Addie In The Storm

Today's Free Write - Fiction:

Addie saw the good in people, until she didn’t. Her corn silk curls clipped back from blush-kissed cheeks and eyes like gray-blue pearls, she walked the way a girl might walk who knew there was somebody watching. Shoulders back. Hips swaying a bit more than usual. Thin smile. And her sister Myra envied every last look from every town boy they’d known growing up on the red dirt farm her parents inherited from grandpa Mooresby.

That was before.

Myra sat next to her mother on the porch swing, cross-stitched an orange cat under the lettering Welcome Home on a pillow for her daughter. She actually sucked in her breath when she looked up to see Addie stride up the porch steps. “Well, if it ain’t miss big city come home to the farm.” She dropped her stitching needle, grabbed her sister up in a hug that nearly smothered the pretty girl. “We need to get some meat on these bones. Mama, look at this skinny sister of mine. She’ll blow away on a summer breeze.”

All Addie could think was with the plum-pit of regret in her belly and the words ‘he’s gone’ tied round her ankles like an anchor there was no chance of blowing away. Her sorrow weighed twice as much as she did.

Addie watched her mother. Watched her tears come and her mouth gape open to speak. To bring comfort or criticism. But no words came.

That was the thing about a homecoming. Sometimes it was just the showing up that mattered most. Even when there was nothing anybody could say to make it better.

Liver In The Moment

When a day in your life goes from normal to crisis, you gain perspective in the moment.

For me, that day was Valentine's Day 2009 when a phone call changed the course of the evening from a family celebration to the night my dad was given the gift of a new liver. My parents made the four hour drive overnight to Duke Hospital where my dad had a liver transplant. Now, nearly three months after surgery, he is making great progress in his recovery.

Amazing.

But with perspective comes the challenge of keeping it. In a crisis it seems easy to stay in the moment - each second counts and requires your full attention. Time slows down. The trick is to stay in the moment when your life returns to its new normal, when routine makes it easy to daydream about the past or anticipate the future instead of enjoy the time as it passes. I know, it's so much easier said than done.

I guess the best we can do is to try to make the most of the normal days before we encounter a crisis and remember the wisdom gained when a crisis comes along.

Here are a few of my thoughts from a post-crisis perspective:

Be an organ donor.

Love the ones you love.

Live in the moment.

Stands With A Fish

Two weeks! My daughter will be one year old in two weeks! My jaw is on the floor. I can't believe it. But, alas, Taylor is growing up as fast as everyone (really, everyone) said she would. I blinked. They said not to blink, but I blinked. And now she's almost one year old already. Wow.

Taylor's latest antics include trying to eat elusive Cheerios, lifting her leg Karate Kid style while laughing, babbling everything from "dada" to "tree" (still no sign of "mommy" - saving the best for last, right? Right?), attempting to walk, and standing with toys in both hands - usually toy fish. Her other standing routine (at least for the past week) has been to pull up in the corner of her crib during naptime, grip her stuffed dolphin (a mammal, not a fish), and scream-cry until her poor dolphin is soaked with snot and tears. That routine is getting old, fast (just like Taylor).

This time last year I was a week from my due date and couldn't sleep. I didn't know whether I was having a boy or a girl. The baby curled in my pregnant belly kicked and hiccuped. A couple weeks after that, my life changed forever when Taylor Jane raised her hand through my c-section ("Hey, world! I'm here!") at 2:24 a.m. and made her grand entrance into the mad world.

Happy New Year for Old Resolutions!!

It's the first week of 2009 and I already get the sense that this year will bring many changes. As I see it, change is the only constant. I'm curious to find out what will happen with each passing month in this new year.

Most importantly, I'm invoking the carryover rule for all resolutions from last year. Everyone has another whole year to keep their resolutions from last year. Hooray! Isn't that wonderful?! Now, you can stop feeling guilty about the things you didn't finish before December 31, 2008. You have another 365 (well, technically 360) days!! Am I just creating the ultimate form of procrastination or what?

It's a happy new year for old resolutions. I'll toast to that!

A new year brings with it the awareness that time keeps on passing -- another day, another week, another year. This is life. This very moment. And this very moment. Second by second. Get busy doing whatever it is that you want to do.

What are you waiting for? Next year? It will be here before you know it...

Deadline a-Comin' (Ruh Roh)

Whew! The past month just dissolved into nothingness...where does the time go??

I'm a few weeks away from my self-imposed first draft deadline for my novel and, well, I'm confessing right here and now that there's no way I'll be making that deadline unless I simply type "The End" on the last page of my current draft and call it finished. I'm still in the middle. Stuck in the middle. Wading through the middle. This draft is quicksand, really, sucking me in and down. Each chapter I write multiplies like a Gremlin - ten more chapters that I didn't anticipate bubble off of the one I just wrote. But I love the writing process, tedious as it may be at times. Novel writing is a marathon, not a sprint. The finish line appears to be somewhere in March or April.

I WILL finish.

I can't pinpoint one single thing that caused me to miss my deadline. There's a lot going on with me. In the hours not spent on my writing, so much is happening that requires not only my physical, but also my mental and emotional energy. Everything from sweet baby ten-month-old Taylor becoming increasingly interactive to new clients calling to a sick doggie to the agony of waiting to find out if my dad will be placed on the liver transplant list at Duke.

The year 2008 has shaped up to be a pivotal year for me in all facets of my life. To sum it up with a single "B" (see my earlier posts if I just lost you...), I'm calling the year 2008 "Busy"!

What word best describes your 2008?

Mid-Novelmber

I'm still in the middle of my novel in the middle of November. November is National Novel Writing Month (in case you didn't know), so I hope to do lots of writing this month in hot pursuit of my goal to finish my first draft by the new year. Being in the middle is tough. Although I can see the progess I've made to this point, I don't know exactly how far I have to go to reach the finish line. My novel keeps expanding along the way, but I guess this is one of those times when more is more. Better to have to cut back than add on during the editing process. I hope to have a productive Novelmber!

Nap Baby Nap!

I found the holy grail of motherhood - baby's afternoon nap in the crib.

You see, up until this past weekend I was letting Taylor nap while being held or carried or rocked. It seemed that there must be some other way, some way to have my hands free while Taylor took her nap. But each time I tried to put her in her crib, she woke in a tantrum as soon as her butt hit the baby mattress.

Determined to put Taylor on a loose schedule (not being a big fan of schedules myself), I decided it was time to try a crib nap in the afternoon. I let her cry for 10 minutes the first day before going in to rescue her and then added five minutes to the cry time each day. Well, on the fourth day, she fell asleep in the crib and slept for more than an hour (that was yesterday). And, right now, I'm watching her on the monitor sleeping in her L-shaped position. She went down for her nap at 4:30 with only a five minute fuss and it is now 6:15!!

I want to jump for joy! I've had almost two hours to sit in the solarium and write and talk on the phone and enjoy the turn of the day from dusk to night.

This is the best birthday present Taylor could give me.

Nap Baby Nap!