A Fellowship of Books

August 15, 2025 ~ mstturpin ~ 2 Comments

This week I continue with my list of Texas independent bookstores and a story at the end.

Wild Detectives Bookstore in Oak Cliff, Texas

Last Friday my friend Cathy and I continued our tour of local bookstores. In Texas, “local” can mean anything within a three hour drive, but that day we only had to venture to Oak Cliff, about a thirty minute drive from home. This neighborhood, the Bishop Arts District, is filled with quirky boutiques, cozy restaurants, coffee shops, and of course – bookstores.

Poets Bookshop in the Bishop Arts District

Lucky for us the streets were mostly shaded, proving relief from the hot Texas sunshine. We trekked from Wild Detectives to Poets Bookshop and then on to Blush. This last store features romance titles and my companions wondered if I, a horror writer and reader, would find anything to tempt me. I did see some witchy stories, but they were all books I already owned.

After lunch we abandoned the sidewalks for Cathy’s Subaru, and drove to our last two destinations. We stopped first at Whose Books, where I made up for the lack of romance titles by discovering three new horror books.

Our last stop was at Lucky Dog Books, a used bookstore. We all left there with our arms filled with new to us titles.

There is no more perfect way to spend the day than in the fellowship of other book lovers.

This week I’m sharing a flash fiction piece I wrote for one of the NYC Midnight Contests. I think the genre might have been historical fiction and the object that had to be included was a rocking chair.

Love Makes Lighter Burdens

Mattie Ferguson would forever mourn the things she had left behind. No porcelain plates, no beads nor bells—she traded these for coffee and bacon, for shovel and scythe.

“Oregon! A new start, Mattie.” Her husband, Jonas, swept her up in sturdy arms and swung her round. Dizzy, her old life spun past.

Released, she sat in her beloved rocking chair and gripped the smooth oak. Built by her father, she imagined his worn hands as he sanded the wood, pictured her mother seated by a fire as the rocker soothed a fretful baby.

“We’ll find room,” Jonas promised.

They toted the rocker through flood-swollen rivers, and grave-marked desert. They trod beside their struggling oxen, past piles of treasures, discarded in hopes of a load lightened enough to last the journey.

In Idaho, they lost an ox. With meager possessions carved down to essentials, Jonas could not meet her gaze.

“No!” Mattie spread her fingers across her rounded belly. “I’ll carry it.”

Jonas smiled and lifted the chair. He’d bear it for her—a burden made light by love. The last mile slipped past. The trek became a story for their children and their children’s children.

A century later, a young couple pushed through a beaded curtain to wander a dusty shop. Janis Joplin wailed from the radio as smoky incense wafted through the air. The woman stopped beside an antique rocker.

“We need this,” she told her lover. “It’s boss.”

“It won’t fit in our car.”

She pouted.

“Okay, our pad’s close. I’ll carry it.” He lifted the chair, surprised at how light the load was.

The End – Thank you for reading!

Gardening in the Apocalypse

August 26, 2023 ~ mstturpin ~ 9 Comments

Bunnies and humans are a greater threat than zombies

Our garden – guarded by metal chickens and a t-rex

Here in Texas we are finishing another week of 100 plus degree temperatures. So far the tropical plants – the hibiscus, okra, wax mallow, and the Rose of Sharon – are thriving. But not all plants, nor all humans, are designed to survive in a climate akin to a blast furnace. While the mallow gang laugh at August, my tomatoes have wilted, the peppers gave up their blooms, and the vining plants dried up and crumbled off their stakes. Somehow the asparagus continues to force out new sprouts. I planted the roots two years ago, so next year will be the year of spears. The ferns have overgrown their little patch, hanging over the sidewalk so they brush against me when I wander past. I can’t resist running my hands through the soft tops and whispering to them, “Soon.”

Right after the asparagus began shooting up spears, I noticed that overnight the plants would disappear. Rabbits, I discovered, like the taste of fresh asparagus. The greater insult in this was that I could not yet harvest the spears for my own meals. Our solution was to install a short fence around the plot. Not so tall that I couldn’t reach over it, but tall enough that the bunnies could not. Eventually I enclosed most of my plants in some sort of fence. It has given me a new respect for the battle between Farmer McGregor and Peter Rabbit.

Black-eyed peas and sweet potatoes in pots

My parents always had a small garden and our summers were filled with fresh vegetables. My main motivation for growing my own food has always been an appreciation for the taste of home grown tomatoes and okra. The restful meditation that comes from working with plants is a much enjoyed side benefit.

