Manuscript Analysis A La Marti

Reading the rough draft of a novel is a lot like analyzing your dreams out loud.

My friend, Marti, is my first reader. She tells me what she sees, points out my errors and in general functions as my best-friendly-editor.

She should be given an extra jewel in her crown for all she does for me.



But aside from that, Marti has developed a new talent- psychoanalyst.

"Hey," she says, calling me to review some more of my manuscript. "I can tell what mood you're in when you write."

Huh?

"Well, look, at pages 78-83. Your characters swear up a storm in that section. But on pages 84-91, they're back to being nice to each other." She points out at least five more examples and as she does, I suddenly recall how I felt at the time I wrote those passages.

Damn, if she isn't 100% correct.

It's eerie the way the unconscious works.

And I'll tell you another thing too, I don't like it! This paper-thin transparency is for the birds.

But wasn't my bff smart to discover this?

I wonder what else is hidden inside my novels? All I've ever been able to spot is how often I mention coffee when I'm try to write and I'm tired...

I sure could go for a cup of coffee about now..."Marion stretched and looked longingly at her coffee pot. If only I could teach it to fetch," she thought...

Outside Looking In...From Afar

I am lonely for my little cabin. How is it that I could spend so much time up there this summer and not be able to get there now?



Hmmm...I've gotta put some thought to this. It's time to set some limits and prioritize.

Family first. Cabin second?

Family first. Writing second. Cabin third?

Family first. Writing in the cabin second!

Family first. Writing in the trundle bed, under the cozy quilts, with a good view of the mountain from my cabin bedroom window- Priceless!



Maybe I should look into satellite TV, Internet access and ATVs for the cabin (yuck!) Then I could have it all- Family in the cabin while I'm writing beneath the cozy covers and peeking out the window at the hunters and bears rioting in the beautiful autumn woods!

But then, it wouldn't exactly be a quiet little cabin in the woods, would it?

Home Is Where...Where?

It's nursing home day. I don my social work hat, abandon my laptop and drive off to see what's new with my old guys...



Willie Mae has to move out of her private room, into a semi-private one hall over. Her family can't pay the extra $450 a month to keep her where she is and so the social worker tries to smooth over the transition.

"Isn't this a nice room?" She asks Willie, pointing out that it's at the end of the hallway, so she'll have more privacy.

Willie Mae shrugs, unconvinced. "But how will I find it?" she protests. "I'll never remember how to get to my new room." Willie Mae stops and frowns. "But then, I don't know where my room is now, so what does it matter? All right. I'll move."

Willie Mae takes these things in stride, just as she has all of her life. She worked hard in the cotton mill and raised her son. Later she made almost daily trecks up to this same nursing home to look after her elderly brothers. Tough and independent, Willie Mae was a tiny tornado of a woman. Barely five feet tall but wiry and quick to jump to her brothers' defense.

Then she fell, fracturing her hip, and Willie Mae's world began to crumble. As it so often happens with the elderly, an infection or anesthesia seems to trigger confusion and hallucinations. From there, it's an easy slide into dementia. Some physical trauma occurs and the brain never fully recovers. At least, with the people I see in the nursing home, that's how it seems to happen.

Willie Mae joined her last remaining brother in the nursing home and when he died, she grieved- then forgot all about it. Her aide reminds her. "No honey, he's passed, remember?"

If I were Willie Mae, I don't think I'd want to be reminded that I was now all alone.

Today I found Willie Mae wandering the halls. Thinking she was going to Residents' Council, I offered to lead her to the dining room where they were having a special lunch.

"No, she doesn't go in there," an aide told me, turning us away from the party Willie Mae thankfully never knew about. "She needs to go back to her room."

And therein lay the rub...

"I don't know where my room is," Willie Mae said, clinging to her PVC plastic walker.

I slowly lead her through the rabbit warren of hallways, down a burgundy-stripe, wallpapered hallway and into her new room.

"Here you go," I announce, ushering her inside.

Willie Mae looks around, frowns and shakes her head. "This isn't my room."

I remind her of the move that happened a few days ago. I point out the pictures on her bulletin board and the book lying open on her bed.

The book stops me. It looks like heavy reading for little Willie Mae, a woman too forgetful to find her own room. It is entitled something like "Why Christians Shouldn't Be Antisemetic." But her name is written in spidery, old lady script across the front cover.

"Is this your book?" I ask innocently.

Willie eyes the book. "I have that book at my house!" she cries.

"I think it must be yours," I say, showing her the name written in blue ink. "Isn't that your name?"

Willie shakes her head. "No. Someone might've brought mine from my house and left it here, but this isn't my room. I know the woman bought this place and she's a mean 'un. We don't want to get her riled," she says, indicating the little old lady sleeping in the bed across the room. "Let's go."

