Wednesday is Today

The rain drove down at an angle, solid.  It has been pouring now for three days.  Bunny's ears were gone, no longer peaked in their playful alert way.  Detached from years of companionship.  Years of bringing Bunny along by hanging onto his ears.  Then that one painful moment of tearful tug-a-war induced by my brother.  The ears came off but Bunny was loved just the same.  Injured, yet loved.  Bunny was my guy.  Pink, green, yellow...all the colors of Easter drenched in finality.  The rebirth squandered, disregarded, tossed out.  As special as Sam Snake, who went early.  Went first. 

There bunny was.  Rain water atop kerosene.  Dirty.  Oily.  Abandoned.  Nose deep in the soot encrusted burn barrel.  An old barn-red barrel about 80 gallons large.  Solitary, it sits center yard under the sole yard light.  One light.  One light pole.  A singular patch of grass.  Barrel and Bunny.  Abandoned bunny.  Here since Sunday.  Wednesday is today. 

Sunday brought us to see my Grandma.  With Mommy half across the universe, I found comfort in Grandma.  Never cross.  Always shining happy and laughing.  A laugh that emanates through the years.  The smells of her and her kitchen haunt as they waft in smell memory.  A day spent with her, shared lovingly with my brother and resentfully with my step-siblings.  Often times we are forced to share our Grandmother Love with them.  Step-mom placed the love scale on the table and the mound of my Grandma's love was set in the tray, heaping and oozing over the sides.  It was weighed, measured.  Sliced and divied up.  With them.  They who spent time with their Grandparents without us.  They who got to see their Father every other weekend.  We who saw our Mom maybe twice a year now.

After a beautiful Sunday with Grandma, we come home in time for evening chores.  As Grandpa descends the driveway into the barnyard, he turns the circle around the pole.  Dad and Step-Mom are west of the house, just outside the porch door.  Burn barrel aflame, dolls crying, baby cribs shattered, children's games, stuffed animals distraught, various toys waiting their turn for the incinerator.  Sitting in line.  Sullen.  Defeated.  Neglected.  Abandoned.  In chains.

In this overcrowded house, this blended home make-up, there are rules.  Rules that must be abided by.  Disregarding rules can lead to the cruelest of punishment.  First, the outraged enforcer - an absolute anger-filled verbally abusive rampage of a temper tantrum, followed by a momentary pause, a deep breath, a rearing of the gargantuan hand and finished with the hit.  The shove.  The "Goddammit kid get your head outta your fucking ass before I pull it out for you!"  The "What the fuck were you thinking?!"  The "You dumb ass!" 

Younger years brought pants down, little bare bottomed girl laid sunny side up over his lap.  Open handed brute force spankings from 5-inch-wide hands.  Fingers like polish sausages.  Older years brought cowboys booted kicks to the ass while being escorted across the lawn to finish something I had forgotten to do from my daily list.  Brother endured worse.  Step-sister remained untouched.  Step-brother defenseless against the rage.  Two years old, carried down the stairs with a softened alarmed beast, the minute boy bore a bruised eye, rivers of tears and a pathetic summation, "I think we may have gotten a little carried away.  But we made up and we are buddies now." 

But today.  Today is Wednesday.  And Bunny gazes sullenly back at me.  Bunny says, "Don't cry.  You will be ok.  Your brother will protect you.  Don't worry about me.  Don't cry."  I stroke his cheek with my cow-feed encrusted cow-hide work gloves.

The simplest of rules meant that your bed had to be made every morning.  That there needed to be a clean floor in your bedroom.  The rules didn't account for your two-year-old step-brother who might be intrigued by your items, while you are at school, and leave them on the floor.

Bunny was last in line.  Once descended into the death chamber, Bunny was doused and lit aflame.  But the sprinkles turned into drops of rain falling on Bunny's face and ears if nothing else but to grant us a last good-bye.  But not a good-bye like this.  Not three days of torturous detainment.  From Sunday nights flames to thunderous rain.  Rain for three days.  Three days of waking to see Bunny sitting in the barrel. Three days of Bunny in the barrel when I get home from school, put on my coveralls and bring out the house trash to add to his grave.  Three days of walking around him, crying with him, talking to him, plotting to save him.  Three tedious days. 

