A Poem

Primeval Ambulations

Light into darkness,
Aurora into obscurity,
Dayspring into eventide,
Breathe into vapor,
Sound into silence,
Motion into stillness,
Footprints into dew-laden grasses,
Life into the quietly awakening,
Words into emotions,
Seconds into moments, 
Beginnings into endings,
Rising into setting,
 Future into present,
All things into the past.

                                                   --February 2015

Recollection from a Life Half-Lived--I

* This is a work of fiction, but about 99.9% of it is from real life. 

  Stinging rays of radiation hit him on his back that was still lightly browned from a long summer of not wearing a shirt and the Fall that had proven to be more warmth than cold. He had been digging a long time; a day and a half to be exact. The hole seemed to be at a standstill now and the shoveling had grown dull and lonesome. He couldn't even look at Beau anymore. It was all too hard now. He had had him since he was 12 and today he was turning 19. He still felt 12 and wondered if he would ever feel any different. The sweat now poured profusely out of his body and stung his eyes and the many new cuts and blisters on his arms, hands, and legs and still he kept digging.

   He looked across the small field and Beau looked a little like he had when had first arrived. It was sad. The boy's emotions went from sadness to extreme anger. He hated so much of what life had become. It seemed to all culminate with him digging a grave; a horse-sized grave. His horse's grave. He hated the hole and he hated the digging. He wanted so badly to finish the hole and he wanted so badly to never finish the hole. When he finished, they would shoot Beau. He knew they needed to, but he hated the whole situation. Beau had been his, but now Beau was sick and he felt nothing, but guilt. He had ignored him for far too long. He had loved the horse so much. He had been his horse and no one would actual know what that truly felt like except for him. And to be honest, he had never been just a tan horse with a grandiose name acquired with money that had been earned doing chores around his parent's home. He had secretly named him as one of his closest friends when all of life becomes so awkward between the ages of thirteen and fifteen. And soon the sweat blinded the boy and fell down the handle of the wooden shovel and all the world took the shape of the hole and it began to grow deeper and deeper and it began to draw everything into itself and the cancer that was in the horse's sinus cavities grew into the hole and it began to kill everything it rooted itself into; except the boy who kept trying to dig. And all the world became digging and moved in the motion of a man who has become one with his spade, but the hole never got any deeper and the boy just kept digging at the earth that lay before him, but nothing ever stayed on the blade of the shovel.

   Later that night, they would shoot Beau. The boy's father would do it while the boy held the reins. Before he pulled the trigger, the father spoke in low, gentle tones and thanked the horse for loving his family and for being so kindly of a servant and a friend and lastly, the father pleadingly apologized to the horse for what he was about to do. The boy trembled and cried softy as his father's tender words hit his ears and he felt the coldness of the night and the coldness of his father's hands on the gun and on the horse's neck. So, did the father. The boy didn't remember the shot or how it had sounded so close to his ears and warm blood from the horse hit the boy's cheek and arm and the horse instantly fell, but he hadn't fallen into the hole like they had planned. So, they had to hook a rope to his reins and pull him into the middle of the hole with a tractor and the boy had, had to climb down into the hole and unhook the reins. The boy's younger sister helped them cover the horse and he had hated that she had been drafted to help. They worked quickly and quietly and the only sounds that were made were the sounds of metal moving hardened dirt, but they worked together because they were a family. After they had finished, they walked inside, washed up, changed clothes, got into the car loaded with luggage and drove north to the mountains to where they hoped to bury their memories deep into the hidden coves. They would all cry separately on the drive there and back, but it would be a crying that never really ended, just moved like a stream does when there is fresh water added to it in the late Spring from the melting snows, but dries up when summer is at full blaze. And they moved through the night speeding away from the hole and the boy remembered that it was his birthday.

This Week's Wisdom for Writing

This post has been waiting to be finished for the last two weeks. Many things have changed since then, but a few are still the same. Hope you enjoy the post. Better late than never. JDD

   The past week, this current week, and the next two weeks have been and will be full of life's many obligations and issues. The main one is that my Fall semester is coming to a screeching halt and that means final notes, Open House, the infamous "test" before the midterm, exams, grading, conferences, emails, meetings,  subject reviews, peer reviews, finalized curriculum plans, and salt-n-pepper in there a lot more grading and you will have about 1/2 of what I have been up to. Also, Fordzilla (See pic below. He looks so innocent, but know he is not!) has outsourced his sleep patterns overseas and just doesn't do much of it anymore. Which is ok for him, I guess, but it makes everything else just a tad bit harder. I did want to update my blog this week though and I really wanted to share some more of Steinbeck's, Journal of a Novel, with you. I hope you aren't getting tired of the excepts. If you are, we are almost done with them. I just feel there is so much to be gleaned from them whether you are a writer, a reader, or even just a human being living on the planet.

