, journal, teenager, Writing | 2 Comments

Laughing at Death

Posted on October 14, 2012 by Kami

I became best friends with someone on Death’s fast track.

That was not my plan. I had simply volunteered to do some driving. My schedule was “whateva” and her schedule was whatever the Mayo Clinic said it was.

Boy, can I just tell you I was nervous that first day I drove. I’d never been on a first name basis with cancer, chemo or the effects of either. Within minutes of getting in her car she had set me at ease. It was like some cog in the universe clicked into place and machinery started running.

We talked about anything and everything. The comfortable nature of our conversation surprised and delighted me. She is a direct and open person who says exactly what she thinks, how she feels, what’s in her head and her heart. That freedom unlocked my usually reticent nature and I opened up with an honesty I didn’t know I had in me to give.

IT’S A TWO WAY STREET

I became a pretty regular driver for her. She has been patient with me as I learned when to talk and when to keep to myself as she rides the waves of nausea or works her way through the gauntlet of pain for that day. I’ve became familiar with her body language which can tell me when her pain meds aren’t enough, or signal me that she might have forgotten to take her meds altogether. She recognizes, even through the chemo/cancer fog, when I’m having a crappy day. She manages to get me to talk about whatever is on my mind. And she listens as if my little worries are really important. She never makes me feel like my stuff is stupid in comparison to her incredible hourly battles.

She is a phenomenal listener. Sure she can talk up a storm and tell the most outrageously funny stories, but when it comes to listening, she is focused and following every word, even as a disintegrating rib grinds at her or one of her glass shattering migraines threatens with an explosion.

MISSING THE GOOD STUFF

Her kind of cancer, multiple myeloma, with the three out of four chromosomal deletions in her DNA chain, means she won’t be around to see grandkids born, will probably actually miss most of her kids’ weddings, will miss most of her youngest daughter’s teen years. It’s kept her from bouncing on the trampoline with her youngest which has really miffed them both. This cancer has forced her to look death in the face and prepare for its inevitability.

Most of us don’t think about those things if we can help it. We don’t plan our own funerals, pick out our own casket, make baby blankets for grandbabies we will never see, write letters for major life events in our children’s lives we won’t be there for. Those things are her realities and she doesn’t pretend them away. She talks about it all. Not only does she talk about death openly and with a resilient faith, she laughs about her life as well.

Laughter… (Photo credit: leodelrosa…)

I could try to explain a situation where death sounds funny, but you wouldn’t get it. I’m not that good of a comedian. This is truly, utterly, absolutely one of those situations that you have to be there to get it. But I guess I can try.

PARTY IN THE BATHROOM

Before her stem cell replacement she had a grueling five-day stint in the hospital where she became intimate with the desire to die. The caustic chemical cocktail pumped into her to prepare her body for the onslaught of the stem cell treatment shook her to the core. Her hair started to fall out in clumps. Did she cry? A little, maybe. But what she did after that was call her neighbor’s son, who is a barber, and arranged a head shaving party. Break out the video camera, she said. They braided a bunch of little braids and then lopped those off for whoever wanted one, her sister, her daughters. Then she had him shave words into the sides, her and her husband’s initials with a heart on one side and her graduating class year on the other. Then they sculpted a bit of a Mohawk, spiked with some gel to complete the look. Photos all around. Then the final buzz and she was a bald woman. A couple of days later we located an electric razor to take off the last prickly slivers that were still falling out and creating a nuisance. She was smiling. How does she do that? It’s who she is.

BEATLES OR BEE GEES?

Here is another example of her humor. There were two ringtones I had picked out to use for when she called my cell phone. Couldn’t decide which one to use so I told her about each one. The first one is the Beatles “Help!” She knows she can call me anytime, night, day, for a soda run, a midnight ER ride, lunch, cleaning, errands, whatever. And she has, and I’m so glad I’ve been able help. By the same token she has been there for me in a hundred different ways. She has listened through job losses, kid challenges, money worries. She has loaned me her car countless times, paid for lunches beyond reckoning, filled me with diet Pepsi’s and been like a therapist to me. So “Help” by her favorite band seemed a very appropriate ringtone.

But then, I also picked The Bee Gees “Stayin’ Alive.” She heard that and giggled her signature little girl laugh. Staying alive has been her battle the past four years. She has fought and endured hell to stay alive for her kids, to stick around, to be here as long as possible for them. The fight has not been about herself, but about them. That she can laugh about a ringtone in the face of all that crap really rocks. That’s the ringtone she picked. So when my phone starts singing, “Ah, ah, ah, ah, staying alive, staying alive,” a smile breaks across my face and I answer with joy, “Woman!! What up?” We crack ourselves up.