I spend the rest of the day retrieving Willie Mae from other hallways and gently leading her back to her room.

"I know you must be tired," I say finally.

"I really am," she sighs.

We pass by her old room. Earlier, an elderly man had been in the bed, pale and sleeping, unaware of Willie Mae standing in his doorway, a hurt, puzzled expression on her face.

A few hours later, as I walk back up Willie's new hallway, I almost collide with a grey-draped gurney carrying a dead body out to the waiting hearse. When I round the corner and pass by Willie's old room, the bed is empty, its sheets stripped. In the corridor, a small cluster of visitors huddle, crying into tissues.

Willie appears, seeming to materializie out of nowhere just behind me. "I don't see why I can't go in there and rest awhile," she says. "They told me I could still use it now and then."

I distract her away from the room that smells like death. We walk slowly down the burgundy-striped hallway and into the room with the book that has her name written across the cover.

"That's a Jewish book," Willie Mae says. "It's about Jewish history."

"It says anti-Semitism is a sin," I say, leafing through the pages.

"That's right," Willie agrees. She smiles at me like I'm a slow student beginning to grasp a difficult concept.

"That poor lady!" her new nurse murmurs when I pass her a few minutes later. "You'd think they wouldn't confuse these poor people like that. They shouldn't move them." I love Willie Mae's new nurse.

When I leave for the day, Willie Mae is sitting in the day room, a forlorn expression on her face. Her eyes are puffy and red with fatigue and frustration. A visitor from the old hallway walks up to her, puts her arms around Willie's bony bird-like shoulders and hugs her. "There you are!" the newcomer cries. "I wondered where you were!"

I meet Willie's gaze as she stares back over her friend's shoulder. She gives me a wry smile. "There you are," the lady says, hugging Willie tighter and repeating the phrase that lingers in my head like a mantra.

"There you are."

Of course. How simple. "Home is where they're always glad to see you." "Home is where the heart is."

Wrapped in her friend's arms, Willie Mae has found her home...at least for the moment.

Sunday at the cabin.

The trees are even more beautiful than they were on Tuesday. The reds have aged into shimmering, rich shades of wine red. Gone are the juicy sangrias, replaced by deeper Merlots and Cabernets.

Margie and The Barber wave as I drive up the lane toward the house. They are riding their horses across the field next door and when they see me, they head over to catch up on the water situation and tell me all the latest "holler" doins.

It's hunting season. Muzzle-loading and bow-hunting, to be precise.

"Patrick bought me a bright orange visor to wear when I ride," Margie says, grinning. "He's worried I'll get shot. I used to walk up in the woods every morning, but not now." She looks over her shoulder, up toward the ridge that rims my property. "I worry about it too. It can get a little crazy."

Mertis has come along with me and worries she'll get shot if she tries to hike anywhere.

"Not today," the Barber offers. "They don't hunt on Sunday. Sundays are just for adjusting your sites and target shooting."

Other than our voices and the contented chewing sounds of the horses munching on my rejuvenated front yard, the only sound I hear is the wind whipping through the trees and the rustling of leaves scuttling across the gravel drive.

But my Spidey Senses are tingling and I trust my instincts- especially when they warn me that all is not right.

It is not yet 1 p.m. In the South, especially the rural South, on Sundays, no one makes too much noise before church hours are over. My buddy, Joe, pops by to introduce his new lady friend. Mertis and I nose around the cabin and the shed. And I find a thousand lady bugs who have somehow managed to slip their way through the cracks and chinks in the old cabin.

They are everywhere. But as they are supposed to bring good luck, I just sweep as many as I can into a dustpan and shoo them outdoors.

A little before 1, Mertis decides to ride the five miles into town to get hot dogs from the Dairy Queen. She is gone 40 minutes and in that time, all hell breaks loose.

I've been puttering about, feeling vaguely uneasy. I chalk it up to guilt because I took off to Virginia while my boys are at home. I should be there with them-in case they...what, need me?! They're 16 and 19- they pray for me to leave them alone at home!

So I make a pot of Earl Grey tea and settle into a big armchair to read. That's when it starts. A muffled shot echoes through the holler breaking the still Sunday silence.

I open the back door and stare up at the hill behind the house searching for the source of the sound, but all I see are trees.



A moment later it sounds like a battle has erupted outside. Loud, continuous explosions make thinking impossible. I try and distinguish the types of guns- wondering- are there more than one? Are they the infamous "muzzle-loading" rifles I've been reading about? And how would I know? I don't shoot- well, hardly ever and then only handguns.

