tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48439625195926202002024-03-05T04:53:24.448-05:00from the Shoe Box to the mother boredStacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.comBlogger121125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-53686562950442203512013-01-01T19:00:00.000-05:002013-01-01T19:00:04.798-05:00Mixed Blessings<br />
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">2013 started
out gray.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>2012 ended the same way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For most of the last week the skies have been
heavy, bloated, on the verge of crying.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I know this feeling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I spent a
good portion of last year feeling this way.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I don’t like
to hear someone say “This day can’t be over soon enough!” or “I wish it was
Friday already!”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ask my son how many
times he’s heard me say “Don’t wish your life away!”.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And yet, as
I sit at my desk watching the first few drops of rain ping one leaf at a time
on their way down, I am aware of a sense of relief that a new year has begun,
that the old one is finished, and that we’ve careened past yet another
milestone no more damaged than we were going in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, I am grateful.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thanksgiving
was different; not bad, not difficult, just different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christmas was different, too…a little sadder,
and angry, but not in a fierce way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Angry
in a wistful way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wistful as in “Isn’t
it a shame he chose not to be here?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Because, he did.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trey chose not
to have Christmas with us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we know
how to do Christmas!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have great
Christmases! I don’t understand why he wouldn’t want to be here…</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There are
lots of things I don’t understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I don’t
understand why a general practitioner happily rewrites a middle-aged woman’s Zoloft
prescription for months on end, but when that same woman suggests her
adolescent son might also benefit from anti-depressants, he refuses without
listening and looks at her as though she should be ashamed.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I don’t
understand a therapist who, after several unsuccessful attempts at getting an
obviously troubled teenager to open up, dismisses his mother with “You’re
wasting your money and my time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t
bring him back until he’s willing to talk.”, or a high school counselor who,
upon being alerted by a classmate that a student is cutting himself, shakes her
head at the parent saying “We simply can’t have that here.”, as though mental
illness is somehow catching and another kid will see his scars and think them
cool and before you know it everyone is cutting.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Anyone who tells you mental illness carries no
stigma never tried to get help for a disturbed child.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I do
understand, though, the horror inherent in the realization that the
weapon-wielding monster might have been my son and the ever-present fear that the
next time he might not be pulled over before crossing the center line.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">My son is
dead but he didn’t take anyone with him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I understand that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, I am
grateful.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">I am told
that the black hole in my memory where last January and most of February used
to be is normal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I likened the space to
a blank chalkboard when describing it to my therapist who agreed that the missing
chunk of time may, indeed, contribute to my feeling that every moment since is
a do-over.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In one of
those moments, several weeks after I began seeing her, I realized parts of me I
hadn’t missed are back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My wounds are healing,
as all wounds do, by reclamation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The “skin”
has grown back, not as new skin but as a continuation of the old, only better,
stronger, scarred and thus resilient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I like
her, the woman I am becoming; the one I was before but newer, stronger, with a
chance to be better.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">That is his
gift.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He always
did that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He always brought me gifts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From the time he was very small, if he went
outside, he came back in with pockets full of rocks and handfuls of dandelion
heads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He was sure every rock was a
gem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I kept them all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">At
Thanksgiving last year he brought me bird’s nests to add to my collection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He frequently came across them in his work and
saved them for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some were square, as
though formed inside a box.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some were
round and tiny.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And one had parts of
blue eggshell inside.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">And he wrote
me notes like the one I found a few weeks ago while cleaning out a file
cabinet.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thank you so much from all of
us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without you I/we would be
nothing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my whole 21 years you have
never let me down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are absolutely
without question the best mom in the world. I love all you guys with all my
heart.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thank you.</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Love, Trey</span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<br /><br />
<br />
© Copyright 2007-2013 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-44288265777897225432012-12-27T11:48:00.001-05:002012-12-27T11:49:21.476-05:00First Christmas<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I shopped for weeks.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I cooked for days.</div>
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I spent hours wrapping gifts.</div>
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<br /></div>
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In quiet moments you came,</div>
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making every task a reminder of what we would miss</div>
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on this,</div>
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our first Christmas without you.</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
© Copyright 2007-2012 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-42436796440330250252012-11-18T10:08:00.000-05:002012-11-18T10:08:00.284-05:00Warm Whispers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I have a thing for sleepwear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I like cotton nightgowns, silk nightshirts
and girly pajamas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I own six bathrobes;
one of them purported to be “The Softest Robe Ever”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s soft, alright.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s also very fluffy, and putting it on
makes me feel like a lavender-hued Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hold on to it for those two or three days a
year when the temperature dips so low that warmth trumps frump.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Two of my robes are girly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The silky peach one channels Hedy Lamarr.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sheer black one was an impulse purchase
from a Victoria’s Secret catalogue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
has bright pink feathers at the collar and cuffs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve never worn it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But you never know…</div>
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<br /></div>
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The red robe is short, made of cotton and features a very
large dragon embroidered down the back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s one of my favorites.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Depending on my mood while wearing it, I either feel like a prize
fighter or a naughty Geisha.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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The black one is heavy and hooded and used to belong to a
man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a Bill Blass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1998 was a very good year.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The one I wear is flannel and plaid, tartan plaid, in blues
and greens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember tearing open the
Christmas wrap covering the box it came in, and looking around to see what my
sisters’ robes looked like.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For several
years, since we all had married, my mother bought four of the same thing in
different colors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One year it was
sweaters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mine was beige.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Have you seen me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well you can’t if I wear beige.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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Blue and green are not my colors either.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m more a red and black or, better yet, a
turquoise and silver kind of girl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And
plaid?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Honey, please…</div>
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<br /></div>
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And yet, that’s the robe I wear. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I take care to make sure it hangs on the
outside of the hook so that in the morning, as I stumble out of my bedroom and
into the bathroom, I can grab it without thinking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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This morning I noticed a hole…a slice really…in the
back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fabric around the slice was
thin, very thin; thin enough to make me wonder if the slice wasn’t really a tear;
a surrender to time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The discovery
inspired me to inspect further.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As it
turns out, there are lots of holes, some of them bigger than others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But, you would expect that in a 30 year old robe.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This morning, as I drew the robe around me, I felt her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I imagined her hands on the robe, as she chose it, as she wrapped
it, and the image comforted me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“It’s going to be alright.”, Mom whispered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You’ll be fine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s here with me, you know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your boy is here with me.”</div>
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<br />
© Copyright 2007-2012 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-25060741124628580582012-11-14T09:13:00.000-05:002012-11-14T09:32:39.990-05:00An Empathetic Voter<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnkIyZ-cMwqYAEMprjs0hmkA5fPeEOh2Z43MgiMPgQ-JKPAgax8KdL6F3n3i2RADZpQCUrIX3-Axil9gp8Z79yGisQtxeO6S8N1iFd21oKpEWn5ab_yKgHmsnK-aTL7D0L7xFKPQTDm-U/s1600/Voting-booth-006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnkIyZ-cMwqYAEMprjs0hmkA5fPeEOh2Z43MgiMPgQ-JKPAgax8KdL6F3n3i2RADZpQCUrIX3-Axil9gp8Z79yGisQtxeO6S8N1iFd21oKpEWn5ab_yKgHmsnK-aTL7D0L7xFKPQTDm-U/s1600/Voting-booth-006.jpg" height="192" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There was a point in time when I was sure my Mom had a thing for Hubert Humphrey. It wasn’t anything she said or did. It was something in the way my father responded when she spoke of him. As it turns out, Dad was an unapologetic Nixon republican, and what I was hearing was my first political debate.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I registered to vote in my high school’s cafeteria along with the rest of the senior class, and I’ve voted in every single presidential election since. There was a time, prior to the 2000 elections, when I cast a vote in favor of a candidate. Since then, however, I seem to find myself choosing what I believe to be the lesser of two evils and, while I don’t purport to remember loads about my high school civics class, I’m nearly certain they didn’t teach that.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I voted for Obama in 2008, but he wasn’t my first choice. You see, I’d been a long-time fan of John McCain whom I’d always considered a straight shooter; a person who didn’t play party politics.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But that was before Karl Rove sunk his horns into him. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #222222;">I WANTED to like Hillary, but I couldn’t get there. I’ve been the wife of a cheating man. I did the only thing I could imagine doing, I left. Throw at me all the extenuating circumstances you’ve got. I left. She didn’t. End of story. By the time I cast my vote, I was on line to board the “Hope and Change” bandwagon. </span><span style="color: #222222;">Since then, I've never been more disappointed in a politician in my life.</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Never.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I started casting about for a replacement two years ago. Excitement at the prospect of a Christie candidacy lasted all of two days…until he held a press conference urging all of us groupies to stand down. From there, the list dwindled considerably. Newt was a no go. I’m from Georgia, remember? </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I do. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Santorum was scary…way scary…Zombie Apocalypse scary.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Enter Mitt Romney. I read his bio. I read news clips. I read legislation. I comforted myself with the knowledge that the healthcare plan he’d sponsored in Massachusetts served as a template for the one now dubbed “Obamacare”.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But that was before Karl Rove sunk his horns into him.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Mitt Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan as running mate sealed the deal. I was officially out of options. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Once again, I voted for Barack Obama.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I watched returns on election night from the viewpoint of a pacifist. If Obama won, great! If Romney won, oh well. Certain pundits predicted he’d morph back into his old, pre-Rove self. One could hope….</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Let’s face it. There is no such thing as unbiased news coverage in the United States. As in all things Capitalism, it’s all about the money, honey. I went with CNN. At least they pretend...and they feature my boyfriend, James Carville. I love James Carville.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Seeing the numbers did nothing to calm me. Hours passed, and still I worried that the party responsible for Sarah Palin, Richard Murdock and Todd Akin would win the majority. When Wolf Blitzer (and what is his real name, really?) announced Obama the winner just a little after 11:00 pm, I was as surprised as anybody.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Well, maybe not anybody.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I guess I wasn’t as surprised as the woman who, next day, hoped everyone who voted Democratic would enjoy their food stamps, free cell phone, and government issued six-pack of beer. It’s probably safe to say I cannot relate to the feelings that motivated another person to post an article detailing Obama’s involvement with one Valarie Jarrett whose only crime, as far as I can tell, is having been born in…wait for it…IRAN!!! You’d think, by this time, everyone would know about Snopes. And, let's face it, Karl Rove's response to Fox anchor Megyn Kelly when she asked him "Is this just math that you do as a Republican to make yourself feel better or is this real?" was just sad. His distressed confusion was so palpable you had to feel for the guy.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Georgia went red in 1996 in response to what we’ll call President Clinton’s indiscretions. Accordingly, nearly everyone I know supported Mitt Romney…loudly…in a manner suggesting that those who did otherwise were not just wrong; they were downright unpatriotic and obviously did not love Jesus. On Wednesday morning, it was this knowledge and my determination to honor that age-old southern tradition of grace in victory that set my posture as I headed out into the post-election world with my head somewhat bowed, my eyes definitely averted, and my intention set on avoiding any and all political discourse. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You know what they say about intentions? My hell came in the form of a very small woman with an enormous chip on her shoulder. The conversation started innocently enough. It wasn’t until I thought we were done that she took a step toward me and said, “Well, my family had to peel themselves off the floor last night!”</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Here it comes, I thought. </span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“I can imagine, I said.”, hoping my sympathy sounded more like empathy.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The tirade that followed was more than unexpected, it was unpredictable. Nothing could have prepared me for the explosion of desperate anger that filled the ever-shrinking space between us. Hands flew. Eyes narrowed. Her voice cracked and all I could think was “Don’t cry…please don’t cry.”</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“Oh my daughter can get an abortion…”, she growled. “but not a job! Our children won’t be able to get jobs!”</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My mind became a pinball machine, pinging about for a rational response to her irrational outburst, until she said the one thing that resonated with me.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“I’m so scared!”</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It came back to me in a rush…the feeling of desperation…and more…frustrated desperation…and anger…outraged anger. And the feelings brought me words.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“I understand.”</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Though breathing hard, she quieted.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">“I get it, I really do. Had the tables been turned, I’d feel exactly the same way, I’m sure. In fact, I HAVE felt that way. When George Bush was reelected, I cried. I turned off my television. I turned off my radio. I couldn’t stand to hear his name spoken. I just knew terrible, awful things were going to happen to our country. And, you know what? They did. And here we are.”</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With crazy still dancing in her eyes, she turned on one heel and walked out of the room.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