CONTAGIOUS

Nothing is quite so contagious as her smile. She has dimples that rival any Gerber baby. And her eyes are lit with mischievousness and hope. No one being around her would ever guess at her battles or believe that she is walking the shortcut toward death.

I think sometimes that Death himself will walk past and not recognize her. Maybe He has. Maybe the energy of her laughter has kept Him at a distance these past few years. I hope she can keep on laughing.

Categories: Relationships | Tags: bravery, Death, death and dying, Humor, laughter | 18 Comments

Hitting the Snooze Button, Again and Again and Again

Posted on October 13, 2012 by Kami

Who invented the snooze button? And why?

I know, I should Google it, and I probably will later. Right now I just want to wonder about it.

Sleeping in, just a few more minutes, can’t be such a bad thing. A snooze button lets me do just that without the risk of messing up my morning schedule and messing up the day as a consequence. How convenient to reach out a hand from beneath the warm blankie and tap, push or bang the snooze. After all, five more minutes of that bizarre, amazing, ridiculous or outrageous dream might be what gets me through the day. Five to eight more minutes of semi-sleep might be just what I need to be alert enough the avoid the cereal eating or makeup applying drivers.

Who am I kidding here? That dream has left the building the moment the alarm went off and it’s as elusive as an Arizona Jackalope. I’m also just awake enough that those extra minutes aren’t restful at all.

And if I were really being upfront with you, I’d admit that when I’m setting the alarm at bedtime there is a bit of creative logic as well as some basic math at work. First I have my ideal wake up time; ideal in terms of fitting everything on my list into my day. So that becomes my alarm setting. But then I might remember I’ve got X or Y or Z scheduled which is out of the ordinary and I subtract a bit of time from my sleep meter. But then I rationalize that items M, C, J and maybe even V could be put off until the weekend, and so I add a few minutes to the sleep meter. Then I remember the snooze button, which I know, for certain I will hit once, probably twice, if not three times, and so I have to compensate for that. To accommodate those extra, lost minutes adjustments are made. So I’m not really getting extra sleep.

Ironically, I then set a second alarm, which is my real, absolute-last-possible-minute-to-get-out-the-door-on-time wake up call. That’s the one I usually stumble out of bed with.

My son researched various alarm systems to get himself out of bed and into work on time. Many were very creative and a bit pricey. One launches a mini helicopter into the room and you have to catch it to turn off the alarm. Sounds like a high potential for injury. Another alarm he found has wheels roams the room; you have to find the thing in your sleep dazed state to turn it off. Being a resourceful DIY kinda guy, with a limited income, my son built his own fail safe alarm system after his internet research. He rigged his existing clock radio to the music/alarm speaker in his bedroom, but the real clock, with the snooze button and the off button, are located across the hallway on the far side of the bathroom. To get rid of the annoying wake up sounds requires waking up enough to A) be upright, B) walk, and C) find his way into the bathroom, to D) turn off the alarm. He then merely needs lean over, turn on the shower, and voilà! the wakeup is complete. I think he is a super-genius.

What I really need is a button that works like a low voltage Taser, zapping me out of my bed in one smooth movement into a standing position. I think I’d learn to wake up just ahead of my alarm with a button like that.

Maybe the snooze button is misnamed. It really ought to be called a procrastination button.

I think I’m gonna need a nap today.

Do you have any creative wakeup strategies? Any suggestions for your fellow readers you care to share?

Categories: Humor | Tags: Alarm clock, Google, Sleep | Leave a comment

Bird on the Wing and Sheets to the Wind

Posted on October 12, 2012 by Kami

We had a tree in the back yard that I used to climb. Don’t get too excited, it wasn’t very big by adult standards. I don’t even remember what kind it was or what color the leaves changed to in the fall. A sturdy, low, side angled branch, its most distinguishing feature, made it easy to climb. On more than a few occasions I climbed that tree with a sheet, or blanket or cape of some kind, determined to use its height as my launch pad, my runway, my base for a flying leap.

My childish imagination and child-like faith saw me soaring on the sails I held tightly waded in my fist. If the wind were blowing hard enough, I reasoned, I’d be able to stay aloft at least sixty seconds. I’ll admit there were doubts floating about my head, which I tried to extinguish, but hope won out over fear as I made my way to the outer limbs.