Mertis is gone so long I begin to envision her waylaid by a band of marauding reenacters armed with muzzle-loading shotguns.

When she finally pulls up, waving a brown paper sack full of hot dogs, she tells me the problem wasn't rabid hunters at all.

It was Mennonites, Mertis claims. They've swarmed the Dairy Queen.

She says they seemed so taken aback by the plethora of menu choices, they couldn't make up their minds, thus halting the progress of the line of hungry customers.

I look at her, trying to decide whether she's telling the truth or has decided she needs to shelter me from the Awful Truth. Maybe she doesn't want to say what really happened. Maybe she doesn't want to spoil my idyllic vision of my mountain retreat.

Then she hears the gunfire. She nods wisely. "I saw them," she says, suddenly becoming her workday, Law Dawg persona. "There's two of them out there. Next door. They've got a target set up and they're shooting at it." Her lips form a thin, tight line of disapproval. "They're young. I bet they're his sons."

She strides to the back door, opens it and stares out across the backyard toward the neighbors'- Making sure the perps are still out there, the same two guys, still shooting. When she's made a positive I.D, she closes the back door, satisfied.

"Hot dog?" she asks, offering the wrinkled bag again.

I take one to be polite but I'm not hungry.

There are a thousand lady bugs crawling all over the cabin. The Mennonites have seized the only restaurant in town that's open on Sunday. And hunters are approaching on all sides, muzzles loaded.

Can aliens be far behind?

Happy Birthday Blues

There is nothing quite so sad as a birthday party all dressed up with nowhere to go. This was the case Saturday evening.
The spaghetti was ready.
The balloons and streamers all in place.
The guests had arrived...


Popping in from all over...



But alas, the Birthday Boy did not feel well.



"Present him!" cried the Youngest Unnamed One. "It might help."

And so we did...cards and gifts given as needed, every few minutes, until at last
he smiled.



Then began to laugh...



We proceeded with dinner and cake. (Yes, I made it. From scratch. Four layers...Chocolate on chocolate, as requested by the Birthday Boy/Man himself.)



Of course, at wild events such as the ones thrown regularly around here, there are the occasional casualties. A couple of the guests got into it over the leftover spaghetti on an unattended plate and well, to quote this guest directly, "You think I look bad? You should see the other guy!"

Why I Married My Ex- The Men In Black Theory...

Me- Back in my Alien Defensive Tactical Command Days


Every now and then, when I can't sleep and I've exhausted all other thoughts, to-do lists and fantasies, I try to figure out why on earth I married my ex-husband. I present tonight's theory...

Aliens live among us and my ex-husband was their king.

"King" being a relatively ceremonial title, with no real responsibilities, commitments, or powers.

But how then, you ask, did I, a mere mortal, wind up wedded to the king of the evil aliens? After two hours of insomnia (during which time I also made up my grocery list, thought about The Eldest Unnamed One's final birthday preparations, pondered the qualities necessary for my ideal fantasy lover and explored the meaning of life,) I was able to arrive at this explanation.

I was lulled into marrying the king of the aliens by his family.

They were, and still are, in a word-delightful.

Quirky, certainly, but then, I value quirkiness. And brilliant. Funny. And most of all, deeply caring.

I miss the hell out of them, but the good thing is, while I lost the king in the divorce, they're still around for the most part.

I figure my marriage happened like the old country song, "I'd Marry Your Dog Just to get in to Your Family." Only I married an alien instead.

I think anyone might've overlooked the gills behind the king's ears when faced with such a wonderful family. Take, for example, my brother-in-law.

Years ago, before I published my first mystery novel, I was really struggling with the whole process. I had the dream of becoming a writer, two toddlers, and very little encouragement from the king. I got up every morning at 5 a.m to write and stole every available moment I could to learn my craft. I even joined the local branch of a nationwide group that supports the efforts of female mystery writers- Sisters in Crime.

It was tough going and sometimes I entertained the idea of giving up. After all, you have about as much chance of making it in the book industry as you do of becoming a rock star. Sometimes it felt downright selfish to pursue a career that seduced me so completely but promised so little in return. I was so tired. So discouraged...

And then the box arrived.

A small, rectangular, brown cardboard box with my brother and sister-in-law's return address in the top left corner. It wasn't a holiday or even my birthday. I tore open the wrapping, dug through the Styrofoam peanuts and pulled out...a stained glass dagger.

The dagger was a replica of the Sisters in Crime logo. Delicate and fragile, pieces of translucent red and yellow glass that caught the light in my basement office as I held it up to the window.

My brother-in-law, the somewhat geeky, sentimental, brilliant fellow traveler, had seen deep inside my heart and designed the perfect symbol of hope. A symbol I treasure to this day.



