Two for One - A Writerly Afternoon

My writer’s group met yesterday to read out our assigned topics for October and to participate in a writing exercise just before nibbles and coffee or tea. Our topic - write a tiny story following the guidelines from the Greater Victoria Public Library contest guidelines. As it turned out the attendance for the afternoon’s writer’s group was also tiny as three of our members had conflicting engagements. But we soldiered on anyway. 

One of our ‘away’ members emailed her story to us. By the way, a Tiny Story is to be 420 only - that includes letters, spaces and punctuation! It really works out to about 140 words. We each read out our Tiny Stories. Because the readings were short and sweet, we had lots of visiting time. Here is my contribution:

A Love Story

Richard struggled to push her wheelchair across bumpy grass. Astrid looked up at him with a love reserved for the movies. Their ages were as mismatched as the misshapen clothes on their backs. When his illness became terminal, shelters and workers were her life line to his hospital bed. His death was her great tragedy. A great love transcended the cold ground, wheelchairs, hospital beds and their longing for a home. 

*****

Then it was on to our writing exercise. Our host fanned out a selection of folded papers. We were to choose one and not to show it to anyone else. Each page contained a picture and a line beneath with questions to be answered. Our host had chosen them from the many online writing prompts. I was definitely curious about what and how I would be able to write anything for 10 minutes. I actually only managed nine minutes - and on my iPhone. My questions were:  'It's the morning of her first day of school. What's going on? What does it mean?'

Challenged

I’m not really scared. You’re awfully big and I know I should be but you look like you’re half asleep! How can I be scared when you’re not even awake? Would you like some breakfast? You would have to get up because you’re walking me to school. Did you forget? This is my first day at school and I want everyone to see that I am not afraid of you and that you are beautiful. I will introduce you to all my new friends and to my teacher so they all know that I have a wonderful strong and gentle friend that will be with me every day. Well, most days, unless you stay in bed and sleep. But you really need to wait to sleep until Saturday or Sunday when school is out. Then I’ll let you stay in bed.

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”

~ Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

A Squirrel-ly Poem

My patio garden - July, 2016

My fingers tap 

on the keys of my laptop

like the squirrel 

digging in my garden

wondering, perhaps, if anything worth eating

had been hidden beneath the damp soil waiting 

to be discovered and eaten.

But no, all had been harvested but each day the squirrel returns, curious 

about the soils potential

if squirrels know such big words.

When I dig in my garden I only find peanuts 

magically transported into the soil,

fine hairy roots beginning to sprout, but

I toss them out for the squirrel to pick up

and possibly cache in my little garden. 

“Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air.”

~ Carl Sandburg

Book Review: One Brother Shy by Terry Fallis

Comedy. I really didn’t know that novels could be comedic. Really. One Brother Shy is a very serious comedy. Alex, painfully shy and introverted, has developed a facial recognition program for a company called Facetech. Based in Ottawa, the office he worked in is an open space office with ‘lame fabric partitions’ masquerading as cubicles. His cubicle mate, Abby, with a high energy personality, seems to have limited respect for Alex’s obvious introversion. Alex lives with his mother who has been a single parent since his birth. His mother passes away early in the story. The night before she had told him that she wanted to tell him something important. The next day, he is alone with only their housekeeper, Malaya. He sees a psychologist, Dr. Wendy Weaver, regularly. They are the only other people he trusts openly. The name Gabriel comes up through the book as the cause of his social shyness and inability to speak freely. Alex is not curious about exploring that part of this life, but is curious about the information his mother didn’t get to tell him. A trail of clues in his home and a mysterious regular monthly bank deposit are curiosities. Even more so is a half picture in his mother’s bank deposit box showing a man holding a baby. The photograph is also trimmed so the man’s face is not visible. There are numbers on the back but no reference to what they mean. It is the photograph that is of the greatest curiosity and motivates Alex to move out of his comfort zone. His journey begins when he uses the facial recognition to search for answers. Learning that he has a twin brother, he very, very bravely tells his very incredibly toxic boss that he is taking time off to continue his search. His travels take him to London, to Russia and back to Canada. 

