The Snare

The Snare

Astrid’s leg began to jounce up and down rapidly as the need became more desperate for her to empty her bladder.  “Please find a place soon,” she pleaded.  “I really gotta pee!”  Jordan glanced at her just long enough to let her see him roll his eyes.  The smirk that played across his lips was mischievous and sexy and if she hadn’t been so uncomfortably bloated at the moment, it would have melted her.  [GAS – Exit 649] the sign read as they passed on by at 75 miles per hour.  “There!  The next exit!” she pointed.  She closed her eyes and tipped her head back, breathing a sigh of relief, her leg still jittering.  By the time they had driven the three miles to Exit 649 and started down the off-ramp, she was worrying that when she stood to get out of the car, gravity would overwhelm her and she would end up wetting herself in the parking lot.  She steeled herself, doubled her efforts (“mind over matter” she repeated to herself like a mantra), and shoved the car door open.  She walked briskly to the side of the building where the blue girl wearing a blue dress stood.  Fighting against her body’s realization that she was almost there, she pulled the broken-down gas station’s bathroom door handle, praying that it would be unlocked.  It was.

Fully relieved, both physically and mentally, she emerged from the dingy little room to find that Jordan was no longer in the car.  Shading her eyes from the mid-morning Texas sun, she scanned the landscape.  Then she saw him, perusing the front porch of a tiny antique shop next door.  She hadn’t even noticed it when they pulled up.  “Little Big Bear Antiques and Collectibles” looked as unassuming as its name sounded.  Just the type of treasure trove she liked to discover on road trips.  She hurried over to see what kind of interesting junk and needful things they had to offer.  The building itself looked like an old General Store.  Its white-washed wooden clapboard face was shaded by a covered porch that ran the length of the storefront.  Metal buckets and washboards, mismatched farmhouse chairs, and other odds and ends littered much of the porch.  Jordan had picked through the stuff outside and when he saw Astrid was back, he asked if she wanted to go in and look around.  He knew she loved to poke around this kind of place. 

Opening the door to pass inside, a miniature cowbell hung on a piece of string over the doorframe made a flat metallic tinkle.  As the two crossed the threshold, a short fat middle-aged lady standing behind the counter with her back to the door half-turned and greeted them with a tip of her big floppy hat and an enthusiastic “Welcome! Please look around.  And take your time!  We’re sure to have somethin’ y’all just can’t live without!”  Astrid and Jordan were immediately drawn in - Jordan, by the military memorabilia to the right, and Astrid, by the vintage clothing and jewelry to the left.  Jordan ran his fingers over the rough canvas field packs with their faded black stenciling, wondering where they might have traveled during their years in active duty.  He admired a pair of WWII paratrooper boots.  And then his gaze fell upon the jackpot.  It was a coveted (at least by him) M1 Carbine with a folding stock, propped casually among a scattering of wooden handguards, ammo magazines, and bayonet scabbards.  Ammunition cans from different eras lined the wall.  Jordan was in heaven.  He picked up the rifle with extreme reverence and inspected its weathered surfaces with great care and respect.  He brought it up as if to fire.  It fit nicely into the pocket of his shoulder, felt like it was made for him in fact.  He had a brief moment of dizziness and quickly set the weapon back where he had found it so that he could steady himself.  The spell had vanished though and there was no need.  He took one more longing glance at the gun but, knowing he couldn’t afford to buy it, moved on to some other interesting finds that might be more affordable. 

There were racks of jackets and pants and display cases of hats, belts, and helmets.  Boxes upon boxes of patches and medals and rank insignias crowded shelves that lined every wall.  Old photographs were strewn here and there across every surface.  Astrid found him as he was making his way through the vintage military uniforms.  There were dress uniforms and field uniforms.  Combat gear and accessories for in garrison.  Astrid loved all things vintage and they spent some time in this overlap of their interests enjoying the fashion and the history together. 

