Friends in Need

This has been the week for tending to good friends. My SO's longtime best friend went in the hospital for knee replacement surgery and ended up in a coma from the morphine and liver failure. We've been feeding their dogs and checking in on their cows. I can tell that the SO is addled and upset by all of this. I had to practically drag him out of the hospital room last night. I could see that the friend's wife was ready for us to leave, but I think the SO's heart is broken to see his boyhood friend in such a terrible state. Sad situation. And unexpected, which makes it even worse. Sort of reaffirms the tenuousness of life.

A dear friend of mine is going through a nasty and painful divorce. She called me in tears this Wednesday and I met her for a light supper. She just needed to vent more than anything, and is trying to look at it all through a sensible lens, but knows that I understand where she's coming from better than some of her other friends. She had everything written down on paper and showed it to me, the financial breakdown, what she stands to lose and gain, and asked me what I thought about the "deal" her lawyer is going for. I gave her a perfunctory answer and then added that she would do well to aim for closure, moving on with her life, and reminded her that when these things drag on and on the only ones who win are the lawyers. She nodded, but changed the subject, so I'm not sure she really got my message, or didn't want to hear it, or both.

I'm reminded of what my grandmother said to me once, when I was a very young woman going through my first divorce, a teenage marriage that never should have happened at all. But I was devastated, or thought I was, and my grandmother said, "In a year you will look back and it won't hurt so much." What she was saying is that time is the great healer. Such a cliche and such a truth, too, as most cliches actually are. I think back to where I was emotionally just three years ago, and would have never believed I'd have the life I now have and love so much, or be so happy. Hopefully that test of a year will turn out as well for these two dear friends, too.

My article came out in today's paper. Here's a link: www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2009/sep/25/vp_healthcare_col_bonner_67357/?columns

I'm not sure how long that link will be good, but for today it works. I've tried it myself.

No more editing was done to it, so I guess my whittle-job, painful as it was, worked out good enough for the editor.

Our hummingbirds have truly passed through. Only about three or four seem to still be feeding on the nectar we have out. Sorry they left so soon, I enjoyed their company. The cardinals and doves are still around, and actually seem to be in sight more now that the hummers have moved on. The doves are here hiding out from the hunters all around us. I hear shotgun fire regularly in the mornings.

Yesterday, we had a painted bunting. Watched him through the living room window as he pecked a seed head on a clump of bahia grass growing by the nearest flower bed. He was parrot-gaudy, and nervous to be showing himself so openly. It's only the second time I have ever seen one in person, and the SO had never seen one at all. He seemed fascinated by it and delighted by its loud, multi-colored feathers. Fun to watch the SO grow more and more interested in birds. He's usually the one who fills the feeders now when they're empty, both here and at the place on the Coast. He's says he never paid much attention before, called them all "tweeties" and pretty much took them for granted. Now, he enjoys learning their names and watching their habits -- beautiful creatures living on a higher plane, we do sometimes forget to share our worlds.

The dog ran the five resident deer out from under the corn feeder this morning. Again! She is so territorial since we moved here. Doesn't want anything furry coming onto her three acres. It does no good to scold her, and she isn't out to hurt anything, just wants to run them off. I admit I get a kick out of watching her turn on the turbo-charger when she sees a usurper. She becomes this black dart flying across the yard! I imagine she scared them to death. Once they were gone over the fence, she calmed down and came along with me to the gate to collect the newspaper. She enjoys that little morning walk. I picked a bouquet of blue and red wild flowers growing beside the cattleguard, took them in a souvenir-shotglass-turned-bud-vase to the SO with his coffee. Absolutely worth the smile I got in return.

I'm thinking I'll work on the children's book some this week. Have lots of outside interference with Daddy's 85th birthday upcoming, but will try to work it all in. I've never even put the first handwritten draft on the computer. It's a process that usually works to get me engaged. Writing children's literature is not as easy as some people seem to believe. I'm not even sure I can do it, but we shall see.

Onward....

