Jewels In The Dust

I saw a spider | Patresa Rollinger | Blog Post | Red Room

2011-10-24T21:30:00.000-07:00

It's late October and my pagan roots are showing. Here's a fun post you can find on my Red Room blog:

I saw a spider | Patresa Rollinger | Blog Post | Red Room

Delia's Book

2010-04-12T22:32:00.000-07:00

Delia's Book: Guidance for Cancer Healing by Catherine Anne Held

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Anyone facing cancer, or any life threatening illness, will benefit from this clear, concise, tenderly written book. Delia was a medical doctor, wife, mother and teacher with a six year old son when she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and given two years to live. She lived for twelve more years, long enough to see her son graduate from high school. Written by her close friend and colleague, Dr. Catherine Held, Delia's story is woven through a narrative that offers readers insight into what allowed Delia to survive beyond all expectations. It offers lessons learned from Delia about living with cancer and terminal illness. Most of all it offers practical tips and techniques that can help increase our own capacity for self-healing and navigating the medical system.

View all my reviews >>

No Plot, No Problem

2009-08-28T15:14:00.000-07:00

Book Review: No Plot, No Problem by Chris Baty (2004)

This book has a high octane pace that laces solid writing advice with engaging humor and wit. It explains his NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) program and the benefits of writing at a white hot pace without regard for quality, just quantity. Sounds just whacky enough to read.

I met him recently at a local writer's group. He's a strong showman, very entertaining. You will not be bored. Plus there is merit to his program. It may not be for everyone but anything that purports to get that inner critic out of the way is definitely worth exploring.

View all my reviews >>

This I Promise

2009-08-15T23:18:00.000-07:00

What comes to your mind when you hear the words 'sacred prostitute'? How would you describe the qualities of the divine feminine? These qualities reside in your body. Where are they and how do you experience them? Or not? Do they whisper to you when you least expect it? Do you listen or turn away?

These and other questions have been posed to me as I participate in a series of seminars and workshops on the divine feminine with writing and creativity coach Emily Hanlon.
(www.thefictionwritersjourney.com) For the last year or so we have met a couple of times a month with a group of courageous insightful women via conference call. It has not been easy. At times it is all I can do to show up. Once I even refused to announce myself on the call. I lurked instead, letting others speak, risk, reveal, and heal. Last week I took a leap and wrote the following piece during the workshop. It has proven to be most empowering for me and I share it with the intention that it will find its way to those who may benefit in some way from reading it. Male or female we must reclaim our sacred feminine parts. The world needs our energy. I believe our survival depends on it.

Workshop writing:

My legs clamp tightly together in fear
seeking to shelter the vulnerable, shameful,
and yes, sacred part of me.
Gently, very gently, I breathe into
those tight places. I let them begin
to relax.
I do not force them. They have been forced
too many times. They will open
of their own accord or they will not open
at all.
This I promise.
This I promise.

You will never again be forced to open beyond
your capacity to do so.
Your openess will be beautiful -
like a flowering lotus that floats on a still pond -
roots sunk deep in the dark rich mud far below.

A Slant of Amber Light

2009-08-15T22:55:00.000-07:00

I felt it yesterday
in the cut of the ocean breeze
on my face
a shade cooler than expected.
I saw it in a slant of amber light
as I crossed a threshold from house to garden,
and yet again in a swirl of dying leaves
blown by an offshore wind.
'Hello," I said. "You have come so soon."
July has only just left and here
Autumn has arrived.

Wednesday Morning Musings

2009-03-12T21:16:00.000-07:00

I've always felt like a fish out of water, flopping around in unfamiliar territory trying to find my way back to what I knew and what was familiar. I guess that's the price of being a wanderer. You get hooked on something - a shiny object or tasty morsel of some sort - and the next thing you know you've been yanked out of the known and into the unknown. That's the time to grow feet and lungs. Develop new ways to BE in a new environment. It's called adaptation. Adapt or die. Well, maybe not that drastic but true enough in the end.