© Copyright 2007-2012 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-50571482020348918802012-09-14T23:20:00.000-04:002012-09-14T23:20:35.223-04:00Of Trees and Music<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Or at least that’s what the man said.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My neighbor’s willow sits right on the corner, next to the
street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I drive past the tree every day
on my way to work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In winter, her barren
branches droop gently, forming a frosty crown. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In spring she sprouts cotton candy that melts
into the lush green of summer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yesterday, cool breezes blew through my opened car window
and the willow’s branches, taking green and yellow leaves with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I
passed, I noticed the uppermost branches were already bare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I saw patience in her droop, a studied
tolerance under a swirl of green and yellow ovals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Soon she would be regal again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Something about the scene moved me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It might have been the empty branches, or the
way those unruly leaves mocked her on the way down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It could have been her beauty.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But, it might have been the music.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yesterday, as I passed the tree, Dionne Warwick warbled.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you’re under the age of 40, you’re probably
confused.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’re marveling, I’d guess,
to think that the host of TV’s “Psychic Friends” also sings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know how you feel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I haven’t stopped shaking my head ever since
I heard she was hosting a television program featuring washed-up soap opera
stars pretending to telephone psychics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What a concept…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dionne Warwick was the mouthpiece of one of the greatest
songwriting duos of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, and it wasn’t until I heard
her sing the leaves out of a tree that I realized how much that music meant to
me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Burt Bacharach and Hal David originally wrote “I’ll Never
Fall In Love Again” for the Broadway show “Promises, Promises” in 1968.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1970, Dionne Warwick took it to number one
on the charts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I STILL know every
word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hal David was 91 when he died on September first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To commemorate his life, Terri Gross replayed
her interview with him on “Fresh Air”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m
sure he told stories and shared anecdotes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>At one point, Terri asked him about a supposed riff with writing partner
Burt Bacharach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>David swept it under the
rug, along with any suggestion of Dionne as Diva. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that was just fine with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Enough with the talk!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s hear some music!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I heard a snippet of “Alfie” which I didn’t realize originated
from a film of the same name until I saw the remake in 2004.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I went to see Jude Law.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I left humming Bacharach’s tune.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Then she played “Do You Know The Way To San Jose”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This wasn’t my favorite…but I still get
sucked in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every time it plays I find
myself singing the accompaniment “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoawhoawhaowhaowaho,
whoa”.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What I didn’t realize until Terri played a montage of their
hits was that Dionne didn’t have to sing it for me to love it. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In 1965, our parents
bought Tom Jone’s album “What’s New Pussycat”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A few years later, me and Judy Witcher played it over and over and over
again…”You and your pussycat nose…”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The highlight of Christmas day, 1970, was waking up to the
sight of The Carpenter’s album, “Close to You”, among Santa’s gifts.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>And Dusty Springfield’s
“The Look of Love” still seduces me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The music, and the tree, and the leaves, and the breeze all
came together in a tiny moment in time called Joy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I felt it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What a gift!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/FzQBOBoPg04" width="560"></iframe><br /></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
© Copyright 2007-2012 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-30769962359108541392012-08-28T08:24:00.000-04:002012-08-28T08:24:56.049-04:00To Destin, For Dad<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw3otmnAgtb8SwHYMdtnXEF3LZ_8DRf5_FXLpKz1NFo6V8rT0yYAqVZdmrjWSsRMu5GYyvNvkNw2UWgDBm5XrNXc6Zzb3JY6wn5Ybu4_jlScaBm4Yebkp2LjhZwoOHJMVnc2BMCpCHw0g/s1600/beach+sky.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw3otmnAgtb8SwHYMdtnXEF3LZ_8DRf5_FXLpKz1NFo6V8rT0yYAqVZdmrjWSsRMu5GYyvNvkNw2UWgDBm5XrNXc6Zzb3JY6wn5Ybu4_jlScaBm4Yebkp2LjhZwoOHJMVnc2BMCpCHw0g/s320/beach+sky.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">My Dad is sick. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That’s never happened.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Just ask him, he’ll
tell you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Well, except for that
one time. A seed got trapped in a crook in his colon. I
met them in the emergency room…Dad swallowing a hospital bed while Mom looked
on…from a distance…clutching her purse, under an expression that begged the
question, “What now?”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">As long as I can
remember, Dad has prided himself in the fact that he’s never had a
headache. In some versions, a headache becomes the “common
cold”. No matter. To hear him tell it, he’s had
neither. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He’s confrontational
and cantankerous and a few other “c” words that, when taken together, translate
into “just plain hard to get along with”, and now he’s sick. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When he called, he
blamed a hot dog…a foot-long Coney; admittedly, not the kind of thing an
eighty-one-year-old man ought to eat. It had to be food-poisoning,
he reasoned. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But he didn’t get
better. He stayed sick. And common sense will tell you, a
hot dog doesn’t have that kind of staying power. Not even a
foot-long Coney. Food poisoning comes, tries to kill you and, if
unsuccessful, leaves. Three day nausea is something else…something
serious…some kind of sickness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He tells me he’s
better. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“But you’re still
coming down, aren’t you? I’m still sick! I’m
weak!” This, from the man who never had a headache…or the “common
cold”…depending on the version.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And, I did come. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And, I brought a
sister.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And, we did laundry,
and dishes, and we made the bed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And when Dad said,
“You know what sounds good?”, I got my keys. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I visited fast food
restaurants I never knew existed and ordered with specificity, because “they
never put enough sausage” on the sausage and gravy biscuit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On Saturday, it
occurred to me I’d been “at the beach” for almost an entire day and never seen
it…not really. I mean, I’d caught a glimpse between
hurricane-proofed monoliths upon our return from the Potato Chips/Malted Milk
Balls/Vanilla Ice Cream run, but that was it. I hadn’t really heard
it. I hadn’t watched it, and I definitely hadn’t smelled it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But, I fixed that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After dinner, I got my
chair…the one that still spills a little bit of Myrtle Beach every time I take
it out…and I headed for the sand. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">On the stairs, a
couple stopped me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Excuse
me! Are you going to have a hurricane here?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I thought several
things at once.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I thought , “They
think I’m a local.”(This was kinda cool.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I thought, “They’re
just a young couple on their first night of vacation.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I thought, “Bless
their hearts.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I shared wise weather
anecdotes I’d collected during the preceding 24 hours, before moving to place
my chair in a spot that would allow me the best use of Instagram. I
know…that sounds silly…but I haven’t quite got the hang of it. I’d
love to be able to edit more…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">After taking several
severely out-of-focus photos, I screwed my chair into place and sunk into it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To my left, a meaty
woman seemed unaware that most of her bottom had escaped her suit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">To my right, two boys
flew kites.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The worried couple
waded.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">White caps rolled in
bringing memories…of my mother in a two-piece…red with tiny
flowers. And she… so brown…so confident.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And, my sisters,
dripping castles.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And, my children, with
my grandson. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Jennifer and Elijah,
dripping castles just like we did</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And my father…and
floats…plastic floats in pastel colors that rolled with the waves…rolled and
rolled until…if you closed your eyes, sleep could come…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
© Copyright 2007-2012 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-31617978240118356122012-07-01T21:50:00.000-04:002012-07-01T22:09:01.466-04:00Getting Crazy<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.virginia.edu/carrshill/images/modern/large/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="237" src="http://www.virginia.edu/carrshill/images/modern/large/1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
For the first time since my son died, I’ve been left alone
for longer than it takes to visit the chiropractor or have a music lesson. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was my choice. I
could have tagged along but it costs so much to board the dogs, and then there
are the chickens. With temperatures
soaring above 100 degrees every day they need extra care. I’ve put ice in their waterer several times
daily, fashioned a pool out of an over-sized plastic bowl, and managed to
gather the eggs before they fried inside their shells.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I had all kinds of plans. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
First and foremost, I thought to write. All that quiet stretched before me like a
highway I could litter, uninterrupted, with words I wouldn’t forget while
answering questions like, “Do you think I should get a Ford F150 or a Chevy
truck? ” He’s 15, and that learner’s
license burns a serious hole…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Malaise hit me on Friday afternoon, just before I left the office. I did what I always do, I ignored it. I bought dinner, I went shopping, and I baked
four loaves of chocolate zucchini bread.
I’d promised the boys they could take some on their trip. I’d also promised the kids next door they’d
get a loaf out of the next batch. And,
there’s that co-worker who greets me with hungrily expectant eyes every Monday
morning.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Once the travelers were on their way, I was disappointed to
walk inside the house and discover all the usual “stuff” needed doing. The kitchen was a wreck, the furniture needed
polishing, and there was no way I wasn’t capitalizing on oven-like
temperatures. I had laundry to do.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ve noticed this phenomenon before. For some reason, as soon as I’m left alone at
home for any length of time, every imperfection is magnified a-thousand-fold; as
though, suddenly it’s all mine, and I’m responsible, and if it’s needs fixing I
need to fix it, before someone comes and sees it. I’m sure it all stems from the time when I
was 22, and a new Mom, and my Mom came to visit; only I didn’t know she was
coming. There’s only so much you can
stuff under the couch cushions before its actual dimensions start to change…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By the time I finished housekeeping, it was 5 o’clock. The day was done and the chair, now that I had
a chance to sit in it, was cozy. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This morning, malaise made another appearance. Only this time, I was alone. I didn’t have to ignore it. I could languish in it. I could baby it. I could sit and wonder why it came, and what
it meant, and I could doze. So I did.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was a point, during one of my treks to the henhouse, when
I knew I could be crazy. Nuts,
even. It was after I’d dumped the
ice. The latch on the gate refused to
slide back into place. The fact of my
leopard-print pajamas became important somehow, as I wrestled with the handle;
winning, at last. And, I knew it,
absolutely. Were it not for all the
reasons I have to be sane, I would most certainly be crazy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It would be easy, really. I can tell, having considered it,
that it’s just a slide, and not a very long one; not one of those really,
really high ones that scorch the backs of your legs on your way down. It’s a short one, like the one attached to
the swing set we had in the backyard when I was a kid. It got hot, too. But, it was so short, it didn’t matter.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And slides are easy.
You just let go. You just stop
trying. You slide.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My friend lost two sons.
They died within a few years of each other. She’s never been the same since. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Now I know why. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From my new vantage point, white-knuckled at the top of the
slide, I understand.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She let go. </div>
<br />
© Copyright 2007-2012 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-76431603432407628802012-06-27T21:48:00.000-04:002012-06-27T22:13:25.093-04:00Learner's License<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJxPBe9ODrZPR-gMz1z-DojhFJQ1HRLeF3j3r2Yf_zRFeAXlCATsupjfQK2X0aB61xsovlt6hkOOZXt6zHXH2QVqj238KCBTwLifjGhIndZxTRcsjzsHxNeyRjIxo8OMsSSdq2kqDC-wQ/s1600/527674_4039611111871_1034259500_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJxPBe9ODrZPR-gMz1z-DojhFJQ1HRLeF3j3r2Yf_zRFeAXlCATsupjfQK2X0aB61xsovlt6hkOOZXt6zHXH2QVqj238KCBTwLifjGhIndZxTRcsjzsHxNeyRjIxo8OMsSSdq2kqDC-wQ/s320/527674_4039611111871_1034259500_n.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
My 15-year old is learning to drive. Even as we walked into the DMV to get his
learner’s license, I couldn’t imagine sitting in the passenger seat while he
piloted my vehicle; my new vehicle, my favorite-car-in-the-whole-wide-world
that, even after nine months, boasts bonafide “new car smell”. Just the thought of it made me all jumpy
inside. So, I didn’t think of it.</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
I supplied Shane with a Georgia Driver’s Manual a couple of
months before his 15<sup>th</sup> birthday.
He rifled the pages with his thumb, barely concealing his humor at the
thought that he might actually READ the book.