Music from the 1940s drifted in from some distant place and it seemed to echo through the store as though it were being piped through metal ductwork.  The acoustics of the shop were strange; even their voices sounded hollow and tinny when they spoke.  Jordan thought of the flat ‘tink’ of the cowbell when they had come through the front door.  The realization that something wasn’t right about this place was just beginning to bloom when the floor beneath his feet became tenuous, like standing on a thick layer of Jell-O, and he felt the vertigo return stronger this time with a wave of heat and nausea.  He tried not to panic as, reeling, he noticed that there were no windows in this less-than-tiny shop.  The walls lined with shelves full of boxes of trinkets and war relics were bowing in toward him and somehow stretched now as far as he could see.  He couldn’t believe they had been inside long enough to have gotten so deep into the belly of this beast.  From where he and Astrid now stood, the door they had come through maybe thirty minutes before was so far away that it looked like a tiny speck on the horizon.  The world swam out of focus and he feared he would faint and send some priceless object to shatter on the floor into a million pieces.  He grabbed for something to steady himself.  His vision began to clear, though everything still seemed a bit hazy and he decided his eyes were not to be trusted, maybe his mind too.  He looked down and realized he was digging through a box of folded maps.  The box must have been what he had used to keep from falling over but he didn’t really remember.  In one hand, he held a map titled “US Territories of The North and The South – 1861”.  In the other hand, he held a compass.  He didn’t recall picking up either of these and wondered for a second if this might be a dream.  It most definitely felt dream-like.  All of his senses told him that things here were not as they normally are when one is in the waking world of reality.  Then something touched his arm and made him jump nearly out of his skin.  It was Astrid.  Sweet Astrid!  How had he forgotten she was somewhere among these treasures?  “Jordan,” she squeaked, “I don’t feel very good.  Can we go?”  Her hand tightened on his arm, whether to steady herself physically or mentally he wasn’t sure.  Somehow he knew if they didn’t go now they would never get out.  They would become pieces of antiquity themselves, just two more lost treasures among the millions already trapped here.  Jordan grabbed Astrid’s wrist and started toward the door.  It was so far away and Jordan wondered once more if he was dreaming as the floor became spongy again and the aisle they hurried down didn’t seem to get them any closer to the exit.  It stretched out in front of them like the carrot dangling before the horse that will never attain it.  Astrid made the task more difficult by trying to stop to look at the beautiful things she was seeing, oohing and ahhing at one thing after another.  Jordan’s vision swam in and out of focus, or more accurately, from focus to focus, one version of the store giving way to another and then fading back to the first.  Just as Jordan realized what this meant, the illusion shattered all around him like a plate glass window blowing out and falling away in jagged sheets.  Around him he now saw moth-eaten clothing on rotting corpses.  He felt revulsion rise in his throat.  He looked quickly away and observed broken-down furniture, stacks of mildewed paper, a discarded babydoll that looked all too real, and a mountain of other dust-covered toys.  All this where the massive military menagerie had been only seconds before. 

The woman that had been behind the counter when they had come in now rounded the corner into their path, walking toward them, separating them from their only way out.  Her hat was gone.  Her head was all but bald with a few wisps of white hair clinging to her scalp like stray spider webs.  Her face was misshapen with heavy wrinkles and her ears had the cauliflowered appearance of the ears of a veteran boxer.  Her eyes were sunken and slightly uneven on her face.  And she was smiling.  As she closed the distance between them, her smile widened (she glimpsed Jordan’s terror and was enjoying it immensely) and Jordan saw that her teeth were jagged points of bone jutting from slick gray gums.  The teeth were spaced apart as if every other one of them had fallen out.  They looked to Jordan like they were made for tearing flesh.  Horror gripped him tight and, fastening his grasp on Astrid’s wrist, he bolted, knocking the troll-woman out of his way in his adrenaline-fueled flight toward freedom.  His left hand stretched out to shove the door out of the way.  He dimly registered a violent jerk to his right arm as his momentum propelled him over the threshold and out onto the wooden porch.  Too late he became aware that he had lost Astrid.  She had been yanked from his grasp.  The door had slammed shut behind him and there was no going back.  He was left alone in pitch darkness.

As he scrambled on his hands and knees, trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and the door, he thought the darkness was because he had closed his eyes when he had burst onto the porch.  But opening his eyes didn’t change anything.  It was like being blind and for a moment he wondered if he was.  Nothing made any sense.  If he was blind, how did it happen?  Did the troll-woman somehow take his sight as a punishment for his escape?  Or was this another illusion?  And if he wasn’t blind, how could it be so dark now when it had been mid-morning when they had entered the quaint-looking shop only an hour or so ago?  The panic started to resurface but he forced himself not to react.  He forced himself to be still.  He knew his only hope was to be rational, that all those questions were irrelevant right now.  The fact was that it was dark; so dark that he wasn’t even able to see his hand when he waved it in front of his face.  The fact was that he couldn’t see.  Whether he was blind or not, he had to get away from here and he had to do it without the benefit of sight.   He stayed completely motionless on his hands and knees, listening.  He wanted to know if there was anything out here in the dark with him.  He needed to know.  When enough silence had passed to satisfy him that he was alone and relatively safe, he began to feel around, trying to get an idea of the area he could not see.  He made sure to keep the direction of the porch to his back or to his left as his hands explored the terrain.  The last thing he wanted to do was to crawl back toward the Little Big Bear.  He thought he felt raw hard-packed earth beneath him in all directions.  He tried to stand up and only succeeded in getting a lump on the back of his head and face-planting from the rebound.  He spit, wiped his mouth, and began to crawl with one arm outstretched to protect himself from another unexpected knock to his noggin.  When this antenna-hand touched an earthen wall, he was glad he had taken the precaution.  He felt around some more and found that there was another wall behind him.  He took a deep breath, attempting again to keep the panic at bay.  He knew the porch must still be to his left so he turned ninety degrees to his right and began to crawl, again with his antenna-hand out in front.  After covering several yards’ distance, he was satisfied that he was in some kind of tunnel and put down his feeler deciding it was no longer necessary.  Based on the pure dark nature of this strange environment, his assumption was that he was underground.  He was too busy figuring out his next move, however, to wonder (as he would, obsessively, years later) how he had entered and exited through the same door and been under the scorching Texas sun going in but came out into an underground tunnel.  Now he just focused on crawling forward and not panicking, trying not to think about what might be in the dark behind him…or in front of him.

