Ode to Facebook

I like to believe that
I will save the world from
certain destruction if
I immediately repost this
 - illuminating comparison of the similarities between two presidential assassinations,
 - thinly-veiled criticism of the current administration's platform disguised as an economics professor
   failing his entire class
 - little-known fact about ATMs that can help my friends thwart the next gun-toting thief to accost them
 - potentially life-changing article about how baby carrots are REALLY made.
Alas, but for snopes, I could truly make a difference.

I want to change the world.
And if I could cause five years of good luck
to rain down on the heads of thirty of my
closest friends, just by sharing with them
the most adorable picture of
 - a kitten snuggling up to a pig
 - a field full of organic, non-GMO, cage-free wildflowers (no animals were harmed in the taking of this
   photograph) with an inspiring quote from someone unknown but obviously wise and eloquent person
 - piles of money,
I would share in less time than it takes my heart to beat.

But I can't give what isn't mine.

All I have are poetry, stories, and (some would say) useless thoughts.
They're not airbrushed or photoshopped or perfect.
They're not anti-bacterial or peer-reviewed or politically correct.
Sometimes they're not even polite.

But they're mine, and they're true, and they're all I have to give.
And in some way, I hope they help.

Madame President

Mira stood in the hallway outside her father’s room and looked around.  She had passed a couple of nurses, but the floor was otherwise deserted.  The scene was utterly different from the last time, when it had been her mother dying in the next room.

That time, the hallways had been crammed with people -- media correspondents, government officials, aides, consultants -- all waiting for something to happen.  She and her father had barricaded themselves in the room, but it was still unnerving to have to face the whole world every time they wanted a cup of coffee.

And now? A couple of junior reporters had come by earlier, but they only stayed long enough to drop off their cards.  After all, her mother had been the first female president.  She had brought up the entire nation, while the only person her husband had brought up was Mira.

But Mira was not a stranger to Bethesda Naval Hospital.  Her first visit had happened just after the assassination attempt, sometime during the middle of her mother's first term.  And it was the only time she remembered her father losing his temper.  She had arrived just in time to hear him yelling.

“She’s my wife,” he’d shouted, his hands clenching into tight fists.

“Yes, sir,” someone said, “but she’s also the President.”

“It’s my job to protect her.  Don’t you get it?”

Someone must have, for shortly thereafter, her father had filed for a concealed weapons permit and took a few special courses with the secret service.  It had taken Mira a lifetime to understand the full import of that conversation, and, to tell the truth, she was still a little angry -- but not at him.  Never at him. 

While her mother served in Congress, Mira's father had taken her to her first day of kindergarten.  He had helped her shop for school clothes and decorated her locker while her mother campaigned.  When Mira started her period, he raided the cupboard under the bathroom sink and brought one of everything.  Her mother didn’t find out for a week.

And then the analysts had said, “The time is ripe for the first female president in America.”  So she campaigned for months, while Mira and her father smiled and waved.  When the time came, they moved into the white house.  Eight years later, they moved out.  By then it was too late.  Mira was already grown up.

But now her father lay dying on the other side of the door, and neither of them could save the other from the truth.  

Mira pushed opened the door and walked into the room.    

“Bethany?”  He was finally awake.

“No, Dad.  It’s Mira.”

“Turtle.”  His first name for her.  Mira had turned out thick-skinned and introverted.  “It’s coming,” he said.

“I know.  Are you afraid?”

“Only a little.”

Mira sat down and took his hand in both of hers.

“I love you.”

“Me too, Dad.”

He tried to laugh, but he was too weak.  “I loved your mother, too.  Almost more than I love you.”

With his dying breaths, her father was trying to tell her what she’d known all along -- the reason he had sacrificed everything: he had loved her mother.

Only, he wasn’t finished.  He squeezed her hand, and she leaned in.

“I loved her,” he said again, his voice strained with the effort of talking, “but I never voted for her.  Not even once.  You should know that.”

Mira stared at him, and he smiled with his eyes.  Of course not, she thought.  Of course he didn’t.  

He was gone within the hour. 

