Cracking Open the Unfamiliar Parts

 Response to Prompt #66  Stories in One-Three-Five

 

Preparing this prompt: I had several ideas come and go, and absolutely nothing was sticking or making sense.  Eventually I realized it is because I was supposed to go back to things I've drafted out before and make them work for this. And once I sat down to do that, everything fell into place beautifully.

 

The first two are short stories, ones I call "addadabbles." Dabbles are 100 word stories. What I did with these was "add a dabble" at the end of another micro-story, ones that I found in a notebook from 2003, continuing it in some way. I have several of these in drafting stage, but these two stories were closest to the theme I had established, as well as word counts I needed.  Full disclosure, "Sad Victory" is a bit longer than a minute, and "Quartz" is not three minutes, but again, I felt they fit the entire scheme of this, and so I broke the rule!

 

The final piece is a memoir from a trip I made to Ohio in 2016. With my summer plans including a trip to Ohio, I thought it was time to take a look back and see what I wrote. I was surprised at what I found. Would love your feedback on any of these, but especially the memoir.

 

Cracking Open the Unfamiliar Parts: Stories in 1-3-5 

 

 

Sad Victory (1)

 

Flying down the street on her scooter, Misty hit a gravely patch of stone which threw her into a tailspin. Her Red Ball Jets scraped the ground as she went down on all fours -- knees and the heels of her hands grinding into the small stones. She knelt there, not sure whether to laugh or cry. She slowly looked to the left, to the right, and down in between her knees behind her. No one had seen her accident. No sense crying. Instead, she rolled over onto her butt and started to pick the little bits of gravel out of her hands and knees. Gosh that was fun, she thought to herself.

    She finished just in time for her sister Gina to come flying down the same hill on her bicycle. “Wipe out,” Gina yelled and with that, hit her brakes, expertly stopping her bike on a dime. Mostly looked at Gina with disgust.

    “Here I am wiped out on the gravel and you make a perfect stop. You make me sick.”

    Gina laughed. “Oh, Misty. Grow up. Let’s go home and play checkers.”

    Misty looked at her sister, who was smiling big at her. Damn, no sense being made at her. She is just too cool. She picked up her scooter and began the walk back up the hill, slightly limping, side-by-side with Gina, her older sister whom she envied, and who would proceed to beat her at checkers five times in a row.

 

70 Years Hence

Life is about what you remember, and for Gina these days, that isn’t much. For me, it’s turned into a silence; memories are all mine. 

 

One night I remembered that day on the scooter, how envious I was Gina, and how I continued swallowing my jealousy that day and beyond. But the memory provided something else. This visit I’m bringing checkers to the Alzheimer's Center.

 

And it works. Gina remembers how to play. She does not talk. She does not win. I thought it would feel good -- finally winning after all these years. 

 

Yet sadly, this silence holds no victory. 

 

 

 Quartz (3)

 

Sammy opened the cabin door on a cool early spring day. Still no leaves on the tree, he could see the hillside, brown with dead mulch and brush across the river. The river, too, was brown, and the grass not yet much greener. He cursed under his breath, “Fuckin’ brown existence.” He had come to the cabin with the hope of having his spirits lifted. Instead, he felt as dead inside as ever.

He talked out loud to his dog, Fella, who yawned with indifference. “Today. Today will be different. Today we catch that fish. Today, we will not only catch the fish, we’ll pan fry him. Trout. Yes, trout.

Sammy put on a windbreaker over his sweatshirt and jeans, and walked down the hill to the river, the ancient New River flowing peacefully. He stood on the side of the river, as the water marched by, its rhythm uninterrupted for centuries. Lying at the bottom of this waterway were petrified logs; trees that had fallen so long ago God barely remembers. They have turned to quartz in some cases. Sammy saw a small piece of quartz lying on the bank, and stopped to pick it up to toss it. Instead, he put it in his jeans pocket. And for a moment, Sammy felt as old as that river, as old as the fallen trees, almost as old as God. Any troubles he brought with him that morning, the ones he seemed to carry with him for years, were now carried within that jagged piece of quartz in his pocket. 