Time had become fluid since they had entered the antique shop, which made it hard to gauge.  It seemed like he had been crawling for several hours and his muscles were starting to cramp in evidence.  He was considering stopping to rest, was thinking he might even stretch out on the floor of the tunnel to unkink his arms and legs, when the tunnel took a sharp left turn.  For an instant, Jordan feared that it would lead him back to the Little Big Bear’s awaiting fangs but his fear was forgotten when he realized he was beginning to be able to see again!  So he wasn’t blind!  This joyful realization momentarily overshadowed the fact that the presence of light might also mean that he was nearing the end of the tunnel.  He crawled faster toward the dim glow that reminded him of a full moon on a dark Rocky Mountain night.  The moon grew larger and larger until he found himself spilled out onto a creek bank beneath a small bridge. 

His sense of time and the soreness of his muscles was verified when he saw that he had been crawling underneath a long path that cut through a wooded area where nothing looked the least bit familiar.  The deceptively charming little shack was nowhere in view.  He breathed a sigh of relief.  He allowed himself a brief moment to mourn Astrid.  She was one of the sweetest, most sincere people he had ever met.  She hadn’t deserved the ending she had come into.  After a moment, he reluctantly pushed Astrid aside in order to survey the area and focus on building a strategy.  He was still considering what to do next when he saw movement within a clump of bushes.  “Come out!” Jordan demanded.  He sounded a little hysterical, even to himself.  He knew it most likely was some non-threatening woodland critter but he prepared for battle just the same, brandishing his fighting stance.  A small boy with a dirt-streaked face stood but didn’t move out of the shelter of his hiding place.  Jordan relaxed and with tired compassion inquired if the boy was alright.  “Are you all alone?” the second question following right behind the first.  The boy said nothing but began to cry instead.  By the look of his dirty face, he had been crying a lot and wiping the tears away with the heels of his dirt-covered hands, just as he was doing again.  Jordan looked at his own hands.  They looked like the boy’s.  The boy had come through the tunnel as he had.  Jordan went to him and tried to comfort him, though he found himself struggling not to break down.

When his sobbing had subsided, the boy was able to explain how his parents had brought him and his baby sister into the store on their way to visit his grandparents.  They had stopped to see if they could find a gift for his Mimi’s birthday.  He was the only one who had made it out.  The others were lost.  “All the books!” his eyes grew wide with memory as he told his story.  “So many books!  I just got lost in all the stacks and didn’t care where they were.  By the time I figured out they weren’t real, it was too late.  I couldn’t save them.  I just ran.”  He hung his head and began to cry again. 

Jordan stroked his back.  “What do you mean?  What wasn’t real?”

“The books!  The books!  They weren’t real!”  The boy spoke with such intensity, as if it was of the utmost importance that Jordan understood what he was saying.  “It was some sort of…glamour, you know, magic.”  He whispered this last word like it was a secret.  Jordan didn’t remember seeing ANY books in the shop, though he hated to read so he may just not have noticed them.  Military gear, guns and ammo boxes, and gun belts, but no books.  As many books as this kid was talking about would have been hard to miss.  He tried intently to remember what he had seen when he entered the shop before the military equipment captured his attention.  Maps, uniforms…and then it dawned on him.  He had seen what he was most interested in, what he wanted most to see.  Astrid had been off admiring, well, whatever; he wasn’t really sure what.  Until, of course, she had joined him while he was looking at the uniforms!  She loved vintage things, especially clothing.    That was the place where their interests had overlapped and brought them back together.  That was where their illusions overlapped.  Only his had made him queasy and the disoriented and this, he hypothesized, had somehow broken its hold on him - on him, but not on Astrid.  Her stomach had felt somewhat unsettled but she didn’t have the vertigo or nausea he had experienced.  The troll-thing (which neither he nor the boy had mentioned to this point) had held her tight in its grasp.  So tightly, in fact, that she had been ripped from his.  He looked back over his shoulder to where the tunnel had emptied into the creek…under a bridge.  He squared himself urgently in front of the boy, squatting to look him in the eye.  “They’re gone now.  Your parents, your sister, and my…Astrid.” 

“Your what?”

“Nevermind.  My girlfriend, okay? ”  The boy wrinkled his nose as if the words themselves stank.  Jordan stood and motioned for the boy to follow.  “Come on, kid.  We’ve gotta put some more distance between us and that tunnel and we need to do it now.” He didn’t know where he was, where he was going, or how far they would have to go.  He only knew they had to get away from that bridge before any more of those creatures appeared.

He put his hands in his pockets as he set out into the woods.  The fingers of his right hand encountered the cold disc-shaped object just as the kid snatched something from Jordan’s back pocket.  “What’s this?”  Unfolding it, he was delighted with his discovery.  “It’s a map!  Cool!”  A flicker, like heatwaves off of Texas afternoon asphalt, passed across its surface as it came fully open and the title seamlessly transfigured from “Territories of The Norse-gnome and The Shadows” back to “Territories of The North and The South” as Jordan had first seen it.  The two began their trek through the forest in search of a landmark that would lead them home, unknowingly heading deeper into Norse-gnome territory. 

