State of Obvious

So this is seventeen. It's charm and silence and sighs. It's longer legs and towering above my head. It's venturing out alone in a car. It's struggling and succeeding.   It's struggling and failing. It's beauty in small moments and watching TV together. It's independence and complete dependence. It's being sure and being completely lost. In many ways, seventeen is nothing new.   He's still him, and I'm still me.   In many ways, seventeen is nothing I've ever known. It's a strange feeling in my heart, in this space that he occupies, in this chamber, in this place. My own seventeen was a lot more mystery, a lot more self doubt, a lot more fear. My own seventeen was painful and strange. And so this new seventeen is scary, too. It's letting go, even though I'm not ready. It's holding on for dear life. So, this is seventeen.  *Photos by Payneless Photo...

I'm in the well.  The deep well of what have I done. Below me echoes the sound of a thousand feet of blank air. Above me, light fades to a pinprick.  On all sides are the slick, slimy bricks built to hold back the earth, to keep it from caving in, to create a passage for bringing water from below. Once, I looked over into my child's face and saw myself staring back.  Saw the insecurities and pride, the wonder and alarm.  It was strange and yet - satisfying. I've created immortality, it flows in his veins.  And yet, he is his own self.  A self I have always known.  He is both new and old at the same time, a million years of love and change meeting in the moment of conception.  Lives won and lost, all leading to the here and now.  Looking over, I see him as if distantly. It sounds like nonsense, these words with no form. These thoughts that pour out like ink on the page.  It sounds like too much thinking and not enou...

I am currently looking for a job (you hiring?  No?  too bad...).  It's an interesting experience.  Technically, I have been offered one position so far, but I had to turn it down.  Because, seriously, I can't move my family a few hundred miles south to a place with little to no housing that happens to also smell like over-cooked beans if you are going to pay me a ridiculously low salary to teach kids all day long...Oh wait, I got off track. So, I keep applying at various places and hoping for a call.  (Funny story, another school down south in the same town that already offered me a job called me for an interview...goodness.)  Otherwise, so far I've had one email saying basically 'thanks and we'll be in touch when we start interviewing' which was better than the non-response from all the others.  It's gotten me to thinking - maybe, just maybe, I don't really want a job and so I keep putting non-job vibes out into the universe.  And instead ...

People move through our lives in often very small and simple ways.  Sometimes we meet for a moment, an hour, a week, a year, a decade.  We make friends, lose friends, remain friends though distance pulls us apart.  We affect others.  That means act upon, cause, change.  The effect is what comes after.  It's the ripples and waves that follow the storm.  Or the warmth that follows the sun rising.  The chill that follows its setting. Here I am at the end of another semester.  Closing things up, putting things aside that never got done.  This time, I have an unsettled feeling, everything in limbo.  I'm not sure what's next and it's very hard to sit back and wait for the future to come.  Every hour, every moment rolling closer like a train on it's track during a midnight ride.  I cannot see the horizon, only these tracks right in front of me as I push on forward. And it's scary. I'm supposed to wait upon the Lord.  I'm ...

The vast blue sky And golden rays Turtle dove songs outside my window The smell of freshly washed hair My daughter's soft skin Brown eyes A roof that hasn't leaked A painted picture of the sea The taste of beans and chile Clanging heater vents, alive with warm air Rosy, heart-shaped lips Chocolate The ocean pulsing on the sand White snow laid freshly down Skeleton arms of trees Dogs barking over the cat's meow A quilt made of favorite shirts And dreams.

For George I see him in the trees Tall and strong, gangly limbs that try to touch the sky “Be strong,” they say “Stand tall,” they tell me “Reach.” I see him in the river Always moving, changing fast, full of stories “Keep going,” it rumbles “Cut new paths,” it beckons “Search.” I see him in the birds The cunning hawk, the splendid eagle, the curious sparrow “Fly farther,” they call “Hunt far and wide,” they sing “Soar.” I see him in adobe In the gentle carvings of a rough, strong hand In quiet rooms of light In many windows facing east To sunrise.

There once was a pirate named Steve. He was quite nice, as pirates go, and liked to run (or shall I say, hop) all about town shouting out things like: "Arr! There be me favorite silver spoon!" and "Arrggh!  I've lost me contact lens!" I didn't say he was a good pirate. Anyhow, one day Steve was out and about, hopping here and there, when suddenly his patch fell off.  His eye - where else would he have a patch?  The onlookers were shocked to see that Steve had a wooden eye behind that patch.  It was rolling around in the socket, slivers of wood blinking like splintery eyelashes as he fumbled for his lost patch.  One of the shocked onlookers took pity on poor pirate Steve and picked up the patch with two skinny fingers.  Her name was Delly - the helpful onlooker, not the patch. "I've found your patch," she said, helpfully, dangling the patch in front of Steve's good, non-splintery eye. "Me patch?!" said Steve, reaching for ...