Newspapers and Returning Hummers

Well, I got the article whittled down to 750 words. Had to kill all "my darlings" as the saying goes. It was painful, and I really feel like cutting some of them weakened the message of the piece, but the editor is pleased, and so am I to have it off my desk. Just heard from him and it will run this Sunday. Sunday is always a good day for a column because it's the day with the most circulation. People go buy the Sunday paper when they won't buy any other day of the week, and there are many people who subscribe to only the weekend editions. So Sunday is an excellent day to have something read by a lot more people. It will be nice to see my words in print again. It's been over a year since I had anything published anywhere, or made any money writing. I think they would like for me to come back to the paper, but I don't want to review anymore books. Reviewing books just about ruined my enjoyment of reading. For six months after I left the paper I read nothing but a few magazines. Lately I've been reading again and really enjoying the books I've chosen. My shelves are stuffed to the edges with unread books.

For some reason reading inspires me to write. Always has. I've had writer-friends tell me that they cannot read other people's work when they're in the middle of a writing project. I'm just the opposite, especially when it's someone who is an especially fine writer. Just finished with Anne Proulx's story collection that includes "Brokeback Mountain." We listened to it on the way back from the mountains, and the excellence of the prose held both of us riveted. Had three good readers which helped, actors all of them. Campbell Scott read "Brokeback" and did a wonderful job. I was sobbing by the end, just as I sobbed when I saw the movie. I'm ecstatic that my SO loves books almost as much as I do. It makes life so much better. He even helped me kill my darlings last night as we were watching the president on Letterman.

Which brings me around to my homelife again. A blustery norther blew in this morning, turned the sky steel gray and poured rain for a little while -- another quarter inch that is most welcome. The hummingbirds are slowly returning. The day I left to catch the plane to Denver, I had hundreds swarming the feeders. I was filling four feeders each and every day. They were, of course, all empty when I got home, and one of the first things we did was set out more juice. It took two days for the first one to return. And then yesterday the SO found a dead one beside the sliding door in the sunroom. He worried that our food might be poisoning them, but I assured him the bird probably just flew into the glass kamikaze-like and killed himself, well, in this case, herself. These little birds are so aggressive and territorial, especially the females. Likely the bird saw its own reflection and thought it was an interloper going for its jug of juice. Which should teach any bird to learn to share a little better.

Onward ....

Snakes & Scorpions, Sounds Like a Video Game

Two of the drawbacks to living in the country have shown themselves within the last 24 hours. Last night, as I took Lulu out for her final potty, there was a snake curled up on the sidewalk in front of the sliding glass door, just outside the bedroom. I recognized it immediately as a copperhead. We've killed six this year, but they have all been small, babies actually. The SO has said many times that the mama and papa were somewhere around, too, we just had not happened upon either of them. Well, Lulu and I had the unpleasant experience last night of finding one of the parents, curled and ready to strike. I never jumped so fast and high through a sliding door as I did right then. Lulu came pretty quick, too, although I'm not really certain she saw the snake as much as she thought it was playtime. I guess I must've come in screeching, because my SO sprang out of the bathroom, asking what happened. As soon as he heard the word "snake" he went in search of a weapon, came back with a broom. Seemed like a paltry little weapon against the deadly snake outside. But he managed to beat the thing to death.

Now, I'm sure there are those who would lament the passing of the snake. And I'm just as sure that the snake didn't have it in his/her mind to scare the bejesus out of me, or probably to even bite me unless I stepped on him/her/it. But I really don't care about any of that; when it comes to snakes I sincerely believe in the adage, "the only good snake is a dead snake." I liked him much better gone. We measured him later. He was 27 inches which is almost a record. The longest copperhead either of us had heard of was 30 inches.

A second drawback to country life appeared this morning in the bathroom, just as the SO was drying off from his shower. It was about two inches long, tan, with a prehistoric looking body, and a long stinging tail that was arched up and in position to defend itself from the enemy -- the SO, who promptly smashed the scorpion with his house shoe. Enemy indeed. This was scorpion number 12.

We have been here fourteen months. Both of us love the peace and solitude, the birds singing in the morning, the deer coming to the little corn feeder at dusk. We love sitting in the hot tub on the back patio, looking up through the silhouette of tree limbs at the star-studded sky, and at the moon rising over the rooftop. I still get a chuckle over the gaggle of lanky turkey jakes that greeted me one morning last spring, and even at the armadillo who comes out in the night to dig up my flowerbeds. But I don't love the snakes or the scorpions. Those I could definitely live without -- forever.