Abundance Does Not Equal Wealth

You will stay in the fire

until the impurities are burned away-

The more you fight it,

the longer it takes.

Why do we insist on

holding on to those things

that only hold us back?

The abundant life awaits

but you can't reach for it

when you're holding on

to all that crap!

A Little Bit of Nothing

I am just going to journal here a bit about what I've been writing lately. I have been writing or researching just about every day lately and it feels really good. I feel like I am finally on tract with a great story to tell (though I'm not entirely sure where it will go) and some characters that are starting to come alive.  At least, to me.  I am trying to figure out some of the publishing stuff (though I'm a long way from needing that yet) and wondering if seeking out an agent will be right for me. My story is in pieces right now but that just seems to be my way. They are beginning to link together on their own somewhat and that's always a good thing. I posted Carly & The Fifth Dimension a while back and I think the person in the turquoise cowboy boots will have an interesting role to play.  Carly herself, though, just couldn't hack it. She dreamed of a life of freedom and then when it was given to her, she couldn't handle the form in which it had come.  She just didn't have the strength to face the new, vastly different world outside her front door alone.  Carly was a casualty of a war she never knew had been waged.  The survivors of this war will band together...at first.  They will eventually wage war on each other, each feeling their way across this foreign landscape in an effort to accomplish their version of The Greater Good.

Hope that whets your appetite and leaves you curious for more....  Hello?  Is anyone out there?  ;)

Destiny

She sat staring up at the moon. The sky was clear, the air crisp and the boldest nighttime light hung low in the sky so huge and so close she thought she could maybe reach out and grab it like a big, cold beach ball.  "You can be anything you want to be," he had said.  Like it was the easiest thing in the world.  At forty, that statement was new to her.  It was exhilarating and depressing all at the same time.  If she could believe it, think of the possibilities!  Of all the worlds that would open up to her!  She wanted nothing more than to reinvent herself.  Her heart and soul ached for it!  But was there really still time?  She couldn't imagine starting a new venture now.  How she wished it would have been the message she received in her childhood.  Instead, she was told she couldn't compete with the boys, that she wasn't smart enough to really do anything important.  The message she had received was that she wasn't good enough, would never be good enough, that she just didn't measure up.  The boys on the playground and at the bustop told her that when they spit on her or tried to cram her into the trash bin at school.  Her parents told her that when they refused to allow her to play on her brother's soccer team.  The teachers told her that when they ignored her silent cries for help.  Now she was older, stronger and in control of her own future.  What would she want to be if she could be anything?  It was a daunting question.  Overwhelming, even.  But one that Destiny was willing to spend some time exploring and she planned to start immediately.

Countdown to Christmas

I have always been one of those "bring it on!" types when it comes to Christmas. I usually start actively shopping for Christmas in June or July.  I love making the spiced cider in the evenings for my family.  I love the Christmas music playing in the background as I do my grocery shopping.  But this year has been different.  I'm not sure why that is but I just seem to be having a bit of a Blue Christmas spirit this year.  I wonder, "is it my age?  Am I just going through a mid-life crisis?".  Nothing in my life is how I imagined it would be by this age so that seems plausible.  A lot has happened in the past few years that have put us into a state of perpetual limbo and when I thought we had an opportunity to make a move that would set us on a different path, advancing us to the next stage in our lives, it did not happen.  So, am I just bringing myself down by wishing things were different than they are?  Or, is this what people feel when they talk about the stressful Christmas season? Money is tight (but it's been tight before at Christmas) and I haven't been able to do as much as I would like for my family and others.  So is this just the temporary holiday depression that so many people talk about but that I have never experienced until now?  It's so strange to me that I feel so numb.  It's not like me at all (at least not for many years).  Sometimes I think that, because I have experienced so much more intense emotion over the past few years, I have become desensitized a bit.  That I am so tired of feeling that I just go numb.  It's so exhausting to feel intensely over a long period of time and maybe I have just reached my limit. Whatever the reason, I don't feel like I respond to things as I am used to naturally responding and, for a writer, emotion is vital.  If I am numb, I am boring (as you have probably already discovered).  That's why I haven't written very much lately (here or otherwise).  It's a scary place to be and I can't imagine what it must be like to go through something like this when your writing is what puts bread on the table.  Fortunately (I guess for now), I have another job that does that...and I guess I should get moving so I can be to work on time.  Let's make it a good day.  

Carly & The 5th Dimension

Sometimes she thought there would be nothing more wonderful than to just disappear.  To walk out the front door of her parents' cute little American-dream home with the white picket fence, walk down the block and just keep going. To leave behind all the responsibilities of school and home. To start fresh with no past and only the vast possibilities of the future ahead. She would take with her only what she could fit into her knapsack and enough money for food for a few days while she traveled by foot and survived otherwise on the kindness of strangers. How liberating it would be to break free from the weighty job of making sure her father was happy and taken care of. To be responsible only for herself and answer to no one but the same. Now she couldn't get the echoey, haunting sound of that song out of her head. "One    Less    Bell to answer. One   Less   Egg to fry....".  A month ago she had regularly let those lyrics carry her into a fantasy where the only one she answered to was herself. Now it sounded in her head, almost ghostly, and all it made her want to do was cry. She never wanted it to happen like this. She always envisioned it with her leaving - not him. Now her father, along with everyone else she had known, was dead. Now she couldn't help but remember the way the rest of the song went; the loneliness of it. "No more laughter. No more love." That about summed it up. Hungry, alone and defeated, Carly sat on the floor in her late father's kitchen and let the tears come for the last time.