Like many people, I felt an extra urgency to produce my own food during the Covid lockdowns, when we dealt with shortages. Back then, I remember trying to order seeds online and coming up empty with each click. Mostly I grew radishes and hot peppers on our apartment balcony, not exactly enough to sustain two grown adults. Since buying our house two years ago, I’ve expanded to large pots, grow bags, and some space in our flower beds. The dry Texas summer has turned our front lawn to brown straw, and I believe I am close to convincing Andrew to till it all under and plant corn.

One of the scariest movies I ever watched was Interstellar. It wasn’t marketed as horror, but science fiction. The plot revolved around a team of scientists who were searching for alternate planets that would support life, since earth had undergone so much ecological damage that world wide famine had resulted. This was a little too close to reality. I love horror, but I’d rather watch and read stories about zombies, demonic serial killers, and haunted houses. In those cases, I can close the book, exit the theater, turn off the television and reassure myself that those things are safely secured away from my own world. However, I only have to step outside in the blazing summer heat to imagine global ecological destruction. In that case, I always think of George Carlin’s words – “The planet will be here for a long, long, LONG time after we’re gone, and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed.”

While we wait for the ecological apocalypse, the black-eyed peas and sweet potatoes thrive in their pots and don’t seem to mind the heat. Bunnies are not welcome in the garden. Birds and squirrels are okay, because they occasionally do their own cultivating – like the sunflowers that sprout around the bird feeder or the peanut plant that emerged from a flower pot of peas. It’s all good because my favorite color is green.

The Places We Go When We Look for Love

July 3, 2023July 3, 2023 ~ mstturpin ~ 1 Comment

Photo by the author. Edited with the Waterlogue App

Summer is the season of love – for Texas tarantulas. Despite having eight appendages, they have no opposable thumbs and no way to access a special spider dating site. Like a shy single guy, the males venture out as the sun sets, searching for that one special arachnid lady. He must make a hasty love connection as the male tarantulas only live seven to eight years, while the females can live up to the ripe old age of twenty to twenty-five.

Photo by the author – male tarantula spotted at Arbor Hills Nature Park, Plano Texas

He hunts for his special love by scent, tracking a possible mate to her burrow. Once there, he taps on the fine webs at the entrance and hopes she’ll respond by swiping right in spider fashion. If the answer is yes, perhaps they’ll go out to dine on a fine meal of crickets before or after the romantic hook-up. However, if the female is not in the mating mood, she is apt to make a meal of her suitor instead. Either way, someone will have a nice dinner.

Photo by the author – Arbor Hills Nature Park, Plano Texas

I met Andrew, my husband, at Arbor Hills Nature Park. We had connected on a dating site and arranged our first date online. No need for a scent trail, I spotted him holding a Frisbee as he stood in a field near the parking lot.

Photo by the author – the creek at Arbor Hills

Over the next few years we visited the park often, eventually sharing an apartment, our own cozy burrow, next to the nature area.

Two years ago we bought a house and moved farther away from the park, too far to walk or drop in for night time strolls. Three weeks ago, before the summer heat turned the sidewalks to griddles hot enough to melt the rubber soles of our shoes, Andrew suggested an evening stroll at Arbor Hills. “The tarantulas might be out already,” he said.

Photo by the author – thistles and flowers

We arrived at dusk, at the last of the golden hour, right before the sky turned from blue to twilight lavender. Carrying flashlights, we hiked along the concrete trail that wound three miles through the park. In past visits we had often encountered the palm-sized, furry, brown female tarantulas. They crawled across the paths like something from a science fiction/horror flick, scurrying along on their own spidery missions.

Photo by the author – mushrooms around a tree stump

“When will they be out?” I asked Andrew, as we drew near the back of the park.

“Look in the grass beside the trail. We’ll see the males first.”

A circle of mushrooms, a tiny Stonehenge, stood tucked in the dry grass. Andrew was the first to spot the tarantula.

He emerged from the weeds and leaves and crawled onto the trail in front of us. Not monstrous at all, the tarantula weaved side to side along the concrete, like a bar patron leaving at last call. I snapped pictures and waved as he set out, determined to find love. I hoped he would find a mate that night, or if not, that he would keep searching. Arbor Hills was, after all, a good place to start.