Turns out the Viewpoints editor at the local paper actually DOES want my piece. For some reason when I sent it, right before we left for the mountains, the email went into the newspaper's SPAM folder. I queried him again this morning and he found it there. He said he really likes it, feels it's timely and interesting, but he wants me to cut 400 words. Which is a lot. And I had so thought I had already ground it down to the bone, had a tight, fast-paced article. I told him I would do the editing tonight and send it again, all trim and neat, in the morning. Guess I better get to work on that.

Onward ...

Home Sweet Home

What is it about home that feels so wonderful? I'm just back from a long week, by that I mean more than 7 days, away from home, and the places I went were by far mostly much more beautiful and interesting than this place where I live. Still, last night there was just this huge "ah" as I stepped into the mud room and turned on the lights. This is where I can relax, take a nap, hug my kitty, make a mess or clean one up, whatever suits my fancy.

Coming up the driveway, the most obvious thing was how high the grass had grown. We had rain. Yea! Need so much more, but grateful for what fell. My SO said, "I'm going to have to get on the tractor tomorrow." So I know what we'll be doing today. He will mow the front acres, and at the same time, I'll get on the riding lawn mower to do the area around the house. We have three acres, and it's sometimes an awful lot to keep neat. The house needs cleaning. It got dusty with nobody here but the cat here. And I'm sure the bird feeders are all empty, probably have some pot plants that are dry -- the ones that sit under the eaves out of the rain. So it will be a busy day, and yet, I am so anxious to get at it I am up before dawn, just waiting for the first light to arrive so I can go see how everything out there fared.

And as I sit and wait, it occurs to me that there is just something special about home. Even though I love to travel, to see new places, the way other people do things and live, there is still nothing finer than ones own piece of the world. Mine is admittedly less lovely than the mountains I've been in the last week, but it's my nest and I'm happiest here.

I have yet to hear from the opinion page editor at the paper. Had the laptop with me the whole time I was gone, and he never emailed or responded to the last one I sent to him. It's Saturday so I know I can't reach him today, but will call first thing Monday to see if he wants to publish the damned thing. If not, or if I don't get some kind of satisfactory answer, I will simply pull it to send elsewhere. At the very least our little rural paper would probably be delighted to have something different, maybe even a bit controversial, to publish in their weekly. But of course, my aspirations are higher. They always are.

Meanwhile, I've been thinking about cleaning my files, looking through some of those old, unfinished short stories. One in particular has been picking at me lately. Does it take twenty years to finally figure out what a story is about? Maybe. I still find the workings of the mind to be infinitely fascinating. Even if it's my own.

Onward ....

Dreams and Secret Doors

I'm reading a book which has a discussion of the author's recurring dream, and how that dream, she felt, was trying to give her clues about unresolved issues in her life. In her case, she was on a spiritual quest, but some of the things she has to say about her dream hit home with me.

For years and years, I had a recurring dream as well. Mine was never the exact same from one dream to the next, but it always entailed a house I was living in, and a secret door that would reveal an entirely different house, always bigger and more interesting than the one I left behind. There was always shock to find that this other house had been there all the time. I would suddenly discover a door, like in an attic or a deep closet, open it and there would be this other place. It was a little frightening at times, gathering the courage to open the secret door, and I was always apprehensive about entering the new house. Sometimes this new house came complete with an opulent bathroom, or some kind of inventive kitchen arrangement. I really have not thought about this dream in quite some time because it stopped a few years ago. But reading this author's description of her dream and how she felt it was a roadblock in her way, keeping her from finding her true calling -- or as she so succinctly put it: "My sense was that I'd begun to play with my impressive collection of mental blocks, bumping into some sort of psychological barrier to inner peace."

It was this line that brought my own recurring dream back to me. I had never really considered the dream premonitory. I never was one to put much stock in prophetic dreams. I just figured it was brain activity, based on something I'd seen on HGTV or something equally as mundane. But it now seems to me that this dream was trying to convince me of the value of opening new doors, of withering my fear of change, of taking the step through that door to another place.