Day four brought little rain and enough sunlight for the old man to give it another go.  Another gasoline drench and a toss of the match and WHOOSH!  Bunny is aflame.  Neglected.  Abandoned.  Abused.  Alone.  Aflame.

If this is writing, why is my ass so sore?

So, I decided to take a break from my writing, by writing.  What the heck? 
I've been sitting in my writing chair for so many hours today that my brain is getting foggy and my ass is feeling froggy, so here I am to clear the air.  I need to get present, get grounded. 

I haven't washed my dishes or vaccuumed my floor.  I barely made it into the shower by 3:30pm.  I am writing.  I am writing a memoir and this is exhausting.  Well I think that any writing is exhausting really but sometimes it can be an exhilerating release.  That is how I feel about this but its still exhausting for sure.

What was originally going to be a fictionalized account of the summer I lost my brother -- you know, a coming of age story that included death and suspense -- has turned into a memoir.  This fact has revealed itself to me.  Rob said, "Don't get too fictional."  Then I read Rebecca Walker's Black White and Jewish.  It resonated.  Recently, Eddie referred me to Nick Flynn's Another Bullshit Night in Suck City.  It too resonates.  And, I've absolutely got enough life experience now to truly subscribe to the idea that fact is far stranger than fiction.  I'm sold.  Memoir it is.

So, I'm just writing.  I've got a million words floating in my head that have been waiting to come out.  There is no issue of writer's block.  I just need to get it out, formulate later.

Dione and Lee (1974? Tustin, CA)

This memoir corresponds with some personal therapy I'm putting myself through.  That and the organizing and cleaning out of a lot of old heirloom boxes of stuff that include letters I wrote from about age 10-18.  Perfect! 

Dione and Dancing Snow Bear (1982 Crooks, SD)

This story has been brewing since junior high school when I would pass notes back and forth with my best friend, Staci Ramstad.  At that young age, I secretly dreamed that someday the story could be told but never believed that anyone would care about a midwestern farm girl's life journey.  I spent a great many daydreaming moments during class to now believe.  And, after pursuing the wonderful experience of editing my friend Monique Antoinette's memoir Grateful for Grief: Seasons of Transformation, the truth became explicitly clear.  This is a story that needs to be told.  A singular perspective explicated with the hope that someone out there will benefit from my story.



Lee visiting Mom (1982 Santa Ana, CA)



Dione visiting Mom (1982 Santa Ana, CA)



What I do know is that the dis-ease of this journey should help to staighten out some things inside of me that have been unsettled for most of my life.  And, with that, I hope to be able to move on.  Yep, move on.

Thank you for listening.

My Beagle Doesn't Want Me to be a Writer

My beagle, Alice, doesn't want me to be a writer. Specifically, she appears to be opposed to my blogging. Which, amuses me considering I named her after one of my favorite authors, Alice Walker.


Alice is three months old now. She is pretty simple, in fact. Things you can expect from her include three hour naps, spurts of high energy, lots of drinking, lots of eating and lots of excrement. Don't forget the chomping. As near as I can tell, she is really into this and somehow thinks that it is ok to attempt to perfect her skill. She chews on everything - dresser knobs, kitchen rugs, couch edges, chair legs, bedroom trashcan, Garrett's weights, my fingers - everything! We are training her but this takes time and is often very difficult with such a young pup. We provide her with chew options (lots of toys), bark out the suggested "NO!" and praise her immensely when she does what we ask of her. Yet, her chomping persists.

So shortly after my Friday blog when my husband followed Alice to the living room to find this, I wasn't too surprised.

This is the exact magazine that inspired me for my first blog. Poets & Writers is actually a perk given to me by my scholarship back at USC, the Norman Topping Student Aid Fund. Its purpose was to do exactly what it did - inspire. And I was really feelin' this particular issue. When Garrett presented me the fiasco, I had to laugh and hard.