I've always felt like a fly on the wall of life: watching from a distance. It feels safe there on the wall, unless someone notices me and comes at me with a fly swatter. I have definite issues with visibility!

Once I dressed the part of the fly on the wall by donning black tights and a leotard and tying a pair of wings on my back as an assignment for a college class designed to teach students to move through fear. It turned out to be a life altering experience. It was the mid-eighties and I was considering a mid-life career change which entailed going back to college after many years and I was scared. It seemed an appropriate class to take.

Besides my fly on the wall persona I met my inner wolf. Fierce and protective, she came out the day the instructor forgot my name. It was an understandably human mistake but there were only eight women in the class and I had an unusual name. It jangled me for some reason. I was polite. She was apologetic. We joked and laughed. But inside me there was a different reality going on. I had the distinct feeling of being thrown against the wall. As I hit then slid down the wall to the floor I changed into a huge wolf and went for her throat! That wolf was no Patsy, the name I had been known by all my life. She frightened me at first but I have grown to love her. It took another fifteen years to find a more suitable name for myself.

I learned something else in that class but I have never shared it. Are you intrigued? Have I got your attention? I'm using humor to cover my nervousness. Can you tell? It's about the Sacred Prostitute archtype. I'm studying it again now, nearly 25 years later. It's safer now but still feels dangerous. I couldn't understand it then. I didn't know what to make of what I learned then and I was not at all comfortable with it. Even now it makes me nervous but I feel I must speak.

Here's what happened. The instructor, a clinical psychologist, asked us to cover our eyes so we couldn't see each other and then raise our hand if we had ever fantasized about being a prostitute, not a sacred prostitue, just a prostitute. My shy little hand shot up in the air before I could stop it. I was horrified! I was approaching my fortieth birthday, my seventeen year old marriage was falling apart and I had two budding teenagers at home. I had been raised strictly Catholic. My husband was well enough known in our small community that I was uncomfortable. What was I thinking? I was grateful we had covered our eyes. I hoped no one peeked.

That experience is scorched into my memory though I never really understood it. I was so shocked and embarrassed I don't remember any of the discussion afterward and was glad when we moved on to other things.

Now as new discussions trigger old memories I examine them with fresh eyes, eyes which have seen the damage done to the bodies and psyches of women by ages of patriarchal culture, myself included. I am remembering sexual fantasies I had as a young girl before I was told they were wrong and I would go straight to hell if I let them continue. I figured I was already lost but I tried really hard to turn those fantasies off. I'm a strong determined person who is dedicated to spiritual growth. I did an expertly crafted job of dismantling my sexuality and all that goes with it to shut myself down. It can be done.

I've put two therapists children through college recapturing all the different parts of myself I whacked off through the years thinking it would make me a better person in God's eyes. It turns out it was just some person's warped version of what God's eyes wanted to see.

Life got better for me when I had a talk with God, an angry talk in which I told him (I still thought God as a him. I don't any longer. I refuse to capitalize a limiting pronoun I don't feel even applies to such a being as God but I still feel the scratch of the grain against which I rub.) I would only communicate with him by direct line, no middlemen. That meant no priests. None whatsoever.

Life is good.

Three Pieces of Advice

2008-02-07T15:21:00.000-08:00

I have been tagged by my good-friend-the-outstanding-writer Deirdre. We’ve taken turns nudging each other to write for many years. The blog stuff is new to me but I’m learning.

So the task at hand is to offer three pieces of advice. Hm-m, I’m going to assume that means “writer-ly advice”. Where to start? I once had a post-it pad that said “Wherever you are is a good place to start.” Where am I?

#1: “DON’T GET IT RIGHT. GET IT WRITTEN.” James Thurber

This has been my mantra for the last few weeks. It has allowed me to plough through a tirade of drivel from my inner critic who has become so crafty she sometimes masquerades as an editor. I had to muffle her so I stuffed her into the bottom of a laundry hamper. She’s on her third strike. I’ve given her notice: any more lip and she’s history.