Tribute (jump rope for the Stephen King fanatic)

Not last night but the night before

Tommyknockers, Tommyknockers 

knocking at my door

down the road in 'Salem's Lot

where the craving's strong

and The Body don't rot,

Misery reigns and Silence calls

as Nightmares and Dreamscapes

climb the walls.

in The Waste Lands along the path

The Dead Zone's strong

and shows it's wrath.

beware the night, Full Dark, No Stars

and Low Men In Yellow Coats

in big old flashy cars.

up at the overlook The Shining runs deep

but so does Insomnia.

no cure for Doctor Sleep.

in the Pet Semetary

where The Boogeyman lurks

you'll find a Bag of Bones

under Drunken Fireworks.

you'll see The Cat From Hell

and hear Chattery Teeth,

just don't take The Long Walk

to The House On Maple Street.

think you have A Good Marriage?

you might want to look again.

The Dark Half is underneath

The Colorado Kid.

working the Night Shift

with Mostly Old Men

we talked about the Afterlife

and the Dark Descent.

at Four Past Midnight

The Mangler fired up

The Regulators came

and stole Uncle Otto's Truck.

The Storm of the Century's

out on Little Tall

across The Reach

where Death kicked up a squall.

Dolores Claiborne's

secret is kept.

down in the Darkness

the bad man slept.

back on the path

where the monorail runs,

the riddles keep coming

and the answer ain't Guns.

over 35 Scary Years 

With Stephen King

I've read a lot and

I've learned one thing:

when you read the king of horror

It Grows On You,

it draws you in, holds you fast,

and never bids adieu.

it may grab you by the throat

or lure you bit by bit

until you're scared to keep on reading

but terrified to quit.

Bodybuilding vs. Spiritbuilding

Bodybuilding hurts. We all know that in order to build muscle mass, you must work those muscles out. You must lift weights or work out on machines or ride a bike or run. Whatever form of exercise you choose, if you are building muscle mass, you are first breaking it down. Think about the strongest person you know or, better yet, think about Hulk Hogan or Arnold Schwartzenegger. If you have ever watched a bodybuilder work out then you have seen how painful it is. You hear them make beastial noises and yell as they push themselves to the limit, as the struggle and strain to get that last rep. All to build their muscles bigger and stronger than before. What happens when you work out your muscles? The muscle fibers are damaged. The muscle fibers that are damaged by the trauma of working out are rebuilt by the body, becoming thicker and more numerous, therefore growing the muscle into a bigger, stronger muscle. (Read more about the science of muscle building here http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/musclesgrowLK.html ) the point is, in order to make your muscles stronger, they must be traumatized, tortured and torn and then allowed to heal - bigger, better, stronger. When you are faced with adversity, when you go through a difficult situation or season, you can either give up and feel sorry for yourself or you can view these times like a spiritual workout. Just as a torn muscles' healing increases it's strength, size and effectiveness, our struggles can strengthen us spiritually and make us more effective Christians. If we strive to change our way of thinking and see these times as an opportunity to grow instead of wondering why God would allow us to go through such things, we can be much more productive and grateful people. So the next time you find yourself in the midst of a trial, push through the pain and then flex those new spiritual muscles that develop from the workout your Spiritual Trainer custom designed for you. He only wants to see you grow to your full potential and He will spot you through the workout if you let Him. Remember - no pain, no gain. 