Sammy thought of the grief that had brought him to this cabin: the death of his wife Clara on Christmas day as she was driving back from a quick visit with her sister. The snowy roads were treacherous, but she had insisted she’d be fine. He had not forgiven her for this miscalculation. The winter had been bitter and mean, culminating in his decision to take a leave of absence from work and burrow away in the cabin. Until this morning he had done a pretty good job of not thinking about his severe anger and his lack of forgiveness. He wasn’t sure it was a good idea to think about it now, so he pushed it to the back room of his mind where he stored all his emotional injuries.

The sun cut through the clouds, and the rapids began to sparkle. Sammy looked up at the sky and then to the hillside across the way. That is when he saw for the first time the brilliant green of buds clinging close to the branches. Had they just arrived with the sun? 

Taking that as a cue to get on with the day, he walked back to his cabin, Fella trailing behind, to get his fishing gear.

 

Evening

Back at the cabin, Sammy pulled the quartz out of his pocket and set it on the kitchen table. It appeared to be a beacon and a promise. He allowed himself to think of Clara for the first time without bitterness. He had buried his love for her for too long. 

 

He put the quartz back into his pocket, and remembered the moment when he saw the green buds in the morning light. Everything felt possible now somehow. Sammy knew spring had arrived in a crystal form. He would release his severe judgments and then somehow learn to love again.

 

 

 Shedding My Shoes at the End of the World  (Memoir-5)

 

Prologue

As part of an e-course I did on gratitude, David Whyte’s poem “Finisterre” was offered for study. While delving into this particular segment of the course, I tried to answer the following questions:

 

What do you need to leave behind in order to go forward? A habit? A relationship? Beliefs? Identity? Ways of seeing the world and yourself?

 

I did my best to answer those questions, but within two weeks I would uncover the true answers to these questions. I would come to the end of the world – the world I had always believed I held inside – and I would suddenly know it was time to leave it behind.

 

Journal Entries & Poems from the Trip to Ohio, Summer 2016

Sometimes we are called to dance on the wild edges of our lives and discover something new, or we have a sense that our lives have grown too small so we need to confront our fears of what is unknown, we need to welcome in strangeness to crack open unfamiliar parts of ourselves and of God – Christine Valters Painter

 

Wednesday, June 29

I doubt I will ever come back here. What a fuckin’ MESS. Mom won’t let me help her get shit out. Says it’s “wasting time.”  I want to CRY.  Time is DRAGGING.

