Even the gulls

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seagullsEvelyn partitioned the tomato into round slices. “You know, they make a tool to cut it all at once these days.”  Her granddaughter Joan shifted from foot to foot.

“It’s called a tomato slicer.” Evelyn thumped her knife down harder than she had intended. “They had them in my day. I never cared for them.” She set aside the cutting board and picked up tongs for the bacon. A grease bubble popped in the skillet. “Ouch!” She jerked her arm out of the way.

“You could cook it in the microwave.”

Evelyn eyed the girl. “You don’t say.” She got ice for her scalded hand. “Get that head of lettuce out of the crisper drawer and tear some up into a colander.”  Her granddaughter started to speak, but Evelyn cut her off. “And if you tell me they make salad in a bag, I’ll send you home to your mother’s to eat some. Brown, wilted before it leaves the store shelves. No, thank you.”

“Sorry, Gram.”

“I know you don’t enjoy coming here…”

“I do!” Joan shredded the lettuce into the strainer. “It’s … quaint.”

“You think it’s pedantic. ” Evelyn returned to the bacon. “Do you know what I wish?”

“What?”

“I wish I was forty two again and standing in the Gulf of Mexico with the sand swallowing my feet and the tide straining me one way and then the other. I want to taste salt in every breath of air. I even want those damned nuisance birds, the ones that screech all day long and into the evening.”

Joan supplied, “Seagulls.”

“Yes. I even wish for the seagulls.” Evelyn had better luck with the bacon this time, and Joan had finished with the lettuce. The toaster popped up four identical slices of bread, and Evelyn prepared their sandwiches. She cut them corner to corner and handed them to Joan to carry to the table. “Even the seagulls,” she said, and she followed her granddaughter to lunch.

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Things are never pedantic at Trifecta, and it’s a good thing. It takes my mind off of the work I ought to be doing. (Q: How can you tell I’m overwhelmed? A: When I write a lot of blog posts instead of my other work.)

 

I Saw Everything

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“Have fun!” I waved Scott out the back door, false smile plastered on my face. Dear God, I thought he’d never leave. And yet, he’s ten minutes early. “Kids, good news! You’re having a play date with Kristopher.”

“When?”

“Now.” Linda’s van honked from my driveway. I herded my children out front. “Hurry up.”

They couldn’t see my hands shaking as I shooed Sam to sit beside Kristopher. They couldn’t feel my heart racing as I kissed them goodbye. They had no idea what I was about to do. “Don’t forget Sam’s six o’clock meds.”

Linda held up the pill bottle. She knew. Moms can’t sneak around behind their husbands’ backs without conspirators.

“I sat in that office typing all day. I barely spoke to him. He knows I’m up to something, but can’t guess what.”

“You worry too much.”

“I think … I guess I need to see it with my own eyes.”

“I understand that.”  Linda backed out and I went inside.

I checked the clock and climbed in the shower. Can’t be late. I really wish Scott had left on time. Early throws me into a different kind of limbo. I dressed to blend in, blue earrings, black slacks, and a lightweight jacket-top.  Ticket? I ran it out to the car. Camera? Phone? Book? All collected. And I was still half an hour early.

I’m sorry, honey. I’m sorry about all the mess, and yes, lies. By now, you know I did not go to Linda’s with the kids but, instead followed you last night.

___

I had timed it so that if Scott stuck to the routine I expected, I would leave the house after him but reach the theater ahead of him. Well ahead. In fact, I arrived so early, I had to wait for the doors to open. And I beat him. Good.

Inside, I chose my seat and waited. The next part was the trickiest. I needed to hide. I was a voyeur here, and I didn’t want Scott to see me. Not yet. When he entered, he stopped once, at the opposite end of my row. But he walked past without turning his head. Danger averted.

I followed him with my eyes and zoomed in my camera. I needed to catch him, or this whole adventure would be pointless. I only needed one good shot. I wondered how rude it would be to read my book while I waited. Finally, the moment came.

A woman in a black and white dress spoke his name and took his hand. I had the big lens on the camera, and I caught him receiving the Teacher of the Year award at Troy’s graduation.

