Bliss

            “C’mon, let’s play!”

            Bliss grinned as Margo’s daughter grabbed Emily’s hand and ran toward the play structure centered on a wide circle of shredded rubber mulch.  Emily was three, a year younger than her cousin, and the two girls could have passed for twins.

           

            “Bliss, this playground is for big kids.  The girls need to go over to the smaller one.”

            Bliss sighed and shifted nine-month old Jenna in her baby sling.  “Margo, they’ll be fine.  We’re standing right here, and Emily’s played on this playground plenty of times.”

            Her younger sister’s grip on little Taylor’s hand didn’t lessen, and Bliss knew she hadn’t convinced her to just let the kids play.  She and her sister were so different, especially when it came to how they handled their children.

            Margo worried about nearly everything.  Bliss was starting to wonder if her nieces were going to need therapy, at the rate her sister was going.  Every time they arranged a play date, it took Emily’s cousin an hour to relax enough to actually play.  Taylor was worse—she wouldn’t let go of her mother’s hand at all, not even for a cookie.

            Of course, Margo didn’t allow them to have cookies.  Sugar was evil, apparently.  Which was why Bliss smuggled them to the girls at every opportunity.

           

            “Look, the sign clearly says it’s for children…”

            The censure in Margo’s voice stiffened Bliss’s spine.  She turned toward her sister, but before she could say anything—exactly what she was going to say, she wasn’t sure—a wail sounded from the play structure.

            Meeting her sister’s eyes, Bliss saw smug satisfaction.

            Sometimes, she thought, being family is just not enough reason to let my kids play with their cousins.

This post is my response to a prompt from Write On Edge.  My friend, Amybeth, and I decided to try the synchronized option:  we wrote the same story, but from different viewpoints.  Please read Margo's point of view on Amybeth's blog HERE .  Please take a moment to comment on both, and thank you for reading!

Power Surge

“Water will always find a path,” Mrs. Wheaton lectured, flashing a picture of the Grand Canyon on the screen at the front of the classroom.

Charlene studied the twisting outlines carved by the flow of the Colorado River.  She’d seen the canyon once, but her memory hadn’t recorded its stunning size.

A sharp pain just below her shoulder blade made her jump, but she refused to turn around.  Being a target of every bully in school had taught her some hard lessons, and chief among these was: never give them the satisfaction of acknowledging that they hurt you.

Still, she could feel a wave of power surge through her, propelled by pain and frustration.   Suppressing it had become second nature; the first lesson she’d learned when her power had become evident was that using it to hurt someone would not be tolerated.  It brought too much attention to their hidden community.

She shifted forward in her seat, hoping to move out of easy range of the pencil jabbing into her back, and inadvertently caught the attention of the teacher.

“Yes Charlene?  Did you have a question?”

Her mind went blank, and then latched onto the first question that raised its hand.

“What happens if the water gets blocked?  Like if there’s a landslide or something?”

Mrs. Wheaton sent Charlene the smile she reserved for students who managed to ask the perfect question to lead into the next part of the lecture.

“The water will work to weaken whatever is blocking it.  Sooner or later, the pressure will become too much, and the water will flow again.”

Charlene nodded, and fought to keep her face blank as the pencil jabbed into her back again.

Before she could shift farther away, the tip of the pencil dug into her back once more, releasing a thin trickle of blood down her back.

A cresting wave of power propelled her to her feet and she turned to face the boy, a tempest roaring in her head.  She clenched her hands into fists in one last attempt at control, but she knew it was too late. 

Power, like water, will find a path.

Her eyes lowered, narrowing slightly in concentration, and then traveled back up to watch his expression shift from a sneer to horrified shock.

“If you needed to pee that badly, I’m sure Mrs. Wheaton would have let you go.”

Charlene watched the boy leap from his seat, his book clutched low in a futile attempt to hide the inexplicable wetness as he raced from the classroom. Smiling, she sat back down as laughter followed him through the door.

Power will find a path, she thought, but it will be the one I choose.

This post is my response to a prompt from Write On Edge - our assignment was to write about the forbidden or taboo.  In this case, I wrote about Charlene's need to hide a power her classmates (and most of the world), wouldn't understand.

Thank you for stopping by, and please let me know what you think in the comments!

Free

“Good morning.”