I must say, given that I was living with the titular head of the evil overlords, a dagger could've been an omen of future things to come, both bad and good, or an implement of protection...but I saw it then and now as a tangible vote of confidence from my brother-in-law and the king's sweetheart sister.

When faced with a family like that, what's one alien king? When you add two incredible children to the mix and years of memories...an occasional scar from a bit of alien fire breath is a small price to pay for such a past and such a future.

Mostly Manly Men on the Town in Eyepatches

The Unnamed Ones are on parade tonight...The Eldest wearing his grandfather's favorite tweed jacket and the Youngest in his Goodwill funky suitcoat and vest. Ah, they cut the dashing figures, they do.



The eye patch belonged to my mother. She left it behind one time when she was visiting and it has made several appearances this fall. The Youngest Unnamed One came to me the night before School Picture Day and said, "What do you think would happen if I wore Gammaw's eyepatch to have my picture taken tomorrow?"

I said what all "good" mothers say. "Don't you dare!"

"But what do you think would happen?"

"You'd never get away with it," I answered.

Kiss of death.



He has never smiled like this in any school photo ever taken. It is the smile of the Glorious Victor. The Undefeated.



Wonder where it'll turn up next...

Homesick Halloween...

Halloween is a holiday. I realize this now.
It is a holiday with traditions. And my family is big on tradition.

We have birthday dinners in the dining room with crepe paper streamers and balloons. The cake comes on a red plate with white lettering that reads "You are Special Today!" We have silly Bert and Ernie napkins and plates- even though the Eldest Unnamed One is turning 19. We do this because "It is tradition."

Somehow I thought the Eldest Unnamed One would leave for college shaking off our traditions like toilet paper stuck to his feet in a men's room stall, unwanted and unnecessary. I thought he would be too "cool" for traditions.

As usual, I was wrong.

The silly, sometimes serious, little things we do on each holiday really matter.

I found this out when a little bird told me he was having a bad day yesterday. Something about a test grade not living up to his expectations...I listened to his words but there was more behind them. And then I realized...It's Halloween.

On Halloween we string orange and purple lights everywhere, eyeballs flash from behind branches, pumpkins glow with garish smiles. We plant the fog machine behind the pumpkin and the Youngest Unnamed One blasts billows of smoke out across the brick walkway just as the tricker treaters are within range.

Bags of candy are given out, costumes and ages critiqued, pleasant mischief is afoot...and the Eldest Unnamed One was in Chapel Hill and for the first time in his life- not a part of it all.

"Are you homesick?" I asked finally.

"I guess," he said.

And then, I was too. Homesick for my baby. Homesick for my entire family all piled up together, laughing and hugging, teasing and fighting.

It seems if one of us is homesick, we all are homesick.

This weekend the Eldest Unnamed One turns 19. He'll be back from Chapel Hill and we will drag out every sappy, tacky birthday decoration and I will bake a chocolate cake with thick gooey chocolate icing and we will serve it on the red plate in the dining room and this weekend no one will be homesick.




We will recharge, like worn batteries needing a lift. We'll do this with laughing and teasing and hugging and good food and remembering...But even more importantly, we will be weaving the invisible, unbreakable strings that tie us one to another forever.

Holy Ghost?

The other day, driving home from the cabin, I saw something and thought...Nah, couldn't be. I did not just see a manger decorated for Halloween. The Virgin Mary was not draped to appear like a friendly ghost...I did not see a...Holy Ghost.

I almost turned around and went back to see. Almost. But the other week I mistook a roll of insulation for a dead body wrapped in a silver reflecting blanket and abandoned by the side of the road.

It took 15 minutes to convince myself I'd really seen a dead body, and pursuade myself I would be letting down mankind if I didn't do my civic duty by investigating. Then turn around and drive all the way back to the exact spot where I'd seen said corpse. And what did I find? It had only been silver-sided insulation with pink fiberglass stuffing. But really, at the time the stuffing had looked exactly like a pair of dirty,human feet when I passed it the first time.

So when I saw the Holy Ghost, I knew better than to stop. I kept right on driving.

Then today I had to go back up to the mountains. The gas logs were scheduled for installation, giving me a good reason to drive slowly past the house with the manger scene. I took a camera, just in case.

As I rounded the corner, I was barely doing 5 mph. There it was...



Now...did you see that?



Okay, so it wasn't the Blessed Virgin but, trust me, that is a manger and it will contain the Baby Jesus in another month or so.

In the meantime...Life is lovely in Franklin County.











And Mike Martin and Butch at Martin's PGS are the best gas log installers in Franklin County. Neat. Professional. Sweethearts.