When my 34-year marriage ended, over and above the sense of loss and grief was this anger I couldn't shake of having wasted all those years. I couldn't seem to leap over that feeling of waste. In fact, that feeling continued within me long after the day in court came and went, long after I had quit grieving the loss of the marriage. It's only been in the last year or so that I've begun to find some peace with that sense of waste, forgiving myself for making unwise choices, and actually feeling gratitude toward my ex-husband for shaking off the inertia that had become us, of finally reaching out for something new and better, and in doing so, forcing me to go along, whether I wanted to or not. Once the distance between that old life and the new one, became greater, I began to be able to admit that I had long suppressed feeling of dissatisfaction, a suppression borne of necessity because I had, after all, chosen the life I was leading, and chosen it with knowing doubt that I was doing the right thing from the very beginning. There was always this indescribable hunger that ached inside my soul, this need for some deeper reason for living than what I felt was my reality. The sense of loneliness and isolation that those feeling brought was too unbearable, and I worked hard throughout the years, to erase negative thoughts about my life and marriage, but it was a struggle that took its toll on me, too.

I recognize that life is not a bowl of the proverbial cherries. But I don't think marriage is supposed to be such a continuous struggle, for years on end, to convince yourself that your life is all you want it to be, or that you're happy with all the decisions you made to get you where you are. I think it's OK to finally admit you might have had poor judgment, might have stripped yourself of other chances, might have done better if you'd chosen a different path. It doesn't mean you are disloyal to the good things that may have come out of those bad decisions. It doesn't mean you love your children any less, or regret the holidays, the birthdays, the extensions of inlaws and mutual friendships. But I think it's never too late to start over either, to grab hold of that handle, open that new door, and step on through.

I thought I would work on the manuscript I brought along with me on this trip. I thought it would be a good time to get away from the telephone and the hundreds of other distractions I find around home to keep me from writing. I knew I would probably spend some quiet time in the hotel room while my SO was off working his convention. Instead, I've been having a hard time putting down this book written by an author who has touched me in ways she probably never intended. Enlightenment often comes to us serendipitously. We just have to open ourselves to it, and be grateful that it's come at all.

One of the best things that ever happened to me in life was when I learned to read. I immediately fell in love with books. It's a love affair that has continued unabated ever since.

Onward ....

Garbage in, Garbage Out

Garbage is on my mind this morning. Literally. Because of the Labor Day Holiday our garbage pickup was changed, without notification, of course. I'm not even sure I understand why, since my regular pickup day is Tuesday not Monday. Here's the problem. We have rural pickup, once a week, $30 a month, and they're selective about what they will and will not take in the way of garbage. I admit I cheat. I sneak litter in there every so often, buried in with the other garbage. I try to evenly distribute it over the entire garbage load. You know, half in one large black back, half in another, so the weight doesn't give me away. So, on Tuesday morning, I grab up the three big bags, load them in the back of the truck and drive them to the gate. Off load. Come back, thinking smugly that once again I had beaten the truck, which is not always easy, since I must be the first on the route. He's usually here by 7:10. Yes, I actually set my alarm clock for this weekly chore.

At 11:00, when I went to have lunch with friends, the three bags were still sitting there. When I got back and saw them there yet, I called. The lady seemed perplexed with me. Didn't I realize that there had been a holiday? Well, yes, but the holiday didn't fall on MY garbage pickup day, and they had never stated what their holiday pickup schedule would be. She said, "Well, we consider today Monday. Tomorrow will be your day. Or it would be, except our truck broke down, so this week it'll be Thursday." I said I hoped so because I was leaving town Thursday for a week and the garbage could not just sit out there that long. For one thing, we have raccoons and possums and all manner of other wildlife that would consider those garbage bags a great treasure. She said they would pick up my trash on Thursday. I retrieved my three bags and shoved them in the garage to await Thursday.

So, this morning I was up before daylight, making sure I collected all the garbage, including some litter, of course. I now have four bags of garbage. I backed the pickup around, loaded all of it into the bed, busted my thumb pulling down the tailgate. One of the bags had some kind of mucky mess in there that had leaked all over the floor of the garage. Got some on my nightgown. Well, whose going to get dressed just to take the garbage down to the end of the driveway? I ran over the newspaper going through the gate. Try as I might, I just can't seem to straddle the pickup tires over things. The damned thing's just too big and cumbersome, and I can't see out of the rearview mirror. I don't want to mess with the sideviews because I know my SO has them set just the way he likes them. So I ran over the paper. Twice, actually. Once going and once coming back. I'm just glad that's all I ran over. I barely missed one of the wings on the cattleguard.

Now, I'm waiting to see if they pick up the damned bags, and it's already after 8:00.