However, after pulling an all-nighter with his best friend who had tested
several months before and therefore “knew what he was talking about”, Shane scored
a 95 on the exam; a fact of which he apprised me even before flashing his paper
license.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
Though I hadn’t paid attention as we drove in, driving out I
realized this particular branch of the DMV was situated at one end of an
otherwise abandoned strip mall, meaning the only cars parked were the ones
directly in front of the office. In the
kind of fit of spontaneity I’m known for, I parked the car and motioned for
Shane to change places with me. To his
credit, and possibly because it’s not the first time his mother has had some
kind of hare-brained notion that required his participation, he jumped out, ran
around and slid underneath the wheel as though it were home.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
I took the liberty of installing a few virtual stop signs
along our route, just to give him practice, as we took several turns around the
parking lot. Twice, a car piloted by a “real”
driver took advantage of the landlord’s misfortune, by cutting across the painted
lines on its way in or out. We both
froze. Fortunately, Shane froze on the
brake. I took this as a good sign.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
We’ve been out several times since then. He’s still a little heavy on the gas when
first starting out and corners are a bit tricky, but we did manage to traverse
a rather scary intersection without incident on the way to the grocery and
back. We took a drive with purpose. I think that’s a big step.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
The guilt didn’t start until Monday. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
It was a nagging thing.
It kind of pulled at me, demanding attention. At stray times, throughout the day, Trey’s
face swam into view along with an incident; a time when I felt inadequate, a
situation I felt I’d mishandled. I
managed to quash them usually. I ran the
tape inside my head; the one that says “This is normal. Everyone does this. Don’t let it get you down.”. If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard
THAT song…</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
But he kept coming. I
remembered the time his father called him a “sissy”, the way he clutched at my leg
through my skirt, and the feeling of desperation in knowing what a pitiful
shield I made using only my hands.
There were rides to school…rides necessitated by Trey’s bad behavior at
the bus stop…that seemingly provided fertilizer for arguments he saved for just
this opportunity. Eventually, I
remembered he couldn’t argue if I didn’t participate. Sometimes, then, we talked.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
There were visits with counselors, arguments with his
step-dad, and a notebook filled with completed homework he’d never turned in.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
These reels played alternately, randomly, for two days
before I recognized the catalyst. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
I didn’t teach Trey to drive.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
The realization startled me at first. How could that be? Who could have taught him? How does such an important phase in a child’s
life go unnoticed, unaccompanied by a parent…especially when there’s only one?</div>
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<br /></div>
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That afternoon, I received an email from a friend who always
seems to know “when”. She reminded me
she’d always listen, and I began writing.
About halfway through, the missing pieces fell into place until the
whole messy picture became clear and a new mantra began to play inside my
head. “You were not a bad Mom. You were not a bad Mom. You were not a bad Mom.”</div>
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<br /></div>
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This afternoon, I received a note from Trey’s boss’s wife,
Amy. Over the years, she’d grown very
fond of him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">“The guys are here today working
on Bo's in ground trampoline. While they were eating lunch, Bo walked up to
Mike and so sweetly asked, "Where's Trey?" Out of the mouths of
babes... YOU are NOT forgotten, our precious friend!!”</span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">And, I’m reminded it’s not just me. This isn’t the first time that I’ve
discovered, when I’m missing Trey more than usual, I’m not the only one. That knowledge doesn’t make me miss him any
less. As a matter of fact, reading Amy’s
note took me to a place I haven’t been in weeks. What it does do, though, is remind me he is
loved, as am I.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Today, I am thankful for blessings who give you room to
grow.</span></div>
<br />
© Copyright 2007-2012 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-71818618011775374832012-06-16T12:05:00.000-04:002012-06-16T12:05:25.078-04:00Daddy<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<![endif]--> Daddy was a large man whose crusty work-boots tracked red
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He wore glasses…big ones…with thick black frames.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And white t-shirts…</div>
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He played football in high school, but tennis courts paved
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When I was very young, he bowled.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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By the time I graduated high school he had traded balls with
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Daddy liked to eat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
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line at pickled pig’s feet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Time spent
in Korea after Hiroshima expanded his pallet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If he was really, really good, Mom would scramble last night’s fried
fish into his eggs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
These days he prefers his fish raw, but little else has
changed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Daddy still loves to eat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He finds a way to fit three meals in between
the hours of 8 am and 4 pm every day, arriving back at his condominium-by-the-sea
before most vacationers have even considered making reservations.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Daddy said things…like, “Don’t ever forget who you are!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’re a Howell!” and “No one is better than
you are!”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The manner in which he spoke
discouraged questions while imparting pride.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He also said, “Your thighs are big-around as my waist!”, and
“You need to leave that boy alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s
a queer!”, and “Blacks just naturally run faster than whites.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It comes from being chased through the jungle
by cheetahs.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A few years ago, he read every book Carlos Castaneda ever
wrote.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Last weekend he took great delight in expounding on his
latest theory on consciousness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Our
brains are like radio receivers…”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a kid, it wasn’t Christmas until Daddy came home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every Christmas Eve, sometime after 6 and
before 9, he stumbled across the threshold, over-sized shopping bags in
tow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mother’s mouth set into a sharp
line, as her hands moved ever faster over the food she was preparing for
tomorrow’s dinner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Put these things under the tree!”, he slurred.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Professionally wrapped packages hiding
expensive perfume, and too-red, too-small, lacy lingerie were tossed,
haphazardly, under the tree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Daddy was
home!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We could open presents!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s still not Christmas until Daddy arrives…only Mom isn’t
in the kitchen…and it’s the Sunday before Christmas…and my sister dresses her
Dachshunds in elf costumes…and sometimes we watch football. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sunday is Father’s Day. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Just as we have for
the last five Father’s Days, we’ll meet at The Varsity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Daddy will order two all-the-way-dogs, rings,
and a coke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least three of us will
vie for the honor of paying his bill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Odds are, my sister will do it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We’ll find four or five unoccupied tables and we’ll push them
together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ll<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>create our space, just as several other
families have done before us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ll eat,
we’ll talk, we’ll laugh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ll take pictures
despite my sisters’ protestations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Daddy
will open presents, and we’ll go home.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ll leave, hoping we can do it again, next year.</div>
<br />
© Copyright 2007-2012 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-26946764177731397962012-06-09T20:23:00.000-04:002012-06-10T01:40:17.456-04:0081<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://thismomswired.com/wp-content/uploads/HLIC/4c1d5cd2c8c02f81c5f6cf94d9e1e0c5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://thismomswired.com/wp-content/uploads/HLIC/4c1d5cd2c8c02f81c5f6cf94d9e1e0c5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
My Dad will be 81 today.
He made his yearly trek up from the gulf coast to Atlanta yesterday, and
you can write his departure date on your calendar in ink. He’ll leave the day after Father’s Day. His work here will be done. It’s a pretty sweet deal, really; a few hours
driving nets him 8 days of pampering, multiple trips to his favorite
restaurants, two parties in his honor, and many, many kisses.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
He’s never been easy to buy for, mainly because he’s always
had the means to buy for himself. My
youngest sister buys him clothes.
They’re always expensive. They’re
always sporty, and they’re always the right size. This is because she has a hand in buying all
his clothes. Since it’s his birthday,
these clothes will be wrapped in tissue paper inside a box. If he likes them, he’ll say they’re
“sharp”. Sometimes they’re even “really
sharp”. And, if he likes them a lot,
he’ll call someone’s attention to them as in, “Stacye! Look at this!
Isn’t this sharp?”<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My sister Laura gives him English Leather after shave. She always has. Ever since we were very young, and our
parents took us to Rich’s downtown, to the floor where the ladies wearing lots
of make-up and really high heels asked us how much money we had, and helped us
pick out something to give Mom and Dad at Christmas. I don’t know where she gets it now. I can’t remember the last time I saw that
familiar cedar rectangle on display inside a store. Maybe she gets it on the internet. You can buy anything on the internet…<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My sister, Holly, and I are, depending on your particular
brand of pop-psychology, the Free Spirits, the Rebels, the Scapegoats, and/or
Rabble-Rousers in this family. You never
know what we might present come gift time.
Holly has gone the clothing route; a bold move, in my opinion, given her
competition. For a couple of years, she gifted him with coffee. Dad prefers Starbucks, House Blend,
please…ground, not bean.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Being the artsy-fartsy one of the bunch, I crafted calendars
for Dad. Much to the chagrin of almost
everyone present, I named myself “Family Photog”, and set about chronicling our
events. Only the best of the bunch
graced Dad’s wall. Best, of course,
meant lots of things. It might mean
cutest, or most comical, or heartwarming, or pretty, and sometimes it just
meant the only shot I got in which my sister’s eyes weren’t closed, or my
nephew’s mouth wasn’t open. I never knew
how much he appreciated my efforts until I didn’t make them any more. He called me, during a time free of family
emergency, just to express his disappointment.
Of course, he had his calendar in a matter of days.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And he’ll get his calendar this year too…only it’ll be on
Father’s Day, not on his birthday…just to change things up. I’m using old black-and-whites of my
mother. I’m sure he’ll love it. In the meantime, I went to the Farmer’s
Market and bought all the things he likes.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I bought “Sundried Tomatoes Pesto”. I’m sure the label was printed by the same
woman manning the booth. She urged me,
in her gorgeous Italian accent, to try the vegetable medley. I demurred, explaining the purchase was for
my father. “He’ll be 81 tomorrow.” She smiled through her disappointment.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I bought a pint-sized almond pound cake from a teenager, who
will never know it was the beautiful crevasse atop the loaf that sold me.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I bought smoky chipotle salsa from a woman more interested
in her cellphone than selling salsa.
There was either a child or man on the other end of that phone. I know.
I’ve been there. I bought
anyway. Still, she was disappointed I
didn’t try the empanada.<br />
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The woman selling spiced pecans was a newbie. She hawked her wares from a cookie sheet
while her son quoted prices in whispers.
I bought a small, over-priced baggie-ful. Dad loves pecans.<br />
</div>
<h1 style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin: 2pt 0in 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal;">The </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal;">pièce de résistance appeared, where it always does; on the last row, in
the last booth. “Heavenly Pastries” is
owned by Tanya Jackson who almost certainly works for someone else most of the
time. When she’s not, though, she
creates perfection in the form of miniature glazed bundt cakes drizzled in
chocolate. I bought the Red Velvet. She included a gingham gift bag with my
purchase that I’ve decided to use as wrapping in place of the basket I’d
pictured filling earlier. </span></h1>
<h1 style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin: 2pt 0in 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal;"> </span></h1>
<h1 style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin: 2pt 0in 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal;">My stopping excited
her. She stood immediately. My choosing the cake excited her even more.</span></h1>
<h1 style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin: 2pt 0in 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal;"> </span></h1>
<h1 style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin: 2pt 0in 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal;">“It’s for my father.”</span></h1>
<h1 style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin: 2pt 0in 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal;"> </span></h1>
<h1 style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin: 2pt 0in 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal;">Her smile grew.</span></h1>
<h1 style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin: 2pt 0in 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal;"> </span></h1>
<h1 style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin: 2pt 0in 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal;">“He’s going to be 81
tomorrow. He doesn’t come to Farmer’s
Markets so I’m buying all the things I think he’ll like.”. </span></h1>
<h1 style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin: 2pt 0in 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal;"> </span></h1>
<h1 style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin: 2pt 0in 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal;">She counted my change into
my out-stretched hand.</span></h1>
<h1 style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin: 2pt 0in 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal;"> </span></h1>
<h1 style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; margin: 2pt 0in 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-weight: normal;">“Tell him I said “Happy
Birthday, okay?”</span></h1>
<br />
© Copyright 2007-2012 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-57713920796552819032012-06-04T22:09:00.001-04:002012-06-04T23:27:06.990-04:00Boy Wearing Light-up Sneakers<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidpYbmDXHH73C99XAg3RB2Ps-Bnirgq0uXseQ9aofQslFdTgDQWByr2-GWXSoSRtIGpDd5cYaWL7VnDA17rhf28V2l_ZuXuDPt_4Z80pB4_CFrbNfPU4emLF7Gxv7y-G7RGoes_rrTRNa_/s1600/led+shoes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidpYbmDXHH73C99XAg3RB2Ps-Bnirgq0uXseQ9aofQslFdTgDQWByr2-GWXSoSRtIGpDd5cYaWL7VnDA17rhf28V2l_ZuXuDPt_4Z80pB4_CFrbNfPU4emLF7Gxv7y-G7RGoes_rrTRNa_/s320/led+shoes.jpg" width="226" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
He was tall…quite tall. And thin; the kind of thin that
appeared to hide-behind rather than be covered-by the t-shirt that fell like a
drape from his rack of shoulders. The
shirt was nearly colorless. His pants
were faded as well. Both had seen better
days, probably on the back of an older brother or a cousin who would see him
wearing clothes that used to decorate the floor of his bedroom, and never make
the connection.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He stood behind his father who held his brother while
talking to the waiter about a table. His
eyes watched the floor, rising only occasionally to glance at his father’s face
as though gauging his mood. He knew how
to stay out of the way, but he also knew that what was out of the way now might
not be out of the way in just a minute.