The elderly woman at the counter didn’t glance up from her romance novel.  She never did, but Sam greeted her every morning anyway.  Shrugging, she keyed in her membership code and turned up the long hallway to the locker room.

The YMCA had made some effort to brighten up the gray little area, so the lockers were now painted a variety of primary colors.  Nothing could be done about the cinder block walls, though.  Or the damp, chemical smell that united all locker rooms and made them familiar.

Sam trudged to the last row of lockers, closest to both the swimming pool entrance and the showers. 

“Good morning!”

Sam’s head jerked up in surprise at the chirped greeting.  A woman smiled at her from halfway down the row of lockers.

“Good morning,” Sam responded, out of habit.  She shuffled down to an empty locker and set her bag down on the bench, keeping an eye on the interloper a few lockers down.

To her relief, the woman turned back to her open locker and began to strip off her clothes with a casual confidence Sam couldn’t help but admire.  They were the same age, but the skin-tight swim suit the other woman was pulling on slid over a body that didn’t look like it had ever seen 110 pounds, never mind the 250 Sam admitted to.

Knowing it was stupid, she waited until the room was empty to undress and struggle into her suit.  Sam pushed through the door to the pool, her towel carefully wrapped around her bulk.

“Hi Sam!”  The cheerful voice of the lifeguard greeted her.  “You’ve got company today!”

Sam winced and looked toward the water, where the woman had already lowered her slender body into the cool water.  As she and the lifeguard watched, the stranger pushed off and began swimming toward the other end, awkwardly slapping the water and lifting her head out of the water with every stroke.

“Hope I don’t have to pull her out,” the lifeguard commented, grinning at Sam.  “Don’t have to worry about that with you!”

Sam grinned back, and dropped the towel to slide into the welcoming arms of the water.  Freed from the gravity that made her bulk a graceless prison, she cut through the water cleanly, propelling herself past the other woman with ease as she settled into the smooth rhythm of her workout.

This post is my response to a prompt from Write On Edge - we were to write about freedom, in a way that makes sense to us, and keeping it to 400 words.  For me, being in the water is more natural than walking on land.  On land I'm clumsy, self-conscious, and hopelessly uncoordinated.  In the water, I am free.  I swam competitively for most of my childhood and teen years (although I switched to water polo in high school), and in the water is the one place where my body actually does what it's told.

Thank you for stopping by, and please leave a comment so I know you were here! 

Sunday Distraction

            The heat in the little church was oppressive, and Nora was already regretting the prideful impulse that compelled her to squeeze into her Spanx.  Her backside was itching already, and Pastor Lang wasn’t even done with his first story yet.

            Pride went before a fall. 

That was in Proverbs, wasn’t it?  Nora forced herself to sit a little straighter, and made another attempt to focus on the sermon.  The pastor was still telling one of his stories; they were supposed to illustrate the message of the sermon, but sometimes it seemed like they were just stories, and Nora was hard-pressed to make the connection.  She shifted slightly, wishing she could scratch where it itched.

            Home is where you can scratch where it itches.

            She’d seen that on a shirt at Wal-Mart a while back.  It seemed a little crude at the time, but right now she could relate.

            Her husband shot her a look out of the corner of his eye.

            How did he always know when her mind was wandering?

            Oh.  Her hand had snuck down to a spot just behind her hip and was scratching quietly.  She blushed a little and smiled sheepishly at him, sliding her wayward hand back to the Bible on her lap.

            And she’d missed the pastor’s transition into his actual sermon.  Nora re-crossed her legs and focused on the pastor’s voice.  He was getting worked up about something.  Apparently he was worried that people weren’t taking their salvation seriously, and that sort of thing leads to the hot place.

            The road to hell was paved with good intentions.

            Like that time the youth group decided to go to the store and help elderly people load their groceries in their cars.  Turns out the elderly are pretty paranoid about getting mugged these days.  It took one of the town’s police officers, a sheriff’s deputy, and the pastor to smooth things over.

            ‘Course, it occurred to her that some of the youth, her own son included, did look more like muggers than missionaries most of the time.  Nora caught herself before she snorted, and hauled her wandering mind back to the sermon.

            Another story.  Possibly about hunting, but she couldn’t be sure.  The Lord knew their pastor sure did like to hunt.

            Whatsoever you do to the least of these, you do to me.

