Reconciliation

Tonight was the last session at the writing retreat I’ve been attending. Tomorrow I will have a Healing Touch session at 9:00 and then head back to the mountains. The past two days have pushed me to write in ways that aren’t particularly comfortable for me, but they’ve been wonderful learning experiences.

The last piece, which we wrote just an hour ago, was a letter of forgiveness to ourselves. That letter is way too personal for me to share here. But, the task we were given in the late afternoon - to pick a significant memory and write about it as if we were there- seems a fitting one to share on this blog. It’s about forgiveness of a different kind. So, here it is.

“Reconciliation

It’s mid-afternoon when I am finally able to leave the office and make my way up I-55 from Jackson to Madison.  My parents’ house isn’t far off the exit, nestled in a zero-lot-line neighborhood peopled mostly by retirees.  They moved to Mississippi from Tennessee two years ago for me to take care of them.

It hasn’t been easy. There’s a lot of history, mostly of the bad kind, between me and my dad, and both he and mama had been pretty loud in expressing their displeasure with me just about from the get-go because I didn’t come over to see them every freaking single day. But, things changed three months ago, and not the way either Mama or Daddy anticipated.

My father is dying, and today, a windy spring day in late March, 2007, I have left my law office to spend yet another afternoon with a sick, dying, unbending, self-righteous man who claimed me as his daughter, grudgingly, because I wasn’t born with a penis.

I knock on the front door, tentatively, and without waiting for an invitation, enter. My mother, prisoner of her wheelchair since her last stroke, sits in the living room with the sitter I have hired for 24/7 care. I waive, but I’m not here to see my mother. This afternoon is for my dad. And me.

Daddy can’t do much anymore, but he refuses to have a hospital bed. He barely eats anymore, just drinks black coffee at all hours and smokes his pipe. Instead, he lies down on the floor of his home office for afternoon naps, and that is where I find him now.

The office was supposed to be a third bedroom, but my father took it over immediately upon moving into the house. A grey metal desk takes up most of one wall. The last time I was here Daddy was shredding documents he had removed from its various drawers. Today, however, he’s stretched out on the floor sound asleep.

In the corner on a small table rests his old Army blanket. Dark green, made of the scratchiest wool I’ve ever had the displeasure of actually touching, Daddy’s Army blanket has been a fixture in our home for as long as I can remember.  Trying not to awaken him, I lay the blanket across Daddy’s cancer-thin body, and as quietly as I can, lower myself next to him.

His breathing is shallow, slowed by the heavy pain medication he takes for the cancer that is eating him alive. I touch his cool hand, skin mottled by age and disease. I inhale the smell of pipe tobacco that lingers on his body, and moving close to his ear, whisper “I love you.” I won’t have him much longer, and I don’t want to be angry when he’s gone.

He never says he loves ME, but he reaches a hand to grab my own. Reconciliation comes in many forms.”

PS - The accompanying picture is of my father in his younger years before life and disappointment changed him.

My Grandmother's Girdle

Today’s exercise in the writing retreat I am attending was using a technique called a “sprint”. What this meant was that for 7 minutes - and yes, we were timed - we were to write continuously, not allowing our hand to stop moving, and not making any corrections - basically free-thought/association writing. We were to start from either a “sweet memory” or the phrase “I want to write about…”

At first I thought this would be just about impossible, but I discovered just the opposite. And I discovered, much to my surprise, that the exercise took my words in a totally different direction than expected given where I started. From a place of half humor to a really dark place.

So, in the vein of posting my classroom work, here is “My Grandmother’s Girdle”

“I want to write about Grandmother Lucia’s bra and girdle. Of course, it’s not really about her bra and girdle, it’s about why that memory arose in the first place. #1, the visual of watching my grandmother get dressed. For a woman born in the 1800’s she was remarkably open about her body, or maybe because I was a girl, and little, she didn’t need to cover her nakedness in front of me.

I want to write about how shocking her naked body was to me as I watched – with fascination and repulsion – as she stuffed her enormous, flopping breasts into a gargantuan brassiere – and how she squirmed and struggled to pull up a tortuous girdle.