I can’t even write. I feel so frazzled.

~~~

Inspired by Joy Harjo’s “Conversations Between Here and Home”

This is not my home.

This is a wasteland where someone I used to know lives.

This is carpets of clothes, layers of dust and dirt,

    Newpapers of eternity.

 

I cannot come here any more.

I won’t even consider it.

Sounds harsh, but I need to be resolved.

This won’t resolve itself.

 

So I am here

A place I call “home”

But more than ever

I don’t recognize it.

 

I’ve been puzzled by my non-attachment for years.

This just reinforces

All I want to be.

All I never was.

 

11:00 a.m.  6/29/16

 

 

Friday, July 1

 

I place my future in the Hands of God.

Remembered to pray today. Finally. 

Getting tired of socializing and want to go home.

Yes, this has been about accepting the moment as it is and yes, sometimes that moment is KILLER. But I’m staying in it and not lashing out. Nothing that could make me angry matters anyway.

I’m finding it difficult to physically write.

 

Inspired by Joy Harjo’s “Four Horse Song”

 

The tracks always lead to the same place

This isn’t vacation

I’m tired – bone tired in just a couple of days

Want to be home in my chair

Listening to Hamilton and writing good poems

Not scratching out shit at Starbucks.

 

The track to Ohio always leads the same place

Sorrow amid the town’s happiness

Friends changing, family reaching or drawing back

I grasp to keep myself and maybe

I let others define me too much.

 

Or is it a reflection?

 

Here again, those elusive tracks

always leading me to the same place.

 

7:41 a.m.  7/1/16

 

 

Saturday, July 2

I suppose in many ways I am learning a lot about acceptance, but also my own boundary.  Yesterday I was perturbed by my mom’s mocking me about having to stop and use the restroom. I don’t know – it just bothered me.  Then she wants me to be kind to her. Yeah. Okay.

My reaction to all of this is to isolate. She has a disorder. My point here is that I need to keep a boundary. My friends tell me I’m loving and accepting. I call it self-preservation.

 

 

Inspired by Joy Harjo’s “I Am a Dangerous Woman”

I know who I am

Where I belong

What I want to do

      without apology

 

I am a dangerous woman.

 

I write the truth

I provoke conversation

I’m not afraid

 

I am a dangerous woman.

 

Look at me like I’m old

Look at me like I’m a hippie

Dismiss what I have to say

 

I’ll set the world on fire.

 

I am a dangerous woman.

 

7:08 a.m.  7/2/16

 

 

Sunday July 3

Damn, I just want to cry.

I’ve had a wonderful time here in Columbus, but today I need to return to that dirty mess and I made no solid plans for tonight, so now I’m regretting that…I can’t even call Jim because I feel like I’m going to cry.  I WANT TO GO HOME.

 

Okay, I cried a tinge and now I feel better.

 

Yeah – so right now nothing feels right. I made the decision to come to Ohio out of obligation and I can’t say I’m totally sorry. It was glad to see Donna and Becky’s place and to meet Gordon. Oh, and Kate, of course. And I’ll be happy to go to the Rock Hall tomorrow. All is not lost by any means. And the time here in Westerville has been incredible.  I just feel far away from my writing life and I feel all I want to do is complain and I hate that. I don’t feel like investigating this awfulness with my mom and her mental problem. It’s exhausting. Keeping a boundary up and accepting what is exactly as it is. Seems easy, but then somehow catches up to me.

~~~

Poem inspired by Joy Harjo’s “Crossing the Border”

 This has been a border crossing

Amid the entertaining times:

  Cookouts,

        Sunset boating,

              Steak lunches

And hours of conversation

And that lovely nature walk

I have crossed a border

I love these people

but if I am to return

the terms have to be different.

It’s been taxing and I have to

shut down constantly

to get past the irritations.

I have crossed a mother/daughter

    border.  I don’t feel it.

Absolutely no guilt.

Move on to a new land –

    Don’t look back.

 

7:17 a.m.  7/4/16

 

 

Tuesday, July 5

Had a good morning and it was wonderful to see Laura, but I am still fighting the depressed feeling.

Just have to make time MOVE. It will be such a relief to pack. This has been the weirdest trip ever because of the extreme highs and lows. The highs and lows were both a surprise. I mean, really, my joy was multiplied at times because I was fighting the depression.

So this is it. I’m not planning on coming back willingly. It has become obvious that I need to be where I can do my best work. The emotions tied here can’t get resolved here.

 

I put my future in the Hands of God.

 

Poem inspired by Joy Harjo’s “Someone Talking”

Maps

In my mind

The roads, how they intersect

Where they go

Not in my memory

until I come upon it.

Baltic. Berea. Belle.

 

I traveled a lot of the

same roads, like following

a map of memory.

Westwood to W. 210 to Detroit

to Clifton to Cove

or other places

and back.

 

The Solstice Steps were at

the end of Belle.

The exit to Edgewater no

longer marked.

We took a boat, watched the

train bridge descend.

Listened to Paul Simon while

the sun set, the lines criss-crossed,

unbroken connections still.

A map of memory for me.

 

7:28 a.m.  7/7/16

 

Epilogue

I stepped off the plane, light pack on my back, walked up through the portal into the Southwest Florida terminal, my white jeans glimmering in the sunny interior.  I took a very deep breath and smiled. Then another.  And smiled wider.  I breezed past the Sanibel Bean and the red, white, and blue USA sweatshirts for sale, past slow walking airport workers, past the display boats, to baggage claim. In a few minutes I would get to see my husband for the first time in over a week.

 

I am home.