Tag Archives: truth

Tragedy

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On this day in 1912, first, second and third class passengers of the RMS Titanic were filled with hope and excitement. It promised to be a grand adventure — not just the travel itself, but the thought of docking in New York City. They had four full days of entertainment and hopefully, fun. Then we all know what happened on the 15th. Of the 2,224 passengers and crew, more than 1500 died. The people in third class had a higher rate of casualties. To see an interesting collection of recovered artifacts, check here.

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That Fightin’ Instinct

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My Dad

I yelled, “fall out!” But, there’s one in every crowd. His name was “Johnson,” an ex-merchant marine with big old biceps who thought he could fight a circular saw and come out ahead. He pulled the cover over his head as if that was gonna protect him from someone who knew better.

Everyone was watching me, so I knew I had an impression to make. I walked over, and said, “Well, aren’t you smart?” Then I took that cot and flipped it right in the middle of him.

He stood up, towering over me like a big gorilla, stared down at me and drew back. Now, the thing about big ole boys like Johnson is that they might have a lot of muscle and power, but for a lightweight class like me, they move like molasses. So that’s the last he saw. When he drew his big arm back, my fist landed square on his chin before his pea brain could register what hit him. He dropped like a loose button, out cold as a cucumber.

When Johnson started to stir a bit, he looked at me with surprise and reached up to feel his mouth, like he was making sure all his teeth were still there.

“It’s okay,” I told him. “I know a couple of folks without any teeth and they can still eat almost anything.”

He sat there glaring at me and I kept talking.

“And if you keep puckerin’ like that, pretty soon you’re your face is gonna match your asshole. Now get up!”

Everybody laughed except for Johnson. I guess he didn’t think it was funny. But he did stand up and, so far, Johnson and the rest of the cooks barracks have been looking at me in a different light. I don’t count on Johnson looking down on me ever again. Besides, he couldn’t fight the gnats off his butt.

I suppose the fighting Instinct was born in me, like red is born into a beet. Maybe because I started fighting in first grade when I had to stick that pocketknife into the thigh of Tommy Burns so he wouldn’t take my marbles.

Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper, my father’s story

 

 

 

Is this how you feel too?

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The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer -One of my all-time favorite poems!

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Astronaut Jim Lovell’s idea of heaven

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Yesterday, when speaking with a friend of mine about the 1960’s, he showed me this famous photo. “And to think,” he said, “that when Jim Lovell took this amazing photo of earth, we were there.” That thought was powerful for me. If you were born after December 4, 1968, perhaps your soul was still forming in the universe until ready for this magical sphere.

“You have to really kind of think about our own existence here in the universe. You realize that people often say, ‘I hope to go to heaven when I die,'” he said. “In reality, if you think about it, you go to heaven when you’re born.” – Jim Lovell

Read more here.

When Dancing Doesn’t Help

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I don’t believe what Daddy told me an hour ago. He’s not checking on things at the dairy. He’s out trying to find Mama. I’m sure of it. Daddy knows I refuse to turn twelve without her.

My legs move so fast, I almost forget Mama ran away. But my feet remember what Mama and Betty Beauty Bedford, her used-to-be bestie, told them months back. “Right, left, right left, up back,” they’d chanted.

Beauty had inhaled a ciggy from its ruler-long holder. “Pivot your knees, Emma June. Knock them together then point them out. You too, Carla,” she told my used-to-be. “And for Pete’s sake, move your arms. Let everything flow! Dancing takes away all your worries.”

Now, the Charleston ends. Victor Victrola’s needle ch-ch, ch-ch, ch-ch’s searching for something that’s already been used up. Like my memory at the end of carnival night. And Beauty was wrong. Worries still thump my insides.

Big Chief Tablet glares at me from the kitchen table. I tell it to shut up, that homework can wait till I’m good and ready.

Extra careful when I plant the needle a different Recording, I turn the crank again. The green and yellow squares of our sitting room rug melt together as I spin, and my braid pings one shoulder then the next like two different suitors asking to be my dance partner. My skirt puffs up like a wild mushroom, and it’s swoosh seems to say, “Everything will be right again, Emma June.”

“How do you know that when I can’t even remember?” I yell. Then I jump up and down trying to stomp out my stupid.

Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket by CD-W

NOTE: For those of you who have been reading excepts from this novel, thank you! This excerpt if the beginning of the novel. I hope you liked it!

 

 

 

Where Poems live

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CD-W


There’s a place were poems live

a secret place well hidden

away from the madness

away from the strangers

where life, with all it’s twists and turns, flourishes and grows.

The place where poems grow

is a never ending pasture

where little sprouts are watered and pruned

waiting to be nurtured waiting

to be harvested by the author.

If I could, I’d spend more time in that pasture

I would feel the creative winds kiss my cheeks

and smell the air left behind from inspiring rains

I would listen to the seasons and taste the warmth of words upon my tongue.

I visit there sometimes

I twirl and dance and run and play

And when I’m tired

I lay on the green and stretch my arms toward the sky

I twirl the clouds around my fingertips

and smile at their tickled laughter

All in that secret place

where poems live.

      – CD-W

Lustful jelly-mixing?

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“Daddy says that an almost fourteen year old boy might want something more than an almost twelve year old girl might want to give.”

Now it’s Miss Helen’s turn to puzzle her face. “A thirteen year old boy tried to take advantage of you?”

“Take advantage?” I say.

“Sit down, child.”

I start thinking we’ll be late for school.

“Emma June,” she says. “Boys that age don’t always think above their neck.” She sees the look on my face and says, “Let me continue. They have this jelly that runs through their veins and makes them look at girls with lustful eyes. Pay attention now, you’re not leaving till I’ve had my say. Anyhow, I don’t know if they can help it or not, but a boy trying to grow into a man wants to touch every part of a girl trying to grow into a woman.” Miss Helen leans back to peek in her family room where Mr. Leonard is sitting. “Well, grown men are kinda the same.” She mumbles and turns back to me. “Now, as girls get older, they get their own kind of lustful jelly. But girls need to keep that jelly under control and wait until they’re married to mix their bodies with a man’s.” Her hands fidget with that ugly, flowery, ruffled apron around her waist. “Clear?”

About as clear as thick chocolate cake.

Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket

 

Not such a Vivid response, is it?