"The writer's of today, even I, have a tendency to celebrate the destruction of the spirit and god knows it is destroyed often enough. But the beacon thing is that sometimes it is not. And I think I can take time right now to say that. There will be great sneers from the neurosis belt of the south from the hard-boiled writers, but I believe that the great ones, Plato, Lao Tze, Buddha....,Christ, Paul, and the great Hebrew prophets are not remembered for negation or denial. Not that it is necessary to be remembered but there is one purpose in writing that I can see, beyond simply doing it interestingly. It is the duty of the writer to lift up, to extend, to encourage. If the written word has contributed anything at all to our developing species and our half developed culture, it is this: Great writing has been a staff to lean on, a mother to consult, a wisdom to pick up stumbling folly, a strength in weakness and a courage to support sick cowardice. And how any negative or despairing approach can pretend to be literature I do not know." Pg. 115-116


"And in other ways I seem to have been writing on this book all of my life. And throughout, you will find things that remind you of earlier work. That earlier work was practice for this, I am sure. And that is why I want this book to be good, because it is the first book. The rest was practice." Pg. 117


"To a certain extent I have thought about the reception of this book. And it seems to me that it might find a public ready for the open and honest. As you know the novel has been falling before the onslaught of non-fiction. That is largely because the novel has not changed for a very long time now. Sherwood Anderson made the modern novel and has not gone much beyond him. I think I am going beyond him. This may be rejected and kicked down but I do not think so. I really don't. However, this is a conjecture which will be demonstrated." Pg. 124 


"A book is as complicated as life, in some ways more complicated." Pg. 128


"I must have great violence in me because I react to violence in nature with great joy. And a good thunder roll makes me feel almost as though I could do it myself." Pg. 131

"...It is about time for something like that. and it is also time for gaiety. the death of Samuel has removed gaiety from the world. And I have to put some back in. For Eden must be everything, not only the grim and terrible because that isn't the way life is. Life is silly too sometimes and that must be in it. Everything I have seen or heard or thought must go in and I feel the necessity for release now." Pg. 131

"A book finished, published, read--is always an anticlimax to me. The joy comes in words going down and the rhythms crowding in the chest and pulsing to get out." Pg. 132

"I have been planting the book full of restlessness which precedes change. Just as history seems to ride up a series of plateaus, so does it seem to me that a man's life goes--up a little or down and then a flat place, and then another quick change and another plateau. In a book about a man, because of the restriction of space, the distance between the rises or falls is necessarily small and this must give a feeling of unreality." Pg. 134

"A cousin of mine--Pat Hamilton, son of George, grandson of Samuel and the only bearer of the name, the only one (isn't that odd)--died two days ago. He was an incurable alcoholic and died of a heart attack after a two-weeks' drunk. And there lies that family name. I have the blood and my sons but he had the name. I feel badly that he did not wear it well. He left it no pride and surely no shine. In fact he dirtied it...This is the tragedy of a name." Pg. 138

"A book, as you know, is a very delicate thing. If it is pressured , it will show that pressure." Pg. 139

"A book takes so long that people get tired of waiting. I know that. But I said at the beginning that this had to be written as though it would never get done." Pg. 139

"Today I have to do something I haven't done in this whole book. I have to eliminate some of yesterday's work and change the pace I had set for it. It has not been often. It was just wrong. But I don't mind. And surely that is a minimum." Pg. 144

"Maybe good, maybe bad. But I shall want to draw the reader into the personal so that he is reading about himself." Pg 145

"It has been good, but good things should not last too long or they cease to be good things." Pg. 145

Happy Reading,

   David 

Ode to the Gilded Gingkoes of Hines Terrace

Ode to the Gilded Gingkoes of Hines Terrace

Ode to the great gilded gingkoes,

I lie in wait for thy succinct reign,

To spring forth out of thy green and wooded branched hideaways,

Into the light of daytime's caressing lumniary rays, 

Out of odd-triangled veined leaflets comes,

Small lines of ancient yellowed secrets of,

Emancipated iridescence rising languidly to the textured surface,

To be revealed when the arctic winds dismount,

Having driven the heated solstice to the other side of the equator,

Falling through the airy atmosphere,

Transiently folded and kept hushed and inert,

By thy intrepid and enameled hand,

Which for a fleeting and illuminated wink,
Rises and falls upon the hallowed lines of,
The piece of Earth where I draw my meager breath.

David

Thursday's Wisdom for Writing

    I moved my Wednesday post to Thursday for this week due to the election. I wanted the results (of which I don't know at this time) to be able to sink in without much or any comments coming from us at HTH. I will say that today's excerpts from Steinbeck's, Journal of a Novel, seem very applicable to our current state of affairs.This shouldn't surprise me, but it always seems to. Truth when spoken clearly is timeless. Or better put by our favorite Miss O'Connor,  “The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” I hope that you, the loyal reader, are enjoying these excerpts and that they are helping you in either your writing life or in your thoughts. I know I am still gleaning so much from them. Well, without further adieu , let us delve back into Mr. Steinbeck.