Everyone’s Taste is Not Your Own

March 24, 2023March 24, 2023 ~ mstturpin ~ 7 Comments

The past has flavor. It tastes like cherry popsicles melting red down your arm on a hot summer day. It might taste like Saturday night at home, watching the movie of the week and eating pepperoni pizza. The kind from a box kit, with tiny circles of spicy pepperoni swirled into the sauce. Sometimes it tastes like love and joy, like Friday night dinner out with your family – tacos and enchiladas and queso and salsa and chips hot from the fryer.

We drove up to Wichita Falls one Saturday, to explore the downtown and see if we could find something interesting in the antique shops. Along the way we stopped in Muenster at Fischer’s, a small grocery stocked with local products inspired by the town’s German heritage. I bought spaetzle and pickles and chow-chow relish. My mouth watered in anticipation of the tang of vinegar. Then, as we made our way to the cashiers at the front of the store, I spotted a box of Chef Boyardee pepperoni pizza mix. I hadn’t seen this product in the Dallas area in ages. I scooped up the last two boxes. This pizza had been a staple of my childhood and teenage years.

Photo by the author – Downtown Wichita Falls

In Wichita Falls, we trooped through dusty shops and searched for bargains, climbed creaking stairs in hopes of discovering treasure. We had left our drinks in the car, parked two blocks away. As the hot afternoon wore on, I dreamed of a cold glass of iced tea. After wandering through a maze of shelves stocked with foggy glassware, yellowed magazines, and toys with missing parts – Andrew and I decided it was time for an early dinner.

Photo by the author – Miss Kim judges your taste

Photo by the author – the seamstress

I had picked the restaurant based on the Yelp reviews. The place had been in business for decades and had racked up a reassuring 4.5 stars out of 5. Their specialty was something called a “red taco.” I couldn’t wait to try it.

“I don’t know,” Andrew said. “It might be too busy. If there’s a wait we can come back later.”

I agreed, but secretly vowed to suffer the wait. I’d dreamed of that taco the whole time we circled through stacks of broken typewriters and piles of musty books.

Photo by the author

When we arrived at the restaurant, I was thrilled when the smiling cashier told us to sit wherever we wanted. We squeezed into a narrow booth. A waitress popped by to take our order. Andrew decided on enchiladas and asked for queso in place of chili. I had a combination plate – a cheese enchilada and the long anticipated red taco. We added a bowl of queso to start.

When the waitress dropped off our chips and queso, I thought there had been some mistake and we’d been served biscuits instead. Each piece was at least a quarter inch thick and weighed enough to raise a decent welt if I chunked it at someone. The queso sported a suspicious pink tinge, as though the antacid were already blended into the sauce. A pudding-like consistency, it clung to the chips and quivered.

Andrew gave me a stricken look. “I added queso to my enchiladas.”

“Maybe they will mess up the order.”

However, our main meal arrived quickly and was just as we had requested. The famous taco was certainly red. A vivid, siren screaming red that could only come from a lifetime allotment of red dye number 40. The taco shell was thick like the chips, and possibly made from the same tortillas. Where had they come from? I’d never seen anything like that, unless you count the time I attempted to roll out my own corn tortillas at home. The refried beans were lumpy and unseasoned. My cheese enchilada was good, but there wasn’t nearly enough of it to justify the price on the menu.

I pulled up the Yelp app and read through the reviews. Had we stumbled into some alternate universe, one where everyone else thought this tasted fine? Like that Twilight Zone episode where everyone has a pig face except this one girl who believes she’s the ugliest person alive?

This time, I searched for the 1 star opinions. As I read through the ratings, one theme appeared throughout – puzzlement. Then I sorted the positive reviews. Most had one thing in common – memory.

“I’ve been going here since I was a child.”

“I always stop in Wichita Falls for a red taco.”

All around us there were smiling people dining on the chips, dipping into the queso. It must be tradition. So many restaurants closed during Covid. I can count on one hand the stores that are still open that also existed when I was young. How reassuring it must be to have one constant in your life, one place you can go and say you’ve been there for years? The food must taste better when flavored by memory.

Communion with Cornmeal

July 14, 2022July 17, 2022 ~ mstturpin ~ 2 Comments

I come from generations of gardeners. When we moved into our house last year, it was too late in the summer for planting. I vowed an early start in the next season. This year, however, brought mostly failed experiments with container gardening. My tomatoes grew weary in the dry heat, dropping leaves and blossoming worth with small, wrinkled fruit. I tried summer squash – remembering the butter yellow vegetables my mother grew. My plants protested confinement in pots, however large. But one hardy vegetable flourished in the ten square feet I allotted it. Okra, that heat-loving Southern staple.