He kept track. And, when his
father’s free hand swung in his direction while motioning towards a larger table,
he took two steps to his left.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s when I saw them…light-up sneakers…the kind I hadn’t seen
since my boys wore them twenty-odd years ago.
The shoes themselves were black and would, had the boy stood still, gone
unnoticed. His steps though, set off a pattern of multi-colored
lights that chased themselves around the circumference of his school-aged foot,
sending shards of longing deep into my chest.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I will never again be the mother of a boy wearing light-up sneakers.</div>
<br />
<br />
© Copyright 2007-2012 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-79253143190967722992012-04-24T20:43:00.000-04:002012-04-24T22:08:25.450-04:00Birthday Boys<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP2BJQEgpMQyQUBDJFbB6x1VnSgPMauWjNy9DR7CHlT_P9T0kcYGubHg-C-sR54sSqlckqZE8kNo0nJGBu6zVsPFH-uINo0r1-gp_zacLOQlnlA_t65vsCimAWrBynzURmUTtZs_8arqE/s1600/happy-birthday-cake4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP2BJQEgpMQyQUBDJFbB6x1VnSgPMauWjNy9DR7CHlT_P9T0kcYGubHg-C-sR54sSqlckqZE8kNo0nJGBu6zVsPFH-uINo0r1-gp_zacLOQlnlA_t65vsCimAWrBynzURmUTtZs_8arqE/s320/happy-birthday-cake4.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Looking back, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have shared
a pregnancy with than my friend, Dottie.
She uses her grown-up name now.
Everyone calls her Dot. But, I
knew her when. I’ll always call her
Dottie.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
From the time we met, we shared lots of things. We shared stories and dreams and worries and
fears. When Dottie had to pull (This
would be the literal “pull”, not the figurative one.) her husband out of a
local bar, I kept the baby. When my son
dropped a crystal ashtray on his sister’s head, I called Dottie’s Dad for help. When Dottie’s mother held a Tupperware Party,
she knew she could count on me to be there, and when the Datsun pick-up I’d
paid $300.00 for wouldn’t start, Dottie gave me the keys to her Pontiac
land-yacht.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was pregnant with my third child. Dottie was carrying number four. We scheduled our prenatal appointments for the
same time when we could. Rather than separate
exam rooms, the clinic was comprised of one very wide corridor divided into
curtained sections just big enough for the midwife, the exam table, and the
stirrups. Were it not for those women
wearing stethoscopes around their necks, one might have thought they had
stumbled into the changing room at a maternity clothing store.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was instructed to take off my “bottoms” and “hop up on the
table” (This would be the figurative “hop”, not the literal one.) while the
midwife called on Dottie who waited two curtains away. Resting my hands atop my mountainous abdomen,
I tried not to eavesdrop until the words “no heartbeat”, at which point I stopped
breathing in an effort to hear every word. My own heart raced as they scheduled the
ultrasound that would reveal whether or not Dottie’s baby was alive. And when it came time for my exam, I both
wished the midwife would hurry, and wondered how wrong it would be to ask
questions. Dottie hadn’t asked
many. It was as though she knew. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Her baby was fine, and mine was, too. They arrived just a month apart. Dottie’s son, Carey, was born in April, and
my son, Josh, in May.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Three years later, I gave birth to a second son. He split the boy’s birthdays, arriving two
weeks after Carey’s and two weeks before Josh’s. For the last twenty-nine years, April has
been a time of celebration that began at Easter and ended , appropriately, with
Mother’s Day.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dottie lives in South Georgia now. She might say she could see Jekyll Island
from her kitchen window, but that would be because she was trying to convince
me to visit, not because she actually could see it. I’ve seen her just once in over ten
years. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I did see Carey recently.
He’s very tall and looks very much like his father. He celebrated his twenty-ninth birthday a
couple of weeks ago, which means Trey’s birthday is this week…Saturday, to be
exact. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Only Trey isn’t here to celebrate.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It hasn’t exactly sneaked up on me. It occurred to me in early March, just as it
has for the last twenty-six years. It
was just a few days after Trey’s memorial service. I hadn’t gone back to work yet. Josh was here and so was Jennifer. We talked about it. We planned it. Somewhere deep down I knew we had to.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And now I don’t want to.
I don’t want to the way a toddler doesn’t want green beans. I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to scream while I cry and then I’ll
stomp my feet and no matter what you say I won’t go. I won’t!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because, he’s not here. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
People say things like “He’s not gone. He’s always with you.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No he’s not. He’s not
here because I can’t hug him or smell him or hear him call me “Ma”. I never understood why he did that. No one else ever called me that, just
him. He always called me “Ma”. And now no one ever will again.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Who will blow out the candles?</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-46188807741583872032012-04-17T20:08:00.000-04:002012-06-27T11:32:51.283-04:00Taking Chances<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.windsun.com/pictures/Lightning1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://www.windsun.com/pictures/Lightning1.jpg" vca="true" width="226" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
I’m pruning azaleas when the storm blows in.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Thunder thunders.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Lightning strikes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
I stand my ground.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
The worst HAS happened.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
And besides, </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
I have family there.</div>
<br />
© Copyright 2007-2012 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-42094546562077913552012-04-06T07:45:00.000-04:002012-04-06T07:45:36.317-04:00Firsts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://hostedmedia.reimanpub.com/TOH/Images/Photos/38/expm17328_TH10230C1A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://hostedmedia.reimanpub.com/TOH/Images/Photos/38/expm17328_TH10230C1A.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">On Sunday, we’ll spend Easter together… without him. Exactly twenty days later, we’ll celebrate his twenty-sixth birthday…but he won’t be there. Mother’s Day will be different this year. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And so it begins…our year of “firsts”. Life moves on, marked by all the times we stop to celebrate. And we will celebrate. We might even celebrate exactly the way we have always celebrated. And it will still be different.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This Easter we’ll have ham. I don’t usually, but a church group gave me a gift certificate I never got around to using at the time. Jennifer has requested green bean casserole. Joshua looks forward to deviled eggs, and Shane loves strawberry salad. I always made macaroni and cheese for Trey. I cooked the onions right into the cheese sauce so that he never knew they were there. Trey had a thing about onions. This year I’m making bacon/maple scalloped potatoes. I’m sure I’ll make macaroni and cheese again…one day.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Now that it’s almost here, I wish I’d planned something different. I wish I’d invited more people who might have made more noise and filled more space. It’s going to be quieter. Trey loved to laugh…loudly…and it was contagious. Trey was big. He took up lots of space. Come to think of it, Trey took up more space than any number of guests could fill. The space he left cannot be filled and it can’t be covered up by a pretty throw or an extra piece of furniture. It’s a space we’ll have to get used to. We’ll have to move around it…always aware of it…never quite sure what to do with it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Several times this week, I’ve thought about how much more fun Easter is when spent with children. That’s what we need! We need more children! The wonder and joy of children could fill that space! I’ll share this with my kids. If they start now, we could have one heck of an Easter egg hunt in just a couple of years!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And then the pain flows back in…unexpectedly…on a wish that goes against everything I ever taught my children about safe sex. Trey’s face…his baby face…fills my mind as my heart fills with regret that he left nothing behind. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What I wouldn’t give to see that face again.</div><br />
<br />
© Copyright 2007-2012 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-29083196770563106532012-03-21T19:57:00.000-04:002012-03-21T19:57:57.160-04:00Unchosen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcWvFj6JxtqcoakekkfRxm-2lJ4vwByxf2DAdtLb-rn3xr2v3bDA8m7HVkqC0zJv5WIUWtbQBkTqhbhLZzbilT1Wgyh7_2qW6GKRi_PM5a8ZIZ5qE5yKljnTGMU_p11qbYv1SOUtZZdIQ/s1600/slipping+away.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcWvFj6JxtqcoakekkfRxm-2lJ4vwByxf2DAdtLb-rn3xr2v3bDA8m7HVkqC0zJv5WIUWtbQBkTqhbhLZzbilT1Wgyh7_2qW6GKRi_PM5a8ZIZ5qE5yKljnTGMU_p11qbYv1SOUtZZdIQ/s320/slipping+away.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">You don’t get many choices at birth. Nobody asks what you want to be. Take birth order, for example. I was the first-born of four girls. Given what I now know, I might have chosen to be born last, but nobody asked me. You don’t get to choose gender either, or hair color, or shoe size. Siblings, it seems, are left to chance. If you happen to click, that’s great! If not, you’re stuck with them, like them or not. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">One of the best…maybe even THE best thing about aging is that the older you get the more choices you have. By the time you become an adult, you get to choose most things. You choose a career. You choose your lifestyle. Heck, you can even choose your hair color! By the time you get to be my age you might have chosen several different hair colors!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">No one ever chooses to be the mother of a dead child. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And yet, here I am. It’s as though life started, for me, all over again on February 26<sup>th</sup> just before 11 pm. All the other choices I’ve made take a back seat to the one no one would make, ever. Decades of living life on my own terms ended with a single gunshot, because no matter what else happens from here on out, I am the mother of a dead child.</div><div class="MsoNormal"> </div><div class="MsoNormal">I can sell my house and buy that loft I’ve had my eye on…the one downtown, right in the middle of everything. And, I’ll still be the mother of a dead child.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I can quit my job in order to pursue a life-long dream. And, I’ll still be the mother of a dead child.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I can learn a foreign language, lose 20 pounds, and even dye my hair the only color I’ve never tried. Then I’ll be the raven-haired mother of a dead child.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">At a time in my life when who I am should be up to me, it’s not. Because, nothing I am matters as much as what I’ve lost.</div><br />
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© Copyright 2007-2012 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-85781385462098390892011-12-30T19:20:00.000-05:002011-12-30T19:20:09.860-05:002011 - A Retrospective<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://pajamaproductivity.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/CalendarPages-XS.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://pajamaproductivity.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/CalendarPages-XS.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">As years go, there have been better and there have been worse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">1999, for example, was a wonderful year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1999 was the year I remembered my worth and reclaimed my strength.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After years of living a “less than” life, I gave the rudder a mighty jerk and set sail in a completely different direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I never looked back.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Given what I now know, I might have chosen to skip 2003, altogether.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had emergency surgery in March.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Four weeks into my six-week recovery period my mother died.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And while she’d been ill for most of the previous four years, her death came suddenly as the result of a blood clot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I learned she had died while shopping at Target in what was my first foray into the outside world since my surgery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My daughter and grandson had left me in the house wares department.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He needed t-shirts.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I remember a voice inside my head shouting at me to breathe and finding it difficult to follow directions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That same voice reminded me my family was counting on me, if for nothing other than a ride home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And then there was the question of when to tell them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did everyone need to carry that knowledge around Target?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or would waiting be more appropriate?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The words flowed from me as soon as I saw my daughter’s face and everything after merged into a days-long blur, with a few exceptions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember sitting, powerless, around a polished, wooden table meant for a high-powered board room, wondering why my sister hadn’t removed her sunglasses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember my dress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was vintage, late 60’s I think, and gray.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Embroidered flowers trailed down the right side of the skirt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, I remember standing under a large, green tent, alongside my sisters, next to the casket holding my mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The four of us sang “Amazing Grace”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was her favorite.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">2011 was significant in its own way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This year, for the first time ever, I drove several hundred miles across several states alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, before I did that, I drove several hundred miles across several states in the company of a friend who, up to that point, I’d only known online.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two of us were on our way to meet many more friends with whom we’d had years-long online friendships. The experience was wonderful and proved what I’d always felt; online relationships are real and can be every bit as meaningful as those we experience 3D.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal">Here are a few other things I learned this year:</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><ul><li><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>I do not have to react.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, in many cases its better I don’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Action, in almost every case, is preferable to reaction.</li>
<li><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span>I can be most childish with those I care most about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not behaving in a childish manner is a decision that benefits everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it’s easier to do than you might think.</li>
<li><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span>There is a place in my life for religion, and participation in a group of spiritually like-minded people feeds something in me, making me more whole.</li>
<li><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span>You can’t fully appreciate the angst of desire until you’ve wanted something for your child that you are powerless to provide.</li>
<li><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span>Acceptance, in all its forms, is a major component of happiness.</li>
<li><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span>I’ve spent a considerable amount of time looking for something I already had but wouldn’t see.</li>
<li><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span>Despite disagreements, disappointment, and geography some people will always have a place in my heart…because they live there.</li>