Flight Risk Takes Off

There is nothing like finishing the rough draft of a novel. Well, maybe there is...Nine and half months of pregnancy, followed by labor and delivery and a healthy baby- that's a fair comparison.

If writing a novel is like giving birth then revisions are like...trying to drop the 48 pounds that wasn't baby after all.

It's a long, arduous process.

Usually I slough off and rush through it. I'm too ADD to focus on the nit-picky details. I hate revisions!

Until this book.

I finished the draft last week, sat on it and then, couldn't stop myself from taking it back out five days later so I could tinker with it.

I've lost days now tinkering- searching for flaws, correcting little errors, revising the ending so that it is a more appropriate reversal of the book's beginning.

I know, for maybe the first time in my life, what the theme is in this book. I can pick out the unconscious symbolism.

And today, for the first time, I closed the lid on the laptop and thought "I like this book. I really like it."

Usually I don't even want to look at something I've written. It embarrasses me. But Eddie and Marion...(for now temporarily titled "Flight Risk,") I like it. I like reading it. What a concept.

Eddie and Marion- the kid and the groupie- have been haunting me since March. They wouldn't let go until I'd written down their stories. This book doesn't even have a home. No contract. No deadline. No promise of money. There are lots of details to be attended to...but for now...I have a new baby and I love her.

Maybe I'll post the beginning tomorrow.

In the meantime...IT'S RAINING!!!! Even up at the cabin where the spring ran dry, it is raining!! Yippee! Life is good and I have not been a pussy. Not once.

Emma

Her daughter is worried. Mom is 93. She's been on her own for all but the last month and now, she's not taking well to the nursing home.

"She has a Master's degree," her daughter says. "She was so with it...until the Vicodin incident. Now all she does is cry."

My new patient has no cartilidge left in her hip. The Vicodin was prescribed to help with the pain but, as drugs frequently do, especially pain meds and anesthesia drugs, it made this elderly woman psychotic, paranoid and confused.

Now she lives in the nursing home. And cries.

When I find Emma, she is sitting in the dayroom. A huge screen TV is showing a soap opera. Emma has been wheeled to sit in front of the television, surrounded by other demented patients who cannot move on their own. It is, I think, for my Emma, like being sentenced to Dante's Inferno. A living hell.

"My mother isn't being intellectually stimulated," her daughter told me. "They have bingo. Well, Mom did that with her students. She doesn't want to play it herself. The only other thing is church." The daughter smiles ruefully. "She's Episcopalian. That's not what they have here."

I think of the screaming lay preachers who hop up and down in front of the patients, exhorting them to repent before they burn in hell. No, that's not the Episcopalian way. I'm Episcopalian. I know. Hell, to us, is such a tacky concept. We don't "do" hell.

I approach Emma gently, stoop down beside her wheelchair and smile at her. She is crying. Her face is red and contorted with angst as she sobs into her hand and rubs her bloodshot eyes.

For Emma, a lifetime of memories swirl in a rapid-fire slideshow before her eyes. For a moment she is worried about her son. He's only 13 and he's late for supper. She doesn't know where he is. She shakes her head, impatient with the mind that betrays her. "No he's not. He's 36!" She thinks we're in church. She apologizes for the way they've let things go, but the money for repairs simply isn't there.

I tell her I know her mind feels foggy, that she is having trouble thinking. "I know this is terribly hard for you," I say.

"It's hard for all of us," Emma says. "I feel so sorry for them. They need help too."

I tell her I am trying to help as many as I can.

"We're all in the same boat," she moans. "I never thought it would come to this. I just didn't."

And then she remembers her mother has died. It is as if I've just broken the news to her. A wall of grief hits her and she sobs.

I slip my arm around her thin shoulders and hold her. I think of the Youngest Unnamed One, my son, who has learned about MRSA and nursing homes. "You've got to quit," he told me. "Right now! I don't want you to die!"

I tried to reassure him, but he would have none of it. "You don't touch anybody do you?"

Of course not.

I work with Emma for a good thirty minutes, telling her that I believe we can help her get some of her thinking back. She doesn't believe me, but she smiles bravely, as if what I say helps.

I ask what she thinks would help. She says something that doesn't make sense but her facial expression makes me think she'd like me to offer to help her kill herself.

"I can help, but it may not be exactly what you're thinking I can do."

Emma smiles. "Oh, so you got that one, eh? You're smarter than I gave you credit for," she says.

Then, as if I've passed the test, Emma confides in me. "They told me I was scheduled to die on Friday, but I'm still here."

When Emma is alone, I learn, she hears voices, receives visitors no one else can see, and it terrifies her. "I don't know what to pay attention to."