"Reflection is no bad thing although I must say in this time it is not a popular pastime." pg. 60

"If a man has too pat a style, his reader can after a little time keep ahead of him. I mean the reader will know what is coming by how it is done." pg. 62

"I did not get far from the book. I have thought of little else. It's strange how one can become so obsessed that there is always the double thing--the book and whatever else is going on and both running parallel. I guess it has to be that way." pg. 64-65

"Since you told me what the girl said about wanting to get on with the story and not stop for comment, I have thought a good deal about that. It is going to be one of the most constant criticisms of this book. People are insistent to get on with their lives too and not to think about them." pg. 65

(This next one is long. Take the time to read it. Maybe even read it twice.)

"You have said and Harold has often said that a big book is more important and has more authority than a short book. There are exceptions of course but it is very nearly always true. I have tried to find a reasonable explanation for this and at last have come up with my theory, to wit: The human mind, particularly in the present, is troubled and fogged and bee-stung with a thousand little details from taxes to war worry to the price of meat. All these usually get together and result in a man's fighting with his wife because  that is the easiest channel of relief from inner unrest. Now--we must think of a book as a wedge driven into a man's personal life. A short book would be in and out quickly. And it is possible for such a wedge to open the mind and do its work before it is withdrawn leaving quivering nerves and cut tissue. A long book, on the other hand, drives in very slowly and if only in point of time remains for a while. Instead of cutting and leaving, it allows the mind to rearrange itself to fit around the wedge. Let's carry this analogy a little farther. When the quick wedge is withdrawn, the tendency of the mind is quickly to heal itself exactly as it was before the attack. With the long book perhaps the healing has been warped around the shape of wedge so that when the wedge is finally withdrawn and the book set down, the mind cannot be quite what is was before." pg. 66-67

"I am learning how specialized I am and also that the degree of specialization is also the degree of limitations. Let me give you an example of what I mean. Let me give you an example of what I mean. When I work on a book to this extent and with this concentration, it means that I am living another life." pg. 67

"It has been a good day of work with no harm in it. I have sat long over the desk and the pencil felt good in my hand" pg. 68

"Then I forced the work and it was as false and labored and foolish as anything I have ever seen. I tried to kid myself that it only seemed bad, but it really was bad. So out it goes. and what do you suppose could have caused it? I just don't know." pg. 71

Happy reading and writing,

  David

Wednesday's Wisdom for Writing

   I don't know how much you, the reader, are enjoying these posts. I will say that going through Steinbeck's book, Journal of a Novel, has allowed me to revisit much of what I had gathered when I was reading through it the first time and I have even noticed other passages that I have gleaned a lot from. I would suggest reading each excerpt slowly and really thinking about each one. I believe there are multiple items one can learn from in almost each of the excerpts. Well, let's get to Steinbeck and away from Dark. 

"Now the innocent sound and the slight concealment are not done as tricks but simply so that a man can take from this book as much as he can bring to it." --pg. 16&17

"Now that I am in it (the writing of East of Eden) I cannot see beyond it and increasingly it becomes difficult for me to see out of it." --pg. 19

"I don't suppose writing consists in anything more than doing it." --pg. 19

"I don't understand why some days (in writing) are wide open and others closed off, some days smile and others have thin slitted eyes and others still are days which worry." --pg. 19

"It is always amazing to me how we forget our failures. I guess if we didn't, we could not survive."-- pg. 22

"And as I have mentioned before and again and again--a story has a life of its own. It must be allowed to takes its own pace. It can't be pushed too much. If it is, the warp shows through and the story is unnatural and unsafe."--pg. 23

"There are few enough true things in the world. It would be a kind of sin to conceal any of them or to hide their little heads in technique as the squeamishness of not appearing in one's own book. For many years, it did not occur in my writing. But this was only apparently true--I was in them every minute. I just didn't seem to be." --pg. 24

"A chapter should be a perfect cell in the whole book and should almost be able to stand alone. If this is done then the breaks we call chapters are not arbitrary but rather articulations which allow the free movement of the story." --pg 25

"Things do happen and continue to happen on the outside. Isn't it odd that I now regard the book as the inside and the world as the outside. And just as long as that is so the book is firm and the outside cannot hurt it or stop it. And I must be sure that it remains that way by never letting time go by without working on it. For it is one thing to have in one's mind that the book will never be done and quite another to let it stop moving." --pg. 27

"And the book does move along little by little....It lacks tension and that is just exactly what I want and intend it to do. But it may cause trouble to you as a publisher because people have grown to expect tautness and constant action. It's like in present-day theatre. If there isn't shouting and jumping around, it isn't liked. For people seem to have lost the gift of listening. Maybe they never had it." --pg. 29

"The fact of the matter is that you just cannot tell how anything is going to work or how hard or easy it will be. It always fools you." --pg. 35

(I hope the ghost of John Steinbeck doesn't read this blog after reading this!) 