</ul>© Copyright 2007-2011 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-62549651363324061932011-11-04T22:06:00.001-04:002011-11-04T22:15:47.237-04:0030 Days of Gratitude - Day 2 - My Job<span id="goog_1912469912"></span><span id="goog_1912469913"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.winonaisd.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_77939/Image/Winona_High_School/Other/chalkboard.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://www.winonaisd.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_77939/Image/Winona_High_School/Other/chalkboard.gif" /></a></div><br />
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Mitchell Steiner wore his jet black hair combed straight back off his swarthy-skinned face. His coal-colored eyes either danced or snapped, depending on his mood. His nose was aquiline. His mouth never stopped moving. Mitch was a talker, as in smooth talker, as in car salesman, or motivational speaker, though he became neither. Mitch claimed his destiny early on. He was headed for a career in medicine. At the age of fifteen, a stint in the Explorer Scouts was, for him, a logical move in that direction. For me, it was a way to be closer to Mitch. I had no idea my destiny, too, was being set.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My father didn’t suggest I go into nursing, he insisted. He had a litany of reasons to support his position; a litany he cited, ad infinitum, whenever the topic was broached. I, on the other hand, had never even considered it. As soon as I could stand, I did so in front of a pint-sized chalk board that turned round and round in its aluminum stand; a feature I found most irritating, as a glimpse at the magnetized side of the board, with its cacophony of many-colored plastic letters, only served to remind me that it wasn’t a real chalk board in a real classroom, and I wasn’t a real teacher.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sometime during my mid-twenties, possibly between baby number one and baby number two, it became evident to my father that my career in nursing would never come to full fruition.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I can’t believe you’re just going to throw it all away! You’ve wasted so much time!”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I don’t see it that way.”, I answered him. “I’ve gained knowledge I’ll always have, and use. It wasn’t a waste. I just never wanted to be a nurse.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“What do you mean you didn’t want to be a nurse? What about all that time you spent in Explorer Scouts?” </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I traded my scrubs for a “burp rag”, which is Southern for the cloth diaper worn over one shoulder from the time a baby is born, until she takes her meals with the rest of the family, preferably in a high chair that has been sat upon a large piece of plastic meant to catch the food that missed her intended mark, her brother’s faces.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Mothering was a fine career choice, and I was fortunate to be able to do just that while my kids were very young. When I did return to the workforce outside my plastic-lined domicile, I managed my hours in such a way as to avoid using childcare. I worked during the day. My husband worked at night. One of the two of us always cared for our children. I did it alone, but my husband, apparently, needed help. His girlfriend often visited on her lunch hour bearing pizza from the pizzeria she managed. I found her generosity maternal and oddly comforting. There’s still a very small, warm place in my heart for her. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">Ricky and I signed divorce papers on New Year’s Eve.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Twenty years later, Ricky is deceased, three of my four children have homes of their own, and I work in a business my father helped to get off the ground . I started part-time during a soon aborted attempt at beefing up my nursing degree. I should have known better. It wasn’t my idea in the first place, remember?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I used to say, when asked about my job, that I was paid way too much money to do a job a chimpanzee could do. I don’t say that anymore. The job hasn’t changed. My duties are still well within the primate learning curve. What’s changed is my compensation. As the first rocks began to fall off our soon to crumble national economy, my employers explained their decision to switch me from a salaried to an hourly employee as a form of simplification. Benefits, too, proved complicated. I haven’t had a paid vacation, holiday, or sick day in several years. My 401K was frozen. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"></div><div class="MsoNormal">But I get a paycheck and, even though ten percent less, my earnings afford my son luxuries such as organized sports, music lessons, an IPOD, an Android, and a PS3. I have a place to go every day and a job to do, which is more than many people have today. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><span id="goog_1871358328"></span><span id="goog_1871358329"></span> </div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m not doing what I thought I would do, but maybe that’s because I didn’t set my sights high enough. One look at my son and I know I have more than enough, and there’s still time for chalkboards in my future.</div><br />
© Copyright 2007-2011 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-6023193863313436782011-11-01T21:59:00.000-04:002011-11-01T21:59:14.337-04:0030 Days of Gratitude - Sisters<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNGg7IXdsuELJJPb3ueqH0dIl-TMCdW4VEuy5uqzGkCE8IFMWMVgCKODWiqTJdJEBiFy5ZTXXg_8VGn55mX3FJrnZCCWK7ztizzsOCTeInUMUkzQ1kbRD-cpYWLhLbDs_KcKzpSbKsyBM/s1600/100_0131.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNGg7IXdsuELJJPb3ueqH0dIl-TMCdW4VEuy5uqzGkCE8IFMWMVgCKODWiqTJdJEBiFy5ZTXXg_8VGn55mX3FJrnZCCWK7ztizzsOCTeInUMUkzQ1kbRD-cpYWLhLbDs_KcKzpSbKsyBM/s320/100_0131.jpg" width="210" /></a></div><br />
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</style> <![endif]--> <div class="MsoNormal">I don’t post a Facebook status every day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some days I don’t really have a status.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some days, I spend part of the day just trying to decide what my status would be if I really had to have one…which I don’t, of course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m comfortable subsisting in a status-less state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, I spent the better part of my life without a declared status.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of that went okay.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Today, and for the next twenty-nine days, I will declare my status on Facebook.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m calling it Thirty Days of Gratitude.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I participated in thirty days of music.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It brought back a lot of memories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Memories and music always mix with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal">I got halfway through Project 365, an exercise in posting a photograph every day for a year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My computer went on the fritz somewhere around photo number one-sixty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal">I was tempted to join a friend in posting a different, meaningful film everyday for a month…until I remembered I have no memory for titles, or actors names, and only retain tiny snippets of plot that prove to be ungoogleable.<span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span>So why not do Thirty Days of Gratitude?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One thing’s for sure…I can use the reminder.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Today, I am grateful for sisters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have three of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All are younger, some more than others.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Laura and I are eighteen months apart which means sometimes I am two years older, and sometimes I am one year older, but I am always older.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many parenting blogs suggest eighteen months to be an ideal age gap between babies one and two.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m thinking this estimation is made from the point of view of the parents whose workload, while doubled, isn’t complicated by diversity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Basically, it’s like having another kid along for the ride.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Lower to the ground, though, the view is very different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The competition began the moment she entered the house disguised as a puff of white organza and lasted until, as an adult with children of my own, I realized that with deference comes responsibility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mother shared things with Laura she never shared with me, but that doesn’t have to be because Laura was her favorite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It might also be because Laura was interested, and a better listener and…well…there.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Today, Laura rarely wears organza, choosing instead easy-to-care-for knits, and scarves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We both like scarves, but we wear them differently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s what we are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are alike, but different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think that’s why we have so much fun when we are together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever the reason, the years have stripped away all the things that don’t matter, leaving us with our scarves, love for our kids, and the ability to make each other laugh…at most anything.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Holly came after Laura, and we both thought we’d never seen anything more beautiful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Compared to us two tow-heads, Holly, with her chocolate brown eyes and curly locks to match, appeared downright exotic!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had a sweet disposition and a smile to match.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m willing to bet both Laura and I carry the same image in our heads of Holly as a toddler, standing tall and proud next to the pencil-drawn line on the wall in my mother’s sewing room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She couldn’t have been much over three feet tall.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Holly and I were always the closest of the four sisters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were the renegades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We smoked and drank and made bad choices in men…and spent hours together on the telephone justifying our misguided decisions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re not as close as we once were.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She doesn’t know how proud I am of her and the way she set a course for her life and stuck to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Years ago she told me she wanted to live on a mountain-top, faraway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She does now, and she is surrounded by the things she loves best, animals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I always knew that’s what she would do…what many of us never do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She found happy.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Candi is the youngest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She prefers to be called Candace, but after years of Candy, Candi is the best I can do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her middle name is Jane, so of course we called her Candy-Jane.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mom even made a song out of it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t realize it at the time, but now I’m not so sure she liked it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I always think we are ten years apart but when I count it’s actually seven.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It feels like ten though…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">What with the age difference, we didn’t actually play together much as children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember worrying about her a lot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I expressed this to our parents and checked on her at night, when she was in her crib.</div><div class="MsoNormal">Even as a girl, I loved to concoct stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once when I was about thirteen and Candi was three…no, make that six...I brought her to tears with one of my stories.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I remember the mix of feelings; the horror that I’d made my baby sister cry, and the thrill of doing something really well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Though not evident on the surface, Candi and I are probably the most alike in temperament.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We both march to music others don’t necessarily hear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And, we are okay with that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tunes Candi hears are very different from those that play in my head, and we are okay with that, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We live less than thirty minutes apart and only see each other about four times a year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We addressed this issue a couple of years ago by instituting a monthly get-together we referred to as “Sisters”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After about a year, conflicting schedules and, yes, priorities got in the way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What with Holly living on her mountain-top, regrouping will be a challenge, but I hope we’ll find a way to do it…soon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whether eighteen months, ten years or seven years apart, we’re not getting any younger…</div><br />
<br />
© Copyright 2007-2011 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-81441183201793405842011-10-14T21:24:00.000-04:002011-10-14T21:24:54.368-04:00Homecoming<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://danceforfun.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/dancing_feet_446.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://danceforfun.me.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/dancing_feet_446.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">“Honey, it’s at least a month away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s too early to ask her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A million things could happen between now and then.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I felt an overwhelming urge to reach out and pull the words back in before my son heard them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wouldn’t matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He wouldn’t…no, couldn’t understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal">“Yeah, but if I wait, someone else will ask her.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And that’s when, for the first time in a very long time, I began worrying about Homecoming.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You might think “worry” an unusual choice of word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If so, you probably had a date. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You probably went to all four Homecoming dances with a date or one of those groups of kids who exude wholesomeness via cohesiveness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal">I did neither.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Homecoming, for at least the first couple of years of high school, was something to get through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It marked a period of avoidance because it wasn’t just about a dance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was all of the things leading up to the dance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was decorating committees, and “Wear Your Favorite T-Shirt Day”, and hallways covered in poster-boards advertising candidates for Queen and King, and of course, “Who are you going with?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For two years I spent those two weeks with my head down, mostly inside my house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My son likes to talk to me while I’m online.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rolling around the room on a big, blue exercise ball, he is like an over-sized gerbil that chatters. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Here’s what happened.”, he starts as though the previous conversation just ended.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I asked Molly and she said “No”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know she really likes me and everything but she probably won’t go and if she does go she’s just gonna go with some friends, you know?”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Uh-huh.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“So then John asked me if he could ask her and I told him, “Go ahead, but she’s not gonna <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>go and if she does go she’s just gonna go with some friends.”, right?”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Uh-huh.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“And so then he asks her and Molly says “Yes” because John has a six-pack.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Huh?