I want to write about how vain my grandmother was;

I want to write about how controlling she was;

I want to write about how she used her money to bribe and threaten me to do her wishes, well into my teens;

I want to write about how my grandmother emasculated my father;

I want to write about the way my grandmother intruded into my parents’ marriage, making it a threesome, emotionally, for the entire three decades she lived while they were married.”

Grits

I’m at a writing retreat for three days. I haven’t done one of those since before I started writing the Allison Parker Mystery series - 8 years ago! This retreat is at a place called the Well of Mercy in Hamptonville, NC. I think Hamptonville must be the Well’s mailing address because the actual location of the Well is in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE at the end of a gravel road. Truly, when the pavement went to gravel I worried that the “bitch in the box” had finally lost it. But - as advertised, quietly, the retreat grounds run by the Sisters of Mercy is a lovely, secluded, escape where one can write, walk, rest or search far away from the noise of our everyday world.

At our first session last night the 13 of us attending were asked to choose three words that described each of us, and then from those three words to select one to be used in a group writing exercise. We were told we could use as many or as few of the 13 words that we wanted, but we had 15 minutes in which to create our narrative, which had to begin with “I have always loved _____.”

For me, so unused to writing on demand, this sounded pretty intimidating. However, as often happens - well, maybe I should say always happens - the Muse stepped in and the words simply flowed. What came out was rough, and if I’d had my regular, leisurely, untimed approach, I’m sure I’d have done some editing.

As each of the 13 read her work (all women at this retreat) I was fascinated to hear 13 different voices, 13 different writing styles, 13 different perspectives on the use of words and phrases. There was no right or wrong, just individual voices reflected in beautiful, uniquely individual, creation.

So, for fun, I thought I’d share with you my 15 minute, unedited work product. I used 7 of the 13 words (grits, blunder, parallel, bliss, river, heartbeat, blooms). Enjoy.

“I’ve always loved grits. Even if I blundered into a parallel universe I’d seek out the yummy goodness that blooms in my heart whenever I hear mama say “it’s time for breakfast.”

Grits,  you say? Those are awful, you’d insist – but, no, I’d protest, grits connect me to my past, to memories of those blissful days before the demands of life interfered, those days when grits, steaming hot, with a river of butter dripping off my chin as the overflowing spoon made its way to my mouth – those are the true childhood days of bliss.

I see your face – you simply can’t comprehend how I can love grits. What can I tell you except this – grits are the heartbeat of the South.”

PS- the picture accompanying this post is of the chapel at Well of Mercy.

Enough is Enough

Generally I have tried to keep my opinion on current matters pretty much to myself, although if you’ve seen some of my posts on social media I haven’t been totally successful. I have not taken a public stance on many issues for a couple of reasons but primarily because I didn’t want to negatively affect the sales of my Allison Parker Mystery series.  I’ve always known that was a chicken-shit reason, and after I read the content in the U.S. Dept of Ed’s proposed regulation for public primary and secondary schools I decided the time to be chicken-shit was over.

 Critical race theory is poison for our country.  The Black only, Asian only, LGBTQ only graduation ceremonies at colleges, the Black only dorms, student unions - you name it - it’s segregation all over again. People in my generation fought and died (in some cases) to bring an end to segregation, to pass and enforce civil rights legislation, to acknowledge and fight racism. What we are seeing today with the indoctrination of critical race theory is just as bad as what my generation fought against in the ‘60’s and 70’s.

 Rioting, looting, arson and destruction are deemed “peaceful protests” by an organization whose founders are publicly avowed Marxists and whose violent actions are excused by members of Congress. Corporations are bowing to the woke mob (frankly a minority of Americans who have somehow been able to intimidate everyone else), law enforcement has been demonized, and any white person who disagrees with what certain elements of the “progressive” left scream are called racists, white supremacists and worse.

 Not everything is climate change. Not everything is infrastructure.  Not everything is racism.

 Our southern border is non-existent. Having a border and enforcing immigration laws is not racist. Every sovereign country is entitled to its borders. Throwing money at South American countries will not solve our immigration crisis. Who do you think will get that money? It sure won’t be the poor people who live there.