            Nora wondered how God felt about hunting.  They taught the kids in Sunday school not to be mean to little animals because they were part of God’s creation too.  Seemed like stalking a deer in the forest and then killing it when the poor thing least expected it wasn’t a very Christian thing to do.

            Then again, some people did it so they’d have food to feed their family.  That was probably OK.  But then again, you could say that it was OK to steal food to feed your family, if you were going to make excuses.  It sure seemed like people were awfully ready to make excuses about what they did that they shouldn’t have.

            Nora jumped when her husband’s hand came down on her shoulder.  The rest of the congregation was standing and singing.  She’d missed the entire sermon.

            Again.

            Probably shouldn’t have worn those stupid Spanx…

Death Walks

Two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit lane.  They turned without speaking and walked north, toward the small village nestled in the heart of the primeval forest.  A deep layer of fallen leaves masked what little noise their paired steps would have made.

The setting moon cast long shadows in the deep blue of the night when the two men passed the first cottage on the perimeter of the village.  When they reached the center square and the communal well they stopped, the distance between them the same as it had been when they’d first appeared.

Simultaneously, they walked in opposite directions – one west and one east – moving silently past the small shops and into the cottages occupied by the villagers.  Stopping at the first homes they reached, their fists raised in unison and knocked.

The village, when viewed from above, resembled a wagon wheel.  The two silent strangers moved down the spokes of the wheel, knocking at doors, never speaking.

The house to the west was home to a young family, with an infant only days old.  The parents had been awakened by the baby a short time before, and had only just settled back into their bed.  At the knock, the father sighed and pushed up from the bed to shuffle to the wooden door.

Swinging the door open, he glanced up into the blank face of the man waiting there.  A shiver of fear took him by surprise, making him frown.

“Can I help you?”

Silence met the young father’s question, and he realized that despite the bitter cold, no familiar puff of vapor betrayed the stranger’s breath.  A chill that had nothing to do with the night air stiffened the father’s spine and he moved quickly to swing the door shut.

“Who was it?”  His wife’s sleepy voice startled him.

“No one…it was…no one,” he answered, climbing back into the bed.

As the sun rose over the trees and crept across the rooftops, an unnatural silence grew in the village.  The strangers met at the well and turned to reenter the darkness of the forest, disappearing as the first wails of those left behind rose into the dawn air.

This post is my response to a prompt from Write on Edge - using as the first line : "Two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit lane."

Please take a moment to make a comment and let me know what you think!
 

Model Behavior

My youngest son and I were having an argument, and it wasn’t going well.

His ropey arms were crossed over his skinny chest, and an exaggerated frown pulled his lips and eyebrows down at exactly the same angle.

I felt that his room needed to be cleaned.  He disagreed.  When I played the mommy card, “Because I said so,” he pulled out the big guns: this caricature of displeasure.

***

As a college student taking freshman psychology, I was required to participate in experiments.  Cheap (read as “free”) test subjects for experiments designed by grad students.

During one of these experiments, pictures were flashed onto a large screen for just a fraction of a second, and we were meant to write down the emotion we saw on the person in the picture. 

Later it was explained that this tested our ability to read non-verbal cues—the messages we send with our facial expressions and body language.

Why is that important?  Studies have suggested that only 7% of our communication actually happens through language, which means that 93% of our communication is through those nonverbal cues. 

I find it ironic that I participated in this experiment, because years later my youngest son was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome.  His position on the autism spectrum means that for some reason his brilliant brain simply doesn’t see or understand nonverbal cues. 

Sort of like colorblindness, in a way.  Except he’s blind to 93% of the communication we use as human beings, instead of just being unclear on the difference between green and blue.

I look at those numbers and think, the world of human interaction is an iceberg: 10% or less is on the surface—obvious because it’s what we say.  The biggest part of it, the dangerous part of it, is the 90% lurking under the ebb and tide of our conversations—body language, facial expressions.

It’s that 90% that will sink you, just ask the Titanic.

***

Back to my son, and our little disagreement.

He’s seventeen, and very bright.  He’s fully aware that there are icebergs floating on the sea of communication he’s trying to navigate.

So he takes what he knows and mimics it. 

Arms crossed over the chest, lips and eyebrows drawn down.  This is displeasure.

It’s also a mirror.

It is an exact replica of the body language I adopted a micro-second ago, instinctively, to express how I felt.

