This post should actually be titled “Where I’ve Been Writing.”
I’ve been busy creating fiction and essays over on the Medium website. You can access the stories through the links I’ve posted below, even if you don’t have a Medium profile.
I hope you enjoy the stories!
https://psiloveyou.xyz/here-in-the-dark-beside-you-e970a2af88d6
https://thecreative.cafe/the-rivers-b2abd135f3f
The view from 2016 when we were on the other side of the stadium.
I am not especially patriotic, but I love a good fireworks display. I’m not sure how I came to this attraction to all things bright and sparkly. It isn’t nostalgia. The only fireworks I remember in my childhood involved a car trip with my parents down a deserted country road. We stopped outside the city limits and my dad unloaded a paper sack of bottle rockets that we carried past a herd of curious cattle to the edge of a pond on some stranger’s land. It wasn’t exactly the type of memory I’m anxious to recreate.
The other day was July 4th, the day we Americans celebrate our independence by setting off grass fires and frightening the neighborhood dogs. My fiancé Andrew and I set aside this date every year for our annual disagreement about fireworks. He prefers to ignore them and hide inside in the air conditioning (I think he must have been a Labrador retriever in a past life) while I insist that the holiday won’t be complete unless I watch something explode.
“I could always stick a sparkler up my butt and run around,” Andrew said.
“Not spectacular enough,” I said, after considering his offer.
This year we compromised with an outing on July 3rd to the ballpark near our home to watch the Frisco RoughRiders play baseball. The schedule stated there would be fireworks following the game. We arrived at the stadium after the first inning and settled into our seats behind first base. I counted off the innings and willed the sun to set while we ducked at the occasional foul ball flying overhead. The ice in my soda melted and my thighs stuck to the plastic seat. The air filled with what was either the aroma of grilled hot dogs or my fellow spectators roasting in the summer heat. Around the 7th inning we rallied enough to stand and sing along with “God Bless America.”
As soon as the game ended I noticed a stream of people heading down from the stands.
“Should we follow them?” I asked.
The loudspeaker cut in, announcing that the fireworks would soon start. “They’ll be visible behind the first base section of the stands, fans will have a good view from the field,” the announcer said.
“That’s right over us,” Andrew pointed out. “I don’t think we’ll be able to see from here.” We leaned back in our seats, trying to judge the line of sight.
“We should move,” I agreed.
We hopped over rows of plastic folding seats and fought like salmon headed upstream against the crowd tromping down the aisles. The announcer warned “The fireworks will start in one minute” just as we reached the top of the stadium. I hummed the theme from Mission Impossible as we dodged a stadium attendant.
“Go! Go!” I urged Andrew as we weaved past shuttered food stands and splashed through puddles alongside the Lazy River pool. The first boom sounded as we fled through a gate and into the street beside the ballpark. I stood on the curb and leaned out into traffic so I could watch the pyrotechnics bursting in flashes of brilliant red, white, and blue. Their splendor was slightly blocked by the leaves on the tree I stood under. The display ended while I was still deciding on the best place to stand. It was like someone offered me a cookie and then broke it in half and gave me the smaller bit.
The following evening, the proper Independence Day, we celebrated with an after dark bike ride through our neighborhood. We ride at night because I will only put on bicycle shorts when there is no danger of anyone seeing me. The subdivision across from our home features roads with challenging hills. I usually complain and grumble as I downshift and pedal along. This night, as I struggled up the fourth or fifth incline, I heard the distinctive boom that meant somewhere people were celebrating.
“Can you see any fireworks at the top?” I called as Andrew cycled past me.
When we got to the peak we could hear a barrage of blasts from every direction. But we couldn’t see any fireworks. It was as though we had arrived at a free fire zone in the midst of an invisible military occupation.
We biked on through the subdivision. I struggled along hopefully at every rise in elevation while Andrew shot past me. At last we arrived at the outside edge of the subdivision, and Andrew coasted up to the stop sign at the intersection with the main road. An older man and his barefoot son stood in their front yard, watching the horizon.
