Yawning
despite the desire to keeping reading,
plot twisting and turning,
characters leaping over gigantic obstacles,
solid
black
fading
in and out
Characters in slow motion
Obstacles softening and translucent
…….what happened?! …..
I just dozed off again!
“It was a way of recognizing places of enchantment:
people falling asleep like this.”
~ Jonathan Franzen, novelist
Letting words drift
through my mind to have
their own melody is pleasant.
The lyrics are choppy and don’t make much sense;
a salad of the events of the day.
Writing, reviewing, editing;
making granola after supper;
reading The Promise of Canada,
out in the sun to push winter melt towards the drain, a bit of laundry ~ all mundane, necessary things to keep body and soul healthy and happy.
With each minute and hour that passes,
global events and the characters in that play
bully their way in and
threaten a discordant melody.
And they may have their way, but not this day.
Today is for home ~
the strength for all the ‘morrows to come.
“In love of home, the love of country has its rise.”
~ Charles Dickens
Veronica and Betty, teenagers and best friends, didn’t have much of a voice in the 1960’s; more than their mothers before them and less than their granddaughters today. Spinning from comic books to graphic novels, to TV and to movies they advanced like chess pieces, only a smidge, so their voices could be heard but still easily silenced. But Veronica and Betty, still teenagers, were best friends then, all the way to now. From comic book characters to stars of the silver screen, still chasing Archie, Veronica is still rich and Betty, that girl next door.
“It takes courage to grow up and become you really are.”
~ e.e.cummings
Out of the Shadows
“Midnight on the bridge. Come alone.” Jock found the note taped to his computer. He laughed and brushed it aside. Mike must have put one of the secretaries up to this. While he finished up the days entries, he thought about his so called buddy. Did he really think I’d fall for something that juvenile? The cute little heart in the corner? I’m passed all of that. So I haven’t had a day off in over a year. I barely have time to sleep anymore. Four jobs just to keep body and soul together. I should be mad at him
~~~~~
He loosened his tie and then tightened it again. The mirror couldn’t tell him which was better. Jock hadn’t been able to make a decision about what to wear. Not that he had much of a wardrobe. Casual for work. Suit and tie for going out. He had two good sweaters for work. The navy one was clean. Even his mother approved of it when he wore it to Sunday dinners. When he put it with his other clean shirt and his red tie, she said he looked ‘well turned out’. He grimaced at the thought ‘There’s my boy and so well turned out. Now straighten your tie.’ At the thought, he loosened his tie. “If she knew what I was about to do, she’d probably send me to my room. Or at least try to.
~~~~~
And now here he was, hiding behind a large bush in the park, the smell of hydrangeas and roses softening the night. Bright lights from the city lit up the park, throwing long shadows across the bridge. Rustling in the dark bushes made him uneasy. The park was often home to the homeless at night. Had he disturbed someone? Mike’s note was a fake, just to see if he’d show up. Jock was about to turn and leave when he heard a sob. And then ~“@#$@#% ~ That mean, stupid *%^&*%^! He’s probably two feet away laughing at me. Well, I’ll show him!” The bushes parted violently, leaves torn from their branches. “You! What are you doing here?!”
“Brenda?! What are you doing here?” Jock was almost whispering. Brenda was not. “I could ask you the same thing, Jock. What are you doing here? I got a message to come here alone at midnight. Well it’s after midnight, there’s no one even on the bridge. That’s why I’m hiding here ~ to see if anyone would even show up on the stupid bridge.” As tough as Brenda sounded, Jock could see tears glistening in her lovely eyes. Softly he said “I got the same note Bren. Look.” He pulled the wrinkled note from his pants pocket.
~~~~~
There wasn’t anything to do in the park after midnight, and only one all night coffee shop open in the city’s central core. It was diner fare and the coffee wasn’t the best, but Jock and Brenda decided that they needed to talk. Over an early morning breakfast of crispy fried eggs and soggy waffles, they plotted and laughed.
“Sometimes a Cupid plays hard to catch
as he always got new couples to match.”
~ Ana Claudia Antunes, author
Author’s note: Another writing exercise <writingexercises.co.uk>
The exercise: Random dialogue: “Midnight on the bridge. Come alone.” This is the second draft of this story. The first was handwritten and completely stream of consciousness. When I was transcribing it an hour later, there was a sudden and unplanned name change! ‘Sam’ became ‘Jock’. Sam’s story fizzled out. Jock had an entirely different story to tell. I know, always blame it on the characters!
Becoming aware of my surroundings, touching them in my mind and describing them in my journal is not the easiest of tasks. Growing up I learned to do the exact opposite, except maybe being aware of my surroundings. But to write about real people still makes me uncomfortable to a degree. Oh, and ‘don’t stare’. That really is important. I suspect I'd be kicked out of coffee shops if that were the case.