#2: BE FEARLESS

This is a trait I find admirable in my favorite writers. I’m working on it for myself. It’s a slow go. For me it means going where I don’t want to go.

I am working with a character, a young girl named Tess, who loses nearly everything she knows and loves. How did this happen? Well, when she told me, I balked. No, no, no we’re not going there. I wrote it differently. The story got stuck. A writing coach got me back on track by figuratively taking my cold clammy hand and walking my shivering self back to the place where I ran away. Now the story is unfolding. It’s not pretty but it’s a better story. The interesting thing is I suspect both versions, hers and mine, are going to come together and may work really well. If so, Tess and I will be giving each other high fives!

#3: WRITE WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW; EMBRACE THE ADVENTURE (TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE )

Ooh, this one is delicious. It took me by surprise yet made SO much sense when I heard it. Why didn’t I think of it myself?

Quite some time ago I was following Tess again when she led me to a magic cave. I said to myself, “I don’t write fantasy. I don’t even read fantasy. I can’t do this.” So I set the piece aside.

A series of synchronistic events soon followed. Through a mix-up with a book club I accidentally (yeah, right.) received a copy of the classic book, How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card. If I had immediately put it back into the cardboard box, out of sight, ready to be returned, my life would have gone on just as it was. But there was no hurry to send it back so, with a yawn and a Ho Hum, I toddled off to a comfy chair by the window and OPENED THE BOOK. You, dear reader, might have known better. I certainly should have but I was a bit thick in those days. I momentarily forgot that books are powerful things that can change your life if you’re not careful.

I began writing fiction (she says with her very logical mind) to massage the boundaries of my imagination. Besides, my pen kept wandering across the pages with a mind of its own. When I OPENED THE BOOK and began to realize that fantasy writers have to have exceptionally elastic imaginations, I thought I’d better pay attention.

A short time later, while helping a friend’s foster child with her reading deficit, I was introduced to the delightful Harry Potter. When I went ape over Harry my adult daughter shared with me her childhood collection of fantasy books, which I had pooh-poohed at the time. We read and re-read her favorite authors and I discovered a new part of her that led to some much longed for mother-daughter bonding.

I came to realize that my muse has other plans for Tess and me. Tess has her cave back (I never really took it away) and, though I don’t know where to go from here, she has agreed to take my hand and lead me along on her journey. This agreement has brought me a vastly heightened sense of adventure and I look forward to each new unfolding of her story.

WHEN I WAS TEN...

2008-02-03T17:05:00.000-08:00

WHEN I WAS TEN…

I began my first diary.
I accidentally knocked my two front teeth out in a swimming pool.
I wanted to run away from home.

I played four-square at school with my new best friends.
I swam in my friend’s swimming pool in the summer. (That’s where I knocked my teeth out.)
I learned about fractions in math.

I had old Mrs. Brown for a teacher.
I lived in a Spanish style house ten blocks from the Pacific Ocean.
I learned to groom poodles for show and was paid fifty cents a dog by our neighbors across the street who had four show poodles.

I tried not to stare at the ugly cauliflower ears on the man next door who used to be a professional boxer.
I was an avid Mickey Mouse Club fan and watched the show every day on our black and white television that sat in the corner next to the fireplace where I saw my first potato bug. YUK!
I had my second Christmas without snow.

I took a picture, with my new Brownie camera, of my Dad sunbathing in the eighty degree heat on Christmas day in southern California.
I laughed at my Grandad, who was visiting from Washington where it was always cold and snowy at Christmas, as he insisted on wearing his long underwear “because it’s December”.
I joined the Girl Scouts.

I won a dance contest in my Girl Scout troop dancing to the song Rockin’ Robin.
I started growing boobies.
I thought Elvis Presley was disgusting.
My favorite mouseketeer was Annette on the Mickey Mouse Club.