A little bit of literature in your news feed

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook; I suspect most people do.  On the one hand, I love keeping up with friends who would, in a non-Facebook world, get lost in the distance and time separating us.  On the other hand, my news feed is often so clogged with reports of the games my friends play, political rants, pseudo-inspirational forwards, and pictures of dogs and cats looking cute that I log out of it before I can read the stuff I like to hear about.

I think the technological revolution has had the unexpected byproduct of an increase in literacy.  We read much more than we ever did in the past, partly because the written word is that much more accessible than it ever was.  The down side to this, as I see it, is what we read -- Charlotte Mason called it twaddle.  You know what I'm talking about.  But it doesn't have to be this way, and I've been thinking of a better way...

People post photos on Facebook all the time.  I have friends who are blessed in the visual arts.  They post photos of their paintings and drawings (and photos, of course).  Some of my friends post songs they like for other people to listen to, or youtube videos of great musicians playing wonderful music.  Lots of my friends forward inspirational thoughts or famous quotes they like and agree with.  But, at least in my news feed, there is a shocking absence of the literary arts.  And I've decided to try and remedy that.

I'm not a photographer or a painter.  I am a musician, but I don't really have the time or inclination to record musician and share it on Facebook.  I hope someday.  What I really am is a writer.  I craft poetry and prose.  Some of it is good; some not so much.  Either way, I'm practicing my art, keeping it alive as well as I can, amid the chaos of four children and a mostly-absent husband.

So I am proposing the following: I am going to write something literary every day.  It might be a poem. It might be a very short story.  It won't be a cute aphorism or a diatribe against the evils of sugar, GMOs, the current political debates, the rise of autism, or anything else serious and concerning.  It'll be fiction in all its delightful, instructional glory.  It won't be short enough for a tweet (because I don't), nor will it be long enough for a blog (because nobody else does anymore).  It will be perfect for a Facebook post, though.

If you want to receive a bit of literature (high or low remains to be seen) in your news feed every day (or as often as I can), friend my author page, linked somewhere on this blog (as soon as I figure out how to add it).  Tell your friends.  Feel free to forward anything you like or repost it.  It's not much, but it's what I have to give to the world, so if you want it, it's yours for the taking.  If not, I understand.  Some people just really like pictures of dogs with funny expressions on their faces and cute captions.  That's cool, too.  I'm just saying...

On Running

My dear friend, Fiona Ostler, recently posted a question on Facebook asking friends what helps them find peace and balance in their lives.  Up until the last year of my life, I would not have answered, "running."  I always thought runners were a little crazy.  Running was boring and hard and I never enjoyed it.  I don't know what changed.  All of the planets must have aligned perfectly at the exact moment to tip me into this new world, but, because I am me, I have to write about it.

Running helps me find peace and balance because it is boring.  And I don't get enough of that kind of simplicity in my life very often.  So here's a list of reasons I run:

1) It's me time.  I don't take the kids running with me.  I have a double jogging stroller, but I rarely use it to train, except in the most dire of circumstances.  When I run, nobody needs anything from me, and I love that.  It's rare and precious and not to be discounted.

2) I get to take a break from thinking about things too much.  Once I get my body in motion, my legs keep up the running on their own.  For some reason, that continuous movement settles my brain and quiets that voice in my head that is, otherwise, almost constantly churning thoughts.  Funny, though, how much more I sense when I'm running.  I hear insects, birds, wind, traffic, leaves rustling, water flowing, sirens, people talking.  I feel the pavement or dirt beneath my feet, the sun on my back, the wind on my face.  I smell the most delicious flowers, fresh-cut grass, car exhaust, dust, but only when I'm running.  I am part of the outside world almost without being sentient, and I love losing myself in it.

3) I need the daily sense of accomplishment when I finish the run.  It's not just an endorphin rush, although it is that.  I feel like I've done something worth doing.  I've used my time well.

