Category: Inspiration

Hemorrhage #Poetry #Book Excerpt

Today, instead of reviewing someone else’s book, I’m tooting my own horn. The following poem from How to Build a Better Mousetrap: Recollections and Reflections of a Family Caregiver, gives a brief run-down of the journey my late husband and I took through the labyrinth of recovery and rehabilitation after his strokes. You can read a more detailed account in My Ideal Partner: How I Met, Married, and Cared for the Man I Loved Despite Debilitating Odds. Click on the link below the poem to hear me read it.

Hemorrhage

Barely coherent, drenched in sweat, he lay on the floor. “What happened?” I asked. His response was unintelligible.

“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” he told the paramedics. “but if my wife wants me to go, I guess I will.”

“The stroke was caused by bleeding on the right side of his brain,” said the doctor. “He may need surgery.”

“In this case, surgery won’t help,” another doctor told us. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

“He’s not strong enough to participate in our rehabilitation program,” said the social worker. “He’ll have to go to a nursing home.”

“I don’t know how much you’ll recover or how long it will take,” a third doctor said. “Continue the therapy, and watch your blood pressure.”

“We’ll work on strengthening your legs and try to get you up and moving,” the therapist promised him.

“They’ve given up on me. I don’t think I’ll ever walk again.”

Hemorrhage

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The Thing #Essay #Writing Prompt

Remember the song about the man who discovers a box on a beach? He opens it and finds a treasure. He tries to sell it to a friend, but the friend threatens to call the police if he doesn’t leave the premises. He takes it home to his wife, but she tells him to go away and never return. He tries to give it to a desperate hoboe. But the hoboe runs away when he sees it.

For years, this man travels far and wide with a treasure nobody wants that’s doing him no good. He finally ends up at The Pearly Gates, where St. Peter tells him to take the thing down below.

One wonders why he didn’t leave this unknown treasure on the beach where he found it if nobody wanted it. But if he did, it wouldn’t be much of a song, would it? One also wonders what was in the box that nobody wanted.

At the end of the song, the singer advises that if you find such a box on the beach, don’t open it because you’ll never get rid of whatever’s inside. Likewise, if a friend came to me with a box and claimed that what was inside would change everything, I’d say to my friend, “Why don’t you open the box?”

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Through the Eyes of Love #Monday Musical Memories

As a teen-ager, when I saw the movie, Ice Castles, and read the book, I was fascinated by the story of a young figure skater who loses all her vision in an accident but returns to the ice. What blew me away was this girl was the same age as me at the time, sixteen, when she started training.

I couldn’t roller skate without holding onto somebody because I was terrified of falling. I’d tried downhill skiing and landed flat on my back. So, I wasn’t about to start ice skating lessons, and I don’t think this had anything to do with my own visual impairment. But it didn’t stop me from enjoying this compelling tale of achieving one’s dream, losing it, then getting back in the game.

In 2005, a month after my late husband Bill, living in Fowler, Colorado, while I was here in Sheridan, Wyoming, proposed to me, this movie’s theme was on a cassette of love songs he sent me for Valentine’s Day. He didn’t know about the impact the book and movie had on me, but I’m pretty sure I told him. The song developed a new significance for me. I’ve always found it amazing that although Bill had no vision, he saw me through the eyes of love.

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Novel Touts Value of Knowing One’s Culture #Thursday Book Feature

Pigs in Heaven: A Novel

by Barbara Kingsolver

This is the sequel to The Bean Trees, which I reviewed here a couple of weeks ago. Taylor and her six-year-old adopted Indian daughter Turtle are living happily in Tucson, Arizona. While vacationing at The Grand Canyon, Turtle sees a man fall into a spillway. She and Taylor alert the authorities, and the story becomes national news.

As a result, Taylor and Turtle are asked to appear on the Oprah Winfrey show. In Oklahoma, a lawyer for the Cherokee Nation, after seeing Turtle on TV, questions the validity of the child’s adoption, which occurred three years earlier. When Taylor learns of the lawyer’s suspicion, she and Turtle hit the road. Her mother, who lives in Kentucky, travels to Oklahoma to visit her cousin and plead their case.

Parts of this story could have moved along faster, but otherwise, I was riveted. On cold winter nights, without leaving my recliner, I traveled through desert heat from Arizona to Nevada to Washington State and finally, to the small town of Heaven, Oklahoma. From a Las Vegas coffee shop, where we meet a waitress with a Barbie obsession, to a Cherokee ceremonial dance in Oklahoma, the author drew me into her story. Although the ending was satisfactory, I would like to have seen a few details resolved. Otherwise, this second novel by Barbara Kingsolver is a good story.

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Blizzard #Poetry

Snow falls
in swirls of white,
covers the quiet town,
and not a speck of brown
graces the night.
Wind calls.

Dark sky
over new snow,
no moon to light the way,
no sign of coming day,
as swirls of snow
fly by.

In town,
cars slip and slide
through icy streets of white.
All through the silent night,
the snowflakes hide
the brown.

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The above poem was published in the winter 2020 issue of The Avocet. Click below to hear me read it.

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If I Can’t Have You #Monday Musical Memories

Although I didn’t see the movie until much later, I loved the soundtrack from Saturday Night Fever when I was in high school. During the spring of my junior year, while traveling with the concert choir to a music festival, I first heard selections from this album when another student played it on the bus.

That summer, my grandmother gave me my own copy on cassette for my birthday. I took a disco dancing class at the YMCA and practiced moves in my bedroom while listening to it. The tape eventually broke, as most cassettes do. Now, I ask Alexa to play the album on Amazon Music.

The song I’m featuring today was a favorite among the girls in my class. It rings true for me now that my husband has passed. If I can’t have Bill, I don’t want anyone else. Besides, I’m too old and set in my ways to reorganize my life around a man. I’m taking a break from singing and giving you the original movie soundtrack version, sung by Yvonne Elliman. Enjoy!

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