Be a Bonfire

 Be A Bonfire 

by Deb Graham

I have Seasonal Affective Disorder, as do about 10% of western Washington’s residents. It’s an inconvenient disorder to contend with during the gloomy, dank, dark, dismal, sunless, often rainy, never-ending winters that plague this area. Symptoms include a mad desire for light in any form, carbo-craving, fatigue and lethargy, and a little internal voice that chants, “HiberNATE! HiberNATE!” when attempting to do anything vaguely ambitious.

Days are entirely too short here; often, streetlights shine before school buses pass the house. The only treatment I’ve found that sometimes helps, besides running up the electric bill and surrounding myself with special lights, is to plan a trip. Planning a sunny journey mid-winter gives me something to look forward to, as well as boosting my spirits enough to make through until springtime. Conveniently, my mother lives in Florida. I make a point to visit her in the darkest part of the year, To Be Sure She’s Alright. Mind you, she’s just fine the rest of the year, but in the middle of winter, I’d better go see for myself, and take a week or more doing it. I admit it’s a little transparent, as ruses go, but it beats jumping off a high building.

I think about light a lot this time of year. I find myself drawn to Christmas lights and candles and lightbulbs and flashlights and lamps and stars, when they’re visible, which isn’t often around here. Did I mention it rains? And I think about the Savior, the Light of the World, the reason for the pretty little Christmas lights all around. An oft-repeated admonition of Jesus is found in Matthew, and a few other places as well throughout the scriptures.

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.  Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

                      Matthew 5: 14-16

 The Lord is big on light, it seems, and expects us to shine.

Who am I to shine? This time of year, especially, I feel more like a weak, wet match than a bonfire. But let’s look at that match. Once lit, however fleeting or weak, it has the power to light a long-burning candle, a bonfire, a forest fire. When I taught my Girl Scout troop to light cooking fires, they did so under a sprinkler. It’s easy enough to light dry firewood, but to light rain-soaked wet wood, the kind we find north of Seattle ten months of any year, well, that’s a skill! They all succeeded in not only striking a spark, but boiling water and a single spaghetti strand soft enough to tie a square knot in.

As I sit in darkness, being a little candle, I feel mighty inadequate. And a thought comes to me: not one about a light big enough to cast a dim glow across a room, but a full-on summer-beach-sized bonfire. That’s the kind of fire to be; a roaring fire that gives so much light, tourists can smile from three miles down the beach, wishing they were included. That’s the kind of light I want to be, the kind of old that steered sailors from a rocky jetty, bigger than a birthday candle. I can do this through my writing as well as human interaction.

So is Letting My Light So Shine Before Men That They May See (My) Good Works a daunting task? Likely, but I can take small steps. I’m all about small good works, anything that pushes back the darkness a little more. My goal: Be a bonfire. Any spark has potential, right?

It's the storm, not me, that's bound to blow away

It's the storm, not me, that's bound to blow away  

by Deb Graham

Lucky me– while in Utah visiting kids and grandkids over Thanksgiving, I attended a live broadcast of Music and the Spoken Word, with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  I saw them perform for the first time in July ,in the LDS Conference Center, and that was majestic and grandiose and overwhelming. This time was in the Tabernacle on Temple Square, a surprisingly intimate-feeling venue. We sat on seats hand painted by pioneers who wanted oak and had only pine at hand. Besides loving the swelling music that vibrated the seats and my heart,  two things jumped out at me.

 Mac Wilberg is a known musical genius, but I had no idea to what degree that’s true. We sat in our seats a few minutes early, and the Choir was rehearsing. Mac Wilberg stood on his podium with a headset on, the 110-member orchestra at his feet, the 360-member Mormon Tabernacle Choir in front of him. They ran through a line or two, and he waved his hand to a stop. He singled out three male singers  on the fifth row, and asked for “More energy, please, not more volume,” and called for the second and third cellos to pick up the pace on stanza eight, if you please.

Now, granted, I impress easily. I freely admit my only musical talent is as an audience, and a fine audience I am; polite, attentive, appreciative. To see a man so finely tuned that he could isolate three choir members and two cellists out of the all the waves of sound around him surprised me. How much do I miss in my life simply because I don’t block out the distractions around me?

The Choir sang a song I hadn’t heard. My daughter sat beside me, and at the first stanza, we turned to one another, locking eyes. She recently moved away, breaking several hearts in the process, including mine and hers. Those lyrics went right through us both; I felt it, I saw it in her eyes. We agreed we need to both print out the words and post them in our homes to remind us we’re tougher than we think we are. See if they don’t make you feel better!

 I also found the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s rendition on YouTube, should you have a few minutes to listen to it.

Hold On from The Secret Garden

When you see the storm is coming,
See the lightning part the skies,
It's too late to run-
There's terror in your eyes!
What you do then is remember
This old thing you heard me say:
"It's the storm, not you,
That's bound to blow away."

Hold on,
Hold on to someone standing by.
Hold on.
Don't even ask how long or why!
Child, hold on to what you know is true,
Hold on 'til you get through.
Child, oh child!
Hold on!