I will tell you some of what my coffee shop foray was today. Only two women in the same area as the one I chose. Greying hair, slender, casually dressed. They were playing cards, I think it was cribbage. There was another woman, white hair, neatly dressed, sitting alone until, while I was finishing my scone, she was joined by three others. Voices clear, their conversation was about the recent visit by the Pope. The range of ages would be late 50’s to mid 70’s. My guess only. Lastly, two other people sat at the table beside me. Mid 50’s possibility, a man and a woman. Both slender people.
Learning the art of describing facial features, for instance, is part of these lessons and needs lots of work. I could look at my own face in the mirror, but there’s not much variety there. The characters that inhabit stories and novels are in need such variety. Each real person has their own story. I have a long way to go, but as long as there are coffee shops and restaurants, public parks and shopping malls I will be able to see and hear the grand variety of humanity. I just need to tailor my childhood lessons to respect others and to learn the nuances of my fellow humans.
“Sitting there in the coffee house, I saw so many stories
behind the lips of people who had left them untold.”
~ Lidia Longioro, Hey Humanity
Alka Joshi has returned us to the India of her first book, The Henna Artist. Kind, gentle and patient, Lakshmi Shastri, who decorated the rich and royal of Jaipur as a young woman, is now married and living in the city of Shimla. Some may even consider that she is a master manipulator!
Except for her own hands, Lakshmi has given up her henna artistry to work alongside her husband Jay Kumar at the Lady Bradley Hospital. She also developed an herb garden for use in the care of her husband’s patients. The young man, Malik, that she befriended in her early years in Jaipur has continued with her. He introduces us to the setting in the Prologue. Lakshmi first knew him when he was about eight years old. Still as charming and mischievous as he was then, he has since graduated from a boys school and remains a close part of Lakshmi’s life. He knows her as Auntie-Boss, which describes their relationship. Between them, they carry all the intriguing secrets of those rich and royals that remain in Jaipur.
Lakshmi sends Malik to Jaipur to learn all facets of the building trade jointly owned and run by the Singh/Sharma families. These families only suspect, and some also know, the secrets of their past and present lives. Singh/Sharma’s most recent and spectacular building project is the Royal Jewel Cinema, financed by the palace and the Maharani Latika. Lakshmi returns briefly to Jaipur to sort out the strands of intrigue that Malik has unraveled.
As an aside, a favourite character of mine, Madho Singh, has nothing to do with secrets and intrigue. An Alexadrine parakeet, he is just annoying and talkative. He had belonged to the Dowager Maharanji and was gifted to Malik when he left for school. Was it because the esteemed Madho Singh liked Malik or was the Dowager Maharani getting rid of an annoyance? He is quite a fun character in both books.
In The Secret Keeper of Jaipur, Alka Joshi has not merely given us a repeat of the same cast of characters. Nimmi enters the picture in the first chapter. Nimmi, a young widowed woman with two children, is from a tribe of hill people. She has left her tribe to come to Shimla to work. Working in the Shimla Mall, selling flowers and herbs, she meets Lakshmi and Malik. She is unaware of having met Lakshmi earlier. Her relationship with Lakshmi is awkward, but Malik charms both Nimmi and her children, Chullu and Rheka. When he leaves to work in Shimla, it increases the rift that she has with Lakshmi. In the pause of Malik’s absence, Nimmi’s concerns about her brother are magnified when one of his sheep, carrying gold underneath its wool, is discovered and brought into Shimla Mall. She leaves Shimla with her children to find her brother in the hills. It this episode that brings Nimmi closer to Lakshmi. Should she return to her tribe and give up Malik and her independence? She knows nothing of the intrigue of Jaipur, she just wants Malik back in her life.
Alka Joshi has carefully and beautifully given her readers the colourful, intricate and fragrant world of India. Reintroducing her characters has answered a frequently asked question ‘What happens to them all after we close the book?’ Happily, the author is presently researching the third in this trilogy.
“A born politician. That’s what you are, Mrs. Kumar. If you’d been born into our family, you’d be in Parliament by now, my dear.”
~ Alka Joshi, The Dowager Maharanji Queen,
The Secret Keeper of Jaipur by Alka Joshi
Title: The Secret Keeper of Jaipur
Author: Alka Joshi
Copyright: 2021
Publisher: MIRA Books (Published by arrangement with Harlequin S.A.)