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal">“A six-pack.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Girls like guys with six-packs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John has a six pack.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I started to ask how Molly, or anyone else for that matter, knew John had a six-pack but decided the answer would probably take our conversation in a whole different direction…a topic for another day, perhaps.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal">“Well, that wasn’t very nice, was it?”, was all I could think to say.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“No…well, I don’t care.”, he answered, rolling towards the closet.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“You could go with a group.”, I suggested as a picture of my sister’s “group” flashed into my head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My sister went everywhere with the “group”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even as a memory they exuded cleanliness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Or you could go alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lots of people will go alone, you’ll see.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal">He rolled out of sight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“I’ll think about it.”, he said from somewhere behind me.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When Homecoming week arrived, I took heart in my son’s participation in “Wear Your Favorite T-shirt Day”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It didn’t matter that he might have worn it anyway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At least he was engaged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when Tuesday came and went without any declaration regarding attending the dance, I couldn’t help myself.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“So?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you going?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was a talking bundle of laundry, floating down the hall on its way towards the laundry room.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Nah…I’m not going.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His bedroom door, closing behind him, provided punctuation.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">An argument ensued as I continued my trek towards the washer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“He should go.”, I thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“He’ll be sorry he missed out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope he’s not isolating himself.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“You can’t say anything.”, I thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Talking about it makes it a big deal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s his decision.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I said nothing, and the day of the dance became just another Saturday.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I didn’t see the women until one of them spoke, waking me from the sleep walk that had propelled me from my car to the inside of the market.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They were “Football Moms”, like me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our sons had been teammates for years, and now they were freshmen in high school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And it was Homecoming Saturday.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Can you believe I still haven’t found him a suit?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mother of “John Of The Legendary Six-Pack” spoke.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal">“Aren’t these things a little less formal now? “, I asked, lightly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“He could wear a shirt and tie.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“What about Shane?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is Shane wearing a suit?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal">Did I imagine her eyes widening just a bit, as though anxious for an answer?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Shane’s not going.”, I kept it light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You know, he asked Molly before John did.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Was that a flush of color on her freckled cheeks?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Yeah…”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">She congratulated her son with a smile he wouldn’t see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal">The exchange sparked anxiety that would stay with me for most of the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Several times over the course of the afternoon I had to force myself not to find Shane and ask him one more time, “Are you sure you don’t want to go?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There had been talk of an after-party.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All his friends would be there. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew because, earlier in the day, I’d surveyed him about their plans.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But I didn’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t ask him.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">On Sunday, the day after Homecoming, we went for a haircut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I drove, it occurred to me we wouldn’t have to wait long since all the other boys would have had haircuts the previous weekend, in preparation for the dance.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I’m really glad I didn’t go to that party, Mom.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shane spoke into the passenger side window.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Really?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why?”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It seemed things had gotten ugly between several of the boys.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of them left early.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“What about his date?”, I asked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“He went with Vicky.”, he groaned.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An image of a diminutive fifth-grader with manicured nails and perfectly placed highlights came to mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Vicky’s a slut.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone knows that.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Despite his confirmation of my earlier gut reaction, I suggested he find another way to describe the girl. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“That’s why I didn’t want to go, Mom!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He turned to face me, pummeling me with the full force of words that left him in a kind of angry whine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“They all wanted me to go with Amy, Vicky’s friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And she’s just like her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t want to do that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t want to put myself in a situation I don’t know how to handle.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Overwhelmed, I remained silent.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Maybe I’m weird…but I don’t want it to be like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I have sex, I want it to be with someone I at least like, you know?”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I wanted to stop the car.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wanted to stop the car and scoop him up in my arms the way I always did when he faced uncertainty.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But I didn’t.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“You’re not weird.”, I said in measured tones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You’re not weird, you’re smart. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You made a good decision.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I pulled into a parking space next to a motorcycle that had the Batman insignia on the engine cover.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Good!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kevin’s here!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shane bounced out of the car and placed his hand on his favorite stylist’s bike.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">He stood straight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There was a quickness in his eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He smiled.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Homecoming, indeed.</div><br />
<br />
© Copyright 2007-2011 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-70410340965110421472011-08-03T23:35:00.001-04:002011-08-03T23:36:05.791-04:00Finally Determined: TBD, Facebook, and Girls Gone Mild<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimUzxhqaQvicPVDRReFSoVxc7P7xVB0kcwvIQcrFm754l7Yxu6dn7YyZNmbNCsIxK1lWr8w2ARHzTrRpHBC3KLoQxGfQr8h_Hv_ACxST92vbV8ItpKuNvHCG-CD6liQioJDFSQoL02vaE/s1600/TeeBeeDee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimUzxhqaQvicPVDRReFSoVxc7P7xVB0kcwvIQcrFm754l7Yxu6dn7YyZNmbNCsIxK1lWr8w2ARHzTrRpHBC3KLoQxGfQr8h_Hv_ACxST92vbV8ItpKuNvHCG-CD6liQioJDFSQoL02vaE/s1600/TeeBeeDee.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px;"></span><br />
<div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m not the most social animal you’ll ever meet.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Just ask…</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Okay, there are a couple of people you could ask.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">My oldest/dearest would regale you with stories of sardonic avoidance.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>While she’s talking though, remember she’s not exactly the life of the party herself.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>We met at work.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>I believe the ice-breaker was a question about fellatio.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>That kind of thing will bond a girl…</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">My “Spirit Mother”, a Native-American woman who tackled the job of growing me up within months of my thirtieth birthday, will tell you it’s a ruse.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>She’ll dub me magnanimous and explain, in great detail, the ways in which I’ve proven the depth of my caring, my intelligence, and the innate generosity of my nature.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And, they’d both be right…depending on the day, my level of self-confidence, and the number of days since I’ve been alone.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Really alone.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Because, I have to be.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Not all the time.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>Everyone knows doing anything all the time is unhealthy.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">But I need it some of the time.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Strange as it may sound, being alone actually takes me outside myself.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>When forced to associate for days on end, my emotions become jumbled.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>Thinking becomes hard, and sleep, evasive.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Alone time, whether spent writing, reading, or inside the cocoon provided by nose-cancelling earbuds, allows my mind to rest, to find space for the tornadic detritus produced by the effort of showing up.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And, speaking of showing up…</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Almost five years ago, I joined a social website on a whim.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>I’d been surfing the internet, for what I don’t remember.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>But, I came across an advertisement for a social website built for Boomers.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I’m a Boomer…barely.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>It gives me a modicum of comfort to be able to say that I qualify by just a few months.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I joined.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>I conjured a catchy screen-name and used, as an avatar, a photograph taken by my daughter.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Photogenic, I am not.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>My daughter caught me on an upswing…literally.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>The photograph was taken while I shared the porch swing with my eldest son.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>He always makes me smile.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>She clicked at just the right time.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Over several years, for several hours, several days a week, I forged relationships with people in exotic places like Goshen, New York, Lincoln, Nebraska, and Sydney, Australia.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And we shared.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>We learned about families, argued about politics, supported artistic effort, and congratulated achievement.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And we laughed.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>We told jokes, poked fun, and honed our already razor-sharp, sarcastic wits into instruments of cohesive amusement.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And we played…really played…like children play…with abandon, and the certainty that tomorrow, after the responsibilities of “real” life were met, the gang would be there, and we would play again.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And, speaking of real life... </div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Websites cost money, and ours wasn’t making any.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>Despite our founder’s best efforts, our playground closed.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>Seeing the handwriting on the “wall”, several of us joined Facebook in an effort to maintain contact.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>And then, a few more joined.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“And they told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on…”</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">It’s not the same, but its okay.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>And, when I think about it, I’m amazed.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>We come from very different backgrounds, different demographics, and various socio-economic strata.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>We are African-American.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>We are Asian.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>We are Christian.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>We are Agnostic.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>We are musicians.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>We are Stay-At-Home-Moms. We are self-employed.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>We are grandfathers.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>We are disabled.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>We are yoga instructors.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>We love music, sports, and high-heels.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Well, not all of us love sports, but high-heels suffer no such prejudice.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">We do all the things we did before, only now we do it under the watchful eye of “3D” family and friends, who read our walls in amazement at the bonds we’ve forged with people far-flung in so many ways.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A couple of years ago, one of our group suggested a meet-up.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>Meeting at the beach, combined with the aforementioned wit, suggested the title “Girls Gone Mild”.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>This year, regardless of social ineptitude, I’m one of the girls.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I’d tell you I’m excited, but the word isn’t big enough.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>I’d say I’m nervous, but that word suggests anxiety...</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Okay, I’m anxious.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">There are the pounds put on as a result of dying glands and overworked ovaries.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>And, there’s my hair.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>It’s long now.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>He likes it that way.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>But the color’s all wrong and, in this heat, it hangs.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And there are the shoes.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>We’re going to the beach.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>No one wears heels at the beach…but I’ve got this reputation.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span></div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">For days now, sleep has been elusive. Last night, after what seemed like hours, I finally turned the clock around to see “4:15”, large, blue, and LCD.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>I’d been awake for a while.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>The alarm was set to go off in forty-five minutes.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>I gave up.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A double-click opened my home page.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>It had been hours since any of my friends posted.<span style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span>I scrolled and read, and didn’t think I’d given myself away, but a red “1” lurking over the message box said different.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“What’re you doing up?”</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">That’s when I realized that since joining “TBD”, I’ve never, really, been alone.</div><div style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 11px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 18px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: initial; outline-width: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And, they’ve made all the difference.</div><br />