4) Sometimes it hurts and it's hard.  I plan a run that's too far or I get tired halfway through.  Sometimes my clothes chaff and I have to pee and I can't swallow because my throat is so dry from running.  I still get side aches occasionally, although my friend, Kristy, told me they would go away if I kept at it, and she was right 99% of the time.  Sometimes it's too hot or too cold, the wind stings my face and makes my eyes tear up and my nose run.  Sometimes I use up all my energy on the way down and then I really struggle to get back up the hill.  But just because something is hard doesn't mean it isn't worth doing.  Running is a good reminder that the good things in life require a lot of sweat and tears.  Well, I sweat a lot.  And I cry some, too.  And all of that brings me peace.

Baby Steps

       She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door.  At the threshold, she began to worry.  The knob felt heavy in her hand.  She couldn’t remember it being so difficult to turn.  Only by gathering all her courage could she twist it just enough that it popped open.
       The mechanism of the door-hinge surprised her.  Who could have guessed it would open so willingly?  She dropped the handle, and the door swung slowly inward, eased by a gentle wind coming down off the mountain and pushing its way past her into the house.  Some papers on the piano rustled, and one sheet fluttered onto the floor.
       She froze at the sensation of wind on her face.  It was a timid wind -- just strong enough to tease the flyaway strands of her hair into brushing across her forehead and cheeks.  It smelled faintly of rain.
       The first step was like walking through water, chest-high, the current running against her.  At any moment, she expected her feet to slip out from under her; then the wind would carry her away.  But the current ebbed as she took another step, and by the time she was out the door and standing on the edge of the front porch, she wasn’t in the river at all.
       She was, in fact, out of the house for the first time in twenty years.  The sun shone down on her white arms and the smooth skin of her neck above her shirt-collar.  She felt she had never known a warm spring sun on her bare skin, or if she had, it must have been someone else in some other lifetime.
       Nobody goes inside with the idea of never going back out.  But one bad day had led to the next until it was far easier to just stay home.  Soon she couldn’t fathom how other people managed the gargantuan tasks of grocery shopping or visiting the laudromat, when, for her, greeting a neighbor required such Herculean efforts.  It was better to avoid them all -- until today.
       She had picked up a thin, worn paperback lying dusty on her bookshelf for ages.  As she opened the front cover, a folded piece of paper slipped out.  It was a letter from her mother, written to her father while he was in the war.  She would have been six, maybe seven.
       “I wish you could see our little Grace,” her mother wrote.  “She is always moving -- from the garden to the tree to the sandbox to the porch.  She never wants to come inside!  I have the hardest time convincing her to eat dinner, take a bath, go to bed.  She is insatiably curious.”
       Did she know that girl? And if she did, then who was this fifty-year-old woman, creeping around the house all day, startled by her own shadow or the sound of footsteps coming up the walk?
       So, in a momentary fit of bravery, Grace had stepped outside her home after two decades of reclusion.  She’d pushed past the current of fear wrapping the house like wood siding, ignored the scorching sun on her cheeks and the wind tugging at her hair and clothes.  But with each step she took, her feet grew heavier and her ears began to ring.
       She made it as far as the mailbox before turning around and scurrying back inside.  And for a year and a day afterwards, she could never pass by a window but the ghost of a warm, spring sun rose up to meet her.

More Reversible Poems

So at this very moment, Janet Reid is hosting a writing contest on her blog using a suggestion I sent her for a reversible poem (plus an example of a poem I wrote). You can check out the contest here for a limited time only. However, I thought it might be fun to read some of the other reversible poems I wrote, so here are a few more:

Shipwreck

LIVE:
She wanted to
send a message to the world.
She bottled it all up.
She took a paper and,
on its side,
listed:
the boat,
the house,
the kids.
She just wanted a vacation from
the dull life.
She had escaped,
that time she came
over,
worked
the vessel so.
She had not thought.

She had not thought
the vessel so
worked
over
that time she came.
She had escaped
the dull life.
She just wanted a vacation from
the kids,
the house.
The boat
listed
on its side.
She took a paper and
she bottled it all up.
Send a message to the world.
She wanted to
live.


Harvest Time

For these young ones,
the world is not long --
a midsummer evening.
The rain falls on and on,
flowers blooming
as violent as
the deep, blood-red river,
as heavy as
the fragments of a soul.
In swift strokes,
the reaper cuts them down.