Type: Novel
Format: Soft cover
ISBN-13: 978-0-7783-1145-4
Turning dreams into reality was not as easy as either of the twins thought it would be. It had been easy and exciting in the beginning. It became a story about family secrets and how life is stifled because of them. It is about the courage that it takes to make necessary, and sometimes unwelcome changes. Desiree and Stella, from the fictional southern community of Mallard, disappeared one night after a town event.They just ran away to New Orleans. Desiree convinced Stella to run, but it was Stella who never returned to stay. Cramped in a tiny basement apartment, not knowing anyone, they struggled to find jobs, their lives revolving in ways they never dreamed.
The Vanishing Half is about more than two teenagers running away from a community where they felt cramped and stifled. Brit Bennett has beautifully written a story about one of the complexities of being Negro. A sort of internal class system based on skin colour. * “In Mallard, nobody married dark.” Desiree did ‘marry dark’. Her only child, Jude, had extremely dark skin ~ the Mallard community called her ‘blueblack’. When she and her mother returned to Mallard, Jude was not treated well by her school mates because of the colour of her skin. Stella slipped into being white which, over time, became a lie that consumed her life. In her life of privilege, she hid her secret beginnings from her husband, Blake and their daughter, Kennedy. One of the experiences for Stella and Desiree as children was seeing their father brutally killed by white men. They each responded to this experience in different ways. For Desiree, it was merely a past. For Stella, it was a trauma that underlined her desire to disappear into whiteness.
Jude, Desiree’s shy and black skinned daughter and Kennedy, Stella’s spoiled, arrogant ‘white’ daughter met by accident. Jude, searching for her mother Desiree’s sister, had almost given up on every finding her. When she did, convincing Kennedy that they were cousins was her challenge.
Almost as an afterthought, one other secret crept into Jude’s life. It showed another way that people are compelled to change their selves and their image. Her boyfriend hid his gender from her. They were deeply in love. His gender change was never openly discussed, as most family secrets are never discussed. Jude and Reese loved each other without reservation regardless of society’s norm. Was this really an afterthought?
Another interesting character, Early Jones is a man who Desiree knew as a teen. Her mother did not like him because he was 'dark' and had a past. Drifting through his life, he was a man who could 'find' people for a price. He and Desiree met again when she returned to Mallard when Jude was a child. Their relationship was honest and real, but not conventional. Early supported Desiree from his various hotel rooms or the back seat of his car. When her mother, Adel Vignes, developed Azheimer's Disease, Early returned to live in Mallard to help with her care. Getting a steady job, he also chose to change his life.
I was quite impressed with this well written story. It did stall later in the book, but the story kept me reading. Did I like all the characters? For the most part, I did. Some of their behaviours I did not, but given their back stories, I understood them. A book to keep and to re-read.
*“She hadn't realized how long it takes to become somebody else, or how lonely it can be living in a world not meant for you.”
~ Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half
*Chapter 1, Page 5
Title: The Vanishing Half
Author: Brit Bennett
Copyright: 2020
Publisher: Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
Type: Novel
Format: Hard Cover
ISBN: 9780525536291
LLC: PS3602.E66444 (ebook)
ISBN: 9780593190197 (International edition)
Wording
“Exploring, in baby steps, I welcome the ghosts………” Clayton sighed. “Now who do I talk to. I suppose I should just go talk to dad. I hate this English teacher! Giving us these dumb ‘stems’. That’s what he calls them.” He felt something. The hair on his neck was standing up, his neck was prickling, he was suddenly cold. “Is anybody there?” His adolescent voice hesitated, not sure what he should do. “Mom?” There was no sound except for a slow soft breathing. “Dad?” His voice was barely a breath.
“Yes, son, it’s me. Your father. What’s that you were saying about your English teacher? You know I’m your English teacher ~ or have you forgotten?” Walking down the hall from the funny little room he called his den, Richard overheard his son worrying over the English assignment. Another essay set for his students, he sometimes had a perverse, but brief, sense of glee when he saw all the students faces. Mostly annoyance. When he heard “I hate this English teacher.” he was sorry for setting them an almost impossible task.
“How can I help you, Clay? Come on out to the garage. I’m going to work on the Mustang before supper. We can talk about how to deal with this horrible English assignment. That teacher? He doesn’t sound like a very nice guy!” Richard Ellington ~ Mr. Ellington to his students ~ leaned against his son’s bedroom door.
Clayton slumped in his chair as soon as he heard his father’s voice. “Oh, Dad. You are a nice guy. When you’re being a teacher in class maybe not so nice. But what about the ghosts?! It’s not like it’s Hallowe’en. This doesn’t even fit in Christmas.” He got up from his chair, “Sure, I’ll come to the Mustang with you and watch you work.”