The recessional played, and you walked down my aisle, looking everywhere but forward. Then you glanced up and saw me, and your eyes widened. You reached out and touched my arm. That was all. The parade was moving too fast for more. But that look, that touch, I’ll carry those forever.

 

Scott1

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Honoring Mikaela Lynch: Autism and Drowning

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For those visiting for the first time from the Honoring #MikaelaLynch link up, my kids are Caroline and Sam. Both have Asperger’s syndrome, and they attend a school for children with Asperger’s, HFA, ADHD, and similar diagnoses. The experience described below took place during their class’s field trip last Wednesday. The picture is not from the trip.

kidsbyfire

“Before we go on our sensory hike, pair up with a classmate. Buddies, now!”  Half the children dashed to stand by a friend. The other half stood waiting for an instruction that made sense.

Sam later told me, “Ms. Pair was not on the field trip, Mom. How were we supposed to pair up without her?”

Eventually, the kids were organized into partners. “Now, what I want to do here is send a teacher or parent to the bottom of the trail.” Our guide designated Mrs. Gunnels. “And once she’s down there, I want the pairs to follow her. Leave a little distance between each set so you can’t hear each other talking. Look around you. I’ve put some manmade objects on the trail, and we’ll find out how many you saw after we all get to her. Now, who wants to go first?”

Naturally, Sam volunteered.

“You do realize these kids are autistic, right?” Well, not all of them. Some have ADHD. Some have ADHD and autism. Some have other, similar, but not identical diagnoses.

The guide swiveled to look at me, “Yes?”

“This sounds like a pretty stupid idea. You can’t seriously mean to send them down that hill without supervision.”

“Mrs. Gunnells will be at the bottom,” another parent volunteered.

“We have wanderers!” Heat suffused my face as I thought about the ongoing search for Mikaela Lynch. I didn’t know they had already found her body. I still held out faint hope that she would come home alive, shaken but whole.

Did the guide, did these other parents, think that our children were immune to wandering because they are high functioning? Because they are all verbal and able to call for help?

One of the last times we lost Sam before he finally stopped escaping from us, we were biking near a lake. We had no cell service and didn’t want to leave the area when he vanished. The path forked and we each needed to explore one direction.

We spent long minutes screaming his name without getting a response. I was climbing a hill to retrieve Caroline, reach phone service, and dial 911 when Scott found him on a walking trail right beside the lake, pedaling his way back to where he thought he had left us, completely oblivious to his danger.  He could not yet swim at that time.

And now, he was planning to go first down the unsupervised trail, holding hands with an equally capricious friend. He could swim, but not in track shoes. And Lake Jordan was far too close if he got distracted and followed his eyes instead of the instructions. By no means does every child who meanders away from caregivers die. Many return. However,  when autistic children who have wandered away from their parents do die, 91% of them drown. Sam would not be going down that trail alone, and neither would his friends and classmates.

Although it felt like a lifetime, it was probably only a few seconds before the other teacher, Miss Hathcock, spoke up. “We have plenty of adults.” Too true. There were seventeen children and a total of twelve teachers and parents. “One of us can go with each group.”

“Yes, excellent.”

Sam, still determined to go first,  latched onto Mrs. Gunnells’ hand. Scott had Caroline and her friend. So I chose two children at random and shepherded them down the incline, redirecting them each time they appeared ready to go off course. At the bottom, I counted. The teachers did, too. All here. All safe.

But my heart thudded against my ribcage for too long, and I couldn’t pay attention to the guide’s spiel.

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My heart aches for the families of Mikaela Lynch and now Owen Black and Drew Howell, all of whom wandered away from their families within the last week and drowned.

Loma’ai audiocast

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J650HeadshotI’m flying really high right now. If you know me on Facebook or Twitter, you know why. But for those of you who have NOT been bombarded by my bragging yet, a short story of mine was published, not just published, but audiocast. When the amazing producers at Cast of Wonders accepted my piece, I had no idea how extraordinary they truly were. The reader, Tina Connolly, has brought Loma’ai to life in a way I never even dreamed possible. My GOD, Tina’s novel Ironskin has been nominated for a Nebula. A Nebula! And she’s reading my story for Cast of Wonders. I’m speechless. (Only, I’m not. I almost always have words. But I’m tripping all over my tongue.)