The reaper cuts them down
in swift strokes,
the fragments of a soul,
as heavy as
the deep, blood-red river,
as violent as
flowers blooming.
The rain falls on. And on
a midsummer evening,
the world is not long
for these young ones.

National Talk Like a Pirate Day?

DISCLAIMERS: Sorry about the skipping lines. I wish I could figure out a good way to indent on my blog, but so far, no luck. Also, I am not making fun of people with Turret's Syndrome. Aquatic Turret's doesn't even exist.



Isaac’s vacation ended the moment his tires crossed the city limits. He hadn’t even breached the suburbs when his cell phone rang.

“I’m fifteen minutes away,” he answered, not bothering to check the caller ID.

“I need you here in five,” Strickland said, “because that’s when I’m leaving.”

Isaac sighed and hung up the phone. His boss’s vacations almost always coincided with homicide investigations. Isaac suspected he had a weak constitution.

Ten minutes later, he walked into the office. The chief was talking to Isaac’s partner, but it was clearly not going well.

“I don’t care how you do it,” Strickland said, shutting his briefcase with a loud click, “just get him to talk.”

Steven shrugged. “That’s not the hard part, sir. The hard part’s getting him to make sense.”

“What? Is he an idiot?”

Steven shook his head.

“Crazy?”

No.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“It’s complicated,” Steven explained. “He’s got this obsession with--”

“With what?” Strickland was not generally patient, especially when he was trying to leave town.

“With the sea, sir,” Steven said. “Actually, with everything nautical.”

“What the heck?” Isaac blurted out.

Strickland threw up his hands. “Go on,” he said to Isaac, “have a crack at him. I’m out of town starting now, so make sure you have this report finished and on my desk by Monday.”

“Yes, sir.”

Strickland walked out the door without looking back, and Isaac turned to his partner.

“What’s with him?” he asked.

“Who? Strickland?”

“No, the witness.”

“He’s got SIATS,” Steven explained.

“What?”

“Stress-induced aquatic turrets syndrome.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“I wish I was.” Steven sighed. “It’s got to be the only reason he’s still alive. The killer must have known there was no way this guy could squeal.”

Isaac strode over to the interrogation room and opened the door. A thin, slightly balding man wearing blue jeans and a polo sat on the chair. He looked up when Isaac entered.

“Good morning,” Isaac said. “I’m Detective Kramer. How are you?”

“Fine,” the man said.

“I’m just going to ask you a few questions, alright?”

“Sure.”

“First, for the record, what is your full name?”

“Quincy Gerald.”

“And where do you work, Quincy?”

“At the library.”

“Were you working at the library last Friday night?”

“Yes, I was.” Quincy shifted in his chair, but his expression remained undisturbed.

“And did you see or hear anything unusual that night?”

“Spongy, pants-fouling bilge rat!” Quincy yelled, his face growing red and bits of spittle flocking at the corners of his mouth.

“I beg your pardon?” Isaac asked.

“Up the yardarm, you rogue!”

“I see. Well, have you ever seen this woman?” He slid a picture of the victim across the table toward Quincy.

“Walk the plank!”

He decided to try a different tactic. “Have you ever met me before?” he asked.

“Nope.” Quincy said, his face a picture of tranquility once more.

Steven opened the door and stuck his head in. “Isaac?” he asked.

Isaac nodded in Steven’s direction. “What about him?” he asked Quincy.

“Just today,” Quincy answered.

“Chief Strickland wanted--” Steven began, but Quincy interrupted.

“Scurvy cur!”

Isaac twisted around to stare at Quincy for a moment, then turned back to his partner.

Steven tried again. “Chief Strickland--”

“Your mother was a mayfly and your father smelled of whale blubber!”

“Just gimme a couple a minutes.”

Steven backed out of the room and shut the door. Isaac faced Quincy again.

“Chief?” Isaac said softly.

“Landlubber!”

“Strickland?”

“Dogfish!”

“Murderer?”

“Villain!”

Isaac closed his eyes. He knew, without ever taking the case to trial, his ship was sunk.