This is a very easily read book full of sarcastic humour, weaving Alex’s story through Russia/Canada hockey, issues of social media and some Canadian politics, but always with a light conversational manner. Terry Fallis addresses several serious issues in this story with a very light and sensitive touch. 

“I just stayed still, not that I could move much.

I knew any movement would make it worse.”

~ Alex, One Brother Shy

Title: One Brother Shy

Author: Terry Fallis 

Copyright: 2017

Format:  Soft cover

ISBN-978-0-7710-5072-5

ebook ISBN-978-1-7710-5073-2

Type: Fiction

Publisher: McClelland & Stuart

Cloaked

Years ahead in time

there is never a clear view

when today’s heavy fog of emotion 

cloaks what could be

in fear and bleakness.

Years ahead in time

there are rainbows 

hidden beneath those cloaks

ready to burst forth in bright colours.

Years ahead in time

are assured of doom and gloom,

but curiosity about life

infuses our imagination and actions

with the hope of what could be.

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”

~ Desmond Tutu

Leaping through Life

Taking a leap has not been one of my preferred activities. After all, when I was 15 and attempting the annual High School Track and Field Day event of  high jump, my success was extremely limited. Although I barely skimmed over the bar set shorter than my own shortness, I landed with such a thump on the freshly raked sand, that I could barely stand up. High fives were not even invented until 1977 ~ not that I would have needed that information then. Curiosity, on the other hand, has been around for a long, long time. When I was 15, I was curious about my ability to be athletic. I wanted to leap the high jump bar gracefully, jump up and do it again. Over the years I’ve learned to take many, many leaps. Leaps of faith, leaps of bravery, leaps of joy, leaping into the unknown, leaps with a big deep breath and I’ve not always recovered from them very gracefully ~ but I do keep trying. Just no athletic stuff.

“All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous 

unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.”

~ Henry Miller

A Stirring

A Stirring

Intellectually I knew that the holiday on the calendar was more than a few black and white marks on a page. But for me it was just another day on the calendar, an extra day off from work and, on the up side, a great family day even though there were chairs that were newly empty. The sound of their missing laughter was a slowly fading memory. But there was something more stirring - an intuitive knowing. My curiosity stirred. I tried to ignore it. Curiosity, or rather following ‘my heart’, had too often gotten me into trouble with someone so I had learned to play it safe. Everything had to be ordered and scheduled, with no spontaneity to it. But still there was that stirring? What was it? According to yesterday’s designation, I was supposed to be Thankful, but there was a lump in my heart that held me still even while I felt a softness. A softness that swirled around me like an early morning mirage on a sunlit morning. Cool, with the promise of warmth as the sun rose in an open sky. Gilt edged pink drifts of cloud merely hovering on the horizon at sunrise, stirred by the wind. 

“At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear."

~ Norman MacLean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

Taste of Thanksgiving

Taste of Thanksgiving

Surprisingly, he was a very good cook. I say ‘surprisingly’ because a stereotype had taken over. As soon as I saw him striding towards the back door ~ grubby overalls, an old leather, sweat stained stetson that sat back on his dirt stained forehead, work boots he had to leave outside because they were covered in sloppy mud ~ I had him pegged as someone who expected his supper to be on time and only to his liking.

Then he came downstairs after cleaning off the dirt and dust of a farmer’s active life in barn and field. Granted, even though he ‘cleaned up real good’, I was still curious to see how he could cook a turkey better than my own mother. I didn’t know how good his mother’s turkey cooking skills were so would have to wait for the taste test at supper. I didn’t have to wait that long to see how he moved in the kitchen. It was as though his movements had been choreographed - from refrigerator to cupboard to stove and back, chopping bacon, onions and mushrooms, deboning the turkey, brining it in buttermilk and putting it all together. Later that evening when friends and family were gathered round the table, the Taste was truly Thanksgiving.

“People don’t want other people to be people.”

~  Gene Wolfe,  Shadow & Claw