I would look out at the back yard, cautiously eye the power line looping low from a pole to the house. Then, I would envision myself lifting into the air. Closing my eyes I’d leap out into a gust of wind. I was always surprised that there wasn’t even the least little sensation of lift, hesitation or sense of flight. The ground came up to meet me quickly and decisively.

My feet usually had that burning sensation from landing so hard, a sort of instant but fleeting numbness kept me on the grass. Analyzing the situation I almost always concluded that I just didn’t believe enough. Gravity, lift, or physics never entered my equation. I was sure that my doubts pulled me down and kept me grounded.

If the wind stayed gusty I would often try several more times. Climbing with my sheet or towel, thinking birdlike thoughts, willing it to be possible, I repeatedly leapt out into the invisible air certain THIS time would be it.

Hope versus reason. Naysayers abound. Negativity runs rampant. One seldom hears of miracles. And yet…

And yet, we all still climb. We climb out of bed and face a difficult day. We climb into our cars and work at a soul-numbing job to support a family. We climb over the obstacles that life throws at us and we keep moving. We climb a mountain of despair after a loss and hope for less pain and brighter days. We climb through the paperwork and jump through the hoops to get the support and help a loved one needs. We climb and we climb and we climb.

And every day we make that leap of faith and hope.

I am still a flightless child. But inside, part of me still thinks the seemingly impossible could be possible if I just keep trying.

Categories: Memory Lane | Tags: cherished memories, childhood, faith, hope, Memory, trees, Wind | Leave a comment

A Different Kind of Air Freshener

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Kami

The atmosphere is heavy with moisture this morning. To say it’s humid would probably be stretching things a bit. There is certainly a difference from the usual overly long lingering summer heat we’ve had until now. The sky is almost completely overcast, the sun trying to break through the clouds, but not having much success. It’s glorious!

The bedroom communities of Phoenix are hotbeds of sameness, consistency and boredom. Every third house in a subdivision matches; every landscape holds the same selection of trees, bushes, and rocks. There’s some small variety, a few “county islands” where the yards are bigger, the houses unique, the sidewalks missing.

This suburban sameness mirrors the weather here. Every third day, every second day, heck, every day is identical to the others, sunny, hot, blue skies, sunny, hot, blue skies. Oh sure, we have our monsoon season, of towering dust clouds roiling like something out of a scorpion laced movie, but those are rare and out of the norm.

Any change in weather from the trifecta of sun, heat and blue is a welcome change. So the clouds moving in are all but getting a party thrown in their favor. “Welcome Back Rain!” our signs taped to the garage door would say. “We’ve missed you!! Heart, heart, heart, heart, heart. “

Washing my car was a kind of rain dance a few years ago. Spend the time to do a nice thorough water and soap in a bucket hand washing in the driveway, buff out the spots, shine the side view mirrors and sure enough there’d be what we call around here, “spit rain.” Just enough water would drop out of a nearly cloudless sky, mixing with the dust in the air, to create little muddy spots on the car windshield and mess up that shine.

Clouds battling it out with the sun.

Today, however, looks promising. There’s a wet smell to the air and the clouds seem to be winning out in the battle over the sky.

So in homage to the tentative onset of autumn in the desert, my doors and windows open wide today, exchanging stale indoor air for fresh, moisture-laden air. Did I suggest it might be fall like weather today? Oops! I didn’t mean to let that slip out. I’m hesitant to say such things for fear of jinxing it.

Just now, while writing, I heard this weird sound. A wagon on the sidewalk? Someone going by with a walker to help them shuffle along? The parakeets tearing up the newspaper in their cage? A cat clawing at the screen door? Something seriously wrong with the refrigerator motor? Crackle, crunch, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. Thought I better investigate. Lo and behold, it’s raindrops hitting the sidewalk, the patio furniture, the rooftop, the leaves on the trees! Five minutes of a smattering tease of rain.

I’ll take it. Any rain, even amounts not measurable in a rain gauge are welcome. (Insert a sigh saved up since April.) What that infinitesimal bit of moisture in the air adds to my day also can’t be measured. Wet sidewalk scent should be a choice on the air freshener aisle. Why isn’t it?