“Look there.” Andrew pointed toward the east. A sound like far off thunder rolled toward us and I saw a burst of red and gold light up the sky miles away.
“I think that’s Arlington, it’s been going on almost an hour,” our neighbor told us.
We had a good view, although from our remote vantage point the fireworks resembled glittery dandelions gone to seed. As the booms faded Andrew turned to me. “If we listen carefully we might hear the people cheering.”
“Maybe,” I replied. I envied that distant crowd. I imagined the fireworks bursting in the air and showering their magic light on those below. I hoped they clapped. I hoped they cheered. I hoped they sang.
God bless America, land that I love
Stand beside her and guide her
Through the night with a light from above
From the mountains to the prairies
To the oceans white with foam
God bless America, my home sweet home
God bless America, my home sweet home
Irving Berlin
My fiance, Andrew, loves Wichita Falls. We drove up there this weekend and he pitched an earnest plea for us to buy his childhood home.
Besides the lack of a down payment, I was not swayed by the quaint architecture or the quiet neighborhood.
“They had Fox News playing in the hotel dining room,” I said.
The hotel featured full length mirrors at the end of every hallway. Every time I passed one it startled me, as though I were encountering myself in some other dimension. They also served to remind me that I didn’t need that cinnamon bun from the breakfast buffet. The atmosphere was somewhere between The Shining and The Biggest Loser.
“Oh that’s just the hotel,” Andrew replied. “The only public liberal arts school in Texas is here.”
The oil boom and bust left Wichita Falls stranded like a second string prom date. The city is filled with empty high rise buildings, evacuated like the set of a dystopian movie. Something with zombies or plague. But it’s also lovely and stocked with my favorite sort of shops – cheap antique stores and artsy coffee shops.
I took this photo standing in the middle of the street while Andrew was distracted by a window display.
Wichita Falls is home to the World’s Smallest Skyscraper, the Newby – McMahon building. A con artist collected money from investors in 1919 and proposed to construct a high rise office building, but the oil men he conned didn’t notice that the blueprints listed the size in inches, not feet.
World’s Smallest Skyscraper
There are also several breweries in downtown Wichita Falls
We’re getting married in October, and I found this floofy hat that I thought I might wear, but Andrew made the same sort of face I made when he suggested moving to Wichita Falls.
I’ve been thinking about wedding vows, and I don’t think I will include Ruth 1:16 “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people.”
I had to kneel down to get this shot. When I tried to stand up my knees locked and I waved at Andrew to try and get his attention, but he was looking at real estate listings on his phone and didn’t see me. I grabbed his arm and managed to pull myself up as I decided all future photography would be taken at eye level.
I don’t know if this was an actual cat before it was stuffed.
As we drove around Wichita Falls I noticed an interesting art display near a large, spooky building that turned out to be a grain elevator.
I convinced Andrew to pull over so I could take some pictures.
Here’s Andrew, peeking out to see if I had finished taking pictures.
As we strolled past a construction worker spray painting a store front, Andrew remarked on how well they were doing, renovating the downtown area.
“I still don’t want to move here though,” I said. “And don’t think the 6,000 liberal arts students will sway me either.”
In the last place we stopped I wandered away from Andrew, drawn to a display of vintage clothing. Nothing fit, the folks were all much smaller back then. You never see that in time travel movies, but really us future folk would be giants. I turned a corner, looking for Andrew, and ran into this guy.
I don’t know what’s more startling, the lion head or the bare feet.
I weaved through aisles of antique glassware, stacks of crumbling books, and bins filled with old records in cardboard jackets. I couldn’t find Andrew and just as I stopped to take a deep breath, he popped up from behind an antique wardrobe.
“I’d know that sigh anywhere,” he said.
I was glad to see him, and glad to load up the car with our purchases and head home. Maybe I could change that verse a bit, make it “Where you will go I will go, as long as it’s convenient to a nice shopping area and has a hospital with a good reputation. Along with reasonable real estate prices and a decent commute to work and a theater.”
