Slice of Life - being called a writer

My laptop is back with the Geniuses at Apple and I am attempting to work on the big family computer. Not much success. The computer is at a little desk at the front of the house next to a tiny window that lets in all of the noise and none of the breeze. I set up a fan nearby because it’s over 95 degrees today. Still, I feel so weighted down by the humidity I can’t focus. My arm sticks to the desk, and my wrist doesn’t sit right so I get sore, and let’s face it, I’m grumpy.

I did manage to work out some ideas for one class, and even posted to my newspaper blog, but this week has not been as productive as I had hoped. I’m getting discouraged and short tempered.

Here’s the little bright spot that has kept me from quitting completely. When we were at the Apple store last night and my dear husband was trying to convey the urgency of the problem he said “My wife is a writer and this issue has been interfering with her work for two months now.”

My husband called me a writer. Smile.

So, I’d better go write.

Slice of Life - On sunburns and junk food

It’s Tuesday which means my girls and I spent the first half of the day at the lake with our friends. It is my favorite day of the week.

I’ve been trying to remember this summer that the girls are growing up and can take care of themselves in many ways, so for the past few outings, I had them pack their own lunches. I’m still nearby, probably in the kitchen packing my own lunch or gathering shared snacks, so their not completely on their own. No totally chocolate lunch would get past me.

Todays choice was peanut butter on rice cakes, and goldfish crackers. I threw in some fruit to balance it out, and reminded them they might get thirsty. Not a bad lunch, though heavy on the carbs. However, when we got to the beach, they not only ate the treat we packed, but those their friends brought to share as well. What a belly-aching day of chips, goldfish crackers, and chocolate chip muffins.

The other area I’ve been encouraging more independence is sunscreen. I give them easy to use sticks to coat their faces, and all sorts of spray bottles and lotions stashed around so we are never without. Today, I was distracted and though I remember asking if they had put on sunscreen, I didn’t actually see one of the girls apply it.

We were home for about an hour when my oldest came over and said, “I think I got a sunburn, my shoulders are sore”. When she turned to show me I moaned so loud my youngest came down the hall to see what was the matter. My normally pasty white little girls was fuchsia. I apologized for not reminding her to reapply sunscreen after lunch and that’s when she admitted she hadn’t put any on in the first place (though she told me she had).

This is too painful a lesson for me to be glad that she’s learning it.

But, I do hope she has learned it and will never again feel like putting on sunscreen is too much bother.

A slice of life I could do without.

Spiritual Atheism - morning ritual

If asked whether magic exists in my day to day life, my honest answer would have to be “no.” I’m seeped in reality. We chug through most days barely noticing the work of fairies. It’s in the bloom of the lilies, the leap of rabbits. But wait a minute, maybe no isn’t quite the right answer either. After all, we all stop to watch the rabbits when they come in the yard, everyone comments on the remarkable growth of the tomato plants, or the cucumber vines, or the lilies. Thea will call us over to see the sunset, Anya will point and laugh when the squirrels play tag. We see the magic.

Perhaps what I’m missing is some sort of ritual around the magic. I truly enjoyed the ritual and tradition of the Catholic Church. The purple vestments of Easter, the smoke of the incense, the hymns we all knew by heart. We joined weekly in the same rituals, looked forward to the special additions on holidays and feast days, and so kept the religion before us in a very concrete way. The magic of nature and of the spirit that I lean on today has neither ritual nor weekly gathering. Except this: On warm mornings, I bring coffee cup to the porch, and a book and my laptop, then ignore all of them and listen to the birds. I look around the yard to see where the sun is giving nourishment, where the trees are sheltering with shadow. It is my ritual, starting the day by seeing my world.

I don’t burn incense (well, I do sometimes, but not in the mornings), I don’t sing hymns, I don’t even offer up conscious words of thanks. But, my day is more centered when I can begin with this time of observation; I connect myself to the world. It’s a simple ritual, but still, it brings me closer to the magic.

Fiction Friday - mothers

I'm not sure where this is going. A friend was telling me about her relationship with her mother and I was struck by how very different it was from my own. So, I started thinking about all the mother-daughter relationships around me. Not even my sisters and I have the same story to tell.

The beginning of a story below was inspired by that conversation, though in no way does it reflect her actual relationship. I'm thinking of somehow looking at several mother-daughter pairs in a short story and this is simply a sketch of a possibility of a part of that.

             She woke to the telephone call from the nursing home with the news her mother had passed. She was peaceful; her friends were with her. “What must these people think of me,” she wondered after asking them what they needed from her. She didn’t mean to sound annoyed at the call, she genuinely needed to know her responsibilities in this situation. Did she need to call the funeral home? Was there some authority that had to be notified?

            “Your mother has made all of the arrangements. Her wishes were written out and notarized, and her lawyer has already been in touch. The cremation is scheduled for tomorrow. I just need to confirm your address so the ashes can be sent.” The woman on the other line didn’t sound judgmental. She must encounter all sorts of reactions to this phone call that is likely a daily routine for her. People go there to die, and when they do, someone needs to be called. Cynthia knew that the receivers of those calls reacted in some crazy ways. She remembers a friend telling her that when the hospital called to say her father had died over night, she giggled. Can you imagine that? Her friend was mortified. She loved her father and was genuinely sad when he passed. She tends to giggle when she’s nervous and she had been anticipating that every night after she left the hospital and for a few days, she recalled, she giggled every time she picked up the phone. So, Cynthia knew that this woman from the home had heard much worse than her unfeeling “What do you need me to do?” She calmly gave the woman her address, wrote down the number she was given for the crematorium, and thanked the woman for her time and the care she had given to her mother.

            She hung up the phone and went to refill her coffee cup. Her hands were cold. Though it was June, the temperature had dropped to 54 degrees according to the weather app on her phone. She had no students scheduled until late in the day so she was spending the morning painting. “That’s funny,” she thought as she picked up the brush from the table. She hadn’t noticed before that the house in this scene was her childhood home. There were a few differences – the green was lighter and more inviting, the front steps were not overgrown with vines – but the basic outline was there, the gambrel roof, the attic dormer, the field stone foundation.  It shouldn’t have surprised her. She had talked to her brother earlier in the week, and received notice from the home that her mother’s death was imminent. Her thoughts had wandered all around childhood since.

            Cynthia wondered if her mother had been told they were calling her. She couldn’t imagine that it was her idea; couldn’t imagine that her mother had given her much thought at all in those last weeks. Her friends were with her, the woman had said. Her friends were always with her. Perhaps they tried to console her on the realization that her children would not live up to their expectations. Now this made Cynthia smile. Yes, surely her friends faulted those self-centered children for abandoning their mother in her old age. What children would not make the short three-hour flight to say goodbye to their mother? What children would leave her there without so much as a phone call for three years? Cynthia held the brush over the clapboards of her painted house.