~~~~~
“Help me up, son.” Richard, on the flat creeper, rolled out from under his ‘baby’. He reached out his hand to his son. Clayton helped his father up. They both wiped the grease from their hands. “Let me tell you something about ghosts. Even Charles Dickens had his own ghosts.” He saw the puzzled look on his son’s face. “You do know who Charles Dickens is, don’t you?”
"Of course dad, but he wrote about ghosts.” He shook his head at his dad. Richard went on “Where do you think he got all his characters from? Where does any writer find their characters? They are all ghosts before they are put on the page! Thin, translucent and can vanish in an instant. Even then, the reader can only see them in their heads. So when you’re writing, just describe what and who you see in your head.”
Clayton had turned and walked away, shaking his head. “I knew it was a mistake to talk to dad about this. Now he’ll have to change the assignment because he’s helping me. All the kids pick on me anyway.” In a sing song voice he said “ ‘Your dad’s the teacher. You’re the teachers pet. Your dad’s the teacher. You’re the teachers pet.’ Who knows what he’ll come up with next. I won’t ask mom or dad next time.” He went in the house, closed the door and left his father standing scratching his head. Only the sparrows on the fence seemed interested.
“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”
~ Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
As I sift through memories, or gaps in memories, I am astounded by the moment I am in. By the speed of the moments that have passed. A friend once said to me, and it was in jest, that my life ‘was as interesting as watching the grass grow’. At the time it sounded like I didn’t have enough details in my life. Actually I still don’t have anything on a global scale. I’ve not been an astronaut, a scientist that has discovered the cure for any disease or disorder, or a magnificent concert pianist. Those all sound too grand for me anyway.
In the past weeks, my belief in what I write had begun to fade. Time and money spent on writing and the tools of the trade. I could spend time and money on golfing, or quilting, or some other activity. Golfing has never interested me for long, quilting I enjoy doing but have never immersed myself in it. I love baking bread but find I tend to eat anything I make. Then I just blossom. In the midst of any activity, words and ideas trip over themselves in my mind. Characters show up uninvited. Scenes form from nothing, while I paint, or bake, or walk. And so I write my story, the one that is ‘as interesting as watching the grass grow’.
“Story is the narrative thread of our experience -
not literally what happens,
but what we make out of what happens,
what we tell each other and what we remember.”
~ Christina Baldwin, Storycatcher:
Making Sense of our Lives through the Power and Practice of Story
The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner was a delightful read. The first descriptors that come to mind are mystery and romance. That is far too easy, much like Natalie Jenner’s lovely novel. The first chapter opens in 1932 outside the village of Chawton, England. A fictional cast of characters takes over for the remainder of the novel from 1943 to 1946. As the story develops, they found a common goal. That goal? To revive and restore Jane Austen’s presence and her many literary works within the village where she had lived, something not favourable to all villagers. An unlikely lot of characters - the village doctor, a teacher, a bachelor farmer, a distant relative of Jane Austen’s, and a house maid are at the core. Money is needed. Then there is the problem of a will. As in any village or small town, they all know of each other, but have kept themselves to themselves, each having experienced their own sadness and losses. There is history of past failed romances that have been buried. New ones that blossom. A fairly predictable story, but just when I had it figured out, things curved in a different direction. Throughout the novel, Natalie Jenner leads the reader skillfully through this charming story.
Last night’s book club discussion provided mixed reviews. Always interesting to me, are the many and varied perceptions whether a work of fiction, history or autobiography. In the middle of a cold February, this was a good read and an interesting discussion over Zoom.
Although born in England, author Natalie Jenner immigrated to Canada at a very young age. She presently lives and writes in Oakville, Ontario with her family and her two rescue dogs .
“they were ironically the survivors, yet it was
beyond him what they were all surviving for.”
~ Natalie Jenner, The Jane Austen Society.
Author: Natalie Jenner
Copyright: 2020
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Type: Novel
Format: Fiction
ISBN - 978-1-250-248732 (Hardcover)
ISBN - 978-1-250-272188 (International, Sold outside of the U.S.)
ISBN - 978-1-250-248725 (ebook)
For each of 165 days, I have written short episodes about two fictional characters - Desperanza Eliot and her sister Emelina Beaufort in Situationally Theirs. I unwittingly began this little saga on March 25th, about two weeks after restrictions were recommended to decrease the transmissibility of the Covid19 virus. Regretfully and yet joyfully, I am hitting pause on new episodes of Situationally Theirs throughout the upcoming weekend. All my characters have gathered 'round me in the alone times and I have been glad to share them with all with my readers. However, maintaining a cohesive story line for these wonderful characters is becoming very awkward for them and for me. This funny little community will be rethinking how they wish to continue, but I will continue with morning Revisions of earlier Episodes to further support their stories.