I dreamed of taking ballet lessons like my friend Abigail.
I played with our blue parakeet , Honey Bunch, who bit me and never learned to talk.
I kept a little tapestry suitcase tucked under my bed, packed and ready to go in case of emergency.

AN AUSPICIOUS WISH FOR ALL

2008-01-29T13:39:00.000-08:00

Most mornings I dread opening the newspaper. Often I don't open it at all. For me it does not contain news. I feel that I could read the entire issue from cover to cover and not learn anything really new. People are still fighting and killing and dying in a the same myriad of ways. Businesses are growing or declining depending on any number of circumstances. This year, at this time, political candidates are jostling for leadership roles so there are the usual promises that may or may not be fulfilled. Call me jaded. Or skeptical. I am, after all, a six on the Enneagram so it is my nature to be skeptical.

Not wanting to dwell in the cycle of suffering called 'news', I ponder what I am doing to make things different. Today, during my morning meditation, I recited a prayer. I recite this prayer daily but today it had special significance to me so I want to share it. I like it because it gives me a positive vision to hold. Holding this vision calms, invigorates, and emboldens my spirit. From that viewpoint, whatever I do will be better than it would be without it. That is a good thing.

AUSPICIOUS WISH

At this very moment, for the peoples and the nations of the earth,

may not even the names disease, famine, war, and suffering be heard.

Rather may their moral conduct, merit, wealth, and prosperity increase

and may supreme good fortune and well-being always arise for them.

Written by his Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche

HIBERNATION. M-M-M-M, GOOD.

2008-01-28T11:36:00.000-08:00

It's near the end of January and I'm deep in hibernation which is exactly where I want to be. I no longer dread the dreary dull days of winter. I savor the " nothing to do" moments like rich dark chocolate. On these days when the darkness leaves late and arrives early, I breathe more deeply as I log many hours in front of our woodstove, wrapped in a blanket, scribbling in a notebook. It seems natural to take stock of the present by reflecting the past and pondering the future.

WHERE I'VE BEEN: On this day in 1986 the space shuttle Challenger blew up. On this day, also in 1986, my marriage blew up when my husband of 18 years called from work to tell me he was in love with another woman. He quickly added that he was still very much in love with me. That was helpful, but confusing. Sigh. What to do?

Well, the other woman had to go, and she did. We sought the advice of a marriage counselor to sort out our differences and restructure a new relationship that nurtures and nourishes both of us in ways we could never do before. Yes, it was a lot of hard work and required a strong committment to our growth both as individuals and as a couple. But we did it. It can be done.

WHERE I AM: This year we will celebrate forty years together. We're starting to plan how we want to mark this event.

For our thirtieth anniversary we went on a silent Buddhist retreat for an entire week. We stayed in separate dorms (as did everyone, it was that kind of retreat) our only contact being visual (which was discouraged so that we could cultivate that precious space of observing to our own crazy mind) and the experience of sitting next to each other during meditation sessions. We discovered a soft cloud of intimacy we had never before experienced. The clarity of mind gained by the slowing down and quieting of our bodies gave us insights that carry us forward even now.

This year we will attend three days of teaching by a Tibetan Buddhist monk in a remote mountain retreat center where we offer many hours of volunteer work. It will not be in silence. We will most likely work our butts off. But we hope to come away with some deeper understanding of what it takes to build a more peaceful world.

Don't worry, we will tack on a few days of play time after the event. Maybe find a secluded B&B on the north coast, hike, watch waves come and go as hawks soar and the wind carresses the summer grass.