When you feel your heart is poundin', 
Fear a devil's at your door.
There's no place to hide-
You're frozen to the floor! 
What you do then is you force yourself
To wake up, and you say: 
"It's this dream, not me,
that's bound to go away."

Hold on,
Hold on, the night will soon be by.
Hold on,
Until there's nothing left to try.
Child, hold on, There's angels on their way!
Hold on and hear them say,
"Child, oh child!"

And it doesn't even matter
If the danger and the doom
Come from up above or down below, 
Or just come flying
At you from across the room!

When you see a man who's raging,
And he's jealous and he fears
That you've walked through walls
He's hid behind for years.
What you do then is you tell yourself to wait it out
And say it's this day, not me,
That's bound to go away.

Child, oh hold on.
It's this day, not you,
That's bound to go away!

We are not going anywhere. We just have to hold on and push back the swirling darkness. 

Creating

Does the God of all the universe and all within the expanse of eternity care about my measly writing goals? Does it matter one bit if I craft a perfect paragraph, finally locate the key to my research, design a stunning book cover, type The End on a manuscript?

In the same way I cheer on my young grandchildren when they learn a new skill or stretch in anyway, I think He does. I think the act of writing, of linking words together  like beads on a string is a significant part of eternity. There’s a lot of dark influences in the world; anything we can do to push back the darkness even a little bit is worth doing.

Dieter F Uchdorf said in October 2008:

“The desire to create is one of the deepest yearnings of the human soul. No matter our talents, education, backgrounds, or abilities, we each have an inherent wish to create something that did not exist before.

Everyone can create. You don’t need money, position, or influence in order to create something of substance or beauty.

Creation brings deep satisfaction and fulfillment. We develop ourselves and others when we take unorganized matter into our hands and mold it into something of beauty—and I am not talking about the process of cleaning the rooms of your teenage children.

You might say, “I’m not the creative type. When I sing, I’m always half a tone above or below the note. I cannot draw a line without a ruler. And the only practical use for my homemade bread is as a paperweight or as a doorstop.”

If that is how you feel, think again, and remember that you are spirit daughters of the most creative Being in the universe. Isn’t it remarkable to think that your very spirits are fashioned by an endlessly creative and eternally compassionate God? Think about it—your spirit body is a masterpiece, created with a beauty, function, and capacity beyond imagination.

But to what end were we created? We were created with the express purpose and potential of experiencing a fulness of joy. Our birthright—and the purpose of our great voyage on this earth—is to seek and experience eternal happiness. One of the ways we find this is by creating things.”

How does this apply to writing? Have you ever found yourself caught up in a plot line, enthused about  how well that part turned out, felt a swelling sense of accomplishment reading over words you personally strung together? In a very small (but valuable!) way, that’s a shadow of God’s creations. After the earth was created, Genesis records the Creator stepping back and saying, “It is good.” Not spectacularly overwhelmingly awesomely wonderful, but good. Our writing is like that. Perfection is a process. Anything we learn in this world becomes part of us, our very being. Learning to expand our skills in communication and expression is not sneeze-worthy.

In Alma 34 we read:

 Cry unto him when ye are in your fields, yea, over all your flocks.

Cry unto him in your houses, yea, over all your household, both morning, mid-day, and evening.

Yea, cry unto him against the power of your enemies.

 Yea, cry unto him against the devil, who is an enemy to all righteousness.

 Cry unto him over the crops of your fields, that ye may prosper in them.

Cry over the flocks of your fields, that they may increase.

 But this is not all; ye must pour out your souls in your closets, and your secret places, and in your wilderness.

 Yea, and when you do not cry unto the Lord, let your hearts be full, drawn out in prayer unto him continually for your welfare, and also for the welfare of those who are around you.

I don’t have flocks or fields or crops. I’m not really an animal lover, and this is the first year in twenty-seven I didn’t plant a garden. What I do have is a desire to write. For a while, I felt funny praying for help in my writing, but old Alma had a point; if it matters to me, it’s worth praying over. 

Sometimes, usually in that place between awake and asleep, inspiration will strike me and I’ll pick up paper and pen. Ideas for a new book, a plot twist, a way to untangle written dialogue, a nudge to write that article I’ve been putting off; often, ideas flow faster than I can write them down, like a waterfall of inspiration. Irrelevant things, perhaps, in the scheme of things, but it’s a reminder that my attempts at creating are noticed outside of my own mind. Sometimes I can sense a heavenly cheering section, encouraging me on, imperfect though my attempts may be. 

Waffling about writing? Feeling like you’re not good enough? Get back to it anyway! And don’t forget to pray. Help stands waiting, I’m certain of it. 

Who Cares About Cookie Cutters?

Who Cares About Cookie Cutters?