I tell her I will not let her be killed, that we don't do this, that she shouldn't listen to those voices...But Emma is crying.

When she is calmer I tell her I will return to check on her.

She smiles and thanks me, like a proper old lady remembering her manners.

Then she says, "Take care of yourself, honey. Don't work too hard."

I say I won't.

Emma has one last piece of advice for me.

"And honey?" she murmurs.

"Yes?"

"Just don't be a pussy like I am!"

I rock back on my heels, wide-eyed. Did I hear her right? Did she just use the P word?

Emma grins.

"Don't you worry," I say, wondering if she knows just how badly I need to be reminded of this. "I'll be on the case and Emma, I won't be a pussy!"

Emma chuckles.

A moment later I look out at her from the desk in the nurses' station.

Emma is crying.

Fall Comes to the Cabin

It's fall at the cabin.



I'd been away for almost a month and in that time, the leaves began to turn and fall.



I drove up the lane, holding my breath, looking out at the stream alongside the gravel road and praying the rain had kept things going.





The trees are just beginning to turn. In another 2 weeks it should be truly beautiful.



I reached the cabin first, before Mertis came up to join me. I stepped inside and raced for the potty. I mean, it's an hour and 45 minutes up there...
But the toilet didn't quite flush.

I turned on the tap. Hmmm. Water pressure's down.

I tell myself it's always like this. Okay. Maybe a little slow but things are fine. Really. I unpack, happy to be back in my little utopia.

Then Mertis arrives.

"You know you're out of water?" she asks.

"What?" I look at her like she's nuts. I pretend I don't understand what she's talking about. "No. It's just a little slow."

She walks to the kitchen sink, turns on the tap and as we watch...the water dribbles away to nothing.

"You should turn off the circuit breaker to the pump and the hot water heater." Mertis says this after we stick one of Joe's tepee poles down into the spring box and find only a miserly foot of water left.

I feel as if I'm on a scene in Grey's Anatomy or ER and Dr. Mertis has just turned to me, her face grave and said "Call the time of death, doctor."

It is 6 o'clock on Friday evening, October 19th.

Of course, I have sought second opinions.

I look up spring boxes on the internet. What I read doesn't make me feel better.

A neighbor stopped by and allowed as how this happened one time before. The fire department "loaned" a former owner some water to tide him over until it rained. The neighbor also said that's when the former owner drilled the now-capped well but it was dry or clogged up or something. However, the action of drilling gave the spring box the boost it needed and it revived.

Until now.

"Aww, it's just one of those nasty things," my neighbor says, trying to console me. "It won't break the bank, but it'll take a $5000 chunk out of it."

I think he has a bigger bank than I do.

I walk across the dry crunchy ground and kneel beside the spring box before I leave. I pry the lid away and peer back inside one more time, just in case. But there has been no miracle. The box remains pitifully low. The pump will stay silent.

Global warming has come to the cabin.

Dad's One Year Orbit...

Today marked the one year anniversary of Dad's death. I suppose I've spent a lot of energy thinking about what this day would feel like...an entire year without my best friend and mentor. I've talked with a couple of friends and with The Unnamed Ones about it as well as my brother. We all came up with the same adjective...

Weird.

It feels weird. Not like a year, longer than a year, as if it were yesterday, as if it had been forever ago...but when you get right down to it...it feels weird.

Now, it didn't take Freud or Jung to convince me there are no accidents in life...that many times the things we do "accidentally" are but bubbles bursting forth from our unconscious and rising to the surface, signaling our unresolved issues...

Whatever. I just know that my lunch today was no "accident." It was me, dealing with me.

Originally, I'd planned to spend the day alone, thinking or whatever. But at the last minute, I scheduled myself to go meet with a woman who is hosting a talk I'm supposed to give to a church group a couple of weeks from now.

She originally contacted me after hearing me read some of my essays about nursing home life. She thought the fact that I was both an author and a psychotherapist would interest her women's group. She thinks I'm entertaining and funny...but after hearing me read about Cookie, she thought I'd be good for her church lady group.

That was months ago. And I haven't felt at all funny in ages. In fact, lately all I've really felt is...you guessed it, weird.

Still, you do what you gotta do. You put one foot in front of the other and hope the disconnected part of yourself returns one day. You act "as if" your missing appendage was indeed, still there and functioning.

So I went to lunch. I year and 30 minutes after Dad died, I slid into my seat, ready to hear what these ladies might be interested in hearing from me.

Donna takes a moment to consider how to describe her group and I, in turn, study her. She is a very chic woman in her 60s with just the right blend of funk and Talbots to be noticed without being thought eccentric. The kind of woman you want to follow around because they have the art of arranging things and themselves effortlessly. A class act and a very quick study.