"But God save me from amateurs. They don't know what they are but it is more serious than that. They immediately start rewriting. I never knew this to fail. It is invariable. For that matter, I think I dislike amateurs in any field. They have the authority of ignorance and that is something you simply cannot combat." --pg. 36

"Aren't they really living people? This is the time when I am glad I am or try to be a writer--the growth and flowering of something I seem only to plant and nurture for a while." --pg. 39

"And I think I want to make it clear that true things quite often do not sound true unless they are made to." --pg. 48

"I am not writing for money any more now than I ever did. If money comes that is fine, but if I knew right now that this book would not sell a thousand copies, I would still write it." --pg. 55

Happy Reading and thanks for stopping by,

   David

Wednesday's Wisdom for Writing

  As I mentioned, the good folks here at HTH  will be enlightening your Wednesdays from now on with some wisdom and knowledge that we have gained from some of the finest writers of the past hundred years. We do this in an attempt to share what we have learned in hopes it will enrich both of our lives and our writing. An item that I also really found very cool about Steinbeck's, Journal of a Novel, but failed to mention in the original blog post is that each letter is dated with the day on which Steinbeck wrote it and the days and their numbers correspond to the year 2012. It added to the book for me because it was as if I were reading it on the same day that Steinbeck wrote it. I know that is somewhat delusional, but it still felt neat to me. Well, without further adieu  here are some more great quotes from the book: 

 "A good writer always works at the impossible. There is another kind who pulls in his horizons, drops his mind as one lowers rifle sights. And giving up the impossible, he gives up writing." pg. 4

   "And so I start my book addressed to my boys. I think perhaps, it is the only book I have ever written. I think there is only one book to a man. It is true that a man may change or be so warped that he becomes another man and has another book but I don't think that is so with me."  (Steinbeck has previously published 22 books including, Of Mice and Men, and, The Grapes of Wrath) pg. 5


   "Surely I feel humble in the face of this work." pg. 5

   "But I want to write this one as though it were my last book. Maybe I believe that every book should be written that way." pg. 8


"My choice of pencils lies now between the black Calculator stolen from Fox Films and this Mongol 2 3/8F which is quite black and holds its point well--much better in fact that the Fox pencils. I will get six more or maybe four more dozens of them for my pencil tray. and this is all I am going to do on this my first day of work." pg. 9


"I suffer as always from the fear of putting down the first line. It is amazing the terrors, the magics, the prayers, the straightening shyness that assails one. It is as though the words were not only indelible, but that they spread out like dye in water and color everything around them. A strange and mystic business, writing. Almost no progress has taken place since it was invented. The Book of the Dead is as good and as highly developed as anything in the 20th century and much better than most. And yet in spite of this lack of continuing excellence, hundreds of thousands of people are in my shoes--praying feverishly for relief from their word pangs" pg.9

"The pipes are tasting very good. I have a feeling to buy a meerschaum and start coloring it as I do this book. Maybe I will do that. By the time the pipe is brown the book should be done. More magics. I think tomorrow I will look for a meerschaum, a small light one. Saw one in a window the other day, but I forgot where..." pg.13

"You know I always smoke a pipe when I work--at least I used to and now I have taken it up again. It is strange--as soon as a pipe begins to taste good, cigarettes become tasteless..." pg.17

"Of course I feel that any imposed institution, even conditioned, is bad and not conductive to the development of the two great foundations of art and science: curiosity and criticism." pg. 15


Happy Reading and Writing,

    David

Wednesday's Wisdom for Writing

    Over the past two years, I have been reading a certain book and that book is, "Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters". It has taken me this long for a multitude of reasons, but the main one is that for being  a book that is less than 200 pages (my copy contains 182 pages), it contains more wisdom and knowledge about writing, the writing life, and a plethora of other subjects than I've gathered from a single book in a very long time. When it comes to reading books about the subject of writing, I've only read five of them from authors that I put a little or a lot of stock in either what they wrote or how they wrote it. If you were to go to your local bookstore and locate the section where these types of books are kept, you would notice that the number of titles is mind-boggling. And what is even more bizarre to me is that almost a third of these titles are written by someone who has not written much else besides the guide. Yes, they usually have their Master's degree or PhD in Literature, but I just find it a little odd. It would be like me writing a guide on parenting because I've been a father for almost 6 months now. Of the books about writing that I've read, Flannery O'Connor's, Mystery and Manners, and now this book have had the most impact on me in relation to how I think about writing in general and how I attempt to approach my own weak attempts at setting my own thoughts down in written form. 

    I was going to do my usual book review for this book, but after finishing it about a month ago, I began thinking that just doing that would really sell it short after all that I had gathered from this book. As mentioned on the back cover, this book is not just Steinbeck waxing eloquently about how he writes, it is more like the book you would get if you mixed an autobiography, with a writer's workshop, and then added some personal letters in for either extra flavor or an added, edible garnish. If you have never heard of the book, stop what you are doing (except the reading of this blog, of course), go to the library, check this book out, and read it very slowly. The whole concept of this book is that each morning from January 29th of 1951 to November 1st of 1951, Steinbeck wrote a letter to his friend and editor, Pascal Covici, on one side of the notebook he used to write the original copy of his novel, East of Eden. He did this in an attempt to" get his mental arm in shape to pitch a good game...". Each of these letters reveal so much about the novel, Steinbeck himself, the trials and tribulations of the writing life, Steinbeck's love, care, and concern for his family, and lastly the "gladness and terror of writing". 