Well, I do. They're common enough tools, but I value those snippets of bent metal, from the early tin ones to the modern steel or aluminum ones. Don’t get me started on the tacky plastic ones; they have no soul.  I own about 300, and the collection goes on. Some are my great-grandmother’s, my grandmother’s, my mom’s, mine from my childhood. Others are  travel souvenirs: a moose from Alaska, a palm tree from Florida, a sea turtle from Hawaii, a crab from San Francisco, a snowflake from a magical December getaway in the mountains. Each has a memory, a story in its shape. 

When we designed our house, pushing out the bow window left a weird overhang, a flat wall about 15 feet long and ten inches tall. The builder lamented, “It’s holding up the roof. I just can’t fix it!” Fix it?! Clearly, that was designed for my cookie cutter collection to be displayed, part of it anyway. In the center is my family. I found a cookie-man, a cookie-woman, a cookie-girl, and two cookie-boys, one smaller than the other, representing my daughter and two sons.  I arranged them under a temple cookie cutter, and above a sideways broom. That’s a nod to my southern years; jump the broom, get it?

My latest book is a multi-generational  story told through the perspective of an elderly woman, the keeper of the antique cookie cutter collection. I’m enjoying the research phase! Did you know the most –expensive cookie cutter, called Running Slave, sold for nearly $8000 in a heated auction? As I bring the story from Queen Charlotte’s period to current times, my heart is drawn to the generations of women who baked cookies for their families. Some were servants in England, other indentured servants in the New World, some slaves in America through no wish of their own. Mothers made cookies for their children, early nurses gave the harder ones to fussy babies to teeth on. Some women made them to sell, including a couple of enterprising women who used their baked goods as a way to slip messages under the noses of King George’s troops in Boston, triggering the timing of the Revolutionary War.

My own mother always had cookies in the cookie jar.  Mom is an orderly soul; she likes identical cookies.  When I was a child, milk and cookies was a common way to sit with a  child after school and ask How Was Your Day, Honey?  One of my favorite memories was when my family was traveling when I was a child. We stopped for a gas in a very small town somewhere in the Midwest.  As soon as we stepped out to stretch our legs, we were engulfed by an overwhelming lemon-cookie aroma. The gas station attendant laughed and said Ma, the owner of Ma’s Cookies, always turned her vent fans toward the gas station when she noticed travelers stopping, and wouldn’t we like to go to her bakery across the parking lot? We drove away with warm lemon cuts outs, bags of them.

A simple tool, it’s unlikely many people count cookie cutters as anything worthwhile, just a faster way to make same-shape-same-size cookies in a hurry. I see the story in them, a memory tied up in each. And I find it hard to talk about cookies without wanting one, so here’s a recipe for you:  

Sugar Cut Out Cookies

·         1-½ cup butter  

·         2 cups sugar

·         2 whole eggs

·         2 whole eggs yolks

·         4 teaspoons vanilla extract

·         2 teaspoons almond extract

·         4 cups all-purpose flour

·         1 teaspoon salt

·         1 teaspoon baking powder

In a mixer, beat butter and sugar until well combined, about 2 minutes. Add in 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks and mix until combined. Mix in  vanilla and almond extract until combined. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking powder. Slowly (about a cup at a time) add flour to butter mixture and combine. Just mix ingredients until they are combined, so as not to toughen the dough. Cover and chill at least one hour. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll dough out, cut out cookies, and bake for 6-8 minutes. Drizzle with a simple glaze or frost as desired.

Glaze:  stir one cup powdered sugar with enough orange juice or milk to make a pancake-batter consistency. Drizzle over cooled cookies with a fork. 

Whose Story Is It Anyway?

by Deb Graham

Whose story is it?

“Using the pointillism technique we’ve explored this week, draw a human foot. Due Monday.”

Confidently, I jotted down the assignment and headed home for the weekend. I got this! My grandmother was visiting, and she had the oddest feet I’d ever seen. Her baby toes curled under, and the corns near her big toes bulged.  I knew she’d welcome the chance to sit and pose for me while she crocheted. And I knew my art teacher would love it.

Pointillism; a series of dots gathered together in a foot shape; I knew I could excel at this art class’ first homework. I spent two hours carefully detailing every inch of Grandma’s left foot. My family agreed I’d caught the realism.

 On Monday, I slipped my sketch paper out of my hinged portfolio and clamped it on my easel to show the teacher when he circled the room. Ten minutes later, I was in tears, humiliated from the public mockery and scolding dished out.

 Inaccurate lines.

Bulge by big toe.

Baby toes grotesquely rolled under

 Visible boney structure and exaggerated veins.

And he announced my grade to the class; my very first D-. He said he only gave Fs when assignments were not turned in; this was a half point above not drawing at all. I held on another three weeks, then dropped the high school class, and with it, whatever latent drawing talent I may have had.

Today I secured a floor-length artist’s smock around my grandson; at only two years of age, adult clothing is always floor-length. I set him in front of an easel, and offered him his very first paintbrush.

“What color do you want?”

“Yite bwoo!”  No surprise there; light blue is his favorite color.