My Footwear Fiasco

Tonight I witnessed a very sweet girl marry the man of her dreams. She was obviously over-the-moon delighted as she looked into his eyes and committed to be his for a lifetime. In the weeks leading up to the wedding, several of us scoured the few stores in our tiny hometown mall looking for just the right outfit for the occasion. I, myself, even bought a new pair of heels. Now, those who know me know that I am seen more often than not wearing boots. Not the spiky heel kind but the kind with the one-inch chunky combat boot kind of heel.  But I have needed a pair of basic black dressy shoes for a long time and this was my chance to justify the purchase. Surprisingly, I found the perfect pair at the right price the day before the wedding. They were a little higher than I would have liked but I thought "Hey, I used to wear these all the time. I can do this.". It turns out I was wrong. Driving in heels does not seem like it would be much different than in any other shoes but it definitely is quite different. It was a shaky start but I caught on quickly and we were on our way. As my friend and I arrived at the venue and got out of the truck, I began to wonder if I had made the wrong decision regarding my footwear. I wobbled along about as graceful as a hippo on roller skates. It was a bit of a trek to the ceremony site and I regained my sea legs and my confidence though my feet were beginning to talk to me quietly already. When the wedding ceremony was over and we headed toward the reception hall I was still doing alright. But in the cocktail area, as we waited for the photographer to finish up with the bride and groom, there was absolutely nowhere to sit. I stood there trying to look graceful and poised, hoping no one could tell that I was shifting my weight from one foot to the other as the pain in my toes and balls of my feet grew less bearable by the second. By the time we were directed from the cocktail area to the reception, each step brought with it shooting fire and, more than a few times, I wavered and almost lost my balance. I pushed through the pain only by reminding myself that I had endured much worse pain for longer at Parris Island and survived. I was NOT going to let a pair of classy black heels get the best of me. When we finally rounded the corner to the lawn strewn with tables and (blessed sweet wonderful) chairs, my feet felt like fire and ice all at the same time and I was not sure how I was going to get across the grassy area between the hard slate steps I was standing on and those amazing-looking chairs. If you have ever worn spiky heels and tried to walk across grass then you know what I am getting at. You cannot, when you walk across grass in shoes like this, put any weight whatsoever on your heels or your heels will sink into the soft earth under the pressure of the weight of your body. Then you run the risk of walking right out of your shoes. You must shift all of your weight to the ball of your foot instead. At this point, that was almost impossible for me but I again conjured my strength by mentally drill-instructing myself and determining that I would not allow these beautiful black demon shoes to make me the laughingstock of the party. As it turned out, I made it to the table without falling on my face or losing a shoe. The night was fair and cool. The breeze blew in off the lake. The music was nostalgically wonderful. And the food was fantastic! (I did have to beg a good-looking younger gentleman at our table to chase me down a glass of water because I just couldn't bring myself to stand up and walk back across the grass again when I had just sat down safely with my plate of prime rib and loaded mashed potatoes.) As plates were cleaned and cleared away, the music ramped up to a faster pace, signaling that the party had begun. Unfortunately, it was getting dangerously near my bedtime. I ventured out one final time to place my gift with all the others and then headed toward the front of the house and the parking lot beyond. As soon as I was around the corner and out of eyeshot of the party, I gingerly pulled my shoes from my throbbing feet. The cool slate of the walkway was heaven beneath my tortured toes and I breathed an honest sigh of glorious relief. I may well wear those shoes again one day but I can tell you it will not be soon and it will not be often. 

Daydreams of a Would-be Writer

To date, I have had no more than one poem published (and the one I did have published was in a collection of thousands of aspiring poets and I had to buy the book). I believe this barely-published state of being is partly due to the fact that I have not been very good at seeking out places to present my work. I am still struggling with whether this is solely because I am afraid of rejection or if I am also truly overwhelmed at the sheer enormity of the task of wading through all the sketchy people/publications/companies to find the reputable ones. It is my life's dream to publish a book one day. I have dreamed for it as long as I can remember. From the age of six or seven, I wrote stories and bound them into books. I have actually started a novel, which I work on only periodically when I can find the time and inspiration. My mind is so cluttered these days with everything else that is required of me that it is hard, even when time allows, to just sit down and pick up writing where I left off. The story reveals itself to me bit by bit all the time and I have a million notes scrawled on used napkins and bits of paper torn from the corners of whatever was handy when inspiration struck. Old envelopes are another convenient drawing board and I have to clear them out of the car and my purse on a regular basis (my husband always gets annoyed at "all that trash" in the cup holders). I am finally getting more organized and catagorizing them in my iPad so I don't have to sift through all the bits and pieces in such a random fashion any longer. Hooray for technology! I know I have a story to tell and I think it will be a good one. Maybe not for everyone, but a good one for a lot of people. There is darkness in all of us. Some choose not to believe that. Some willfully ignore it. Some embrace it and hurt others. Some simply allow it to flow out of them onto the page for the entertainment of those who aren't afraid to poke the beast once in a while (in a relatively comfy place and from a safe distance). I'm not sure where my darkness originated and I really don't care. I write because it makes me feel alive. I write whatever flows out. I write because it purges the darkness from my soul and when I emerge from that imaginary place, I feel lighter, I feel happy. I write because I cannot do otherwise.

No Rest For The Weary

Well, I don't know about anyone else but I am just exhausted! I am so tired of hearing of people being drawn away from God by religious people! If you are genuinely trying to follow Christ's example, I applaud you. I just don't understand why people allow bad teaching or a legalistic upbringing to turn them hardcore against "religion".  I put that word in quotes because it means different things to different people and it gets mixed up a lot when people use it in place of relationship. To me, religion is what I grew up learning - the dos and don'ts, the rules. Religion, in my view, is usually legalistic and oppressive. I don't remember anyone ever telling me when I was young that to be a Christian was to love and serve others. I learned that it meant instead to do THESE things and don't do THOSE things and to never, never talk (or even THINK) about any of THAT.  Since, I have come to prefer relationship over religion.  It saddens me that so many kids that grew up the way I did probably quit going to church as soon as they turned 18 (as I did) and never returned.  Some not really knowing if they believe in God at all anymore, or even caring.  I am tired of hearing about people who have been rejected and even ostercized by others who call themselves Christians. I am tired of people brandishing that title as a license to judge others. I am tired of being lumped in with a group that professes to know God and follow Christ but who's actions and even words habitually and willfully exemplify the exact opposite of what Christ modeled. We are all human. We mess up. We cannot be like Christ. I am not saying that we should expect perfection from ourselves and others, but we can strive to show the kind of unconditional love that He displayed. He loved the unloveable. He accepted the unacceptable. And He forgave the unforgivable. I read an article this week about a woman who lived in such an extreme state of "biblicalness" that the scripture she was following was twisted and out of context to the point of allowing herself to be manipulated and steamrolled as she had come to believe that was what it meant to be a submissive wife. She regularly hesitated to voice her opinion or disagree with anything her husband said for fear of sinning against him and against God. Who teaches this stuff!? Now she blames the church for the abuse she endured and the oppression she and her children lived under. To her, being the "good Christian wife" equates to near-slavery. Now she spreads a message of "Woman, be loosed", encouraging women to break away from the oppression of Christianity and the biblical family lifestyle. I don't understand why people like this fail to see that, although they may have been misinformed or even manipulated, it's people that have let them down. People that have purposefully or ignorantly misused the scripture and led them astray. It was not Christ who did that. It was fallable humans that failed them. Not God. Christian, if you are going to claim the title, you need to be willing to respect it and wear it well. Represent. Don't be a part of the reason people won't give God a chance.

