Why Write?

Writing about pain is hard.  Putting these words on a page rips sweat from the brow, blood from the veins, and ink from the pen.  Anguish clings to the heart, and comes free only with great effort.  Trouble wants to stay hidden in the dark recesses of the mind, wreaking havoc in the soul.  Once the first cut is made and the first words flow through the pen and onto the page, there is a deluge of words, pouring out in no particular order, unordered and unreasonable.  Disciplining the words into order, making sense of the insensible, requires patience and energy and the occasional cattle prod.  In the end, the pain is as manageable as the words, aligned neatly into grammatically correct packages.

Writing about joy is harder.  Trite clichés trip over themselves in their race to hold the good in cupped palms.  Cliché is a leaky vessel, though, allowing the best parts to fall unnoticed to the ground.  One must move past the cliché, into new territory, finding fresh ways to hold the joy, sometimes building the vessel from scratch, one word at a time, until the right size and shape cradles delight carefully, tenderly, holding onto the pleasant thought so the reader can sift through the glittering words, picking out a favorite bit, feeling remembered joy in his own carefully crafted vessel.

Writing funny is hardest of all.  Terror, not humor, flows across the keyboard.  Myriads of little fears combine to dam up the words, keep them stopped behind an embarrassed laugh.  Fears like rejection, humiliation, exposure.  The biggest of all, the one holding all the little fears together--what if no one laughs?  Worse, what if they don’t get it?  A joke is never funny after explanation tatters the edges and scissors the punch line.  Too much description kills the joke, too little prevents its birth.  A joke can spend forever behind the dam, never seeing the light of day, and becoming a little less funny every day.

Still, here I sit, glaring at my computer, daring it to wrap its cold, unfeeling microchips around my words, distorting them beyond recognition.  It succeeds more often than not.  The words I hear in my head are not the words that appear on the screen.  I slash at them, trimming the jagged edges, reordering the nonsense, slaughtering clever phrases at every turn.  My computer uses the overflowing recycle file to mock me, shoving ragged scraps of essays in my face, declaring that I will never be a writer.  I failed before; there is no indication this time will be any better.

Sentence by painful sentence, I wrest control from my hard drive, crafting the rough words into a flowing river of thought and idea.  The battle is bloody and long, with casualties on both sides.  But I do not quit, I do not retreat.  I am more feeling and human than the enemy.  My computer also knows I can always buy a new one and it will be relegated to fighting about Solitaire with a bored teenager.

In the end, I win.  The words are mine again, if a little blood spattered.

Why write?  Why do battle with a computer at all?  I write because I must.  Because I cannot NOT write.  Pouring the words onto the page, ordering and organizing, removing drivel with surgical precision, healing wounded paragraphs, this work calls to me, a siren song of desire.  It is an addiction, a drive, a need as basic as food.  I swear and stomp away, vowing never to return, but we all know I’m only kidding.  I will be back, and I will craft another vessel, something to hold all the joy and pain and humor in the world, one word at a time.

Love in the Living Room

A teenage couple sits on the loveseat, fighting to trap each other’s thumbs in a battle that makes them both laugh.  If she succeeds and captures his thumb, she declares a victory for herself.  If he wins, she rules the game a mismatch, and demands a rematch.  By this point system, she wins every time.  His advantages of size and strength are nothing in the face of her big brown eyes.  He loses, but he loses with good cheer because he gets to sit with a pretty girl on the loveseat.

The old dogs love to nap on the couch.  If a person lies on the couch, the dogs are ecstatic.  They zip around, finding blankets and stuffed toys, before jumping all over the laughing, reclining person in their excitement at sharing naptime.  Hooray for people sleeping on the couch!  Eventually they settle in, one keeping human feet warm, one curled on the sleeping person’s chest, one stretched beside the napper.  Quiet reigns until the doorbell rings.

When the boys started school, they stopped allowing goodnight kisses from me.  Kisses embarrassed them, made them look uncool, like mama’s boys.  Still little boys, they needed affection as much as they avoided it.  Still a mom, I needed affection from my little boys.  Their dad and I discovered a way to kiss them goodnight that let them look cool anyway.  We kissed our fingertips, and tapped the tops of their heads, passing kisses from lips to hands to heads.  As they grew older, the tap grew stronger—never strong enough to damage, but enough to make them laugh and keep from crossing the tenderness limit.  One of the boys laughingly avoided the tap, so we would wrestle him to the ground, giggling and shouting, at bedtime every night, trapping his hands and forcing a kiss/tap on the top of his head.  Then everyone went to bed with grins for happy dreams.

            The kids have grown into young adults, all taller than I.  Looking cool in front of their friends no longer matters, and affection is welcome.  By tradition, they bend their tall frames down so I can reach their heads, still passing kisses from lips to hand to head.

“My grandson was so cute.  He chased the chickens all over the garden, but they didn’t like it much and hid from him.”