This is how he steers around the icebergs.  Sometimes it works and he enjoys smooth sailing.  Sometimes it doesn’t, and he plows right in.  He keeps sailing either way, because the only other option is sinking.

And he’s unsinkable.




This post is my response to a prompt from Write On Edge to write using a line about someone crossing their arms (I'm paraphrasing).  The image that popped into my head was of my son, attempting to argue with me, copying my body language.  Using my mannerisms to express himself.  As frustrating as autism is, there are also those moments of wonder and humor.  

Thank you for stopping by, and please take a moment to share your thoughts in the comments!

Touching The Future...Or Not

About a million years ago, I wanted to be a teacher.

That became a dream deferred, but not one I’d given up on.

Then my husband (a brilliant man with a degree in physics), became a teacher at a public high school here in North Carolina.  He’s an awesome teacher.  He loves his students.  He loves his co-workers.

He’s starting to wonder if he should start looking for another profession.

It seems like I’ve wanted to be a teacher since the beginning of forever.  Now I’m rethinking a dream that has lasted more than twenty years, for the same reason my husband is rethinking his profession.

Everywhere we turn the profession he loves, and the one I’ve dreamed of for so long, is under attack.

“There r more bad teachers than good. That is why they r intimidated by the merit raise / fire approach that we use in the private sector”

“i think most of you are over paid as it is and not only that but when you got raises so did my property tax raise too. So dont bite the hand the feeds you. the days of wine and roses are coming to an end for you teachers.”

“you have no marketable skills”

“teachers have pretty sweet jobs on the backs of tax payers”

“public school teachers need to get off their high horses”

“fire all current teachers, and hire the homeless to do their jobs at a fraction of the cost”

“Teachers are lazy and have a false sense of worth.  You stand in front of a room of kids and read from a lesson plan.  You also get summers off.  Quit complaining.”

All quotes from comments on news stories about teachers, and not even the worst of them.

You see, it’s not the low pay and incredibly long hours that are discouraging…

 – oh yeah, you know that thing about teachers only work 7 hours a day, 180 days a year, get summers and holidays off to work on their tans?  Complete crap.

The teachers I know who aren’t lucky enough to have a spouse with a job that pays enough to support the family, supplement their income with second jobs, summer jobs…in general, really crappy jobs.   Teachers who’ve been teaching over fifteen years (if they’ve survived that long), make a better wage, but still nothing like any other professional who’s been in their job as long.

But I digress.

Because, as a post I saw on Facebook this last week put it, “Teachers aren’t in it for the income, they’re in it for the outcome.”

No, it’s not the income, because if that was the issue I’d have given up on the dream a looong time ago, and hubby never would have started.

It’s the lack of respect.  It’s the open derision.  It’s the fact that open season has been declared on teachers, and most people don’t seem to have a problem with it.

How do I know that?  Well, one big clue is that we keep electing and re-electing people who have consistently placed education at the bottom of the budget priority list.

Another big clue is that while it was distressingly easy to pull up lots and lots of these comments, the majority of rebuttals were from…teachers.  Teachers are the new favorite scapegoat for problems in our educational system and shortfalls in state budgets. 

Not parents who fail to instill a sense of personal responsibility.  Not politicians who cut funding to the bone, so that teachers (including my husband) have to try to find a way to pay for supplies out of their own pockets.  Not budget priorities that make sure administrators go to really awesome meetings in resort towns, while science teachers use re-covered text books that were inaccurate when they were first printed…fifteen-plus years ago. 

There were a fair number of people who were willing to allow that teachers were, well, a necessary evil.  But the caveat to that was, “I don’t want my taxes to go up.”

The other comment I’ve seen a fair bit of, is the, “I don’t have kids, so why should I pay to educate other people’s kids?”

(By the way, the simple answer to that is: Do you think it MIGHT possibly be a good idea for that nurse to understand the difference between .10 cc’s and 1.0 cc’s?  Unless of course, you’re not planning on needing a nurse…ever.  Or a doctor.  Or pretty much any other profession that requires a working knowledge of science, math, the English language, or basic social studies – you know like, accountants, lawyers, firefighters, dentists, etc.)

So.

How bad do I want the dream?

How bad does my husband want to keep the dream?

Bad enough?  I don’t know.

Do you care if another teacher bites the dust?  Or never steps into the ring in the first place?

Do your family and friends and neighbors care?

Because I can’t hear you.

As Edmund Burke pointed out, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."