 People are losing their jobs for voicing opinions that differ from those spouted by the Progressives” (has anyone thought about how ridiculous that title is? “Regressives” is more like it). What country does that remind you of?

 Do we now live in an America where a citizen is afraid to state her opinion for fear of retribution, retaliation, being “canceled”, being ostracized? My husband thinks it’s just a phase the country is going through. I pray he is correct, but I believe he is wrong, and for that reason I can’t be silent any longer.

 

Not Happy Siblings Day

As is my habit, I perused Facebook this morning to catch up on the goings-on among my friends, as well as to skim news events worthy of more than a second glance.  It took only a few minutes of scrolling my news feed to be told that today was “Happy Siblings Day.” Along with the reminders were pictures of happy siblings who clearly love one another and were glad to have each other as family. And while I enjoyed seeing my friends’ posts and pictures of brothers and sisters, I was also instantly reminded of the absence of that holiday in my own life. It’s not that I don’t have a brother – I do.  One 4 years younger than I who lives in Chattanooga. But we might as well be “only” children.  He and I have been estranged for most of our adult life due, in large part, to diametrically opposed choices each of us has made in this continuing journey called life. 

The last time I saw my brother was when we buried my mother six years ago. Thrown together by necessity over the last two weeks of my mother’s life, and then at her graveside service, our interaction was polite but strained.  Prior to those sad weeks, we had been in each other’s company only once, for less than fifteen minutes, between 2007 when we buried our father and our mother’s last weeks in January 2015.

Over the years I have periodically reached out to my brother hoping that “this time” it will be different, and that he and I can have a normal conversation (whatever that is), that the arguments won’t begin. My fruitless efforts have only reinforced what I already knew – that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result was not only the definition of insanity, it was the perfect description of the “relationship” between my brother and myself.

Some will say it’s never too late to reconcile. But, in our case, I believe it is. The core of my brother’s ill will towards me is a memoir I wrote in 2011. Although our relationship was hanging by a thread already, the publication of that story was more than he could tolerate. The only coming back as far as my brother is concerned, and as he has told me more than once, is for me to “admit” the memoir is one big lie – something I cannot and will not do.

So, there we are.

I am sad that I don’t have a brother, but in reality the fact that he is related by blood to me is insufficient, in and of itself, to form a healthy and loving relationship. I wish him well – he has remarried after years of staying in a terrible marriage, and I hope his remaining years will bring him joy and peace. Perhaps in another life we will have a different relationship.

In closing this essay, I’ll end with a note about the accompanying picture. I had to search online for a current picture of my brother as I have very few of him, and none recent.  Perhaps that little fact says everything.

Allison Parker Goes International!

I’ve been writing since 2008. Mt first book, Biologically Bankrupt, was published in 2011, and the first Allison Parker Mystery in 2013. A book of essays went out in 2018. And, the most recent book in the mystery/thriller series - The Games We Play - was published in the fall of 2020.

So, I’ve been at this for a LONG TIME and just this week was notified that I now have fans and readers in Canada and Australia. I am THRILLED with this information and hope that many more people will become Allison fans.

So, a BIG THANK YOU for all y’all!!

What I Read When I'm Not Writing

At book signings I am often asked what kind of books I like to read. Well, the answer may surprise you - I like to read paranormal series. Two of the best are by author Faith Hunter. The Jane Yellowrock Series and the Soulwood Series. While the characters are mainly paranormals of some kind, the stories are really about relationships and various adventures involving a continuing case of characters. Both series are entertaining. I'm eagerly awaiting book 14 in the Yellowrock Series and am unfortunately on the last book currently in the Soulwood Series. Check them out. I bet you'll like them! #FaithHunter#JaneYellowrock#Soulwood.

Another series that I read quite a few years ago that was addicting is the Verkosigan Series by Lois McMaster Bujold. The Verkosigan series is set in the future and follows several members of the Verkosigan family on adventures throughout the universe. Although classified as “science fiction”, again these are stories about relationships and a continuing cast of characters.

These might all be outside your normal comfort zone for reading material, but I’d be willing to bet you’ll be hooked if you start them.#LoisMcMasterBujold

Happy reading in 2021, and look for a new Allison Parker Mystery by year’s end.