Please, take half an hour and listen to my story, as read by someone with an extraordinary voice.

And Cast of Wonders could use some Facebook fans and Twitter followers. You could do far worse than to like their pages!!

 

 

The Girl Who Hated (almost) Everything

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3rdgrade

She doesn’t look like a total crosspatch, does she? Don’t be fooled.

I raised my hand. “I hate writing.”

Mrs. McMullen came to my desk. “Do it anyway.”

“I’ve been to the zoo once. In Kindergarten.” I scowled at my worksheet.

“Write about that trip, then.”

“I got lost.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something, Jessie.”

I wrote, “At the zoo, we saw the monkeys. They were very very very very very funny.” I made the ‘very’s’ huge so I wouldn’t have to cover the whole page.

Mrs. McMullen returned it. “Do over.” She kept me in from recess.

I wrote, “I hate the zoo. I got lost. It was NOT fun, and I missed lunch. Mom was worried. I guess I saw some animals. The end.” Mrs. McMullen gave me a 100.

Two weeks after that, she started the third grade reading project. “I hate reading.”

“Yes, you’ve told me that. Several times.”

“None of the other third grade classes have to read three novels.”

“And all of them have to use the reading book. The one you called boring.”

“ I loathe horses.”

My advanced vocabulary did not intimidate my teacher. She had assigned King of the Wind, Misty of Chincoteague, and Black Beauty to be read over the course of three months, in any order. When I refused to pick, She handed me Misty and kept me in from recess for a week.

I ate that book whole. From the wreck of the Spanish galleon, through the Phantom’s capture and Misty’s birth, I devoured Marguerite Henry’s words. But before I could move on to King of the Wind, I had to compose a book report. I wrote, “I hate the horses that live in our pasture. They get out all the time, and they aren’t ours. When I was four, I used to love them. I tried to ride one bareback with my friend Amanda. But it was in heat. The stallion kept trying to mount her, and she nearly bucked us off. Mom was furious. The end.”

Mrs. McMullen kept me in from recess. “I know you read the book.”

“Yes.”

“Did you like it even a little?”

“I loved it.”

“Why won’t you write about it?”

“Marguerite Henry already wrote that story.”

“Ah.” She looked at my paper.

“I don’t want to write her stories.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be your problem, Jessie.  Will you at least tell me the plot?”

I rolled my eyes and recited the book’s basic facts.

Mrs. McMullen nodded. She wrote 100 on my paper. “Go play,” she said.

“I’m going to study math.” She shrugged. I got out my textbook  and a fresh sheet of paper. But I didn’t do multiplication. I wrote, “I hate math. It’s my least favorite subject.” I didn’t try to cover my work when Mrs. McMullen came to  check.

She said, “Sooner or later, you’re going to have to write about something you like.”

“Not today. We’ve got another times test this afternoon don’t we? And I can’t stand those things.”

Yesterday was National Teacher Appreciation Day, and this post honors one of the most amazing teachers I ever had. I have no idea why she liked me so much, because the thing I really hated that year was school.

Of Fire and Wood

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AmyI found a high school photo of my sister this morning. Five years dead, and I hadn’t seen her for a year before that. So I shouldn’t be shocked that I barely recognized her. Oh, I know the picture; it hung in my Lexington office. And truly, she looked exactly as I expected. Yet the curve of her jaw, the angle of her nose, the set of her eyes, all of those things were unfamiliar to me, like an artist’s renderings of shapes known only by touch.

I’m a firecracker. Short fuse; loud bang. I never cross a bridge but that I burn it. But her. My God, if I numbered each door she set fire to as she passed under its arch, I would be here counting all night. Never controlled burns; always conflagrations, and she ran madly in the licking flames, never caring who else got scorched.