Since Alice arrived, I have been attempting to get this blog together. It took me an inordinate amount of time to settle in to being a new mom to a little pup. I found it quite difficult to do anything when she was awake. I had been complaining that my life was on hold until she was trained. As a recent graduate and new wife, I am constantly asked, "So what are you doing now? What are your plans? Are you writing?" My consistent response refers to my amazement as to how much I can manage to not achieve when left to my own devices. Between working out and tending to Alice, washing the laundry and washing the dishes, I felt a sudden connection to the housewives of the world. One minute you are getting up at 5:30am to meet your trainer and a few minutes later you look at the clock and it is time to go to bed. Ugh.


Having finally achieved my blogging goal and feeling all cozy in my writers nook, I had to laugh at Alice's well-intentioned proclamation. There was my muse, my inspiration lying on the floor greatly assaulted and evidently shredded and bruised. Why would my little green gas emitter do this to my magazine? Did Alice somehow know that when she was put to napping that I was in my nook typing? Did she despise the magazine for taking time away from her? Was this jealousy? Or was this just a really inviting chew toy? I am thankful that it was not my laptop lying there this way - cold, wounded and shaking.


Regardless, the pup has spoken. She is demanding of my time, which interferes with the creative process. She has destroyed the evidence of my inspiration for the first blog, however, in doing so, has created inspiration for the third. I love her still. I will continue to write and blog. And, I know that we will continue to fight about this. A compromise is imminent and, yet, I have a feeling that this won't be the last we hear from Alice Lucille. No sir, not the last at all.

My Parabola: Modern Times in Romanticized Spaces

There is a nook in my home that we use for talking on the telephone.  It seems that our mobile carrier does not provide service in most of the downstairs of our two-story home.  We find the service best in the north east corner, so we have created a nook.  This nook is special to me because is hearkens back to those movies you watch where there is a specific place in ones home (usually somewhere between the foot of the main staircase and near the kitchen door) where one would have a would-be private location to hold a conversation on the telephone.  That is, except for the household members (your mother or your little brother) who may be lurking in the kitchen door or at the top of the stairs.  Ours is nestled between our patio doors and my daughters antique Wurlitzer piano.


Our nook is not a resultant feature of our home but a created space - an assembly of two parts vintage 1970's rusty orange eight-piece couch, one part glass and steel coffee table, one part Home Depot lamp and one part patio door.  The lamp suffices for night time illumination while the patio doors offer an amazing morning glow for our talking pleasure.  These moments of speak occur every Sunday morning when I receive a call from my father back on the farm in South Dakota, or when my husband is talking business that requires a focused attention.


And while this area has been created for a specific purpose, I embrace it none-the-less.  It is, for me, a parabola.  Now, I have never been one for math (it took me five attempts to accomplish basic algebra and I certainly never made it through geometry) but there is something about the intersection of a surface and a parallel which create a line that just somehow get me in the heart.  See, in my heart lies a hopeless romantic, and romantics like me usually possess a passion for the past - the romanticized past anyway.  While I presently cannot afford a beautifully sculpted and well-maintained Victorian home, I can certainly embrace one in imagined spaces of my current dwelling.  Our nook is an intersection of those nooks of the past with the parallel of now that creates a space in the present - my space, our space.


This space I use to yap yap away, be it on the phone or on my keyboard.  I sit snuggly cushioned in my couch-with-a-questionable-history and type away while gulping my cappuccino and appreciating the noise that assaults my space from the buses, motorcycles and down-shifting fire trucks that bumble by on Manchester Avenue.  For inspiration, I can glance up to see kids on the street skateboarding or back-packed teens racing to the city bus.  Or, I can simply look ahead to the bottom dwellers in my fresh-water tank searching for tasty algae.  Family pictures and beautiful paintings line the walls amidst the dust and the house plants.  All of these serve to inspire this writer I know as "Me."


Some writers collect vintage typewriters.  This writer creates vintage space - a nook, a parabola - and, hopefully, a worthwhile communication.