   So, what I've decided to do is each Wednesday, offer to you, my loyal readers of the HTH, some advice about writing from a master writer. I'm going to start with Steinbeck and then move onto O'Connor, add some Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Dillard, and many others along the way. Wednesday's will for a very long time be known as, Wednesday's Wisdom for Writing, around this place. And yes,  your Wednesday's will never be the same. So here we go:

  "I am choosing to write this book to my sons...I shall tell them this story against the background of the country I grew up in and along the river I know and do not love very much. For I discovered that there are other rivers. And this my boys will not know for a long time nor can they be told. A great many never come to know that there are other rivers. Perhaps that knowledge is saved for maturity and very few people ever mature. It is enough if they flower and reseed. That is all nature requires of them. But sometimes in a man or a woman awareness takes place--not often and always inexplainable. There are no words for it because there is no one ever to tell. This is a secret not kept a secret, but locked in wordlessness. The craft of writing is the clumsy attempt to find symbols for the wordlessness. In utter loneliness, a writer tries to explain the inexplicable" 

                John Steinbeck, Journal of a Novel, pg. 4

Happy reading and writing, 

  

   David

Throwing the Yellow Dodder-Snippet 12

* This is a continuation of a work of fiction. You can read Snippet 11 here.

..."I know you woulda' raised ya' hands like the Holy Spirit done showed for the first time at that Episcopal church no one seems like they ever go to...."


"Thanks for telling me that, Mrs. Mable. I wish Melvin came with a story like that, but he was bad from the very beginning. My daddy told me he was a no good rat of a man, but I seemed to be into rodents at the time and didn't listen to anyone; not even myself. I talked my sweet momma into letting me run away with him, but my daddy was righter than rain. He was the rat of all rats. I would even say he was the king of the rats, but...."


"Now, Mrs. Lucy, it seems that you haven't listened to a damn thing I've said all day..."


"I sure have. In fact, I could repeat most everything you've said. I've enjoyed this walk more than you can imagine and I'm sad its almost over..."


"I knew it, Lord, I knew it. You haven't heard to a thing. You should know there's a big difference between hearin' and listenin'." 


"I have to and you can't prove I haven't been listenin'. And Mrs. Mable, I've been alive long enough to know that difference. Now, I may get several plant names wrong, but I promise..."


"Mrs. Lucy, this whole time I've been trying to tell you the same thing a bunch of different ways. Mrs. Lucy life's dealt you several truckloads of fresh cow manure and trust me, I know it smells bad and it'll take years to clean up and you may never not have a little manure in your nostrils, but  ya' know what?"


"I don't think I've got a hint of a clue of what you're talkin' 'bout at all, Mrs. Mable. So, what?"


"Ain't nothin' ever grown well without a little manure. You know all those pretty trees and flowers? They couldn't grow to be much of nothin' without some type of manure bein' dropped around it or somethin' dying off near it. Now, sure life's dropped its load off and drove off seemin' like its smilin' in the rearview for as far as you can see. And now its your time to grow, young lady. God's given you a boy; and a beautiful one if he looks anything like his momma. You can grow that little boy into somethin' important or ya' grow keep waterin' him and you with all that ugly bitterness thats wellin' inside you and you already know what ya' gonna get. This world's already done been filled up with people spewin' bitterness all 'round. Seems I can't get a good breath these days without gettin' a whiff of it. And most importantly, ya' could grow that good boy into a man and we both know there ain't enough of those. Look at what the good Lord did with 12 mediocre men, imagine what he could do with one good one here in Alabama where the soil's good. Now, dry up those tears and send that bitterness to the hot place. I know it's hard. It's damn hard business we're talkin' about. Oh, do I know 'bout that. I know it about twice. " 


"Mrs. Mable, I've been needin' to hear that for a long, long time. I'm a bitter, bitter lady and you and I both know that's the truest thing I've said. It just seems ya' get buried by it and it snuffs the light out of a girl. It's like one of those fake candles that's all the rage the days; the light's there, but the fire has long ago died out. It's not hard for a lady to try make my whole world look bitter too and I've been passin' it down to my sweet, baby boy."


"Well, I think that sounds like its time for you and me to make a deal."


"Okay, I guess that sounds good, but I'd be a foolish woman to make a deal with a lady like you without hearin' some of what I'd be gettin' myself involved in."


"Well, here it is. This old lady's gonna do her damnedest to let her sweet William go as sweetly and and as quietly as he lived on this old earth and you turn that boy into somethin' big and great like his momma..."


"I think that sounds like a pretty good, hard, but good bargin. I think I'd be willin' to try my hand at somethin' like that at least for awhile."