© Copyright 2007-2011 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-90499184966899407972011-06-10T00:25:00.001-04:002011-06-10T00:25:37.399-04:00And, That's When I Saw The Duck<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"></div><div class="MsoNormal">It was just a regular Thursday morning…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I go in late on Thursdays. My schedule was changed a couple of years ago to accommodate customers in other time zones. Personally, I felt those customers could have used the same method they use when planning to watch a program on television. For example, if an Alabamian hopes to catch an episode of “House” advertised to air at eight, eastern, she knows to pick out her spot on the couch no later than 6:58. They are used to it. They’ve always done it. My bosses weren’t having it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Actually, I enjoy the extra time at home in the morning. I get to see my son and we can have a conversation that doesn’t necessarily include grunts. I can water my garden and/or pick flowers to take to the office. I’ve even been known to start a load of laundry. The real advantage, though, is that I can take my son to school. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">School ended for most kids almost two weeks ago. But Shane plays football and, in this town, football players are expected to take summer courses in order to free up time in their fall schedule for weight-lifting, film-watching, and any other activity the coach might deem necessary to win the next game. Of course, all of this comes under the heading “PE” so as not to violate any Board of Education mandates. But I digress…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">After throwing seed at the chickens and shutting off the sprinkler, I climbed into the driver’s seat beside Shane who always sits in the car for at least ten minutes before anyone else is ready. Two of his teammates waited in a driveway around the corner, soon filling my backseat to capacity, and the shrunken airspace with just a hint of man/boy funk. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The drive to school was short and quiet, as a local DJ hinted at lascivious content after the next commercial break. The backseat boys exchanged nervous glances. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Banter began as we took our place on line in front of the designated drop-off point. As we inched forward, the boys in the back opened their doors while Shane slid in for a good-bye kiss that could be my last. Every one could be my last. I know this; the preciousness of what I have left. I was also acutely aware of the amount of testosterone sliding out of my backseat. I turned my head, offering my cheek. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Summer should mean lighter traffic. For some reason, that hasn’t happened this year. So far, the lights are just as long, the lanes are just as clogged, and drivers in tiny cars with loud mufflers are just as annoying. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My commute takes me through several very large intersections which, when combined, include fourteen lanes of traffic. I glided to a stop at one of them while considering whether or not to listen to a CD rather than my beloved “Fresh Air” on NPR. The topic was electric cars and the batteries that propel them…snore…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And, that’s when I saw the duck.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">She was small, smaller than the ducks I visit at our local park, and brown; mottled brown and white that would turn beige in a squint. Five look-a-like ducklings waddled, in military-like precision, behind her.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">ACROSS SIX LANES OF MORNING COMMUTE TRAFFIC!!!</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">One hand grabbed the door handle, while the other found the console. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My mind raced. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">How had she managed the first five lanes? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">How would she manage the last? The turn-lane to my right always moved with a steady flow of traffic.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I considered getting out, but didn’t want to frighten her. She’d done such a good job, so far…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">All I could do was wait; wait and worry, worry and wait, while white-knuckling my car’s interior.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Sweat beaded along my hairline as I eyed the rearview mirror. Nervous, I shifted my eyes to the passenger-side mirror, while wondering what I might do if a car appeared there. “They’d never see her.”, I thought. “She’s so small.”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The driver of the car to my left tapped her horn as though to hurry her along. I bounced in my seat in an effort at moral support. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I watched Mother Duck gain the curb, before checking the mirrors again. “Hurry!!!” (It was a silent scream.) Like molasses, the ducklings flowed over the curb behind her. She poked her billed into the underbrush several times before choosing a path and, in agonizing fashion, they were gone.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In a gush, I exhaled the breath I’d sucked in upon seeing the duck. Tears came to my eyes, and I wondered how she’d known. What force told her it was time? Whose hand held traffic at bay? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Who said there’s no such thing as miracles?</div><br />
© Copyright 2007-2011 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-65172663600657834272011-05-20T22:50:00.001-04:002011-05-20T22:50:55.520-04:00To Bake, Or Not to Bake<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">So, apparently, The Rapture is scheduled to take place tomorrow, May 21<sup>st</sup>. Or October 21<sup>st</sup>. Or, possibly some time in between. I guess that’s why, though he announced a date, Reverend Camping left us guessing as to time. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And, that’s unfortunate.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">You see, it’s clean-up day at the high school tomorrow. All football players and their parents are expected to attend. I suppose we could blow it off. I mean, it’s not as though they’ll be taking attendance, right? But there’s this feeling that if you don’t show up, the coach will notice. You’d be passing up an opportunity for face time, a chance to make an impression so indelible as to create a presence he won’t be able to ignore while fine-tuning the starting line-up. Yes, there is the perception that a day like tomorrow could make or break a kid’s high school football career, rapture notwithstanding.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I spoke with my grandson yesterday. He finished the conversation the same way he always does.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“When am I coming to your house, Nonni?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Had Reverend Camping seen fit to settle on a time, I might have planned a short visit. I could have arranged a sort of Bon Voyage party, just in case. I mean, granted, Elijah probably hasn’t been born again, but that could be because it hasn’t been an awfully long time since he was born the first time. Surely the selection committee wouldn’t hold that against him, right? </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My son’s birthday is Monday, and he really, really wants to be fourteen. After all, he’s had a whole year to plan. In anticipation of the event, I purchased a pretty fancy guitar. It’d be a shame if he never got to play it, but I could probably get my money back. There are sure to be plenty of guitar players left behind…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And, of course, a pending rapture calls into question the need for cake. To bake, or not to bake? The cake my son has requested is, when complete, three layers of decadent gooey goodness. The ingredients aren’t cheap and preparation takes some time; time possibly better spent on “making arrangements”, if you catch my drift…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">On the way to dinner tonight, my son gave a lecture on rapture. His knowledge was impressive considering his formal religious education is spotty, at best. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“The whole thing is bogus, Mom. I mean, anybody who reads the Bible knows that even predicting the rapture is a sin! Nobody’s supposed to know when that’s going to happen!”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div>This is the point at which I realized my son has been receiving Bible lessons from someone other than me. We’ve discussed God, rehashed stories, investigated traditions, and read many of the Psalms. I love the Psalms. David is among my favorite poets. But we only discussed Rapture once. I remember we were watching VH1….<br />
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© Copyright 2007-2011 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-22779821939076015732011-05-17T21:01:00.001-04:002011-05-17T21:08:29.959-04:00Politics and Pharisees<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal">I work in an office populated by political people, the majority of whom prefer their chairs roll only to the right.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And, then there’s me.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Clinton</st1:place></st1:city> was still in office when I started this job. Those were the salad days…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Other than a few last-minute shenanigans for which he reportedly employed official pardons and office equipment to, in essence, give his successor the finger, my office-mates had little to complain about.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Political discussions, many of them heated, became more the norm after Bush took office and particularly after he made the decision to invade <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>. They reached such a fever pitch, in fact, that administration mandated they stop. And they did, forcing those so inclined to perfect the use of loaded questions and pointed barbs as a means to draw political blood.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“What do you think about Donald Trump running for president?”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I studied the face of the asker for signs of sarcasm and/or levity, finding neither in her blank stare.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I don’t know…”, I started, hoping she’d take the bait and declare her position. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I saw him on Entertainment Tonight last night! He’s got some good ideas!”, she gushed around the hook.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I leaned back in my chair and focused on attaining the same level of blank upon my face as that with which she’d greeted me.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Really? Like what?” <br />
<br />
As I spoke, my mind flashed back to an earlier conversation in which she had detailed Gary Busey’s firing from “The Apprentice”. So she knows, I thought. She knows, and she’d vote for him anyway. Despite my efforts, I felt a twitch begin in the crow’s feet surrounding my left eye.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Well, like <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:place></st1:country-region>. He said in the old days, when we declared war on a country, we just went in and took over. He wants to do that in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:place></st1:country-region>!”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“It’s not really that easy, you know?” Only conscious effort kept the “Mommy” out of my voice.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">She was silent for two beats before dragging her sneakered toe across hopelessly unattractive institutional carpet. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Yeah….”, she managed to mumble, deflated.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My “smartphone” was impressed enough by Trump’s decision not to run that it alerted me immediately.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I, in turn, went to a different co-worker, who soon after declared she had never watched a single episode of “The Apprentice”.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Trump’s decided not to run! Who will we vote for now?” My moan dripped with sarcasm. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Cora, a seventy-five-year-old woman who delights in telling people she’s known me for over forty years, turned in her chair.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Well it sure as hell won’t be Newt Gingrich!”, she nearly shouted. “Can you believe he’s running?” Many more sentences followed before she ended with, “I mean he’s obviously a very smart man but he just can’t keep his pants on!”</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ve noticed that those in my office (This might be read as everyone except <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:state w:st="on">me.</st1:state></st1:place>) who support Republican/Libertarian/Tea Party candidates seem to do so with a “religious” fervor.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Take June, for example. Sunday mornings find June, her husband, and any college-age offspring who happen to be home for the weekend, in “their” pew inside a large sanctuary replete with ecclesiastical “Jumbo-trons” necessary for those in the very back of the church to see the pastor.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">At work, June occupies the cubicle next to mine. Her youngest daughter, fresh from freshman year at UGA, has joined her. And, yesterday morning, her brother stopped there on his way to his own office. Did I mention I work in a family business?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I don’t know what they were talking about. I didn’t hear anything before the word “Pharisee”. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s not a word you hear everyday. I can’t, in fact, remember the last time I heard it. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“Isn’t that rich?”, June giggled in that way she has, reminding anyone within listening distance that she still has lunch with several sorority sisters once a month.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">“I mean Obama, the Pharisee, was actually quoting from the Bible!” She giggled again. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Her family members remained silent until her brother offered up a weekend anecdote.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I made the decision to forget. I filed away her words, her giggle, and the surprising spark of indignation I couldn’t deny feeling. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">After all, I haven’t been this disillusioned by another human being…ever. Obama wasn’t my first choice but, by the time the election was held, he was the only choice. I did my best to believe in him and, despite his admittedly inspired rhetoric, he turned out to be just like the rest of them…</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But, I couldn’t. I couldn’t forget. I thought I knew what a Pharisee was, but I wasn’t absolutely sure. It nagged at me all day.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I held my own special brand of indignant curiosity at bay until I got home from work. I fed chickens, collected eggs, checked in on the garden, flipped through mail, and gave my son an extra-big hug before sitting down at the computer.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And, then I “Googled” it.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><h3 style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in; mso-line-height-alt: 11.25pt;"><em><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-style: normal;">“phar·i·see</span></em><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial Unicode MS'; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;">/ˈfarəsē/</span><span class="f"><span style="color: #767676; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: normal;">Noun</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial; font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></span></h3><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 11.25pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">1. A member of an ancient Jewish sect, distinguished by strict observance of the traditional and written law, and commonly held to have pretensions to superior sanctity.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 11.25pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">2. A self-righteous person; a hypocrite.