This showed up in my Facebook feed the other night. Of course I clicked on the link and checked them out on the Walmart website. The back of the package states “Potatoes to die for” but I hope they don’t mean that literally.
You can buy a casket online from Walmart and opt for overnight delivery. I clicked and sorted them from low to high price and Walmart helpfully produced this sponsored product:
It looks sturdy but I think I’ll go for cremation. I wanted to donate my body to science but Andrew worries that he’ll encounter me somewhere as an exhibit.
“I don’t want to see you encased in plastic and displayed at the State Fair,” he said.
The funeral potatoes are listed as emergency supplies and they have an 18 month shelf life. They might be useful for camping but I’m a little on the frugal side. I’m afraid I’d start counting down friends and family as the package gets closer to the expiration date.
I’m grateful for the Southern tradition of bringing food to comfort loss.
My own memories of grief are soothed by recalling those offerings carried in heavy Pyrex dishes, wrapped in aluminum foil and often still warm from the oven. What meals those lovely church ladies brought – pork chops marinated and baked in mushroom soup, banana pudding with soft vanilla wafers, fried chicken with a crispy golden crust only a cast iron skillet and love can deliver.
One thing I know for sure, no self respecting Southern Baptist would bring reconstituted potato casserole to a funeral.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
I hesitated when I saw the invitation in my email because I am not a fan of scary movies. I tolerate them because they are one of Andrew’s favorite genres. When he watches Alien Death Camp Holiday or Haunted Mental Institution Massacre, I sit beside him on the couch and mutter comments.
“Did they go in the basement? Is that a hatchet?” I’ll say, my voice muffled by the blanket covering my face.
I clicked on the link in the email and signed up for two free passes for a screening of Strangers: Prey at Night. The summary I read said the film is a sequel to the first movie, Strangers. There were enough survivors for part two, this one to take place in an abandoned mobile home park, where the victims were threatened with murderous psychopaths instead of tornadoes.
I was sure Andrew would enjoy the movie, and I was willing to go along because the screening was to take place at our local drive in theater. I have fond memories of going to the drive in with my parents in the 1960s. There was a playground at the front, and I swung from monkey bars and climbed to the top of the rocket shaped slide to look up to the giant characters on the screen. When I was older, I went to the drive in on dates, but those times I stayed in the car.
We arrived early the night of the screening. I handed over my pass to the cashier in the little booth at the entrance and he told us, “Just follow the drive around to the back. It’s the last screen.”
“That one?” I asked, pointing to our left.
“There’ll be someone there to help you park,” he replied.
We swung around past the concession stand and drove to the last screen where Andrew spotted a young man dressed in fluorescent yellow, waving cars over into compact rows on the gravel lot. We settled in where he directed us.
After a trip to the concession stand for popcorn and a soft drink, we walked back in the dark to our parked car. I glanced over to the screen next to ours where a large group of people arranged themselves in chairs in front of the screen.
“What are those people doing over there?” I asked as I pointed to two men wearing suits, which seemed strange attire for an evening at the drive in.
“I don’t know,” Andrew replied, “but I think the movie is about to start.”
Andrew tuned in the car radio to the channel that would broadcast sound for our movie, and we watched the screen light up with previews for coming attractions. The first preview was a Claymation Cartoon.
“This is an odd preview for a horror movie,” I said. I swiveled around in the car seat and peered over at the lot next to ours. The screen there had a static display that said “Strangers.”
“I think we are at the wrong screen.”
Andrew turned to look behind us. “Oh well, at least we get to watch a free movie.”
I pulled up the drive in website on my phone as the next preview, an animated cartoon featuring a talking baby, started.
“The movies tonight are Death Wish, Black Panther, and…” I paused. “Peter Rabbit.”
Andrew does not appreciate children’s movies like I do. As a parent, I learned to be grateful for any entertainment that will encourage small children to sit still for an hour and a half. I looked around at the rows of cars that surrounded us. There were no lights marking the exit, and the only illumination came from the movie playing in front of us. A chorus of singing animals appeared on the screen. Andrew does not care for musicals either.
“Do you want to leave?” I asked.