Categories: Outdoors | Tags: Autumn, Moisture, Monsoon, Phoenix, Rain, Rain gauge | Leave a comment

A Few Notes about Infinity

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Kami

Analyzing a piano keyboard when I was very young, six or seven years, maybe younger, I remember thinking that all the possible songs that could be written would have been written by time I was old enough to try to write one myself. With only eighty-eight keys, I was certain that there were a great many possible ways to arrange them into songs, but that it would be a limited number. Surely, eventually, all the notes would be arranged in all their possible arrangements. My young brain tried to figure out eighty-eight times eighty-eight times eighty-eight without much success. Not that math of any kind would have helped my flawed thinking.

I told you I was very young.

Tickling the ivories

I’m sure there’s some developmental thing in a child’s brain that keeps them from recognizing the idea of unlimited or of the infinite.

It’s been more than a few decades since my naïve theory on the limitations of musical possibility and I still can’t fathom the infinite. Unending numbers? Gaaa!! The Universe? Too big!! My brain does this twisty, jerky stuttering thing, like our old Toyota truck does at intersections, the idle not quite keeping the engine running smoothly. And my stomach joins in with this weird rumbling, sputtering thing when I attempt to grasp the idea of forever.

Maybe there’s something in the human brain that only recognizes limits, boundaries, the corporeal and the tangible. Maybe it’s just me.

It’s not that I don’t believe in those kinds of things, it’s just that I can’t get my head around the ideas. There’s no experience to measure it against and no comparison to give me perspective.

Call me childish. Call me naïve. Rather than putting too much energy into the unfathomable, I’ve chosen to simply enjoy the music.

You can revel in the music today, too!

The links below will take you to some fun and varied piano selections. It’s just a tiny taste of what’s out there. Enjoy!

Flight of the Bumblebee

Bruce Hornsby (The Way It Is)

Nightnoise

Horowitz in Moscow

Piano Guys (five of em)

Victor Borge (on the muppet show)

Boogie Woogie

Jarrod Radnich

Categories: Music | Tags: infinity, Keyboard, Music, Piano | Leave a comment

It’s Gratituesday!

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Kami

It’s Gratituesday! Today I am thankful for the surprising mix of people who have brought me here, to who I am and to how I’m living my life. We’ve moved around the country some during my married lifetime, and have lived in four different homes in the same town over the past fifteen years. Every one of those moves placed people in my path who have shaped my view of the world, sculpted an aspect of personality, tweaked how I tune in to events in my life.

I’ve found connections with an eclectic assortment of perspectives and temperaments, shared inside jokes and laughter with assorted comedic sensitivities, talked to, cried with and worked for people I never would have planned to be involved with. But always, one person’s chemistry and complexities worked its magic on another. I’m so glad we were thrown together for however long, for whatever purpose.

Grand Canyon (Photo credit: YoTuT)

Sometimes it was a bumpy start. Sometimes a rough ride in the middle made it seem we’d never learn from or help each other. Sometimes reason was missing completely from the equation and yet the relationship still worked its purpose, like a river slowly carving away at a cliff wall, one grain of sand at a time.

There have been misunderstandings. There have been mistakes. There have been hours of missing those I left behind or friends who moved on ahead. There have been countless joys, hugs, handshakes, winks, dusty trails, songs sung, tears shed, silences. Relationships of every hue, tone, timbre, color, and pitch have lent themselves to the ongoing work of me becoming me.

Today I am me because of you. For that I am grateful beyond imagining.

Categories: Gratituesday, Relationships | Tags: friends, Gratitude, Gratituesday, people | Leave a comment

There’s Something in the Air

Posted on October 8, 2012 by Kami

On opening the microwave door today I caught whiff yesterday mornings bacon smell and was mentally propelled into my paternal grandparents home. It was quite nearly like being teleported. Certain brands of coffee brewing will take me there, as will Grandpa’s brand of cigarettes, a smell I find oddly endearing, precisely because it is so closely associated with memories of my Grandfather. Grandma wouldn’t let him smoke inside the house, so he went out to the garage, or the garden when he needed to light up. If we couldn’t find Grandpa in the house, we knew we could find him outdoors simply by following our noses. And the bacon? When our family visited they cooked up a storm for us. Mounded heaps of pancakes, sausage and bacon sat center stage at their table. Grandpa was the cook. Grandma sat at the table sipping her morning coffee overseeing our amazingly decadent feast. We didn’t get bacon at our house. That was a luxury item.

Smell is surely the most evocative of all the memories.

Lilacs used to grow along our backyard fence when I was very young. That heady fragrance carries with it a sense of calm and a feeling that all is right with the world.

My favorite restaurant experience ever was less about the five-star service and phenomenal food and more due to the fact that they used wood fired stoves. I have many, many cherished memories of cooking over a camp fire, so the wood smoke atmosphere lent an ambiance to the meal that could be had not other way.