I sat back. The little guy dipped his brush in the paint. Sure of himself, he arched wide blue swaths with gleeful abandon. I envied his confidence and obvious joy. And I didn’t tell him how to hold the brush, what strokes to make or criticize his choice of color. This was his art, not mine.

I’m a writer and an author. I've published 17 books, three this year. I’m most comfortable in nonfiction because it’s predictable; I control the outcome. I’ve written two novels and I’m working on three more. Fiction tends to go off on its own, and I find that unnerving. Characters speak to me, scenes veer off where I hadn’t intended, plot lines refuse to stay on track. Nonfiction doesn’t behave like that.

When I first attempted fiction, I figured I’d need all the help I could get. I researched, starting with internet searches on How To Write A Novel, How To Set A Scene, How To Write Dialogue; the basics. I also sought human help, including a critique group, beta readers, and editors.

When I wanted to learn to draw, I sought a teacher. At this stage, I find both about equally helpful.

Readers change the voice, insisting Will has to use complete sentences, and Cinci can’t use run-on sentences, although that’s the way I hear

 them in my mind. Others call my style “Yoda-like” and insist on most sentences starting with He Was or She Went; passive to the point of yawning. One said a child couldn’t jump on a trampoline for ten straight minutes, but clearly, she hadn’t seen a joyful child on a summer’s afternoon. “You can’t kill off that character, or I’ll be mad at you!” wailed another. “Put him back!” 

If I listened to them, my stories would be unrecognizable mush.

An artist paints, then steps back, admiring. Never do they create a masterpiece, then hand over the paintbrush to a person to let them add a few strokes to the bridge or erase that tree on the left.

As writers, why do we open ourselves to peer-critique? No one can hear the story in our words, so why do we allow Them to change our voice, to dull its sharp tones, to conform the structure into mind-numbing dullness?  It’s time to stop running our writing through committees.

How? Trust yourself. You’re the one who can hear the character; let them speak, unflattened. 

Believe in your own writing. Trust the process, because what’s the worst that can happen?

Be brave! Get a copyeditor who will only find typos. Ignore any attempts to change your style or writing in any way; they’re only suggestions. 

Sure, rules of grammar apply, and punctuation is critical; I get seriously annoyed by authors who lazily neglect to close quotes or who think every sentence must be paragraph-length, and you just can’t spell “unique” as “yewneak” and expect me to bother reading the rest. I have my limits, and anything that requires me to use a magic decoder ring to read isn’t worth my time. But editors who seek to change your plot, characters, theme, etc should...go write their own book.

Writers are artists, and we need to trust our art. The world needs to hear our voice, our story, and sometimes, just telling it and putting it out there is best, rather than letting it be edited to death.

I can’t draw anything fancier than a straight line, but I can write. 

Bring on the Retreat!

by Deb Graham

As autumn settles in for good, I realize I’m exhausted. 

Part of this is because I just returned from a trip, and I leave again next weekend. Looking over my calendar, I see these are my 11^th and 12^th journeys this year, and two more biggies are scheduled before the holiday frenzy sets in. By the time my wedding anniversary rolls along, I’m invariably out of emotional fuel. Whose idea was it to marry right after New Year’s?  

Along with a whole lot of travel, I’ve had other bumps in my road this year; a few significant illnesses, my husband retired in May, then started a new (and undiscussed) job of work the following Monday. My eldest son has torn at the fibers of my family, causing sleepless nights and stomach pains.  My favorite (and only) daughter moved away and I grieve the loss of near-daily contact with her and my cute grandkids. I learned the meaning of Sandwich Generation as I worry for her having a rough time settling in and health challenges of her own, plus my mother who rode out a major hurricane at our place. I never aspired to be peanut butter, but sandwiched I am.

Writing has taken off this year; I’ve published three whole books and have several more in various stages of completion. Time-consuming, stressful, and enjoyable, it’s on my mind even when I sleep. I’ve longed for a personal assistant to take over the chores of advertising, website stuff, and other writing-related tasks that are not much fun.

As I said, I go into Fall feeling depleted, which is less than ideal since I live in the Pacific Northwest.  I need all the emotional energy I can muster to get through the upcoming long, gloomy, dreary, soul-sucking, endlessly rainy, dark, chilly days ahead. This year, I’m running on fumes, and it’s only early October.

But there is light on the horizon! I’m grateful to be at the ANWA Northwest Retreat as you read this! It’s my third year going, and I’m counting on the same uplift I found in the other years. The coming together of diverse, strong women, united in faith and common interest is soul-filling. I soak up knowledge insights, and information, but the best part of the Retreat is nurturing my bruised, tired soul absorbs.

These are not ordinary women; they’re creatives, out to push back the darkness of the world by writing uplifting, wholesome pieces that inspire and uplift. They’re warm and accepting, no  matter the level of writing we find ourselves, and just being in their presence is exactly what I need right now. I know I’ll come home re energized, buoyed up, strengthened and confident enough to step forward with feet undragging.

I’m not done unpacking from the last trip yet, but I already set aside a heap to take with me to the Retreat.  I can’t wait!!