It’s one of the easiest plants to grow, and it makes an interesting addition to your garden. The yellow blossoms with their deep red centers reveal the plant’s place in the mallow family, a relative of the hibiscus. A little water, lots of sun, and you’re rewarded with hardy, heat-loving stalks and enough okra pods to share with your friends and family. Okra is best right after it is picked. The stuff you see in a grocery store most likely will be soft and wilted. If you don’t have a spot to grow it yourself, pick it up at a Farmers Market. Okra is delicious roasted. Boiled it makes a tasty thickener for stews and gumbo. My favorite way to cook it is to bread it in either corn meal or flour and fry it.

The blooms open in the early morning sun, around the time I set aside for harvesting the pods. Bees circle the plants, landing and picking up their fill of pollen while I brush aside the broad leaves and search for the tasty green okra. I’m growing Clemson Spineless – a kinder variety from the one I picked as a child in my mother’s garden. Those plants and their pods were covered in prickly spines that raised red welts on the tender flesh of my arms. The rash, however, was payment for the reward – plates of crunchy, cornmeal breaded and fried okra.

As I pick the pods, I can imagine the taste of the crispy chunks. Okra has a flavor that reminds me of cool green grass. It tastes like summer. I remember my mother, setting the table with fried okra and red slices of tomato. She pan-fried her okra in shortening with a little bacon grease mixed in for flavor. I cook mine in canola oil and skip the bacon grease. Like my mom, I use a cast iron skillet. Each bite I take I taste the past.

Thankful for Small Steps

November 27, 2020 ~ mstturpin ~ 3 Comments

I turned 60 this year, and for the first time in my life I’ve realized I have far fewer days ahead of me than behind. It’s a startling revelation, one that leads me to portion out my days like a miser hoarding gold. A very small stack of gold. One that I should have appreciated much sooner.

There is no good time to live through a pandemic. I wonder if I would have felt the theft of days as acutely if Covid had happened when I was 50, 40, 30. Be thankful, I tell myself, you don’t have small children at home. I’m fortunate that I have a job that can be done remotely. The only health damage my husband and I have sustained is the extra pounds that have crept up on us. I’m not replacing the batteries on our digital scale. When it dies we’ll stop monitoring our gains. That, at least, will have a finite ending.

We decided to forego any gathering of friends and family for Thanksgiving and instead reserved admission to Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas. It seemed safer to spend the time outdoors, passing strangers on trails.

Outside, with the clean scent of juniper and cedar surrounding us, it was simple to tie my shortness of breath to the steepness of our hike, and not to the irrational fear of illness. Worry dissolved with each step over tangled roots, each rustle of leaves blanketing the trails.

We stopped at an overlook to admire how high we’d climbed and I ate an orange, impossibly sweet, from my pack.

I snapped a picture at a spot I’d stopped at a few years back, intending to look up that photo and compare it to the present, but I decided I’d rather keep the current image in my mind without regret for the changes brought by time.

The trek downhill was harder, perhaps because it marked the winding down of the day. My knees complained and my ankles, not to be outdone, insisted on wobbling with each step. Someone had installed a small wooden step at a particularly steep portion of the trail. As I tested the sturdiness of the steps I clutched the trunk of a cedar tree leaning over the path. The usually shaggy bark was worn smooth, polished by the thousands of hands that had gone this way before me.

At the end of the trail, as at the beginning, we had to cross the slow-moving Paluxy River. Andrew hopped across the stones laid in rows in the shallow water while I, not trusting my balance, decided to take off my boots and go barefoot through the crossing.

I tested each step, carefully navigating over slick, moss-covered stones worn smooth. Cold water up to my knees, I felt both a child-like joy and the very adult fear of falling. If I made it back to dry land safely, I decided I would devote time each day to the yoga tree-pose.

I find gratitude in nature, for the ability to set out on larger journeys with small steps. I forgive myself for the ennui that has gripped me this past year and I realize that instead of wasting time I’ve been healing. So that when this pandemic is over I can go out and face the world like the bad-ass, mature woman that I am.

“There are always flowers for those who want to see them.” Henri Matisse

Perspectives on Texas Towns

March 11, 2019 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

Antiques Shop Window Display in Downtown Wichita Falls, Texas

Street Photography Challenge

My husband and I love to travel on the weekends to visit the small towns near our home. Each place has a unique character that reminds me of the diversity within our state. Downtown Wichita Falls, Texas is experiencing a revival of sorts with small shops, breweries, and theaters opening in what were empty buildings. Our overall economy is thriving, but there are reminders everywhere of past financial booms and busts.