"Well," she says thoughtfully. "They're kind of into that spiritual journey stuff." And then she hastens to add, "But they drink wine."

I smile and nod my understanding. "You know what they used to say," I remind her. "Behind every four Episcopalians there's a fifth! I can say that," I add. "I'm an Episcopalian minister's kid.

"


Donna stares at me through her terribly hip glasses. "Your father died recently, didn't he? About a year ago?"

I nod. "A year ago today," I answer.

She asks what he had and frowns sympathetically when I say Pulmonary Fibrosis.

"That's such an awful disease." She tells me she has lost 3 dear friends this year and then says. "After watching that, I can tell you, wherever they are now is better than where they were before they died."

This is so true. I tell her how lucky I was to have that year with Dad before he died, how much I learned, how much fun we had...because yes, we did have fun.

It was scary, awful, heart-breaking and just a hell of a lot of fun, all rolled up into a big whopping finale to a huge, incredible life.

I tell Donna about my sister trying to sell Dad on her version of Heaven. "You see," my sister told him. "There are special occasion angels and regular everyday angels. The special occasion ones are bigger and they have nicer clothes."

I tell her about Dad's uncertainty that that sort of Heaven really existed. "Maybe we're all part of some sort of collective unconscious," he'd wondered. Either one was okay with him, but in the end it seemed the Special Occasion angels were winning out.

I tell Donna about telling my father I hadn't learned enough from him yet, that I didn't know the meaning of life and his attempt to answer the question. "Always follow the questions instead of the answers," he'd said. "It's the questions people ask that tell you about their interests and worries, not the answers they give. The answers are the dead limbs of the tree. But the questions, those are the new growth. "

"I learned so much from my Dad that last year," I tell Donna. "Now I find myself wondering what this life of ours is all about."

Donna says, "Me too. I think about that a lot, about who will miss me when I'm gone."

I think this is the theme of our 50s and 60s. Who will remember us and how will they do it? Did we even matter at all?

I tell Donna about Dad saying he saw himself continuing on in me and my kids, saw his own father in himself and said it all made sense to him then...we are on a continuum, a common, shared strand that flows from generation to generation.

"I am realizing it's not what we do in our lives that makes us memorable," I say. "It's who we are to the important people in our lives. I don't miss the things my father did," I say. "I miss his unconditional love, his laugh, his wisdom...just the way he was."

Donna says Pavaroti died last week. "And the next day he was forgotten because somebody else died!"

At the time, the question "Who will remember me?" echoed too loudly for me to hear the answer. But now, as I write this, I am thinking maybe it doesn't matter who will remember me, so much as it does that someone remembers me.

Pavarotti had a huge fan base. Well so did Dad. He had me.*






*In the interest of not being killed by my family...My father had plenty of fans who miss and remember him every day... my sister and my brother and my mom and hordes of others.I'm just saying, you don't need to be loved by legions to be remembered.

It Just Don't Get No Better 'N This...

I spent four days up at the cabin- trying to finish the first draft of my newest novel. One afternoon it finally rained. I watched the storm slowly crawl the lane, advancing across my neighbor's fields like the ghost of a Civil War soldier...



Slinging fat drops sideways across the back porch, its mist brushed my cheeks.

Snippets from the Home...

I slip into the dining room of the nursing home last Thursday afternoon, hoping to catch up on some paperwork and walk in on the "reality awareness enhancement" group. My favorite activity leader, a strong woman with a deep committment to her "family" as she calls the residents, is summing up the point of her lecture.

She leans forward, placing the book she's been reading from on her laps, facing the group of elderly patients before her. Mary is one tough cookie. She doesn't take any crap off the residents but manages somehow to baby and cajole them into finding something worth living for in what has become for most of them, a miserable existence.

She doesn't pity. She loves, bullies, rants...and today, she is preaching.

"So you listen to what I'm tellin' you. Ain't nothin' in this world easy. It's work. Life is hard but nothin' worth havin' comes easy."

I survey the crowd, those who are still awake, and spot Sara. She's paying attention but she's frowning. Her hands are twisted together in her lap as she peers over her glasses at Mary. Trouble is brewing. Delicious, lively, spirited trouble...an uprising from within the ranks.

I love uprisings- especially old people uprisings.

Mary hasn't noticed the murmurings of her loyal pack. But there are definate rumblings. They want Bingo, not reminders of how hard life is.

"Think about it," Mary says. "Who were the first people who taught us about living?"

"Our parents?" Someone answers tentatively. I am sure this is just what Mary's looking for, but oh no.