“My granddaughter learned to ride a bike.  She’s so proud of herself.”

“My grandkids love books about bugs and lizards.  They want to know the names of all of them.”

The brother and sister have bragged to, threatened, teased, and supported each other for almost 60 years.  She was bigger and older when they were children, and their parents made her take him out with her friends.  Today they are still arguing, this time over who has the cutest grandkids, but the argument remains lighthearted and cheerful; no one really wants to hurt feelings.

The living room is empty on very rare occasions.  The family has gone out together for a movie premier.  Tall bookshelves stand on either side of the piano, stuffed with books and games and sheet music; two entire shelves are dedicated to library books.  A family ancestor painted the picture hanging over the piano; it’s a desert scene, beautifully done.  Another wall holds a tribute picture to Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and his cartoon colleagues.  The wood floor shines in the sun from the picture window.  The dogs have broken one corner of the blinds, where they watch out the window for the family to return. 

Dusty, dried roses hang from a hook in the corner of the ceiling.  They crumble under the touch even of housefly wings.  They are left over from a funeral, and no one can bear to throw them away.  A spider made his home in them once, but even the cobweb is dry and dusty now, the spider is long gone.  Sometimes red and lavender petals fall to the floor, and get swept up with the dog hair. 

The living room is not a company-only room.  The family lives here, and loves here.  On the couch.

New Holiday

I love Christmas.  I love the spirit of cheer and giving, I love the carols to a newborn King.  Especially I love the Gospel of Luke and the glad message it has to give the world.
I also love Easter.  Without the sacrifice of His life, Christmas would be "just another birthday of just another baby."(S.W.Kimball)  This ultimate gift to mankind is the reason for both Christmas and Easter.
I notice, however, a lack of holiday designated to celebrate the life of Jesus.  He lived in a way we all should emulate, showing true compassion to everyone, without regard to how much they deserve His love. 
Therefor, I propose a new holiday, perhaps sometime in June, to celebrate the greatest life ever lived.  The gift of His life is precious and valuable, and should be honored and kept in our hearts.
Not to mention that religious holidays, like Christmas and Easter, have the best candy.  I presume LifeDay would generate excellent sugar highs as well.
Merry Christmas, everyone!

Grandma's Recipe

English Toffee Candy

Recipe from Grandma Castleton

I loved this candy.  Too bad I never asked Grandma to show me how to make it.  Grandma brought dress boxes full of lines and lines of cookies, ice cream buckets full of toffee and peanut brittle.  We loved “Grandma cookies” better than anything.  Once she came with no cookies, and said she’d bake them with us.  “But we like Grandma cookies,” we cried.  “If you bake them here, they’re just cookies.”

1 c. butter

1 c. sugar

1 Tbsp corn syrup

3 Tbsp water

I used to walk to the corner store and buy penny candy with my brother.  Grandma would watch us out of her third floor window.  I liked the candy cigarettes that blew clouds of powdered sugar, but Mom never let me have them.  Grandma did, though, and she never told on me.  By the time the corner store closed, we were old enough to walk to the tiny store around the corner, and Grandma didn’t have to watch us anymore.

Cook, stirring constantly until candy reaches 290 degrees.  Pour over chopped pecans on buttered cookie sheet.

I called my cousin for the recipe, and we talked for an hour.  We once spend all day at Bear Lake, then slept at Grandma’s.  We were so sun-burned it hurt to move.  Grandma’s sheets never felt so rough.  Grandma came downstairs in the middle of the night bringing oatmeal lotion to rub on our backs.  How she knew we were too sore to sleep we never did guess.

Sprinkle with chocolate chips, let them melt.  When melted, spread with the back of a spoon to cover candy.  Sprinkle with more chopped pecans.  When cool, break into pieces and eat.

Too Much Thought

Grocery List

Ground beef (spaghetti for dinner tomorrow?)

Ground turkey (Is anyone on a diet this week?)

Chicken breasts (check the freezer.  Do we have any?)

Bacon (Kevran wrote this entry.  Indulge him if it’s on sale)

Cheese (for Kerry, so stronger flavor is preferred.  Swiss, maybe?)

Lunch meat (for Kylie’s snacks, she likes bologna)

Butter (real butter for candy making)

Butter flavored spread (check to see if we need raspberry jelly for Amy)

Fruit snacks (make sure Miriam has some in her purse)

Crackers (Everyone likes Four Cheese Cheez-Its—get these)

Milk (Marcus doesn’t drink much now that he’s not growing.  Only 2 gallons)

Sour cream (we have potatoes we can bake on Sunday)

(Is anyone eating yogurt anymore?  Kerry’s mother ate it before she died)

Flour

Sugar

Gelatin

(check pumpkin pie recipe, and see if the pumpkins have grown big enough yet)

Baby carrots (the dogs love these)

Cucumbers (that’s for me, but get extra in case someone else wants one)

Apples (gala and Granny Smith—sweet and sour)

Fresh oregano and basil (Marcus asked for these.  He’s trying a new recipe.  Yay!)