WHERE TO FROM HERE: This is the year I am coming out as a writer. I am writing a novel. It scares me to say that. Scares me A LOT. I'm relatively new to fiction. (AH, but Patresa, you must not forget that you wrote a short story when you were sixteen. It was good enough to be published in the school newspaper. Remember? SHIT, how could I forget. I was so shocked and.... horrified.... that I ran home and hid in my room where my friends couldn't find me. I hid out all through winter break hoping they would forget about it by the time we went back to school in January. They did. I didn't even show my parents. I promised myself I would never take another writing class. I tucked my story in the bottom of a drawer, locked my inner writer away deep inside and told her not to freak me out anymore. But I have never forgotten the feeling of having a story flow down my arm and take off on a life of its own. It was a defining moment I could not deal with at the time. I hope I am ready now.)

Well, that was my muse butting in. I mean that playfully. Really!

I've no idea how to punctuate all that so I'm just going to leave it as is.

Okay, I've managed another post. I'm going to get the hang of this eventually. OH, the picture of the girl on the horse.... that is a favorite picture of mine. I keep it on the wall over my desk where it can speak to my heart. I decided long ago that it would be the first picture to go on my blog but only now have managed to figure out how to get it there.

ENJOY!

Apples in Autumn

2007-10-02T22:33:00.000-07:00

Seated with five other writers around a dining table, I sip my cup of tea and listen as someone reads a poem titled Ripeness by Jane Hirschfield. It is the first of October and our senses are filled with the crisp fall air, the colors of leaves turning, and the smells of harvest perfuming the air. Then we write. I set my cup down carefully, pick up my favorite pen with its cushy grip and push aside the habit of wondering what the heck I will write. I let the pen have its way.

What emerged was the following sketch of a grandfather with his grandchildren. The first seven words belong to Jane Hirschfield. The rest are mine.

APPLES IN AUTUMN

Ripeness is what falls away with ease like the peel of an apple falling in one continuous spiral from the hands of my grandfather. He took pride in his ability to carve a continuous peel and my brother and I watched him closely when he began. He would slide the knife slowly, deliberately, and then suddenly he would jerk and say “Oops!” He’d freeze, purse his lips, and take stock of the situation. We held our breath thinking it had broken.

With the merest hint of a smile in his eyes he would snap a look at us as we stared open mouthed, intent on the outcome. Then he’d burst out in that gravelly laugh that came from too many years of chewing tobacco - or was it from breathing the prairie dust during long summers of bailing hay. No matter. What mattered now was the apple peel. He started the ring again, tongue tucked between his lips in concentration.

That’s how I remember him even today. Eyes focused on the apple, hands deftly carving their sculpture, tongue tucked between his teeth as my brother and I watch for the peel to fall to the floor like a wriggly red snake.

Good Journey, Little Friend

2007-09-25T11:23:00.000-07:00

A quote that are speaks to me today:

"Be still when you have nothing to say, [but] when genuine passion moves you, say what you've got to say, and say it hot." D. H. Lawrence

As one who has been criticized all her life for being too quiet, I find the first part of this quote liberating. I suppose there are those who have experienced my more vocal moments and wish I would shut up. The more patient ones among them will understand that I am still learning to express this thing called passion. My efforts are sometimes clumsy and sometimes awesome. When they are clumsy, I want to quit; when they are awesome, I want to quit. How crazy is that?
Writing has proved to be no different than speaking.

New topic:

This past weekend I had the amazing experience of sitting with my adult daughter through the long days and hours as we watched her beloved cat, Alister (aka Fuzz Butt, Fuzzy Britches and fuzzles), fade from this life. I will not tell you that he "fought to the end" as so many obits say. He did not struggle. He did not fight. When he reached a limit he settled into it as if to say Oh, guess I can't do that anymore so I'll sit here. When he could no longer walk more that a few wobbly steps, he sat down and rested until he could move again. No fuss. We could learn from this.

At times he was restless but not very often and not very long. In general, though he looked as though he felt like shit, he seemed at peace. That was our goal: to effect a peaceful natural death. We succeeded.