I won’t say she looks innocent in this picture, but it hides things. Her expression conceals the two years of intense psychotherapy already under her belt, the result of her first suicide attempt. Nothing in her eyes reveals that she is already an alcoholic. Her porcelain-smooth face doesn’t show she’s been experimenting with meth.

And yet, the image I hold in memory doesn’t do her justice either. By the time she died, her high, sallow cheeks had filled in and expanded, steroids bloating her in a way she had always dreaded. Someone had to point her out in a photograph at the funeral, because that was not the girl I knew.

Her fire still shapes my perceptions of her; it always will. Yet it’s cooling. For the first time, I feel sadness. Not for her death, but for the life she refused to lead. All my wishes for her are imaginary futures that start from impossible points. Every hope stems from a door slammed hard in an echoing corridor. Every desire is a spent match sucked upward into the maelstrom.

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This week, Trifecta is talking some serious door.

Random

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J650HeadshotSome random facts for a Monday.

1)      Sandra Tyler from A Writer Weaves A Tale puts together an ezine called Woven Tale Press. She did me the honor of including my prose poem Hope Is in the second issue. I’m touched and honored by her recognition. The other pieces in the ‘zine are all excellent, and each one has a link back to the blogger’s homepage. This is not the same as reblogging , which I abhor.  Sandra has edited these pieces (with the permission of and collaboration from their authors) and enhanced them with illustrations. She’s formatted pages and created an amazing publication. Each piece is short. You can read in odd moments throughout the day, and it’s a wonderful way to spend some time.

2)      Last year, I think over a year ago now, I won a drawing over at Field Trips With Sue. The prize? A night at The Chattanoogan and fancy dinner for two. Scott and I tried our damndest to schedule without our kids, but for a variety of reasons, it was impossible to do so.  (Meltdown here, meltdown there, scheduling conflicts everywhere.) And the certificate was set to expire June first 2013. So, in spite of the next two months getting ready to be from HELL, we picked up and WENT last weekend, kids and all. The hotel was amazing, the food was divine, and Chattanooga remains one of our favorite family vacation spots. I wish we could afford to stay there every time we went!

3)      Speaking of “from hell”, let me talk about my schedule. At my work, we don’t take holidays, ever, and even though I teach college, there aren’t semesters,  trimesters, or quarters of any sort. Rather, full time faculty get a month off every year. My month is March. Because I don’t take a summer month and most faculty DO, I tend to pick up an extra course or two in May, June, and July. This year, the schedule is compounded by a sudden death in the faculty. (She went to the doctor with a headache. She was dead from cancer two weeks later. Fuck. Somebody else picked up the classes she was in the middle of, but the schedule is still in ‘juggle’ mode.) So I won’t be blogging as much in the immediate future. I’ll be grading my ass off.

4)        This means that I won’t be writing enough for Sprocket. And when I post over here, it’s odds on that I’ll be writing for one of my three favorite memes: Trifecta, Write on Edge, and Yeah Write. (And sometimes the 100 word song with Lance, the 100 Word Challenge with Velvet Verbosity, and the I don’t like Mondays blog hop hosted by Mod Mom Beyond Indiedom.)

So, that’s me. How’s life with you? What shit’s going t down in your neck of the woods?

Hellhound

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MoonThis week finds us back in the car with Kelly and her daughters Luna and Amber. (Amber doesn’t have a role tonight. But she’s still there.) Although this should stand alone, you can follow the previous link to get the first part oft the story. Right after the last part ended, they were attacked. We return to the vehicle in the aftermath to address this week’s word from Trifecta: ecstasy.

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HELLHOUND

Beast’s blood splattered Luna’s face. “Pegged him!” she cheered as Kelly braked the car.

“Good girl.” Kelly took a crystal ball from her daughter and smeared the dog’s blood on her own face and shirt, then sent her mind questing. First, she found Beast, still alive in the middle of the road in spite of the ball Luna had planted in his head. He would be up and after them again if Kelly didn’t take action. Second, she followed the dog’s blood to its master.

Kip was closing the distance quickly, but he hadn’t yet passed them.