I looked at you and I thought Oh, that's what this is. It's brimming over with pride, screaming inside with fear, falling all over myself, I'm sorry I said that, Can we start over, Green, blue, gold, And red. I looked at you and I thought How did we get here? This place where the words echo Flying between us like projectiles Sharp and sweet and smothering. When did we make that turn And suddenly arrive in new territory Where you are almost grown And I am running behind Trying to catch up. I looked at you and I thought I see me In your eyes, in your face, in your smile I see the puzzle pieces fit together But somewhat out of order And with landscapes I don't recognize Places I have Never been. I looked at you and I thought You are still mine. You will always be mine. These broken moments Are only fragments of what we are Who we are Who we can be Who we will be Together.

There is this moment when the thing we fear becomes like an animal in a cage.  We feed it, give it treats, reach into to steal a stroke, tease it, name it, watch it pace in front of the bars.  We get comfortable with it and begin to lose the tightness in our belly.  We begin to believe our feelings were not justified, that we were just being silly.  We begin to make friends with that animal in the cage and we decide to let it out, to see if it has suddenly become civilized.  Inevitably, it has not and then comes the bloody, broken mess on the floor that we have to clean up even as we know we created the mess and we don't want to see that thing we've let loose.  And we have to put it back in the cage, the struggle ensues, and we are irrevocably scarred by the experience only to begin the process again. Lately I seem to be reading, talking, thinking, talking, watching, talking about inclusion and diversity.  As if one of those things is somehow more va...

Dear Charlotte, Carly was baptized on Saturday.  After some stress and movie trouble and programs printed wrong twice in a row, it went off without a hitch.  Carly wore a lovely white dress which you made and she positively glowed.  I've never been hugged so tight by the starfish child as when she came to me out of the font. When I took you to the airport, a most odious task I always dread because it means you are leaving, you thanked me for letting you participate in Carly's baptism and life in general.  It caught me off guard, I'm sure you noticed.  Because, I can't image it any other way.  If anything, I wish I had you more.  More tickling and laughing and comforting and loving.  Because you give all that you have so freely.  Because you make way and make time and make efforts beyond what's minimally required by ties of "family".  Because I cannot remember a time in my life where I have not admired you.  Although perhaps you ...

My final writing prompt for my Creative Writing Degree.  It's nice to end on a fun note. 5 Star Review!             My life has been forever and irrevocably changed by the amazing T-376 Commuter's Helmet from Narco Leptic Industries.  Never before and never again have I owed such a debt of gratitude to a five pound yellow gadget from Japan.             My husband, Hal, was born with an unfortunate and debilitating disease.  While this disease has not yet been identified by the scientific community at large (the bastards), I am confident that someday a cure will be found and he will finally be able to live a normal life.  Until then, he is forced to suffer through the pain and humiliation of his condition.  We did not discover this terrible affliction until after our first son, Hal Jr. I, was born.  Soon after our beautiful child's birth, rig...

My brain.  This is the short piece I started working on based on someone else's brainstorm image from class.  I am still trying to write every day, but some days my laziness is just too strong.  Like the force, only less cool.  Still, I'm writing a bit of something most days (and I am not short changing myself when that 'writing' is part of school work.  I have a LOT of it right now, and we're only two weeks in.  Last semester I got a bit lazy and paid the price with last minute rushing; this semester I want to go out nice and easy...if possible.) --- Safe Haven In the milk aisle at Costco, Elise’s four year old daughter Candy announced that she had to use the restroom again. She bobbed on her little feet, knock kneed and bubbling over with all the urgency of her four-year-old full bladder. She pulled at the hem of her pink tutu and tried not to make eye contact with her mom. Looking down at the top of her daughter’s restless blonde head, Elise tr...

Classes officially started back up this week.  At times I am just shocked to be in the homestretch of classes, but then other days I am wondering why it isn't over yet.  This semester I'll be taking six classes.  S-I-X.  I also took six last semester and did ok until the very end when I lost my brain somewhere between Thanksgiving and Neverland.  This semester I am trying to stay more organized and on top of assignments so that I'm not battling down to the last moment.  Two days in and I've almost missed one quiz already so I spent a fortune in ink printing out all the class due date schedules.  Anyhow, the first assignment for my creative writing class is to come up with a "spring loaded image."  I have the same professor as last semester, so I've actually done this before.  A spring loaded image is basically a short description of an image ripe with potential.  The example my professor uses in class is "A Wedding Cake in the Middle o...

The mountains shrouded With swaths of wispy clouds Sweetly white where they cling Like babes to their mother’s breast And snow falls fast, feather upon feather Blotting out the brown and gloom of winter Promising ice-kissed spring not far behind. The slopes of old regrets Go sweeping down Fast, fast upon the mountainside Until the depths are reached Darkness and despair in the canyons And everywhere shadows And everywhere paths pointing north At the precipice An empty hour Bird calls and swooning wind A thousand syllables of lost love Buried in the scent of pine and moss Growing things asleep in beds New tomorrows under foot.