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 11.25pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 11.25pt;"><span style="color: black;">President Obama is definitely not Jewish.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 11.25pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 11.25pt;"><span style="color: black;">But then, neither is June.<span class="reftext"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 11.25pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 11.25pt;"><span class="reftext"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.5pt;"><a href="http://bible.cc/luke/6-41.htm" target="_top"><b><span style="color: #0092f2;">41</span></b></a></span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt;">“Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="reftext"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.5pt;"><a href="http://bible.cc/luke/6-42.htm" target="_top"><b><span style="color: #0092f2;">42</span></b></a></span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt;">“Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="reftext"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.5pt;"><a href="http://bible.cc/luke/6-43.htm" target="_top"><b><span style="color: #0092f2;">43</span></b></a></span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt;">“For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor, on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit.</span></span><span class="reftext"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.5pt;"><a href="http://bible.cc/luke/6-44.htm" target="_top"><b><span style="color: #0092f2;">44</span></b></a></span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt;">“For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush.</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="reftext"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.5pt;"><a href="http://bible.cc/luke/6-45.htm" target="_top"><b><span style="color: #0092f2;">45</span></b></a></span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt;">“The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><i><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt;">man</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt;">out of the evil</span></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><i><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt;">treasure</span></i></span><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt;"> </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt;">brings forth what is evil; <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart.</b></span> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 11.25pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt: 11.25pt;"><span class="apple-style-span"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #001320; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11.5pt;">Luke 6: 41-46<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></div><br />
© Copyright 2007-2011 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-31301918340057406582011-05-08T11:29:00.001-04:002011-05-08T11:35:33.546-04:00Going To The Birds<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQMcwiq8qTrIgJuue5SNpDj517-T6Pu4B4na3eYy1-WSqAqS-adu1EFOvmZsnd-eP3ljGj8IlLLYes_uv-1ddJVDr6f9DxaULiUK1nEyHa2t5R7n1UYsLajIdMv9Ga6WYxo68vREEomho/s1600/100_4022.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQMcwiq8qTrIgJuue5SNpDj517-T6Pu4B4na3eYy1-WSqAqS-adu1EFOvmZsnd-eP3ljGj8IlLLYes_uv-1ddJVDr6f9DxaULiUK1nEyHa2t5R7n1UYsLajIdMv9Ga6WYxo68vREEomho/s320/100_4022.jpg" width="224" /></a></div><br />
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My very favorite place to spend a spring-time Sunday morning is on the patio in my backyard, where the birdsong is exquisitely varied and sung at a pitch that is awe-inspiring. I've often thought I should bring my camera with me. Today I did.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7kQ7J20Pf7Vh3PD8WJG4JW6Zm8aM4On5j-YM5xlDHRc3Tyl9oIwPtqkxEO5lDD_hiZv46c6XTJ_VJ7qDJmnyavPaWjkxjDvHW0yzxXb4xc315gh7yujTiJCw9IZKDU_XG1dm3a__xRfo/s1600/100_4010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7kQ7J20Pf7Vh3PD8WJG4JW6Zm8aM4On5j-YM5xlDHRc3Tyl9oIwPtqkxEO5lDD_hiZv46c6XTJ_VJ7qDJmnyavPaWjkxjDvHW0yzxXb4xc315gh7yujTiJCw9IZKDU_XG1dm3a__xRfo/s320/100_4010.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Female Cardinal</b></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><b><br />
</b></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><b><br />
</b></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic4clnn_Xyth6ihWQCln_-_BE2Y9Na7ZVmmDUvJuECOyDZLzJz0HnnNw3pJeRxfrK1ex8cGhsR1SJz-DgXhivIrSM5vgHJsW7qu2PVADtqK-MUsnFTqGHQeUD6Mu-YwKDCOC-fGioTQ_Q/s1600/100_4018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic4clnn_Xyth6ihWQCln_-_BE2Y9Na7ZVmmDUvJuECOyDZLzJz0HnnNw3pJeRxfrK1ex8cGhsR1SJz-DgXhivIrSM5vgHJsW7qu2PVADtqK-MUsnFTqGHQeUD6Mu-YwKDCOC-fGioTQ_Q/s320/100_4018.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><b><br />
</b></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><b><br />
</b></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><b>Male Cardinal</b></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><b><br />
</b></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><b><br />
</b></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvBZO9PYgtccRy4IhNDqk1zaWgKVRbP7U54XWubX0K1pW18AlRe_bIol-0pTBYJybgf3wk3h-zuQvP42oRar8OzBGKqCIR_OJjeZiKmr51oS9ZCIcyHSNicGFIEHYEXRbLkGtSUO9nv7I/s1600/100_4035.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvBZO9PYgtccRy4IhNDqk1zaWgKVRbP7U54XWubX0K1pW18AlRe_bIol-0pTBYJybgf3wk3h-zuQvP42oRar8OzBGKqCIR_OJjeZiKmr51oS9ZCIcyHSNicGFIEHYEXRbLkGtSUO9nv7I/s320/100_4035.jpg" width="279" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><b><br />
</b></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><b><br />
</b></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i>A Pair</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTmJ7OSJ1RULBb30GH6_RSun-3Ai93iIhKLV4en03HnPZz9ev3QUPOuWCfZLxSRDA5VA0t_Npc1omxehM9g7ijEuP5Wrjyj6x1AHjY4Lf1L19QDPzWPox1wIRUeohR3KMAmAfmd5PEbss/s1600/100_4021.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTmJ7OSJ1RULBb30GH6_RSun-3Ai93iIhKLV4en03HnPZz9ev3QUPOuWCfZLxSRDA5VA0t_Npc1omxehM9g7ijEuP5Wrjyj6x1AHjY4Lf1L19QDPzWPox1wIRUeohR3KMAmAfmd5PEbss/s320/100_4021.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Red-Headed Woodpecker</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWDW8brgD59Sn1hktFxopZ9qLFJZIY-tq3AAjL9CuB7QIso5721LYIaAoayxfX_cfbfI9akTKzmsx5pcLbif0rxZ7sGrmGKY2sTjc6Q9HDImIgnPWOz37BlhP411HBzddczumuFz7oGvQ/s1600/100_4025.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWDW8brgD59Sn1hktFxopZ9qLFJZIY-tq3AAjL9CuB7QIso5721LYIaAoayxfX_cfbfI9akTKzmsx5pcLbif0rxZ7sGrmGKY2sTjc6Q9HDImIgnPWOz37BlhP411HBzddczumuFz7oGvQ/s320/100_4025.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Female Purple Finch</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7bjUAaNP95C9VNmNcgA_i-UtaUEEG1ZO19OCjmo1uJBmzakjBgcAejcmNioSD2cQxVRJ1JLpjw0fgxUTFSOeTUhgYbgPccW1Olw2rllCSTjzV2EfAJXauFkXq_RFl1JGlGfLLixnPli8/s1600/100_4032.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7bjUAaNP95C9VNmNcgA_i-UtaUEEG1ZO19OCjmo1uJBmzakjBgcAejcmNioSD2cQxVRJ1JLpjw0fgxUTFSOeTUhgYbgPccW1Olw2rllCSTjzV2EfAJXauFkXq_RFl1JGlGfLLixnPli8/s320/100_4032.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Brown Thrasher</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4dnWhwkt_FIyzfNYsUVoqEXWp0wQokHwUWuAUSKuTRIKJwov8gKlaqkzNtQfI6URi2A2rcuIDrlfp7nAf4dQT-cRegPv1Nn8WXMSVtrvZZMGTjVZo3ryoR6CgIqTdYkq5o9H7QmoY9Ag/s1600/100_4038.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4dnWhwkt_FIyzfNYsUVoqEXWp0wQokHwUWuAUSKuTRIKJwov8gKlaqkzNtQfI6URi2A2rcuIDrlfp7nAf4dQT-cRegPv1Nn8WXMSVtrvZZMGTjVZo3ryoR6CgIqTdYkq5o9H7QmoY9Ag/s320/100_4038.jpg" width="233" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Robin Red Breast</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRJ8ZnSq_KBVFsMjpO4DtZCwlaPIQsAgn1Z4J4Aq3qzAGnj1G9vO8_uWGW_rTXtbv76qAr46N6atJynw2Lsvxa_Gd8336NZ33qpzqsg3kf_Wl9llVSkyUr8nieQms_60p5QkTXAidjdQg/s1600/100_4045.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRJ8ZnSq_KBVFsMjpO4DtZCwlaPIQsAgn1Z4J4Aq3qzAGnj1G9vO8_uWGW_rTXtbv76qAr46N6atJynw2Lsvxa_Gd8336NZ33qpzqsg3kf_Wl9llVSkyUr8nieQms_60p5QkTXAidjdQg/s320/100_4045.jpg" width="278" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i>Blue Jay</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i>And, my very favorite. They live here year-round and still, they take my breath away.</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQCrYSKFinz-40rZbBFLoahKmoGXL8EhLROGGCAZQz5YF58qkl3xrz0P0IOlHhWMf55JtdvJ4Xe8MQpr7zt2net3uIQGVBkE0GJYFOC19QjLoiYlqV0i5WdOkdr4mU3Gv67Dk1J6ERBLw/s1600/100_4047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQCrYSKFinz-40rZbBFLoahKmoGXL8EhLROGGCAZQz5YF58qkl3xrz0P0IOlHhWMf55JtdvJ4Xe8MQpr7zt2net3uIQGVBkE0GJYFOC19QjLoiYlqV0i5WdOkdr4mU3Gv67Dk1J6ERBLw/s320/100_4047.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i>"...I'll come flying through your door, and you'll know what love is for. I'm a Bluebird. I'm a Bluebird."</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2N7AtS2vZzxnEA56u9-fMcSXYM7MPs9v4ppeCHRbTmaexReiT3VRcRUGsVC_SL8LFOVjb1kdjtH7RvrBoDrZjTg4rK950mLbIHp_uv1EYGszAPpHdXp1VFvNXh6ecd1I_scvAiwq0qXQ/s1600/100_4053.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2N7AtS2vZzxnEA56u9-fMcSXYM7MPs9v4ppeCHRbTmaexReiT3VRcRUGsVC_SL8LFOVjb1kdjtH7RvrBoDrZjTg4rK950mLbIHp_uv1EYGszAPpHdXp1VFvNXh6ecd1I_scvAiwq0qXQ/s320/100_4053.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i>"...Touch your lips with a magic kiss, and you'll be a Bluebird, too..."</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlhqAq35xi1aWp_c_uYeXUPa1HQ0kBzrzADiiImmiqTyNhQCNJvXJwNnQXMnlhTDiEjIwFOg0qfAkdwHLzgKkImpGaVcFE-mnyQBHvKP80nxijLMf_7_j-1l6FYRcMgP5jpS0OIoO2w1Q/s1600/100_4054.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlhqAq35xi1aWp_c_uYeXUPa1HQ0kBzrzADiiImmiqTyNhQCNJvXJwNnQXMnlhTDiEjIwFOg0qfAkdwHLzgKkImpGaVcFE-mnyQBHvKP80nxijLMf_7_j-1l6FYRcMgP5jpS0OIoO2w1Q/s320/100_4054.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i>"...and at last we will be free. You're a Bluebird. You're a Bluebird."</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKM1swQWFdrsnUhMtUt6f00b2k0vMdQepSjRtlEqfcjY_LJG9LohadCTDHEwnLy7EAZqy0RKIb6gNAdVSrsvbELW9Up99-7-OEdCo1uKKg__fda42fKw84lZWr1mFaJvQi5qC1JqjMLXg/s1600/100_4005.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKM1swQWFdrsnUhMtUt6f00b2k0vMdQepSjRtlEqfcjY_LJG9LohadCTDHEwnLy7EAZqy0RKIb6gNAdVSrsvbELW9Up99-7-OEdCo1uKKg__fda42fKw84lZWr1mFaJvQi5qC1JqjMLXg/s320/100_4005.jpg" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i>"We're living in the trees, and we're flying in the breeze. We're the Bluebirds. We're the Bluebirds."</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><i><br />
</i></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Lyrics taken from "Bluebird" by Paul McCartney</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div>© Copyright 2007-2011 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved<div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4843962519592620200.post-47106374609866779522011-05-03T23:35:00.000-04:002011-05-03T23:35:16.112-04:00Don't Ask, Don't Tell...Osama-style<div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzwFVZWJRSdVHTTnsdcsZtGp9ZQXVvfw4Kp_T-uYN4LdGKxsHhP8Q3uycsZ9c5ZhD2mM_yRCbai1-XVXlTpGkyfVdtm39togL6SSb-bpQILLzFyuiaFmJpZkQR_ehwWsy6Bem2NHKDkto/s1600/article-0-06640DB5000005DC-668_468x517.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzwFVZWJRSdVHTTnsdcsZtGp9ZQXVvfw4Kp_T-uYN4LdGKxsHhP8Q3uycsZ9c5ZhD2mM_yRCbai1-XVXlTpGkyfVdtm39togL6SSb-bpQILLzFyuiaFmJpZkQR_ehwWsy6Bem2NHKDkto/s320/article-0-06640DB5000005DC-668_468x517.jpg" width="289" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>It was a Tuesday. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I had already worked long enough to induce desperate glances at the clock in hopes that it would soon be time for lunch. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">My desk phone rang. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Ann calling to say she’d be late wasn’t unusual. The frantic tone in her voice was. It took several minutes and many incomplete sentences, for me to realize something truly terrible had happened. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The need to call my husband was visceral, not so much to relay the news as to hear his voice. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I would have given anything to call my son. I fought the urge to pick him up at school, take him home, lock the doors, and hold him…forever. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It was Tuesday, September 11, 2001.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The world had just tilted on its axis. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I shared the small amount of information I had gleaned from Ann with my husband who, in turn, filled in with what he’d heard on the radio. As he spoke, images of other recent acts of terrorism flashed across my brain. When he finished I said, “It was Bin Laden. I know it was. He’s the only one smart enough, evil enough. This has his fingerprints all over it.” And, it did.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I felt a sense of triumph when the Bush administration announced American troops had entered <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:place></st1:country-region> in search of Bin Laden…until they didn’t. The subterfuge began. Personal agendas superseded national security, and suddenly Sadam Hussein was painted as the new face of the Taliban. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And they believed.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">People I know to be intelligent, successful people, learned people, people who contribute to their communities, people who knew better, believed. Even now, as I attempt to write about it, nausea threatens and a whirring begins inside my head. Everything about that time defied reason. Everything.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It took decades for me to learn not to worry about things over which I have no control. The lesson came in handy as I read a memo, circulated by two vice-presidents of our company, forbidding negative commentary about the Bush administration and/or its policies. The directive was, of course, couched in language less than direct, but the message was clear. I turned off the television. I removed NPR from the pre-sets on my car stereo. I pushed the newspaper out of the way when I sat down to eat lunch. I dropped out. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">To be honest, I haven’t given much thought to Osama Bin Laden. Oh, I paid attention when he released videos. Well, they said he released them, I was never quite sure.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">At one point, I heard he had kidney disease. Soon after that, I began to imagine him dead. It was a coping mechanism, I’m sure, and goes a long way towards explaining my shock upon hearing he really was.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">But, not really. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The shock came with the words, President Obama’s words, “<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt;">Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden</span>…”</span><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;">It was the word “killed”. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;">Inside my head, the sentence compressed, and I heard “…the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region> killed Osama bin Laden…”. Even now, I get stuck on the word “killed”. Perhaps his speechwriters could have chosen more carefully? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;">“Killed” is raw. “Killed” is brutal. “Killed” is harsh, and cold, and violent. On “24”, Jack Bauer might have used the word “marginalized”. That’s a good word…<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;">I’m not comfortable with killing. I don’t kill bugs. Okay, I’ll kill a cockroach. But that’s it. Well, and a bee, but only if he’s expressed an intent to get me first. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;">And then, there’s the other side, the side that says, “We created him, and now we’ve destroyed him.”. I can see justice in that.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;">I go in late on Mondays. By the time I get to the office, everyone else has been there for hours. Even so, I thought someone would say something. When Joe Biden commits a verbal gaffe (which is, admittedly, almost every time he appears in public) the talk is incessant. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;">No one said a word. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;">I breached the office door of the only other non-dyed-in-the-wool-republican in the building and asked, “Have they talked about it at all?”. He shook his newly hairless, Carvillesque dome from side to side while wearing a look of reluctant resignation. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;">Sometime around ten yesterday morning, I felt relief. By noon I was ready to admit it. An older woman, the mother of one of the memo-writing vice-presidents, finally tossed it out there just before she left for the day.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;">“What do you think about our troops killing Bin Laden?”, she asked, loudly, as she reached for her $400.00 handbag with one hand while flipping the light switch with the other.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: black;">An officemate who had recently declared her intent to vote for Donald Trump in 2012 spoke first. For the first time in a long time, she was proud to be American. (Cue the fireworks…has anyone seen Lee Greenwood?)</span></span> </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I admitted feeling relief in knowing Bin Laden was gone.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">No one else said a word.<br />
<br />
© Copyright 2007-2011 Stacye Carroll All Rights Reserved</div><div class="blogger-post-footer">www.thewriterslife.net</div>Stacye Carrollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13186219576428367519noreply@blogger.com0