Dishsoap (remember Miriam can’t use Dawn)

Clorox Wipes (did anything ever get clean before these were invented?)

Diet Coke!

Imagine

Imagine being blind.  Imagine being born blind, never seeing colors or shapes.  Perhaps you can see differences between light and dark.  Perhaps you can see large shapes or movement.  Or maybe you have no vision, and never have.  You have no concept of what anything looks like, because you have never seen anything, ever.  If someone says the sky is particularly blue today, you have no idea what that means.  Maybe you can smell the air, cleaner than some days.  Maybe you feel the warmth of the sun.  Maybe you hear birds singing more loudly than usual.  But “blue” is utterly meaningless, and no one can explain to you what it means.  You have no frame of reference to even begin to understand.

Get this idea clearly set in your mind, really put yourself in this position.  Go ahead.  I will wait for you.

Now imagine going to school on your very first day ever.  Your family has told you all about the interesting things you will do and learn in school.  You feel excited to learn about the great music of Mozart, the literature of Dr. Seuss, math and geometry and history and all the rest.  Hooray!  The grand educational adventure begins today!

But something goes wrong.  When you get to school you do not hear anything.  No one is speaking.  Someone keeps putting their moving hands under your hands, but you have no idea why.  You put your hands behind your back, but someone drags them out, making you feel the moving hands again.  Maybe those moving hands mean something.  Is this a way to talk?  How are you ever going to figure out what all that motion means, and why won’t anyone speak out loud?

Well, little one, you have been put into a school that only uses a signed language.  It is easiest to understand if you can see it, but since you cannot see, you will have to make do with a different sense, touch, to figure out this new language.  You only have two hands, so you can only understand one person at a time, and even if you become proficient at this new language, you will not know what all the kids around you are saying—you will rely on the teacher to give you all the information about all class discussions.  Until you learn this language, you will not learn math or history or music or literature.  You must understand “blue” before you can really begin the educational adventure.

This seems a little silly, bordering on ridiculous, does it not?  Why would any thinking person force a blind child to read hands rather than simply teaching him in his native, oral, language?  How can this child be expected to learn under these circumstances?

But this is exactly what we are asking Deaf children to do every day.  Not only must they learn a new language, but they must learn it using a different sense.  Hearing is the easiest way to learn English, but we expect them to learn it by sight alone.  They are not allowed to learn literacy and numeracy until they learn this new language using a sense not meant for the language. 

Ridiculous!  These kids think visually, they see pictures in their heads, and have a finely developed spatial sense, honed by years of practice seeing special relations.  Imagine the engineers and architects they could become, understanding space and dimensions in a way less visual thinkers never will.  Think of the art they could produce, the roads they could design, the new maths they could invent, if only we gave them the information they need in a language they truly understand, without wasting prime brain growth stages of life on learning spoken English and lipreading. 

Deaf children should be taught in the sign language of their country.  English should be taught as a second language, but not at the expense of all the other fields of study that should be available to everyone.

Tiger Pets: Ridiculous, or Brilliant?

           When I was a kid, maybe seven or eight, I had a plan.  I found my mother and announced, “When I am sixteen, I will have a tiger for a pet.”  I thought sixteen was as grown-up as I was ever likely to be, and I certainly did not imagine my mother would still have anything to say about how I lived my life, let alone that I might still be living in her house.  My mother barely glanced at me and responded, “Leslie, no you won’t.  You know that’s ridiculous.”  I did not pursue the subject, but I certainly did not know it was ridiculous.  I just figured that I would do whatever I wanted when I finally reached the extremely grown-up age of sixteen.

            I did finally turn sixteen, and I had not forgotten my dream.  But by then I realized how little control I really had over my life.  My mother would certainly not allow a tiger in the house—she would not even allow a kitten.  I still thought tigers were elegant, exotic animals, and I thought I could still become a tiger trainer and spend my time on stage with several pet tigers when I finished growing up.

            Well, I grew up.  I got my own apartment (one that did allow pets, incidentally), but did not get a tiger.  Instead, I got kittens.  I began to understand how much work a tiger would take, how expensive, and how dangerous it would be in the house.  Kittens were hard enough on the furniture and my skin.  Now that I have my own house, I own a chihuahua.  He weights eight pounds, and sleeps on the back of the sofa where he can watch safely away from people feet.  He is all the time, energy, and money I am willing to expend on a pet.  I no longer wish for a tiger, in fact, I think a tiger is a ridiculous pet.

            It makes me wonder, though.  As I learn and grow, my opinions change.  New information becomes part of my schema, and my view of the world changes.  I have been disillusioned many times.  I have recognized my ill-informed views on many things.  I wonder what I know to be true and rational today, that will prove itself false and ridiculous tomorrow?