He slipped out of his body and out the door just minutes after my daughter left to take a walk and get some fresh air. I watched as he tried to get up one last time. I helped him to stand but he couldn't. His mind wanted to stand, the legs just couldn't go there. I could feel the realization dawn on him. I know that sounds corny. But he tried to put his little legs down and they wouldn't go. So he simply relaxed in my hands as I lay him gently down. He didn't try to move again.

I applied some holy water to his crown chakra and stroked him as he settled. I tucked his paws into a comfortable position as I sang a Tibetan mantra to soothe both of us. OM TARE TAM SO HA. I continued singing. OM TARE TAM SO HA. I've been told that the sound of mantra as one is dying is a very good thing. OM TARE TAM SO HA. Hearing is the last sense we lose and the mantra helps hold the consciousness steady on its path to the next rebirth. I hope it works. OM TARE TAM SO HA. It's the best I can do. OM TARE TAM SO HA. If you're not into the belief in reincarnation the sound is still beautiful and immensely soothing. I know this from years of experience. OM TARE TAM SO HA.

I heard a little noise. Did he cough? And then another. And that was it. He did not draw another breath. OM TARE TAM SO HA. As the stillness settled over him, I knew he had gone to meet his "mommy". His old bag of bones couldn't go so he left them behind.
OM TARE TAM SO HA.

Good journey, little friend. We'll meet again.

Our Children Are Killing Each Other

2007-09-03T15:54:00.000-07:00

Not so very long ago I learned that there were at least two armies of children during the Crusades. These children led by children marched hundreds of miles through foreign territories to kill for a cause they believed in. If I remember correctly, one of the armies saw battle and what was left of them returned home as heroes. The other army was thwarted in their travels, returned home with their ranks decimated by hunger and starvation yet not having seen battle or killed any "infidels". I'm told they were greeted with derision, unwelcome in their families, shunned from society. I was stunned. I never learned this in school. I think I would remember!

The story rattled me. The massacre at Columbine High School, and others since, have rattled me. Our children are killing each other. Why? I want to know. How can this happen? How do we make it stop? I don't know the answers to these questions.

I was rattled again a few days ago when I finished a book called A Long Way Home by a former child soldier named Ishmael Beah, a child who did not choose to become a soldier, a child who was sucked into the militant chaos of Sierra Leone and lost his precious childhood. I cannot speak of the horrors he endured or perpetrated. He does that eloquently in his book, in his own words, in his own way. I do, however, want to share bits and pieces of prose from his book, pieces that touched me deeply.

This is his prologue:

"My high school friends in New York City have begun to suspect I haven't told them the full story of my life.
'Why did you leave Sierra Leone?'
'Because there was a war.'
'Did you witness some of the fighting?'
'Everyone in the country did.'
'You mean you saw people running around with guns and shooting people?'
'Yes, all the time.'
'Cool.'
I smile a little.
'You should tell us about it sometime.'
'Yes, sometime.' "

Snippets of prose from A Long Way Home:

"We walked into the arms of the forest, holding our guns as if they were the only thing that gave us strength. We exhaled quietly, afraid that our own breathing could cause our death."

Returning from their first ambush in which they wiped out an entire group of rebels: "The branches of the trees looked as if they were holding hands and bowing their heads in prayer."

During an ambush on a village: "The flames on the thatched roofs waved us off as they danced with the afternoon breeze, swaying as if in agony."

"Some nights the sky wept stars."

Thank you, Ismael Beah, for telling your story. It is both heartbreaking and heartwarming.

Welcome home.

Sunday Scribblings - Inspiration

2007-03-18T21:03:00.000-07:00

Inspiration for me is an irregular spurt

of dribbles and trickles

or gushes and rushes.

I’ve never figured out exactly why.

There is an overpowering urge

to put a faucet on it

so I can turn it on and off at will -

keep it on an even flow.

But I would miss the mystery

of wondering where it has gone -

when it will return -

if its force will be strong or weak.

I would miss the emotional stirrings

of frustration, angst, desperation, confusion, fear

that feed my creative urges

and make life really juicy.