“I don’t see how we can get out,” Andrew replied. After some discussion about the all-terrain capabilities of our Honda SUV, we decided to stay.
“At least it won’t last long,” Andrew said. This philosophy could apply equally to root canals, but I agreed and then complained about the size of the screen.
“Just pretend we are sitting on our couch at home, watching the movie on your phone, from across the room.”
The plot of the movie developed as we expected. There was action and romance between a female character named “Bea” and the handsome nephew of Farmer McGregor.
“I think this is based on true events,” I remarked, as a hedgehog wearing an apron ambled through the McGregor’s garden.
I flipped up my armrest and leaned over the center console so I could take Andrew’s hand and he grabbed the popcorn box just as it was about to spill onto the floorboards. What strange circumstances brought us here, to a place neither one imagined they would ever go, but both somehow certain that this is where they belong.
I spent a good part of the morning on Christmas Eve searching our apartment for a book. The missing book was a collection of fairy tales that I received for Christmas in 1968, when I was eight years old. The book was a present from my parents, and I first saw it while it was still wrapped in a Treasure City shopping bag and lying on the floorboard of our Oldsmobile. I remember teasing it carefully from the brown paper sack while I kept an eye out to make sure my mother, in her place in the front passenger seat, didn’t spot me. After I flipped the book over and traced the outline of Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf on the back cover, I stuffed it back under the car seat. On Christmas morning I pretended that it had been placed there by a generous elf, but I knew the truth. I convinced myself that my parents were in direct communication with Santa, and were merely helping him out by picking up a few things on their own.
Now, half a century later, I couldn’t find it. It sounds odd to consider the loss of a fifty year old book unusual, especially from someone who regularly misplaces her wallet, but this book had followed me from childhood. My fiancé Andrew and I searched every book case and every stack of books in our 1200 square foot apartment. “Where could it have got to?” I asked as I bent over to look under the couch.
“Did you put it up here with the children’s books?” Andrew pulled out and glanced behind Richard Scarry’s “Best Word Book EVER” before sliding it back on the shelf in our dining room. I walked back to our bedroom, to look once more at the small bookcase there. I hoped that the book had somehow found its way back to the last place where I had seen it. It seems we are often falling into this, some version of “Have you seen my…” The older I get, the more things seem to go missing. I am either growing more forgetful or my possessions have decided to free themselves before the inevitable estate sale.
“No, it’s gone, I don’t think we’ll find it.” I continued to drift from room to room, including the bathrooms, in case I had tucked the book away amongst the collection of toilet paper I had stashed under the sink. Andrew followed along behind me, a terry cloth sweatband stretched across his forehead as though he were about to go for a jog. He is good like that, he often puts aside whatever he is working on to help me look for my phone, my purse, that book I was reading. He has adjusted very well to the responsibility of looking after another person’s possessions, while I drag along, resenting the imposition of caring for anything that can’t look after itself. I’m often setting down my phone next to a sink full of water, or leaving a plastic cup too close to the hot stove top.
I pictured the worn green and white cardboard cover of the misplaced collection, patched with clear tape. As I described the book to Andrew, he mentioned that I could probably buy a replacement on eBay. “But it won’t be the same!” I protested as I recalled the black and white illustrations that I colored in with crayons. I prepared to gather myself into a ball of self-pity, moaning something about lost childhood treasures, when Andrew asked where I had last seen the book.
“I think I put it with my photo albums,” I answered from under the bed. A moment passed and then Andrew called out.
“Here it is!” He found the book tucked away in a cardboard box in our spare closet. He handed it to me, and I flipped through the pages. Just as I remembered, every story began with “Once Upon a Time”, and generally each had a happy ending, but in between there was danger, often in the form of wolves or a wicked sorceress. Most had a handsome prince, trying to win the love of a beautiful princess. Sometimes the hero wandered lost in a dark forest, in need of enchantment to discover the magic castle. I put the fairy tale book back on the shelf and thought that this is what love really is, just two people, helping each other find things.