Empty Space in Downtown Wichita Falls, Texas— Former Home of Tru-Value

Nearby Denton, Texas is one of our favorite destinations. I snapped the photo below near dusk as we walked from one of our favorite eateries in downtown Denton.

Fenced off Construction Area in Denton, Texas

Three Heads are Better Than One in Waxahachie, Texas

Road Trip Through Texas

March 6, 2019 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

Street scene in Waxahachie, Texas — Photo by Terrye Turpin

Street Photography Challenge

My husband and I live near Dallas, Texas and we are fortunate to have many interesting small towns within driving distance for weekend jaunts. We browse through antique stores and thrift shops and I always bring my camera along, looking for inspiration and hoping for a photo or two that will inspire a story.

Sometimes we’ll drive by an interesting place and I’ll beg Andrew to pull over so I can hop out and get a picture. The building above is definitely going to inspire a scary short story.

Comanche, Texas — The Comanche Chief Newspaper office, still publishing the news

I love finding these old bicycles propped up outside shops.

Wichita Falls — The World’s Smallest Skyscraper

I like to use my own photographs whenever possible in my stories, so you might see these pictures again someday.

The Rivers

May 31, 2018 ~ mstturpin ~ Leave a comment

We arrived in San Saba, Texas, the Pecan Capital of the World, in the hot late afternoon, in time to check into our hotel and stash the packs filled with what we thought we’d need for the weekend. My fiancé, Andrew, and I wandered down the small town street while I sipped a cup of coffee from a waxed paper cup. Our reflections cast back in mirrored glass and revealed a late middle-aged couple dressed in comfortable, travel wrinkled clothes. We stretched our legs and popped joints stiff from the three hour drive. We did our best to outwit the Texas sunshine by dodging along the shade cast on the sidewalk from awnings over businesses closed for the holiday weekend. I set down the paperboard cup at last to step through the doorway and into Harry’s Boots.

The store, established in 1939, seemed to fill half the city block. Shelves and racks lured shoppers with pearl snapped and buttoned western shirts in peacock colors or solemn, solid dyes. Sturdy denim jeans, in every size that man or woman might exist, lay neatly stacked and folded into cubbies along the walls. But the main attractions, and those which filled the space with the heady fragrance of leather and the clean, sharp scent of saddle soap and polish, were the boots.

Boots in sizes dainty through durable, made from every type of hide imaginable. Boots from alligator, ostrich, lizard, goat, buffalo, and rattlesnake. I would not miss this last, but I cringed to pick up a pair labeled “elephant.” We left after browsing through rooms crowned with hats, straw and Stetson, felt and ten gallon, fit for cowboys, cattle barons, and weekend tourists with money to spare.

Bridge over the Llano River, photo by Terrye Turpin

Too early for dinner, we cruised down the road to Llano, leaving the San Saba River behind and seeking the Llano in the city that bore its name. We hiked along the river bank and wondered at sculptures woven into the landscape, they seemed to have sprung up like the wildflowers, unassisted by human hands.

Back in San Saba we walked again, this time along a concrete trail through a park along a different river and through stands of pecan trees whose branches weaved overhead like lovers holding hands. Twilight came upon us while we bickered over which path led back to our car. Andrew held out his phone for a flashlight as we traced our steps back, past neon yellow bursts from fireflies waking to search for love. A family of deer lifted their ears and paused in their grazing to mutely ask what we thought we were up to, lingering so long near sundown.

Photo by Terrye Turpin — Pecan trees in San Saba, Texas

Safely back in our room at the Dofflemyer Hotel, I pushed back the curtains to look down upon a street I imagined traveled by horses instead of Hondas. We turned in early after a snack of pecans roasted in butter and salt and left for us instead of mints on the pillow. I dreamed of Texas, a big land for sure, to hold those whose faith and fitness drew them here. Like the pecan I am native with roots that tap to green river water. If others wonder why I so long linger here, I’ll take a breath to remember the scent of leather boots, the charm of fireflies at dusk, and the graceful bend of prairie grass to wind.

This week I continue with my list of Texas independent bookstores and a story at the end.

Love Makes Lighter Burdens

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Bunnies and humans are a greater threat than zombies

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Street Photography Challenge

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