Platoon 4018

I wrote this near the end of boot camp. I turned 22 at MCRD Parris Island and graduated as a United States Marine on July 4th.  Ooh-Rah!

Lying in my rack at night

crying secret tears

clutching to my chest The Book

that eases all my fears.

Knowing that I'll make it through

but hurting just the same.

Getting just a little tired

of playing the DIs' game.

I'd dream at night of bubble baths

and chocolate candy bars, 

of pepperoni pizza and

of gazing at the stars.

Rude awakenings, shouting cries -

"GET OUT OF THE RACK RIGHT NOW!"

I was sure that I'd survive

though not quite sure just how.

Swim qual; Rifle range;

Combat Town was a blast!

Inspection; Drill; (and

before we knew it)

Graduation Day at last!

Highly motivated, filled with pride -

Drill Instructor Sergeant LaChapelle

"You're high!  You're high!  You must be high!"

is what she liked to yell.

Drill Instructor Sergeant Shindledecker -

Now there's a dedicated DI.

She hung in there with these "nasty recruits"

until we were ready to die.

Senior Drill Instructor Sergeant Cruz -

On the Island no doubt she's the best.

She may not be our mother

but she outdoes all the rest.

She kept us motivated at "the beach"

in her own special way.

"Got to stay motivated '18!"

is what she'd always say.

For this platoon of "Bad News Bears"

training was the test

but we came out of it on top

'cause we were trained by the very best!

Remember now as we say goodbye

to Platoon Four Thousand Eighteen -

We stepped off the bus clueless recruits

but we leave here hardcore MARINES!

All In

It seems these days that we fill our lives so full that we don't have the time to pay attention to what is really important. We work. We have church and church activities. We have kids that need help with homework we don't understand. We cram our kids schedules so full of activities and sports and chores that they don't know what it's like to just be a kid. They think this is just how life should be - chasing after the wind. We are teaching them that to relax is lazy and that you have to always have somewhere to go or something to do or you aren't normal. God specifically set aside a day for rest. Not only do our body and mind need the downtime to recoup and refresh, but setting aside time to just be still and reflect, gives us a renewed perspective. It gives us time to look inward and explore if what we are in pursuit of is of any real value or if it is just a chasing after the wind. It gives us time to prioritize and decide what (or who) we want to spend our precious time on. If we do not give ourselves this decompression time, we are more stressed and irritable and can even become resentful. We are more likely in our state of over-involvement to allow the urgent to crowd out the important. We only have a limited amount of minutes in this life. Filling them up with meaningless junk leads to a deathbed full of regret and emptiness. To lead a truly full life, we must empty it of what is temporary and trivial. Strip away what is unnecessary clutter to make room for your life to really breathe. 

Life's Not Fair...But It's Worth It

For a long time I wondered why God would want us to stay together when it seemed that we no longer had anything in common. I speculated bitterly why I should have to suffer for someone else's selfish choices and bad decisions. Years before, I had believed God brought him into my life to help make me a more confident person - to teach me that I could be comfortable in my own skin - because that's what my husband has taught me.  That, and not to worry about things I have no control over.  He has helped me become a more confident, capable human being.  But, over the past five years, I began to wonder, "What now?  Why continue when we are so different, want different things and it seems we are only making each other miserable?".  Struggling through these thoughts, I have come to realize this:  for whatever reasons God brought him into my life, God brought me into his life as well.  Now it's my turn to help him become a better, more confident, capable human being.  Please hear me when I say I am not speaking from place of superiority or piousness.  What I am saying is that I have humbly chosen to accept my responsibility as a wife, my responsibility to support my husband and respect him as the authority God has placed over me and that I submitted to the day I married him, to pray for him daily, to remind him that no other person's expectations, including mine, matter but only God's.  Maybe God brought us together because He knew, as much as I needed him, my husband would need me.  Having to suffer through the consequences of his choices and actions is just a biproduct (albeit however uncomfortable) of my choice to stay and try to be the best wife I can be.  Is it fair? Hell, no!  But haven't we been warned, almost from infancy, that life is not fair?  Over the past few years I have learned a bit about sacrifice.  Being (or trying to be) selfless is hard!  It isn't usually fun.  And sometimes it's downright painful.  But in the end, it is worth it because it grows you into the person God created you to be while showing others Christ-like love and maybe helping them find the courage to become the person God created them to be too.  This is the hope I have for the future.