Meanwhile, I watched Obama's speech last night. I thought it was a great speech, although I don't think it changed anybody's mind. This country is so divided and usually it's over the most trivial details where our lines get drawn. Last weekend, I listened to some very good friends rail about their insurance company, how difficult it was nowdays to get anything approved, or paid. But as soon as I brought up Obama's plan, they immediately began to attack it, and ME, I might add.

All of this got me to thinking about the article I wrote in such a frenzy yesterday. I decided that it's timely, maybe too timely to submit to someplace that might take a month or two to read it, and then another month or two to publish it if it were, by chance, to get accepted. So, I polished it up, while I waited for the garbage truck to arrive (it hasn't yet), and emailed it to the opinion page editor at the local newspaper. I know him personally, having worked at that paper reviewing books for two and a half years. Don't know if he'll like it. I do know that it's long-ish at just over 1000 words. I whittled on it as much as I could, just didn't find another word to cut. We shall see.

When I get to Denver tonight, I'll call him.

Onward....

Hummingbirds

There are four nectar feeders in my yard, and so many hummingbirds, I'm having to fill them -- all four -- every day. These little birds are fascinating to watch. I sit just inside the sliding door in the sun room with my binoculars and my Peterson's guide and watch them dart around like hellish wasps. They catfight over the juice. I've identified five varieties so far, including the elusive Broad-billed with the red beak. But I know that it isn't the wonder of my nectar that's brought them here, they're simply migrating through. As long as I keep the nectar out for them, they'll stay. But since I'm leaving for Denver tomorrow, I'm sure they'll all be gone when I return. A week is too long for a little hummingbird to hang onto the hope I'll be there each morning with my jug of juice. This morning they buzzed so close I thought I might get poked with a long bill. Then I realized I was wearing a red T-shirt and they thought I was a big flower.

I woke up this morning writing in my head. That's a good sign. It was 6:30, and the words in my mind kept repeating themselves. This happens to me often, and I sometimes am so lazy, I will just try to keep them there, memorizing them so I can write them down later when I'm more fully awake. But the truth is, I haven't had much luck with this. Invariably, I can't remember what sounded so perfect in my brain by the time I get around to sitting down to write. So, I forced myself to snap on the lamp, and with my eyes squinting against the outrage of light, I groped over to the SO's desk and grabbed some copy paper out of his printer. I went back to the lamp, laid on the bed, and wrote an article that I have no idea where to send. In the original thought, I was writing for the local newspaper. But once it was all down, I realized it was more of a "last page" kind of thing, a tongue-in-cheek look at my own personal experience with finding and using so-called health insurance, if you can call what I have by such a lofty name. It actually turned out kind of funny, I think. A bit of social commentary. Writing fiction just does not seem to interest me much anymore, so I'm planning to write down what comes to me, and this seems to be it at the moment.

So I spent the afternoon entering it in my laptop, going through a couple of drafts, and will let it rest for a bit while I'm gone to Denver. I'm having lunch with one of my writer buddies in Boulder Friday. Getting together with her has always inspired me to want to work again, and I'm hoping she might have some ideas about where I could submit this 1000-word piece. Sometimes I feel like a beginner again, not knowing if anybody cares about what I might have to say.

Also today I found my book editor on Facebook. Was really good to see her pictures and have an online conversation with her. She's interested in what I'm doing, but she's also contemplating complete retirement. All the editors I know are retiring. Suppose that's what happens to aging writers like me. I've noticed the last few writerly get-togethers I've been invited to attend have been populated with strangers. I used to feel I knew the majority of Texas writers and that they were my peers. Now the strangers at these gatherings mostly all have a lot fewer wrinkles than I do.

Ah me!

Onward ....

What Is the Point Here?

First blog: I've been considering it for a while. I'm sure all bloggers think at some time, who cares? And will anyone read what they're pouring out into cyberspace? So, with that in mind, I have decided that this blog will be more for my own benefit than for others, although "others" will be taken into account, should they appear. And maybe, just maybe, something will come out of this that will 1) be helpful to me and to like-minded people struggling with their own inner will, 2) make me start at least thinking about writing again, and 3) stop the endless time-sink of my addiction to computer games. I especially like Super Collapse 3. All those colorful bombs ....

Anyway, so here's my blog. It ain't much now, but maybe it will turn out to be something worth reading in time. Onward ....