Sharpshooter

by Deb Graham

 “It’s nice to read about ordinary people, which most of us are."—from a review by Charlotte

My 88-year-old mother just left after a visit extended due to a major hurricane taking aim at her hometown. As she said, “It’s never good when Anderson Cooper says the name of your county on CNN.” Mom’s flying 4000 miles to her home, diagonally across one of the largest countries in the world. She looked vulnerable as her face pressed against the window, waving bravely. Mom’s small, but one of the toughest people I know. Even watching the news on TV when it looked dire, she never had a come-apart. Instead, I noticed how she continued to do what she does, daily working the NY Times crossword (in ink!), ironing everything in sight, and encouraging the rest of us.

I’m thinking about my friend, Ruby, today, too. Ruby died a few years ago at the age of 96.  I guess I should have grieved, but it's hard to mourn a life lived as thoroughly as Ruby lived hers. The paintball episode comes to mind. Ruby and I, along with a few other friends, had a quilt project going; in the space of three years, we made 1006 baby quilts and donated them to Project Linus. Great group, by the way; they believe, as I, that any child dealing with illness or loss will cope better wrapped in a warm soft blanket of their very own. 

When Ruby was much younger, say 94 or so, she and I sat in my home, stitching, talking, being together. My teenaged sons tumbled in, laughing after a round of paintball in the woods. Ruby had never seen a paintball gun. Interested, she asked if she might give it a try. Smirking, the boys agreed. One took her arm --he's been taught respect—and slowly led her to the target set up in the back yard. His brother explained how to shoot the gun, casting glances at me. I could see in his eyes he doubted frail Ruby could even hold the gun up, much less pull the trigger. Ruby took aim. And hit TWELVE bull's eyes in a matter of seconds. 

I can still see the shock on my sons' faces, as their respect for this wobbly old lady soared. Turns out, one of Ruby's childhood chores was keeping down the population of rats on the irrigation ditch on her family's farm.
You can't tell by looking, can you?

 I think my reviewer nailed it. In twelve words, she pinpointed a truth humanity forgets. We’re all hungry for relevance, to be notable, or to be liked or at least noticed. We can do that by just being ordinary. We’re drawn to people who are ordinary; they’re not intimidating. We just don't always have an opportunity to see other people because we are all busy just getting by.

Not wanting to be a "somebody" or trying to become relevant is probably the easiest road to travel through life. It adds a lot of pressure to try to be a "somebody." Once labeled as a somebody, you have to continue to be a somebody in order to feel relevant.

 As an author, I frequently feel like a fraud, as if They expect me to be something I’m just not qualified to do. Teach a workshop on self-publishing?  um, okay. Lead a group through a self-exploration writing exercise? sure, no problem. Tell a group about my experience somehow stringing words into seventeen books? gleep; who am I to advise anybody on anything? Interview  as if I am a real live author? Can’t they see I’m like the wizard of Oz, skillfully directing attention elsewhere? Whatever you do, don’t look behind the curtain!

Charlotte helped me realize how being ordinary is much more extraordinary than I previously believed.

We are surrounded by ordinary people doing wonderful things, sometimes extraordinary things, often without even noticing. Extraordinary is just a couple of notches past ordinary, after all. Maybe it’s not such a high bar to reach; maybe weathering a hurricane or rejoicing as a child learns to read or shooting twelve bull’s eyes is just what ordinary people do.

All it takes is getting up every day and being the best person we can be. Whether your place on this planet includes manning a keyboard, nurturing small people, juggling spreadsheets and bedsheets and paper sheets, do ordinary things- then do a little extra.

I come from a long line of ordinary people, none notable, all extraordinary. I hope to carry on the tradition, and one day, be as tough as my mom. 

Sometimes I can see better in the dark with my eyes closed.

Sometimes I can see better in the dark with my eyes closed 

Deb Graham                                                                                                                                                                                             I noticed the other night, as I was wending my way back from the bathroom about 4 AM after drinking too much grape juice before bed, that I was walking with my eyes closed. Odd, so I questioned mySelf.

“Self, why are you walking with eyes closed?”

Without an eyelash’s hesitation, mySelf replied, “It’s dark. I can see better with my eyes closed.”

Well, that was worth thinking about, so I sat down in the dark hallway and pondered for a minute or six. I realized I often close my eyes in dark places...to see better. Outdoors on moonless nights, I often walk with eyes clamped shut. On nights when I need a bathroom run and feel too polite to wake Husband by turning on a light, my eyes don’t open, and I manage to powder my nose, wash my hands, and make it back to bed with toes unstubbed. I’ve mentioned before I often write notes in the night, and I don’t turn on a light for that, either. Hmmm. What does my Self know that I don’t?

Can I really see better with my eyes closed? Yes, I guess I can. In dim light, I strain to make out the outlines of the hotel dresser or the rock in my path. Just before dawn, my eyes ache, trying to suck in the faint light so I can dodge the trees. In the evening, as darkness falls, I scramble to pack up my reading materials so none get left out overnight. If I try to see when there’s just not enough light to take in, my eyes quickly fatigue from being asked to accomplish what they cannot.