Old Spice cologne brings out memories of my dad. Falling asleep in church with my head leaning against his shoulder stands out particularly. He also carried in his pocket a small container of mint lifesavers, broken into fourths. That waft of mint in the air will place my thoughts squarely in a church pew, a sermon droning, sleepiness weighing my eyes down.

Fresh cut grass transports me to the park I grew up nearby. When that scent hits the air in my head I’m rolling down hills, catching fly balls and throwing Frisbees.

Books have a certain smell, especially library books. It’s a sort of musty, dusty, inky papery scent that sets me down on the couch next to mom hearing her reading. The melody of her voice drifts across the years and settles in at the very center of me. The world all-akimbo rights itself from that one singular sensation. Who knew the power that could be found in the smell a book carries.

I worked in a print shop for a year once. Never thought I’d get over being blown away by the strong ink smell that permeated every atom in the building. No surprise in that connection of ink and words. For me, the print shop placed me one tiny step closer to my childhood dream of someday being published, having my words set down in ink. And so the smell of printer’s ink is the call and promise of a distant dream, a hope in the air.

A dairy farm is distinctly aromatic. For most people it isn’t a pleasant distinction. I spent a week once, and a few days over the years, in the company of a happy family who owned dairy cows, and with them the required hay fields, farm machinery, and relaxed country drawl. I adored helping out at milking time. It was a mechanized operation that fascinated me. My job was to pull the lever that sent a shower of grain into a feeding trough for the beautiful black and white beasts to munch on as the suction cups emptied their udders. It was an important job! The smell of manure, grain, milk and dust was a heady thing, full of responsibility, pride and usefulness. Those smells to this day conjure such wonder-filled emotions.

I can tell that today will be a day of breathing deeply and searching for memories in those breaths.

Is there a scent or fragrance richly tied to memory for you? Have you ever been surprised by a smell, having been, until that moment, unaware of the power of it’s chemistry?

Categories: Memory Lane | Tags: cherished memories, Grandpa, Memory, Old Spice, smell | 3 Comments

“The Unrest of Those Who Follow”

Posted on October 7, 2012 by Kami

I recently revisited a novel I read over thirty years ago. I didn’t remember a thing about it, to the point that I wondered if I ever really read it before. I must have been a bit distracted or clueless when I read it the first time. I was a teenager then. There have been at least a thousand books I’ve read since, so I should cut myself some slack, I guess.

This was a Thomas Hardy novel. You can’t go wrong with a classic, I figured. What I wasn’t expecting was to be so caught up in the story that I was outraged at the characters.

Aggravation set in right away at Tess’s father for being so ridiculously full of pride and so shallow. Then I wanted to yell at her mother for being even more shallow and empty-headed than her silly husband. Where do these people learn their poor communication skills? And poor Tess, thrown to the wolves trying to make up for a mistake that never would have happened if her dumb dad hadn’t gotten drunk and been a lazy fool.

books (Photo credit: brody4)

Enter Gabriel Angel and you falsely hope that he’s going to save Tess from herself and her sad little life. (“I’ll take poor assumptions for 800, Alex.”– see Finding Forrester.) I consider him one of the most dangerous kinds of characters ever to have been created on paper. Self-righteous, relentless in getting what he wants, unforgiving. He’s painted as a sweet guy, on the surface, to the point that all the girls on the farm are senselessly in love with him. “Run!” I wanted to yell at Tess. “Stay away from this guy! Listen to your gut and run far, far away!”

But no, Tess was generous to a fault. She gave and gave and gave. She gave everything she was to everyone else and had no thought for herself. She gave herself to death, literally.

Why am I discussing my aggravation with this tragic story? I didn’t expect to find myself caring so much about a character. I mean, she’s just a made up paper person! Most of the fiction I read lets me keep my distance. Oh sure, I’m interested in the plot, the story line, the what happens next. But I’m not usually invested in the characters to the point of being incensed for them, being afraid for them. To hear myself chat with my friends about this book made me sound like a raving lunatic.

Maybe, what it really is goes like this. I’ve known some people like Tess. You know the type. They can’t seem to catch a break from life. Every thing they try turns out strangely out of whack. If life gives them oranges they end up with grapefruit juice. If life gives them lemons they end up in jail due to their involvement in a pyramid scheme. The people in a position to really help someone like this end up doing the most damage. It hurts to watch. You want to turn your head, close the book and not pick it up again. It’s a real-life tragedy that keeps being written and nothing you try to do changes how that person’s life is unraveling, tangling and disintegrating.