Mary frowns. "No. The first people to teach us anything about surviving in this world was the frontiers. They taught us how to plant crops and hunt. And it was hard. Remember what I told you. Nothin' good comes without that hard, hard work!"

And that is all it takes.

Sara slaps her hands down on either side of her wheelchair. "Yeah, and where did all that hard work get them Indians? Uh-huh! What they got to show for it now, huh? Taught them pioneers everything they knew and look what happened!"

If I had been carrying pom-poms, I would've been up doing the Break-Out cheer. Old People- 1, Nursing Home Staff- Zero.

"Okay, okay," Mary says, nonplussed. "Them frontiers was hard working people too, just like your parents..."

But it was too late. The revolutionaries were on the move..."I told you we should've been playing bingo," one grumbled. "All this talking, talking, talking," another one grumbled. "I'm going to go get me a nap."

And away they rolled.

But they're a forgiving bunch. They'll be right back in that dining room next Thursday at 2:30, and so will I.

Moving On...

We are in the apartment of the Eldest Unnamed One. It is the big, final Move In Day and the time has come to say goodbye. He sits in the swivel armchair he’s spent the morning assembling while I lean against the doorframe beside him.

“You know,” he says. “It’s weird. One minute you live at home and the next you’re in some apartment on your own.”

My heart snaps right in two. I can’t help myself. I reach over and pretend to flick a piece of dust from a lock of his hair. I won’t make this any harder than I know it already is- for both of us. After all, this is the brave boy who finally burst into tears on his fifth birthday after I’d said for the millionth time that day, “Now you’re Mama’s Big Boy.”

“I don’t want to be your Big Boy!” he’d sobbed. I want to be who I am!



I realize now it was my adjustment to make- my baby was no longer a toddler. It was time to let go of that phase and begin the next one. I was the one who had to remind myself of that, over and over again, until I could find some peace with losing my treasured baby to a more independent child- the child who marched up the steps of the Kindergarten bus and never once looked back.

I know now how hard that must have been for him, what inner strength my child uses to make those big transitions seem easy. Funny how we learn so much, often in retrospect, from our precious children.

Lately, more so than ever, I try and think what my own father would do- or did do- when faced with one of these life-altering situations. I summon up memory and try to respond as I imagine he would. This one is easy. We had so many goodbyes, so many times, and always he made the parting easy on me.

Once, after I’d moved 800 miles away to live in the South, I asked him how he stood the long times between our visits because I was so homesick.

“Oh,” he said. “I create my Nancy in my head and even when you’re not here, when I miss you, I just summon her up and there’s “my” Nancy. I store up our times together and play them back and it’s like you’re right here.”

I believed him then. I felt much less guilty about having chosen to run off to the far away south. I had more strength to live my new life.

Every single leave-taking was the same, even his dying. He always smiled but he always walked us out to our cars then stood watching until we were out of sight. The last image we would have in our rearview mirrors was always that of him standing there, smiling and waving goodbye.

Later, when the boys were teenagers and I knew how much our visits meant, I would drive around the bend in the road, stop and cry because it was always so hard to leave him.

He would always be sure, at some point in our visits to tell me how proud he was of us, how great it was to watch us becoming the people we were. Dad packed us full of confidence and unconditional love- the sent us back out into our worlds without one string attached.

And we always came back home.

“It’s weird. One minute you live at home and the next you’re in some apartment on your own,” he said.

“I know,” I answered. “It’s gotta feel a little strange but cool, huh? I mean, your first apartment. College. Wow! I am so proud of you. You guys are gonna be fine.”

“I know.”

“Besides,” I can’t help but add. “We’re only an hour away and you know how us moms are, always looking to feed you or maybe even pop in now and then, just to maybe bring you a casserole or something. It’s not like you can get rid of us so easily.”

The Wench Beloved, having just been through all of this with her mom, studies the screen of her laptop with fierce intensity, pretending not to be a part of this conversation but I know her by now. I see the quick blink of her eyes and feel the emotion that sits just on the edge of spilling over.



I stand up; look at the Youngest Unnamed One and Mertis and say, “Well, we’d better get on the road and let these two get settled in.”

“I’ll walk you out,” the Eldest said. There is so much of his grandfather in this child. I love him so very much.

We walk out to the parking lot and he watches us from the top of the fire escape. I remember suddenly all the times he’d ride off to school with his father and I would come running out at the last minute in my bunny slippers and bathrobe, my hair sticking out at all angles and cry, “Bye-bye, Honeycakes!”

“Wait!” I instruct. “Don’t move! I need a picture!” A picture just like every other first day of school, a picture to remember the passing of yet another year. A picture that doesn’t need to be taken because the memories are etched forever in my heart.