But once I’m in full and total darkness, I automatically shut my eyes and rely on my other senses to protect me from falling or crashing into things. And they step up to the task. With my eyes closed, I can sense or feel doorframes, shoes left on the floor,  furniture, even in unfamiliar places, and I noticed I’ve been doing that for years. My inner self guides me, and for the most part, my shins remain unbarked. I don’t like the dark, but I seem to have figured out a way to navigate in it.

How does this relate to writing? I’m constantly running ahead, flipping on lights, researching frantically, drowning in copious notes and ideas and outlines. Maybe relying on self-imposed deadlines, plot lines, charts, and keeping close track of book sales and advertising plans and All Of It is getting in the way of why I started writing in the first place.

I wrote my first book (Tips From The Cruise Addict’s Wife) because I realized I just plain knew more than most people. I’m no brighter than anybody else, but I’m a compulsive reader and have a fear of missing Something Wonderful, right there, when I travel. My first novel (Peril in Paradise) came about because of a question. How could a Bad Guy make use of the fact that immature Hawaiian sea turtles have a predictable migratory path? I had a story to tell!

I write rather a lot; I published two books this summer alone. I’m aware of at least four more brewing in there; there could be more. Am I blocking my own path by not allowing my senses to guide me? By straining to see what lies ahead and get in front of every possible contingency, am I missing the joy in writing? If I get out of my way, would I do better and be happier? Sure, there’s a risk of “failing,” whatever that looks like, or at least flailing, but so what? 

I may occasionally smack my head on a low-hanging shelf I couldn’t see in the dark, but mostly, I get along just fine. Sometimes I can see better in the dark with my eyes closed. With regard to writing, it’s worth a try. 

Efficiency?

I chuckle when people accuse me of being Organized and Efficient. If they only knew-! I also get comments on always being on time; that, I understand. I’m basically shy, and I’d skip a lunch date with my favorite celebrity before I’d mosey in late...to anything.

But the efficient part? I often feel like the Wizard of Oz, one step ahead of being found out, distracting attention over there, away from the curtain. Whatever you do, don’t look behind the curtain!

Credit, if anything, bright little pieces of paper. They’re everywhere, and they help me keep up the illusion of being on top of things.

My mind races like mice on a hamster wheel (why isn’t that a mouse wheel? Everybody knows mice are more active than hamsters; see, there it goes again), juggling a dozen topics at a constant breakneck pace. If I fail to write them down, they skitter away.

 I keep a blank paper in my car, on my desk, in the kitchen, by the calendar, in the bathrooms, in every jacket pocket, in my journal, on the counter by the mugs, the note catcher over my computer, beside my bed...well, just about any place I go in a day, I’m mere inches from paper.

I write down thoughts, appointments, reminders, inspirational snippets, clever phrases I may use in an upcoming book, interesting turns of dialogue I overheard, news I mean to tell somebody, a brilliant idea for a birthday gift, a reminder to check that website for discount tickets.

 I keep an ongoing grocery list, too, a hastily scrawled, sometimes illegible reminder of what I need to buy next time I’m at the store. A recent one read:

milk

watermelon

 bread

6 oz umbrella

eggs

bald guy

graham crackers

chicken (on sale)

 I didn’t say they made sense.

I see order when I glance at these little papers, and I appreciate not having to strain my brain to recall what Julie said to tell Jenn, or what that shade of paint for the bedroom is called. Efficiency.

Husband, a few years ago, decided to Do Something Nice for me, and in his mind, that looked like detailing my car. He had it washed and waxed and buffed, and threw away all those scraps of paper inside and vacuumed and it looked so good, he decided to clean the kitchen, too, at least get rid of those pervasive little notes on the cupboard door.  

Besides not feeling as appreciative as he expected, I was dead in the water for about two weeks. I missed a doctor visit (and a dentist), I was lost at the grocery store without my list; plus, I had no idea what was on sale that week, I forgot a birthday, I neglected to send that box my daughter asked me to get for her, I didn’t pick up the prescriptions or photos I had ordered, a friend was annoyed because I forgot a lunch date, the deadline to mail those forms in came and went ....It was a long two weeks.

I find writing an idea down in the moment captures it while it’s fresh, and I can flesh it out later if needed. I admit not all of the little papers make sense; I’m still not sure what “lemon Volkswagens” or “call caramel cookies” means, but until I find out, you can bet I’m going to be keeping them at hand!

Efficient? No, just held together by little bits of colored paper. 

One Foot in Front of the Other

My cute baby granddaughter thought about Up. She watched her brothers running through the house, her little brow furrowed in concentration. How do they do that?  One day, at the ripe old age of eight months, Babykins pulled herself to standing, using the sofa for support.