Once in a while I go back and open up one of those books, check on those real, living characters, hoping to find the plot line has changed. Oh, how I wish the author of those stories could rewrite things a bit. Sometimes the scenery has changed, various minor characters come and go, but the heartache and loss and hopelessness are unrelenting.

I guess that explains why I like to try to lose myself in a work of fiction. The very nature of the made up story makes it safe and distances me from the difficulties in real life. Or better, the author manages to paint insight into the human situation, giving me a new perspective I hadn’t yet considered.

The very best books will leave you breathless, or deep in thought, or changed somehow. I guess Tess of d’Urberville is one of those books. Hardy managed to break down one of my little walls of defense I’d constructed as a shield against caring for and hurting about the heartache in others lives.

How many other books have changed something inside me? More than I care to acknowledge. Have you read a book that rocked your world? Has an author sent a seismic tremor rumbling beneath your feet? Or is it just me?

(Apologies or kudos to Mike Rich, the author of “Finding Forrester” for the title of this blog, borrowed from a quote from William Forrester’s book.)

Categories: Books, Relationships | Tags: Book, Tess d'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy | 2 Comments

Safety Pins and String

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Kami

“Stay away from the river!” Grandma would holler at us, not skipping a beat in whatever project she was in up to her elbows.

My cousins and I would let the screen door slam behind us as we headed outside. That wasn’t usually where we were planning on going, but it was where we always ended up. First we’d circle around the enormous backyard, and do some exploring. We might, or we might not, play in the old leaning barn, it’s smell of fresh hay and filtered sunlight and dust so tempting. We might take off down the lane to see whatever there was to see that day. Or we’d spy on the younger cousins, keeping well out of their vision lest we get wrangled by our parents into watching out for them. There were some old foundations of buildings overgrown with grass and vines in another part of the tangled growth that was our cousins’ territory. Those were interesting places for the imagination to work with.

Inevitable

But no matter what we might find to keep us entertained while the adults did their endless visiting, we would wind up at the river. It was inevitable. The river wasn’t even fifty yards away from Grandma’s front porch. There wasn’t a fence or a barrier of any kind to keep us away from it’s beautiful gurgling, rush of water. Besides that, it called to us, I’m sure of it. “Come and play, come and play” it’s eddies and swirls would whisper. Who could resist the call of a river?

The spot we favored was a small arching curve out where the river took a decidedly left-hand turn. This served to slow the water down a bit. Our favorite spot to play was a little rocky shallow area with willows and reeds just beside the slough. “Stay away from that slough!” was another of Grandma’s favorite warnings. The slough was a boggy grown in mess of mucky water that we wouldn’t dream of exploring. Our private area on the river’s shore, where we cautiously waded in and chucked rocks had clear splashy water with plenty of rocks on the shore to choose from. It was quiet and hidden and felt like no other place on earth.

Fishing Heaven

If we had planned ahead we’d have a couple of safety pins, and some string. And then we would have found some nice long sturdy sticks to attach them to. We’d fling our short, makeshift lines out into the current only to have them immediately float right back to us. I don’t think the string was ever quite long enough. And even though our unmarried uncle sold bait to the real fishermen that frequented the river in that area, it never really dawned on us to bring some bait ourselves. Impaling a wriggly worm on a safety-pin was the last thing I would dream of doing. Had we caught a fish, we wouldn’t have had a clue what to do with it. We were only pretending at everything we did anyway.

My cousins, who lived next door to Grandma, probably got to do real fishing all the time and were just humoring me. Although, it seems they were every bit as invested in the process as I was. Our bi-monthly visits to Grandma’s were a treat for us as well as for them. We surely lived a charmed life when we got together.

With the vast amount cousins that spent time at Grandma’s it’s a miracle that no one ever drowned. I think there must have been some busy guardian angels at that spot in the river. A few of the younger cousins seemed drawn to mayhem and mischief like flies to honey. Or was it that mischief and mayhem was drawn to them? That’s the more likely of the two. I’m sure there were angels, or maybe even Saint Andrew himself, the patron saint of fishermen, who oversaw the protection and safety of our clan. Surely it wasn’t that far for angels or saints to be on the job. That spot, by Grandma’s house, was a little piece of heaven.

Categories: Memory Lane, Outdoors, Relationships | Tags: Grandma's House, River, Safety pin | 8 Comments

Author Archives: Kami