Hm-m.

Sunday Scribblings - Superstitions

2007-03-04T16:43:00.000-08:00

O.K. you’re dealing with a virgin Scribbler here. I’ve been lurking for months and am constantly awed at the quality of the writing. It’s time for me to take the plunge. After that not-so-thinly-veiled disclaimer I will attempt to do something creative with this blank sheet of paper or this blank screen if I put it in computer terms.

Superstitions. Yawn. Hm-m, I’m not particularly superstitious but they do spice life up a bit, don’t they? Obvious ones come to mind like “don’t walk under a ladder” or “if you see a black cat on Friday the thirteenth something really icky will happen to you. And there’s this whole Friday the thirteenth thing itself. How did that get started? Ah, I’ve found a personal knowledge deficit. What fun, it gives me something to explore. Later.

Right now I hear a rhythmic chanting deep in my memory. “Don’t step on a crack, you’ll break your mother’s back.” Little me is walking home from school wearing my blue and gray plaid uniform and carrying a lug of books. I carefully plant my feet on the spaces between the cracks singing to myself. It gets more challenging on the places where the tree roots have pushed the sidewalks around making cracks that meander in all directions. I try, I really try, to keep my boxy saddle oxford shoes off the cracks but it doesn’t always work because, of course, I try to go as fast as I can and still stay off the cracks. It’s more fun that way and it really doesn’t matter because, well, it’s just a silly superstition anyway. Don’t step on a crack, you’ll break your mother’s back.

Gees, these books are heavy. And it’s hot. The smog is so thick my lungs ache like I’ve been swimming in a pool with way too much chlorine for way too long. My eyes burn, too. I hate it when Mom doesn’t pick me up from school and I have to walk home. I’ll be too late starting my homework and I’ll be tired. If I don’t get it done I can’t watch Bonanza on T.V. at eight o’clock. I LOVE Bonanza with Hoss and Little Joe, the Ponderosa Ranch, all that space and all those cows and horses. Sigh.

Step on a crack, break your mother’s back. Oops, missed that one. It doesn’t really matter. It’s just a silly, stupid, childish, dumb superstition and I’m too tired to care. Just to prove I’m not afraid I’ll step on every other crack. Oops, I broke my mother’s back. Ha. Ha. Too bad. Oops, I did it again. Poor Mom.

Why didn’t she pick me up? Prob’ly she got to talkin’ on the phone and forgot again. Stepped on a crack, broke my mother’s back.

I wish I had fifteen cents so I could detour by 31 Flavors and buy a chocolate mint ice cream cone. But I need two hands to carry my books so I couldn’t eat it anyway. I try to believe it doesn’t matter but it does. Stepped on a crack, broke my Mother’s back.

Two more blocks to go. One is past the public school where my brother plays baseball on Tuesday and Thursday. I love to go to the practices ‘cause Nils is there. He’s this really cute guy with blonde hair and blue eyes like Aiden Quinn. (Yeah, yeah, I know, Aiden Quinn wasn’t even born yet. But I can fix that later and meanwhile you get the picture, right?) If I don’t get my homework done I can’t go to baseball practice. Step on a crack, break my Mother’s back.

“Hi, Mom, I’m home.” I set my red plaid lunch pail on the kitchen counter. There’s no answer. “Mom?” I yell.

“I’m in here on the couch.” Her voice whines. She sounds tired, pained, distracted.

There’s no immediate emergency so I shuffle to my room and plop my books on my desk. With a sigh I walk to the living room. There lies my Mom with a heating pad on her back reading a novel.

It’s not my fault. Really, really it’s not. It’s just a superstition.

Go to Sunday Scribblings for more.

2007-01-24T23:26:00.000-08:00

Well here it is at last: my very own blog. I've no idea what I shall do with it. My initial plan is to use it to connect with other writers on blogs such as Sunday Scribblings. Where it will go from there ... Hm-m.