Monday, May 13, 2013
Saturday, May 11, 2013
moms
Me and My Mama, who is solid gold. |
I heard two young mothers talking near me
while I was waiting in line. They spoke
with such logic and hope and energy and because the subject went to blogging,
my ears listened closely to what they said.
“I read her blog everyday,” one of them
said. She was a cute young mother,
pushing a stroller back and forth to keep her infant quiet. “She’s so encouraging!”
“Yeah,” the other young mom said. She was very pregnant, keeping an eye on her
son, playing with a small truck on the carpet next to her. “I don’t have much time to read.”
“Well, I read it because it’s short,” the
other laughed. I smiled. They’d get impatient if they read my
blog.
“And I hate getting parenting advice, really,”
the pregnant one said. “I get enough
advice from my mom. She never stops.”
I listened and my heart sank. I thought of my mother, who didn’t give me
much advice unless I asked for it.
I
thought of myself, giving parenting advice unsolicited to my daughter...and
hearing the same thing.
If I could, I would have broken in on their
conversation to tell them one thing:
they are golden. They are solid
gold. Moms are solid gold... and they
don’t hear it enough.
They hear how they are nags. Their kids tell them they are the ones who
stop the joy, lay down the law and set limits that aren’t appreciated. My own mom did this – and I did it for my
kids.
I also prayed constantly for them – still pray
constantly for them. Because inside of a
mother’s heart is a non-stop prayer that pleads for God’s mercy on their
children. Mercy and love and
breakthrough. I laughed with them and
for them. My kids were all lit up inside
and funny.
Mothers are constantly tethered to their
kids, even if they can’t be there physically.
The two girls in line didn’t yet know what that felt like.
They’ll feel it when their kids start going
out with friends. They’ll feel it when
their kids are at sleepovers. They will
feel it if they ever leave town and leave them behind.
It is an ache, a joy and non-stop prayer to
be a mother.
Mothers are golden. Tell one today that they are solid gold – I guarantee
you they don’t hear it enough.
That’s why we have Mother’s Day.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
insanity
May is Short Story Month
This is one of mine. It's written for an adult audience.
Please don't read if you have a sensitive constitution
"Listen carefully,"
he said, "this won't be easy for you to hear"....
I waited.
“This is the only broom we use
in this space.”
I looked at it. It was
impossible.
“And the place needs to be
swept every day, or else she’ll fire you.”
Lunatic?
“Can I bring another broom in?”
I asked.
“No,” he said, incredulously,
looking at me like I was out of my mind. “You have to take off your shoes, put
on socks and leave your bag in your car and you want to bring another broom in?”
The ad said references
required, which I brought. I ended up
having to take them back down to my car once he had read them, since no
“foreign matter” was allowed inside. He interviewed me and found me
acceptable but told me right away that only she was to say if the job I had
been hired to do had been done well.
“I was just asking...”
“This is the only broom.”
“Got it.”
“I told you it wouldn’t be easy
to hear.”
He left me there in the
pristine entryway with glass tables and a white velvet ottoman, handing me the
small dust broom and dustpan combination. They had silver trim in the
handles, much like an old Derringer, which I wish I had.
“Begin at the doorway, and work
your way into the study,” he said. “Those are the only spaces that need to be
swept.”
“Alright,” I said, trying to
smile. His eyes were deep blue and
serious, bags all over his face betrayed a lifetime of sleeplessness and
worry.
“The broom is replaced once a
week,” he said, softly, looking down. He
looked at me suspiciously before walking away, his footsteps echoing. The ceilings were at least twenty feet.
A cameraman on a crane
would have shot me from there, and slowly panned around the converted warehouse
to show the insanity of the job before me. The white walls and the white
furniture had brief, awkward interruptions of color in wall hangings, lamps and
throw pillows. I would be sweeping at least 3000 square feet of living
space. It was already so polished; I could see my face shining in every
surface.
I took the broom and began to
sweep at nothing. No dust, no dirt, and no nothing in the whole warehouse
space, other than the textured white floor that was scored and varnished so
heavily it looked like water.
Who had been there
yesterday? He said the place had to be swept every day, and it looked
like this? The pay was incentive to stay, but the insanity choked me.
As I worked, on my hands and knees, I heard the clack-clack-clack
of his typewriter in the distance. When
I loked up I saw him, off in a corner, his black socks crumpled around his
ankles. He sat at a small writing
desk, a Chippendale (was it a knock-off?), probably the only thing he had
brought into the home from his former life.
A dog barked in the
distance.
Sweep, sweep, sweep.
I was doing this to pay the
bills.
Living in the city is more
expensive than people realize and dreams are luxuries that none of us are
entitled to. There was grad school, then
the loans came due. I worked for awhile at a hotel desk, but the pay was
bad and the hours were worse. I tried to get a job at the magazine where
my brother found work, but there was a glut of writers and most of them were snobs
or frustrated authors.