Today I channeled my creative energy into a short essay/letter/thing which described my desire and ability to be a teaching assistant while I'm a grad student.  I feel like there is a lot riding on this essay/letter/thing - I can't afford grad school unless they accept me.  Unfortunately for me, the university I currently attend does not like to accept students who graduated from the same university into the Creative Writing Master's program.  I am hoping that the relationships I have made and the samples I submitted are argument enough to get me by.  In the meantime, cross your fingers, toes, and arms for me.  I won't be put out of my misery notified about acceptance until March.  Here is a snippet of one of my writing samples: --- Three news vans huddled like a herd of praying mantises around the bus, antennas extended.   Reporters tried not to blink at the bright light of the cameras while they rehearsed in front of a tangled knot of o...

Tonight I am filling out an app for grad school.  This is the third I have worked on, and each one has wanted really different stuff so no copy/pasting to make life easier.  This one is also the school I most want to get into and there is only 4 days until the deadline.  Procrastination always keeps my life interesting. On the upside, plans for my celebatory graduation trip are underway.  Plane tickets procurred, hotels currently under investigation, and a whole lot of dreaming going on.  But you know what they say, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere!  Maybe even grad school. --- (A little sample of my application letter, if you please): When I was about thirteen years old, my grandmother introduced me to Tony Hillerman.   Not in person, of course, but to his novel Skinwalkers .   My grandmother was an avid reader of all sorts of fiction and non-fiction, in addition to being a highly educated and well-travelled lover ...

I suppose because I have dealt with (and continue to deal with) infertility, I thought it could be really interesting to explore a fictional world wherein our reproductive rights are controlled by the government to a much larger degree than we can even imagine now.  Where having children is something you apply for and can be turned down for without explanation (sounds a little bit like adoption...), where population is tightly controlled.  If I could no longer make a choice about whether or not I 'want' children, how would I think, feel, act, respond, cope?  Especially if I was unlucky enough to qualify to even try.  I'm not sure if this will ever go anywhere, and I'm afraid it might be a little too close to the apocolytpic junk that is already on the market, but still - it made me think and therefore write.  -- O n the morning of their fourth Trial, they tried to move like shadows through the grass.   Weaving in and out of sunlight, placing their feet ...

I actually wrote the beginning of this story a long time ago by hand.  Then I lost it.  The second part has been sitting in my files for a couple of years (at least) while the beginning bumped around in various forms inside my head.  Tonight I took a stab at getting the beginning down, albeit in a different and still quite rough form.  As usual, I have no idea where (if at all) this should go. --- Sheriff Clayton Withers didn’t normally like to take his son, Jack, out with him when he was working.   But today Jack was out of school, and his Ma had another one of those headaches that had been troubling her since she’d been in the family way.   It was her fourth pregnancy so far, with the last two ending poorly and the babies buried in graves under the tree out back, so Clay didn’t object to having Jack along this time.   Besides, Jack kept quiet and watchful as they rode in the summer afternoon heat with their weathered gray hats pulled low over the...

Something new and extremely rough for today's post.  I used a writing prompt ("write about a day moon") to get me going, the whole point being to get something - anything really - on the page.  --- The moon refused to set.   It hung there in the sky like some bulbous seed, full of life and waiting for just the right weather to sprout.   Tam watched it doubtfully, warily, waiting for some other sign to come along and wipe away the heavy meaning of a day moon.   But everything was quiet.   Still.   Poised.   Even the river, some hundred leagues away, seemed to rush quietly in its banks.   It avoided the rocks and normal pitfalls of its course, thrumming instead of crashing against the shore.   They saw hardly any game and so had to wait until late for lunch, finally settling down to eat when the sun was already halfway to setting.   Tam’s stomach rumbled uncomfortably, a protest of nerves and a long day walking with only ...

Once, a while back, I got a great idea for a funny riff on Lord of the Rings.  We're big fans (of the movies more than the books really) around here, and I thought this would be hilarious if done right.  This is my dusty outline and the question is: is it worth pursuing?  (Side note: I have a ridiculous amount of trouble spelling "pursue".)  Let me know in the comments (or on facebook if that's your mode of choice). (p.s. These are my ideas and intellectual property and you better not steal them and publish them, especially if it makes a lot of money and I find out about it!) --- Lord of the Swings It’s bad enough being ten years old.   Even worse to be ten years old with thick, curly hair that grows way too fast, over large feet and short legs.   But then my parents had to go and name me Frodo. That’s right, my name is Frodo B. Wynn, fifth grader. Frodo – 10 years old, short for his age, curly hair.   His parents were LOTR fanatic...