Only a complete troll would abandon a loved one who had cancer or who needed one of your kidneys, but it takes a strong commitment to pass the Kleenex to the woman who just sneezed on you. Show me someone who can patiently listen to you complain about an ingrown toenail, and I’ll show you someone who loves you.
I’m not a good patient. I hate to waste a day off just to lie in bed and pop an aspirin every four hours. I have a hard time remembering to take the full dose of antibiotics, so I have a medicine cabinet full of orphaned pills rattling around in their little amber bottles.
Recently I gave in and scheduled the dental implant surgery I’ve been putting off for twenty years. My periodontist, a sincere young man who looks like he just stepped off the set of a family sitcom, described the first procedure, a bone graft, in horrific detail.
“Aha!” I thought, “This will be the perfect romantic date!” I volunteered my fiance, Andrew, to accompany me to the dental college for the surgery. They gave me two little blue Halcion before knocking me out. The last thing I remember is wilting across Andrew’s shoulder while we sat on the plastic chairs in the waiting room.
I gradually floated back to earth to find myself on the couch in our living room while Andrew stood in the kitchen and steeped a tea bag to place on my gums. Over the next few days my diet consisted of chalky pain pills, blended soups, and an antibiotic the size of a small grape. For dessert I swirled a mouthwash that tasted like something that would be used to exterminate wasps. I spent most of my time reclined in a chair in front of the television, with an ice pack of frozen peas pressed to my jaw.
By the end of the third day Andrew had clocked two or three miles jogging back and forth from the kitchen as he changed out my ice pack. Meanwhile I grew to hate the sound of the blender. It hurt to talk, so I resorted to growling at Andrew every time I heard the telltale crinkle that meant he was trying to sneak a handful of hard, delicious, crunchy chips. I began to fantasize about mashed potatoes, the one thing I thought I could manage to swallow with very little chewing.
“Look here!” I pointed to my phone screen, where I had pulled up the menu of a diner near our home. Andrew is a good sport, and instead of arguing whether or not I was ready for solid food, he picked up the car keys and got my jacket for me.
We were walking into the restaurant when I remembered the fading green and purple bruise on the side of my face. The hostess was an older woman with hair dyed margarine yellow. She was wearing jeans and sensible orthopedic shoes. She looked like the sort of sturdy, reliable woman you’d want on your side if you needed to escape a lover who’d turned out to have a short temper.
“Table for two?” she asked as she picked up a couple of menus from the stack by the door.
Andrew was busy glancing at his phone, leaving me to cover my cheek with my hand and pretend to scratch my ear as I mumbled “Uh huh.”
The woman who took our order could have been cast specifically for the role of tired, middle aged waitress. She had frizzy greying hair pulled back in a loose pony tail with a pencil skewered through it. I carefully sat at the booth with my bruised face toward the wall. Andrew ordered the all-day breakfast special with scrambled eggs and buttermilk biscuits, while I requested a side order of mashed potatoes and gravy. I imagined how wonderful the potatoes would taste. Hopefully they would have a generous amount of artery clogging butter, and be drowned in cream gravy so thick it resembled pudding.
When our food arrived I was dismayed to see that the potatoes came, not with the delicious smooth cream gravy in my food dreams, but instead the bowl was awash with a slimy coating of watery, lumpy brown gravy.
“How are your taters?” Andrew asked as he forked up a mouthful of his scrambled eggs. The eggs were runny, which he hates, but he kept eating them without complaint.
I stirred the ugly motor oil colored gravy into my potatoes as I answered, “They’re okay.” I didn’t mention that brown gravy should only be served with potatoes north of the Mason Dixon line.
When we got back to our apartment I took a pain pill and rinsed the taste of the brown gravy from my mouth with the antiseptic, wasp killing mouthwash. My jaw hurt from chewing the potatoes, so I tried my best to send a silent, telepathic “I love you” to Andrew. I reached over to where he was stretched out on the couch beside me, and gave his shoulder a little pat. He sighed, and without saying anything, got up to shuffle into the kitchen. He came back with my bag of frozen peas, which I gratefully accepted, certain that he understood.