Sweep, sweep, sweep.
He never waited for the
bell. I heard the carriage
return lever click, swoop and advance the paper up a line. Why didn’t he have a computer? What
was it, an Underwood? What
was he writing? He never
waited or stopped to think. Was he setting copy? Re-typing? Was there no outlet there? I looked up. There was one at his
feet, a lamp was plugged in there.
Sweep, sweep, sweep.
The bristles were white, the
ends were even whiter. Where would dust go? I looked in my pan, but
only anemic see-through bits were collecting. Was it worth it? How
long had I been sweeping? Ten minutes?
Sweep, sweep, sweep...
I really did love Larry. He was a fabulous husband and provider but I
should have known he was gay. How could
I not see that? He was so apologetic
leaving me and I hugged him for so long, assuring him that it was okay – that
he was okay. He told me that if it
weren’t for his lover he would stay married to me because he loved me so much
and I wanted to believe him. I wanted him to stay, even if he was gay. Instead, he left and there was alimony for a few
months and then nothing. Not even a
phone call.
Sweep,
sweep, sweep.
I had it
all written. It was a feat of note,
getting my novel done while I held down two jobs and was coping with my
divorce. Most of my friends had drinks
after work in Italian restaurants with a friendly bar. Instead of fun and a social life, I went home
to a studio with a broken radiator and wrote the whole enchilada on my laptop
before it broke. Thank God I saved my
work on a separate drive.
Every agent
that read my submission (did they really read it?) said it wasn’t for them but
encouraged me to keep looking for representation. I read each rejection letter the first year
and then realized that they all looked alike.
They were all trying to encourage me with rejection. They were the hug and assurance before saying
goodbye.
I stopped
reading rejection letters. I stopped
querying. I stopped writing. I stopped….
Sweep.
Sweep.
Sweep.
Sweep.
“Listen carefully….” I smirked,
thinking of the writer’s words when I came in. What was I, twelve years
old?
Listen carefully.
Really?
“This won’t be easy for you to
hear?”
No shit.
A lot of things are not easy to
hear.
Clack, Clack, Clack, Clack…..
Sweep, sweep, sweep.
Guess what’s not easy for you
to hear?
You... you odd little kept man typing
away on an Underwood.
You are wasting your
life.
You are mentally ill if you are
living with a woman who has see-through furniture and fluffy pink pillows.
When is the last time you slept
through the night?
Are you so afraid of being
alone that you accept this insanity as normal?
You are a moron to be doing
this for some woman who most likely doesn’t appreciate you.
She can’t even enjoy sex, judging
from this place.
I wonder what she looks like?
Sweep, sweep, sweep...
You are wasting your
life.
You are wasting your
life.
You are wasting your
life.
Labels:
compulsion,
desire,
insanity,
short story
Monday, May 6, 2013
short
May is short story month.
A short story can be any length that tells
one story that is satisfying to the reader and yet makes them think. A good short story usually leaves us with the
feeling of “What would have happened if…?”
or “What will happen next?”
The world of readers is changing. More people are reading than ever before and
apple and kindle have figured this out.
Because of this, they are selling more and more short stories to their
clients. These short stories can be read
in the time of a normal bus commute, and afternoon at the beach and are offered
at lower prices than full-length books.
The minute
they were introduced in 2010, Kindle Singles became wildly popular, being shorter
and more affordable.
"In many cases, 10,000 to 30,000
words (roughly 30 to 90 pages) might be the perfect, natural length to lay out
a single killer idea, well researched, well argued and well
illustrated--whether it's a business lesson, a political point of view, a scientific
argument, or a beautifully crafted essay on a current event," Amazon said.
A short story is
a beautiful fiction read with a fast pay-off.
Most good writers can write a short story and see it like a child,
resembling one of their novels, only smaller.
I love Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” Isak Dinesen's (Karen Blixen) “Babette's Feast”
and anything Flannery O’Connor wrote.
The most haunting
short story I ever read was “Counterparts” by James Joyce, a terrible story of
a compulsive alcoholic in a dead-end job teetering on a breakdown. The reader meets him on a day that he is bullied by his boss. It was horrifying and strange and
immortal. When I finished, I winced and sat for awhile. I replaced the book where I
found it and walked away disturbed by what I just saw. I was relieved that it was fiction; I was
troubled that it wasn’t.
A good story does
that: it stays with you long after you read it.
Even in the din of our world: the television, the club music, the gym activity, the kids... a good story transports the reader into another world.
This month I am
looking for guest bloggers with original short stories. Can you tell one? If so, email me or inbox me. I’d love to read your work and then post it
here.
Blessings; happy
reading
Labels:
Flannery O'Connor,
guest writers,
James Joyce,
Leo Tolstoy,
short story
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