"Good, I had a feeling I could talk ya' into something like that. People always feel bad for old people. It's one of the only gimmicks I've got left. Old people and handicap dogs got a lot in common and for good reason. I just wish I could get people to donate money to me like they do those animal shelters, but then again, if Primrose was a shelter, we all know a grouch like me woulda' been put down long ago and Lord knows no one in their right mind woulda' taken me home. We'd better shake on this to make it official before we both turn into the cowards we both know its easier to be." They grabbed each other's hand and held it longer than usual. It was as if something left Mable and went into Lucy. They both felt it, but neither said anything. They didn't want to miss something that they'd probably never feel again. They both quickly let go because it scared them like the first time they knew what being alive was really about. They let go and looked away.


"Well, I feel a little better for sure. It must be this cool wind and the vitamin D gettin' through to my cells. It feels like a brand dew day. The manure stinks, but there's something different about it. Seems everything just got a little sweeter."


"It's hope, darlin'. Ya' gotta have a little hope. We wouldn't want to open our little eyes each day if we didn't think that ole' sun was gonna warm us so. But, I think we'd better get going. If my nose still works and and my belly is on schedule, I think its about time for us to eat and I think tonight's meatloaf night and I think they're adding that brown gravy with it. All this talking and crying can make an old woman hungry for sure." 


"Well, lets go then, Mrs. Mable, but I'll push you in on one condition and that condition is that we'd better do another one of these walks sooner rather later."


"That sounds like a good plan to me as long you get me to that food line before that sour old lady from room 314. She's enough to ruin a starving man's appetite."


"Woman, you say the craziest things I think I've ever heard and I've heard some things that would've made a whole tribe of priests blush, but I guess you can just about say what you want when you reach a certain age. I can try to get you ahead of her, but she moves fast for a woman who says her feet ache. Hold on and let's get going..."


They made their way back inside Primwillow Place and Mable sat by herself slowly eating the meatloaf and dipping her carrots in the thick, brown gravy. She mostly ate slowly because for the first time in a long time, she tasted the food and it wasn't half bad. Lucy put the wheelchair up and got her medicine cart. She felt sad for the people who had to take so many pills. It sure had to be bad to come to the end of your life and depend on a cup full of pills you couldn't pronounce the name of in order to make it through the day. Temporary relief. It seemed that the older she got, the more people tried to find it. It just didn't make any sense to her, but then again, there wasn't much she did understand about this life. She did know that they had both made plans that would change their tomorrows and it felt so good; just like the wind that had come off the lake during their walk. And sometime soon, they'd go for another walk, but mostly they'd talk. Everything seemed a little better, even the manure. 


The End.


Happy Reading and let me know what you think,


  David

Throwing the Yellow Dodder-Snippet 11

You can read the last snippet here: Snippet 10.

...I know what is and it isn't livin' right, but life isn't always as cut and dry as some would have you believe it is..."


"You don't have to tell an old woman like me about how life ain't cut and dry. I don't think anything ever happens how we plan it out. I wonder why we ever try at all. I was in love with this handsome, young soldier who everyone said was on the fast track to becoming somebody big in no time when I threw that yellow dodder and found my sweet William standing behind me. We stood up there 68 years ago and promised to grow old together. Now its just me and 10 years is a long, long time to live alone with a ghost. It just never is how we plan on it to be. We'd told each other that we were finally going to sell off the farm and find some little town in Florida along the Gulf to move to that hadn't been eatin' alive by all the things they've brought in to that state that've turned it into someplace I hardly recognize anymore, but he left me. You hear that? The kids talked us out of selling and then he passed away. He just left me. He'd promised to grow old..." Mable couldn't finish. She couldn't seem to breathe and so she just cried and let the wind dry her tears before they could reach her chin.


"Now, now Mrs. Mable. Its too pretty out here to cover yourself with tears. I should've never started talkin' 'bout any of this. I just feel...I guess I just feel comfortable around you; like I could tell you 'bout everything that makes up my life. I feel I can just show you my heart and my head and you won't spit on it, laugh, or condemn me. I feel..."


"And you can," Mable said through her warm tears, "If two women, two friends can't be truthful with one another then what's left of this life isn't worth cheap horse manure anymore. Ya' hear that...cheap horse manure."


"It sure is that, Mrs. Mable. It sure is."


"Now enough of all this sad talk. People might blame it on my medications. I don't want those damn pharmaceutical companies gettin' anymore credit than they already give themselves. I can cry on my own and generate my own sadness, thank you very much. I'm afraid of so many things I see these days. Seems like if ya' made all these people stop for half a second they'd realize all the commotion is their own hands clappin' for themselves and its their own hands pattin' themselves on the back. And I hate it all. I miss the days when people did somethin' and the world around them clapped for em'."


"There ya' go again, Mrs. Mable. Talkin' the truth like it was the air outside. You'd better watch out. People don't like truth gettin' in their sweet tea. Kinda' makes em' have a gritty taste and then they have to go and ask for a new glass. I bet you stepped on a lot of toes before you came here. I can just see you back in the day."