 The first couple of weeks didn’t go well for her. She hadn’t learned how to un stand; when her little legs fatigued, she fell backwards. She quickly learned how to roll her spine so as not to whack her fuzzy head every time. Feet were another issue. Sometimes her little feet slid out from under her, and she ended up doing splits. They sometimes slid away from the sofa, leaving her at an untenable 45 degree angle, clutching the sofa, squawking for help. Her mother rescued her, picked her up for a hug, chuckling at the baby’s determination to get back and down and try again.

This all reminds me of the baby’s mother at that age. Once my daughter learned to stand and take two steps, she refused to crawl ever again. It was simply beneath her. That was fine once she could walk capably, but the first couple of weeks were rough. She’d stand up against a chair, take a few wobbly steps, invariably tip over, and scream as if she’d been attacked by lions. One of us would have to go stand her back on her little feet; she simply couldn’t bear to crawl the two feet to the chair. A pride issue, I think, along with early evidence of a stubborn streak wider than her head. She kept on practicing, and as other adults, she now walks without a thought.

No one criticized her when she was learning, and no one scolds Babykins for not doing it right, for falling over yet again. We praise her for trying again, clapping, smiling, telling her, “Good! Now try again,” knowing that, with practice, she’ll learn to walk like everyone else.

I’m an author of sixteen books. I suppose I know what I’m doing, to some degree, and I keep on learning daily, constantly improving my craft. Some of the phrases I string together are flat, hokey, even syrupy. Other times, I read over a paragraph in delight. Sometimes I kick paper wads in frustration, knowing what I want to convey, but unable to get my point across. 

I suppose what babies and toddlers deal with effects writers, too—the terrible twos are partly about being frustrated because you’re smarter than your motor skills or your mouth, you want to color the picture, ask for the toy, and you’re bumbling, incoherent and no one gets it.

My advice to writers is WRITE. Write a lot, good stuff, worthless stuff, keep on writing.  My baby granddaughter will be chasing after her brothers in no time, but it’s not only time that propels a child onward to more sophistication and skill. It takes effort and practice, and occasionally falling on one’s head. Write, write, write because the road to good writing is made of words strung together and not all of them are well-arranged words. With practice, it gets better.

We don’t scold a child for stumbling when learning to walk. We value their adorable attempts, and pick them up when they tip over. Do that for the writer inside you. Praise the good parts, encourage the weak parts, and keep putting one foot in front of the other. 

Prejudice

by Deb Graham

Racism is a hot-button topic in our society these days. I’m not sure why: I really thought we’d be at a place beyond that by 2017. I’m happy to report I failed utterly at teaching my kids about racism, just as my parents failed to teach me.

I lived for the first ten years of my life in a blue-collar town in New York, only seven miles from Niagara Falls. Quite a few residents were a couple of generations, if that, from the Old Country, wherever that was. I knew people had different backgrounds, and I knew that made them different. I learned our Polish neighbors made the best cabbage rolls. The Lebanese woman down the block was legendary for her paper-thin bread and baklava, and our German friends played music I didn’t hear at home. In my little-girl mind, I registered differences.

My parents neglected to teach me that other races were Bad or Less Than. I knew some people were not worthy of respect; lazy, cruel, mean-spirited people who wouldn’t rise about their raising, those who did not value their family, mouth-breathers who put sports or card-playing obsessions above their wives. They were Not Good People, and I felt the shame when I heard my parents speak of them.

But my parents neglected to teach me about race. At age ten, my family moved to a small town in Georgia. I learned it was where the Ku Klux Klan was established. The calendar insisted it was 1969; the people there acted more like 1949.  Segregation was in the rearview mirror, but not there. Signs reading “Whites and Coloreds” still lingered over drinking fountains and doorways.  Proprietors excused themselves with “well, I ain’t got around to repainting that wall yet.”  Mom was shunned at PTA meetings. It seemed wherever we went, we heard whispers of “Yankees. They don’t know their place.”

 School was hard for me. On my first day, I was faced with a classroom full of resentful eyes turned on me, children on the left, children on the right, empty row of desks down the middle. I was shy, and felt I had done something wrong just by walking in the classroom. The teacher barked, “Ya’ll take yer seat nah.” I slid into the first available seat, just to get away from those accusing eyes.

Before long, I noticed the teacher stood in front of the left side of the classroom, never glancing at the students on the right. Children from the left were always chosen to be classroom helper and office runner and to answer questions, as if the others were not even in the room. The only time the teacher moved to the right side of the classroom was to break her ruler over the desk of a child who'd committed an offense; leaning into the aisle to retrieve a pencil he'd dropped. Even then, she never spoke, as if the child wasn't worth the words required for a scolding.

 It finally dawned on me that the kids on the right side of the room were uniformly white, while the other side was made up of black children. Puzzled, I looked closer, to see what valid differences had caused them to be shunned like this. Both sides wore similar clothes, overalls without shirts, or cotton shifts, some barefoot, some in tattered sneakers with holes cut out for toes. A few wore dungarees, which I later learned was almost worse than wearing nothing at all. I felt terribly overdressed in my new plaid skirt and white blouse with rosettes at the collar. I kept my shiny penny loafers tucked under my desk.