Quote For The Day

"I think the most important part of storytelling is tension. It's the constant tension of suspense that in a sense mirrors life, because nobody knows what's going to happen three hours from now."  -Richard Condon

Peculiar Penny

Penny walked with her gaze firmly fixed on the ground at her feet, not wanting to make eye contact with anyone whom she might happen to cross paths.  Bad things always seemed to follow whenever she interacted with strangers - sometimes even with people she knew - so she kept her head down and trudged on alone.  She was halfway to safety when she heard the whispers, like millions of bugs scuttering over each other in the dark.  She shuddered at the sound.  She just wanted to be home, safe and sound, secured beyond the reach of all the prying eyes and out of earshot of the cruel whispery-bug sounds.  As her thoughts propelled her and her pace quickened in time with her heartbeat, she realized that someone (or some thing) was keeping in step behind her.  More hushed bug sounds and then a hand-stifled giggle wafted to her on the salt-air breeze.  As her heart rate doubled, she was barely able to fight back the urge to break into a run.  It took every bit of her will to resist the instinct to take flight and leave the whispering, giggling, following bug-things far behind her.  Tears slipped silently down her face as all she wished for was the comfort of her own four walls...or the courage to face what was outside them.  Her insides shivered and thrummed.  Fight or flight - she wasn't sure which was worse.  Both made her feel like throwing up.
She never told her mother about these feelings.  She didn't tell her sister or even her best friend.  She was utterly alone in this world of torment and she wasn't sure how to be any different.  She rarely felt relaxed outside her "safe zone" and it took quite a bit of time for her to feel even remotely comfortable around new people.  She enjoyed being alone and keeping to herself felt natural.  She was calm and relaxed when she was alone, not having to wonder what this one was thinking or what those two were whispering about.  When she was forced outside of her reliable four walls into the unfamiliar and uncertain world beyond, everything was stressed and distorted, like she was seeing it all through a fish-eye lens.  Sweat beaded up on her brow just thinking about it and that's when she lost control.  Surrendering to the flight instinct, Penny's body took charge over her mind, her legs pumping mechanically like pistons without the capacity to reason.

Better Research Next Time

As an amateur author I am still learning.... I apologize for not doing better research before writing.  In my previous post I quoted Robin Williams as saying "I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up alone, it's not.  The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone.".  I have since discovered that this was a line out of the movie World's Greatest Dad.  It still has a prophetic feel to me and I still wonder if this is how he felt, but I wanted to make sure to represent properly the quote I used.  So there you go.

The Mourning of a Legend

Finding out about the death of Robin Williams today put such a heaviness in my heart. It goes without saying that the man was a brilliant actor who was capable of eliciting any and all emotion, whether playing the part of desperate dad, unconventional "captain" or flamboyant homosexual. He was inspiring and grounded and hilariously funny. He was talented yet humble.

He was quoted as saying, "I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone, it's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people that make you feel alone."  

I can't help but wonder, with all the people surrounding him - fans swarming like bees, managers, directors, hair and makeup people and all - if he still felt alone. It is such an empty feeling, being in a roomful of people and feeling utterly alone. It is one of the first steps down the spiral staircase to despair. Was this just another movie line or was it coincidentally insightful he giving us a glimpse into the deepest need of a tortured soul?  

It makes me sad to think of the man that made so many laugh so much, unhappy enough to take his own life. I, myself, will choose to remember him as an inspiring, boundary-pushing teacher who taught me to ask the hard questions, to not follow blindly and to seize the day. "Oh, Captain! My Captain!" my mantra as I stand on my desk with my head held high in defiance. 

RIP Robin Williams 1951-2014

From Writer's Block To Writing As Therapy

Several times over the last couple of weeks I have sat down here to write. I knew I had something to say (even knew the title I would use) but when I sat down to write, no words came. It is so frustrating to know you have something potentially profound to say and then not be able to find any words. It seems impossible. How can I have so much to say and then not be able to spit it out? I don't know if what I say makes any difference at all but I know that it is cheap (free!) therapy for me. And if you know me, you know I love a good bargain. ;)  If I were to give one piece of advice to someone stressed or struggling, it would be to journal. It doesn't have to be in a proper bound journal. It doesn't even have to be on paper anymore. For me, without the outlet of my pen, words and thoughts become the enemy. They churn and fester, worming their way into my soul, rotting me from the inside out. When I am distressed or angry, I may write four or five sentences or forty-five pages, but when it's all laid out on paper, I can organize my thoughts and feelings and find at least the tiniest bit of rationality or reason. Once I have poured it all out onto the page, it no longer overwhelms me. It no longer threatens to control me or cause me to act irrationally. I have written scores of letters that will never be read to people who have no idea I ever wrote them. This is because, when I write, it isn't for anyone else. It is for me. Try it and see if it doesn't bring a feeling of release and relief and rest. 

What I Have In Common With Marc Jacobs