"Back in the day...if ya' don't watch out, I might come after you just because I'm bored." Mrs Mable said with a short cackle. "You see that bush over there with the yellow buds?"


"Yes, ma'am. I do."


"Ya' know what it is?"


"Now, you know I don't know nothin' 'bout plants. I'm pretty sure I've killed several plastic plants in my lifetime. Plants is your specialty."


"It's yellow dodder. Ya' know what they say 'bout that?"


"No, but I'm sure you're goin' to tell me even if I didn't want ya' to." 


"Well, I will now that that you've begged for me to. They say that if you throw the seeds of the yellow dodder over your left shoulder and it grows, it means that your boyfriend loves you. Now, I know it sounds like a fresh load of hogwash, but I can attest that it is not. It is one of the truest things I know; its true as the day is long."


"I don't know 'bout all that, Mrs. Mable. I trust you though, but it sounds like one of them hoaxy old wive's tales. Like how if ya' drop ya' dishtowel company gonna show up. They should really say if freeloaders come round, they gonna be lookin' for somethin' free."


"Mrs. Lucy, don't you even think about startin' about old wives tales. I threw that yellow dodder over my shoulder on a Saturday and by the next Sunday my life had spun round faster than my head could think a' spinnin'. My army beau had dropped me like last week's news and I had met the nicest boy God ever did make named William Stone. He was farmin' his father's land and worked like a good pair of mules and showed me a man can be one and a Christian at the same time. I'd never seen that. Most Christian men I knew weren't what I'd call a man. Now, he was no macho big man or some flashy bulb. He was graceful and beautiful like slab of gneiss in a mountain stream. He wasn't gonna beg you to look his way, but if did you were gonna be thankful you did. He was my man and boy you shoulda' seen the size of that yellow dodder bush that sprouted from the seeds I'd thrown over my shoulder. I wish you could've seen it. I know you woulda' raised ya' hands like the Holy Spirit done showed for the first time at that Episcopal church no one seems like they ever go to...."


Be looking for Snippet 12. It may be the last of this short story, but we will see. 


Happy Reading and let me know what you think,


David

Throwing the Yellow Dodder-Snippet 10

Snippet 9 can be found here: Throwing the Yellow Dodder

There are nine previous snippets of this story and I have set before myself the goal of trying to finish this story and two others during these summer months. I will be trying to add to this story and maybe adding the other two stories to the blog. I hope that is okay with you and I hope they're worth reading.


....He knew why I ticked and why I was really smiling." Mable replied having completely ignored Lucy's comment, knowing she hadn't really meant it and Lucy was glad she had......


...She needed a friend who could speak without using words. They never came out and said what you wanted them to. They seemed to craft themselves somewhere deep inside her and then flew out of her, but then forgot their purpose for being made and went their own way. They landed where they wanted and never landed softly; at least her words never did. 
   
    Mable longed to speak with William without the words that got in the way. She remembered driving to St. Augustine in the hours and days after their wedding. They just looked at each other and then out the windows and spoke to each other for days on end about all their dreams and fears. They laid upon each other all their hopes and how they wanted them to go all with nods and smiles. They agreed and disagreed all with glances and twitches. He could read her and she could hear him. They didn't need to talk. Their faces did all of it for them.


    "I know just what you mean, Mrs. Mable. I took some time off and I took my boy down to the coast. It was just too beautiful, Mrs. Mable. It was my first time down to the coast and it blew me away. All that beautiful, blue water and white sand spread out before you like Thanksgiving dinner. It was the prettiest thing I've ever seen. I used to have this place I loved to go down to on the river where the water made its way around two small curves and I used to sit in the middle of that river and think that nothing could be any more beautiful than that, but boy was I wrong. The strangest thing happened to me though when I saw all that beauty confined to one small spot. As soon as I saw it and watch my little boy see it, I wanted to share it with Melvin. Now I know what you're thinking...why in the name of all that is good and holy would she want to share something so beautiful with a rat bastard like Melvin? And you gotta' know that I agree with ya'. I hate that man and all he's done to me and Clive, but I must be pure crazy because something inside me still loves that man and I can't seem to hate him long enough to kill it. And trust me, I've been trying to kill it for the past eight years and it just won't die. You think hate would've killed it, but just the time you think you've buried it dead, something like the beauty of azure water makes it raise its ugly head. Oh' God, listen to me ramble like a crazy woman. I'm so sorry, Mrs. Mable. I'm sure that's more than you ever wanted to know about me. I just..."


    "Now, don't you apologize for nothing, sweetheart. It's just how we women are. If a woman can't talk to another woman than the whole world better shut up. I wish it weren't that way, but it just is and I hate it. I hate it almost worse than Satan himself. I have lived what you're talking about most of my life. There are just some things that won't die and there ain't enough hate, bitterness, lonlieness, or sadness to finish them off. Half my body wants to kill off every thought , memory,  and every everything that has anything to do with William, but the other half just sits there cryin', shakin', and sayin' William, oh' my sweet William, why'd ya' have to go so soon. Why did ya' have to leave me before I was ready to send you off? It about drives me even more crazy than I know I already am. Most of the time I sit here wishin' the good Lord would just take me to home so I could be with my sweet William again. It's all just too much to..."