Kelly left her seat and walked back to Beast, holding out the ball Luna had given her, using it to illuminate her path. She said. “You used to be half mine.” Beast rolled onto his belly and whined. He laid his ears back against his head. “I know. It’s been a long time. You’re his dog now. But I need a favor. Do you understand what he sent you to do to us?” Beast growled. Even a hellhound was only a dog, and this one had orders.

Kelly had reached him now. She held the ball tightly, then scooped up the other one where it had landed beside the monster. She gave herself over to the peculiar ecstasy of a commanding trance. She rubbed the second ball along the oozing gauze on her own leg, mixing her blood with Beast’s, and with the dirt and asphalt of the road. Turn the spell on its master. “I need you to find him, Beast. Before he finds us. Rip out his throat if you can get to it.”

Beast staggered to his feet, his skull already healing where Luna had cracked it. He stretched his front legs out long, not a bow nor an admission of Kelly’s authority, but an acknowledgment. She held his blood. She could compel him.

Kelly shook off the trance and returned to the car. She hoped for nothing as she began to drive.

 

Charge

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cardsAnd this, the lost century, we charge against our souls, holding aloft the future like some cosmic credit line. Reckless, we spend to abandon. We do not expect the bill to come due in our lifetimes.

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Those crazy cards over at Trifecta gave us three words, asked us to add 33 more, and challenged us to post the results. Mine don’t feel very original (and yes, I’m one of those writers; I refuse to accept that all of the stories have been told;  I refuse to merely hope for a unique way to retell an old thing; I hate it when I feel repetitive or wheel-reinventive), but it was a lot of fun to dig up a ton of things we should have shredded ages ago and put them in the picture. The only things that are actual, current, cards are my Sam’s club membership, the Starbucks Gold card, and the driver’s license.

Bandha UP

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bandha“The mirrors are a distraction. Focus on what you feel.” MJ lay back on her mat.

I did not. “I feel a lot of things. I can’t tell which is right until I see how I look.”

My Yoga teacher tucked her ass up and hoisted her back towards the ceiling. “Try for that.”

“How will I know I look like what you look like if I can’t see what I look like?”

She sat up and pushed me into a reclining pose. “Concentrate on your Mula Bandha. Tilt your pelvis to make that flat back. Then lock it into your Uddiyana Bandha. Feel how hard your stomach is?”

“So I’m doing it right now?”

“Well, no.” She reached under and pushed my sagging butt a little higher. “You need to work that connection down through your spine. You’re strengthening a weak part of your body. You should feel the tension in the backs of your legs. Really squeeze.”

“If I squeeze much more, my Inna gada davida bandha is going to merge with Oh my god I hurta banda and mash me into a pulp. This is killing my neck.”

“Keep your chin tucked to your chest. Don’t put the tension into your shoulders. There you go!”

“I’m shaking so hard it’s throwing me off balance.” I looked in the forbidden mirror and corrected my posture. The quivering increased.

“Use those inner quakes. Let them rattle you. Pull into your tree.”

“My tree? Trees are green. My face is the color of a plum right now.”

“You’re almost there. We’ll work on it some more next week.” She released the class with instructions to tilt our pelvises at random intervals. She caught my eye as I walked past. “Inna gada davida bandha?”

I walked out the door into the  bright  Southern morning. “Don’t you know that I love you?”

I couldn’t tell, but I thought I heard her laughing as I stepped down to the parking lot.

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The last time I wrote about Yoga, I was merrily faceplanting my Crow. (Update on that: Largely unchanged.) This was about two years ago. I wound up not doing Yoga for a rather long stretch, as I’d had enough of the YMCA’s noise and the resistance to the word “Namaste” or even, in some cases, a replacement of “Namaste” with “Amen”. Fuck. I started back recently with a beginner class at a private studio, and my form sucks. (Not that it ever achieved great things before.) My arms forget to stick to my sides, my ass sways out and back, and I can’t lock my body for shit. It makes for great blog fodder. Lucky me that Trifecta wanted to know all about my color this week.