Culture shock was awful at school, bad in public, uncomfortable even at church, and nothing we could do helped one bit. I learned never to speak up in class, because the teacher led the taunts of my Yankee accent. Reading aloud was torture. I could plan on being mocked every time. How was a little New York girl supposed to know how to pronounce "victuals"? I'd never seen that word in my life, and sounding it out was a disaster. The teacher screeched, "It's vittles, stupid girl! Vittles, like ya'll eat at home!" No clarity there; I still didn't know what a vittles was, Mom never cooked it for dinner. 

After the longest four years of my family’s life, Dad took a new job and we moved North, to a Chicago suburb. I think my first day in the new school was the first time I’d drawn a full breath in months.

I vowed that whatever prejudices I had witnessed and experienced would not define my life. And I determined to not raise my children to discard whole classes of people differentiated solely by accent, geography, or skin color. If you dislike someone, you have to get to know them enough first to make sure your opinion is valid, not just by sight.

Years ago, my young daughter was excited about me being Room Mother. Before my first visit to the classroom, she jumped up and down telling me about her new friend. Jill had the cutest little braids, she liked to wear yellow, her favorite item was a ruffled sweater, and she had a pompom on her backpack. I looked forward to meeting Jill, and getting to know the rest of the class. 

I chuckled as I politely shook hands with Jill later that morning. My little girl had neglected to mention Jill was the only black child in the whole first grade. That detail completely escaped her. As they've grown, I've listened to the way my kids talk about their friends. The old prejudices my Dad taught shine through, about lazy people or willfully ignorant folks, but they interact with other races as easily as they do with other age groups and hair colors, and I love it. 

I succeeded. Now, what’s up with everybody else?

To Those Who Came Before Me

To Those Who Came Before Me

I’ve always been interested in the stories of the American pioneer, those hardy souls who hitched up bootstraps and crossed the plains. Okay, I’ve never been really clear on what a bootstrap is, exactly, but still, the idea of a whole  body of faithful people leaving all and sundry behind and striking out to a new land, warms my heart. As a child, I lapped up pioneer stories; I still do. 

Brigham Young said something to the effect of the land in the West being so inhospitable, no one else would want it, so it’s ideal for the saints of God. Not exactly self-esteem food, yet off they went.

I have driven their route in my soft, air-conditioned car with a speedometer that may or may not have stuck to the posted limits. Nebraska is mighty long, after all. I’ve seen the ruts left by pioneer wagons, ground in the rocks in eastern Oregon. As I marveled at the ruts, a herd of vicious no-see-ums feasted on my exposed skin. As if heat, dust, fatigue, insufficient food and water, and endless walking wasn’t enough to try their souls, nasty little insects with teeth added to the experience.  

Two of my grown kids live with their families in the wilds of modern Utah. I spent two weeks visiting them in July, and my take away is this: those early pioneers were tough people! They arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake in July, the same time as my visit, give or take a few days. It was hot, very, very hot there, and drier than your average desert. I found myself sucking down water bottles and wondering how long a tray of cookie dough would take to bake if left in the rear window of my car.

At the Independence Day parade, a bank thermometer read 110 degrees. I’m from western Washington, and I’m pretty sure our local banks only have two digits on their thermometers; a temp of over 80 triggers Extreme Heat Warnings in the local media. 110 here...? People would die, outright.

Even with shade, a spray bottle, and a giant Slurpee, I nearly melted into a greasy spot on the pavement. The most popular floats on the parade route were the ones that sprayed the crowd with high-powered water guns. 

And I thought about those early pioneers. They were tough people, I tell you!  I was uncomfortable, just sitting around...Imagine having to build a house and plant a crop in that heat, after a 1000 mile hike? Yet, if they collapsed under a scrawny tree, there’d be no food for the winter or protection from Utah’s harsh winters just a few months down the road. We think of them being tough, invincible people, leaders all. In reality, they were mostly city-folk who suffered from culture shock --imagine, downtown London to Missouri?--who wore preposterously small shoes, if they had any at all. And the dresses! Sociologists say a more impractical outfit could not have been designed for a trek of that magnitude. Yet they pioneered on. 

We're all pioneering in our own ways, but  I honor those who went ahead of us, laying the path! We owe them a debt of gratitude bigger than the wide prairie sky.

In Church recently, the choir sang a song I hadn’t heard before. It’s beautiful!*

To Those Who Came Before Me

To those who came before me in seasons long ago
To those who are the loved-ones that I have yet to know
To those whose noble names I bear,
whose light within me burns
To them in gratitude shall my heart be turned

To those whose lives of courage prepared the way for me
Whose works became my heritage,
whose harvest I may reap
Who left for me a legacy that I have yet to earn
To them in gratitude shall my heart be turned

To those who came before me in days and years long past
To those who are the family that I shall know at last
To those who seek the blessings
of the truth that I have learned
To them in gratitude shall my heart be turned

* http://www.defordmusic.com/sheet-music/alphabetical-list/to-those-who-came-before-me/