  "Now look what at what we've started" , Lucy broke in with a high whine, " we're both singing the blues like ole' Blind Willie and wishin' for death or any old thing easier than livin'. I'm sorry I got this whole pity party started. We'd better get to walking and leave this sad place behind."


  "Now, Mrs. Lucy, eighty-eight years of living on this planet ain't no pity party and two women talkin' about the hand thats been dealt to them ain't no pity party either. Now, you just listen to..."


   "I didn't mean pity party like that, Mrs. Mable. It's just all I could think of at the moment. I just didn't want to cloud this beautiful day up with all this sadness, but I guess that Melvin always had a special gift of stealing any joy I ever got, so why would today be any different?"


  "Now, stop it right there, Mrs. Lucy. We ain't gonna place the blame on anyone for anything. Life is what it is and nothing else. I'm an old woman and I've lived a lot of this life and if there's one thing I've noticed is that everything in life is beauty and sadness. Ya' can't go wishing' for one and not get the other. It just wouldn't be right. How would we ever recognize the blessing of a sunrise if we hadn't almost got struck by lightning just the night before? I wouldn't and you wouldn't neither. You can't go round smellin' the roses without getting' stung by a bee and stuck by a thorn. It just wouldn't work any other way. Now I ain't sittin' here in this wheelchair sayin' its fun. I'm just telling you it is what it is. Now, let's get a move on and get some blood movin' or we'll both pass away and then find out livin' was so much better."


 "That sounds like a plan to me, Mrs. Mable. I've always appreciated the truth you always speakin'. I can say whatever's on my little mind and you'll listen and put it altogether for me. I don't feel judged and don't have to listen to someone preach at me 'bout somethin' I already know, but don't want to say out loud. I know what is and isn't livin' right, but life isn't always as cut and dry as some would have you believe it is..."


Be looking out for Snippet 11,


    David
   

A NaNoWriMo Update



   So November is over and so is the 2011 Edition of NaNoWriMo. On a national and international level, it was a grand success, but close to home it was an abysmal failure. I was even a member of a NaNoWriMo club here at the school I teach at and two of the members wrote even more than they needed to, but truth be told, I did not even come close to winning. To be blunt, I lost. Big Time. I was like LeBron in the last NBA Finals, except I didn't look good doing it and I didn't get to keep my sponsor (my imaginary sponsor). The goal was to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I didn't even get close.

   Writing takes time and in November it seemed like my time dried up faster than rubbing alcohol. I started off strong. I began writing a story that has been sitting in my head for awhile. I titled it, The Patriarch, and wrote about 3000 words and then came to a place where thinking time was needed. The whole story and the plot of it needed to be boiled down and dissected to see what was I going to really say and why was I going to try and say it. Several days went by and not a another word had been written and I found myself about 8000 words behind, so I panicked and went to a story that has made an appearance here at HTH, A Workman's Dream, and wrote on it some more, but found myself asking the same questions of myself. And once again, I found myself far, far below where I was supposed to be with my word count. I, then, looked up from this and it was already November 18th. And this is where things really fell apart. I then made myself a grand plan for my greatest wordy comeback and Fall Break was when I was going to do so. However, life and everything else had much different plans for me as usual.

  We got out for Thanksgiving Break (Fall Break) on the 18th. I was going to try and write like a crazy man or Jack Kerouac for the next 9 or so days. That plan lasted until 4:00 pm when I arrived home to survey my home and my list that I had made for us to get ready for my family to come for Thanksgiving. I still had some hope in this plan until Saturday when the grocery shopping alone took 4 hours. Then the plan went to the extreme back-burner, but I was still believing that I could just let both stories mull around in my brain and then when my family had packed up and left, then I would just practice some literary regurgitation. But as you can see, is not what happened.

  So...long story short is this. I was a participant of the 2011 edition of NaNoWriMo. I was supposed to write a 50,000 word novel. I wrote around 15,000 words on two separate stories. I will finish them, but they need time. One of my many faults is that I need to see the purpose in doing something. This sounds like it should be a strength, but trust me, it is a fault. I wanted to write 50,000 words. I even tried to do so, but they just wouldn't come. I wanted to really jump head first into the "literary abandon", but just couldn't do it. I guess for now, I will just take comfort in that Norman Maclean was 70 when he published, A River Runs Through It, and it is one of the best books I have ever read. It was his first and almost his only. I will write a novel, but it is going to take some time. The words have to be more than just words. The plot has to be more than just something I am rewriting that I have read or seen elsewhere.

  I will participate in the 2012 edition of NaNoWriMo, but think I'd better get planning now in order to have my brain ready this time. You should too.

David