Silver Thunderbird

Prompt #4- Write about a car.

       Just before the start of school in 7th grade I was lamenting the poison ivy scabs that still oozed out of her chin despite my best efforts not to scratch them.  My dad came almost dancing into the indoor/outdoor flag stone floor of our kitchen.  I turned to him and threw the front door open wider motioning for us all to come and look.  I peered behind him and saw my mom’s maroon station wagon that he had bartered a whole summer of roofing to get, and next to it I saw a new car.  Well, truth be told it looked like a very used car but definitely new to us.  It held some similarities to the 1985 Camry that had died about the time Dad began his roofing for the station wagon. “It’s a T-bird,” My dad gleamed.  “The Shoemachers
      “Why?”  I asked taking a bite of my peanut butter toast.
      “Why?!” He echoed. “They are classic cars!  Marc Cohen ‘Silver Thunderbird?!’” I knew the song and I double checked.  This car could not truly be a Thunderbird.  It had no chrome, no fins, small lights and looked nothing like the bat mobile. Dad headed into the living room to play the CD. He was all about CDs in 1997.  I was skeptical but he had given me almost all of his cassette tapes in favor of the “Compact Disc.”  My mom still listened to her records on the record player and those songs were my very favorite.  I wished she’d let me play them.  But in no uncertain terms I knew that if I ever touched the record player I would instantly break the needle and then it could be months before my mom could harangue my dad into getting her a new one.  He slipped Marc Cohen into the entertainment center that he had built from scrap wood from various side jobs. 

    “Why were Rick and Lynn getting rid of it?”  My mom asked, wiping her soapy hands on a dish towel.
    “Aww, you know Rick, he doesn’t really work with his hands. Some small electrical problem and he’d just as soon get a new car.”
         I marveled at this.  “One man’s trash is another’s treasure” held Biblical status in our house and that was saying something.  I looked at my mom, for I knew she did not ascribe quite as whole heartedly to the axiom.  The pressure in the room suddenly made my head hurt, the same way the atmosphere warned me when a thunderstorm was coming. My headaches were totally debilitating but they were also what had taught me the joy of escaping to my room with tea and a good, easy read.  No-one would knock, knocking would make it worse.  So, I crept upstairs and tucked myself under my comforter.  It was a little scratchy but looked paint splattered which was exactly the motif I’d begged to instill upon my entire room.  It was not to be.
        
My sister came in, up from a nap, or a session of reorganizing her books across the floor of her room.  She wore the sesame street ABC comforter that I’d handed down around her like a cape.  She lay down next to my bed. 
        “I can’t read out loud.”  I told her flatly. 
        “Ok,” she shrugged. She produced her LiteBrite miraculously from the folds of the well worn canopy.  She settled down against the spray painted metal bars of my bed.  We’d rescued it from the trash and it’s fancy wrought iron work reminded me of “The Little Princess.”  I liked to imagine waking up to a surprise feast one morning.  I’d even imagine eating and enjoying a tangerine which was something I’d never done.  Anything with seeds was anathema to me.  I gagged at the thought. 
    
    “Do you want to make a radio show?” She asked.  Sometimes we’d hide in my wardrobe; I was fairly certain one of these days we’d be allowed to enter Narnia but until Aslan deigned to see us, we made radio shows.  We had a cast off cassette player from my dad and a good amount of blank tapes and those we’d tape over. 

The hat

 Prompt #2 “He couldn’t take it anymore.  This was the last time he was going to let her”

 “He couldn’t take it anymore.  This was the last time he was going to let her” hurt herself.  The scabs disgusted him. Her perfect porcelain skin clawed into thumb-sized pox.  He’s watch her do it.  Her eyes would start to scan their surroundings restlessly.  She’d shift in her sit, cross and recross her legs.  Then, reach her dirty, ragged nails to the nape of her neck and quickly scratch an imagined itch.  She’d pull her hand down and then thoughtlessly reach up again finding a razor sharp edge to her claws and drag them across her chin or hairline with enough pressure to draw blood.  He’d reach to swat her hand down but it was too late. 

She was hooked now, her hand would surreptitiously search her scalp for dead skin to pull away, old scars to reopen, any way to let the panic inside ooze out.  She’d examine her hands.  Unaware of him now.  He’s hit her again, swatting just hard enough to startle her back to reality.  Once, during a movie he’d asked her to sit on her hands and she had dutifully obeyed just until his attention was riveted back to the screen, then she’d reach back up to her face, digging deeper and deeper pits, aiming for arteries, examining old pus with detachment. 

He’d get so mad and she’d cry helplessly.  They even made a pact one hopeful date night.  She agreed that for every time she drew her own blood she’d stick on a huge floppy hat regardless of the time or place. The intention was two-fold to block her access to her most prone areas but also to shame her into breaking the habit.  The next day, he stopped by for lunch and she guiltily let the brim of the hat fall over her eyes as she cried salty tears into the sandwich they were sharing. 

“Don’t you want to stop?” he asked.
“Of course,” she wailed.
“Then, why do you keep doing it.  You know it’s going to get infected.  I listened to a podcast the other day where a girl dug a hole so deep into her own head that they could see her skull.  It was so infected they couldn’t get it to heal.  Is that what you want?”
 She shook her head vehemently.  “I’m so scared that’s what is going to happen.”
“Why?  That’s ridiculous!  It’s your choice, it’s not like it happens without you knowing.  You are doing this to yourself!”  He allowed some scorn to harden his voice.  His eyes flashed and cut her heart.
“It IS like it is happening without me knowing.  Most of the time it’d totally subconscious.  I hate it but once I start I just can’t stop.”
“Of course you can….you’re not a zombie or something.  You can’t stop because you think you can’t.  Mind over matter.”

She rolled her eyes, and scratched an imagined itch by her wrist, she made an X in the skin pressing diagonally with her thumb in one direction and the other with as much pressure as she could muster.  No relief, she scratched absently looking for a more tender spot, an old wound, preferably near some nerves. 
   
   “I’m not really hungry…I don’t feel good.  Do you mind if I go for a quick run?” she begged. 
    “Sure,” he replied. Flicking on the TV.

  She threw on the same thing she’d worn the day before, old sports bra, the Rose Bowl Race for a Cure Shirt and running shorts.  She contemplated the day old socks but didn’t have the energy to go searching for new ones.  She had to get out.  She ignored the smell, pulled them on, dragged her headphones off the dresser in her room and gave Will a quick kiss on the cheek before she scanned her iPod for her running mix.  She walked until she found it, stuck in her headphones, hating the way they felt in her ears.  She began to jog. 

Bad Mom

Prompt #1 from The Writing Collaborative

"Word Choice: One Syllable Words

Write a response (fiction, nonfiction, a scene, a description of a person or place, ect.) that is roughly 500 words and is made up of ONLY one syllable words. This exercise highlights the importance of word choice and pushes the limits of your vocabulary. You may even have to break out a thesaurus! "

When we walk, arms full of books, I try to keep my kids with me.  But right now the boy is out in front and the girl is way far back.  I am torn in two.  I yell at the far one, call to the slow one and then turn my eyes to the baby I hold and my phone.  

       Her eyes are closed.  A smile plays on her small lips.  I grin and try to take a shot of her sweet small face when an old maid walks by.  Her hat is fur and her eyes dark lined. 

“Get off your phone and get your kids!”  She snarls my way. Her paint red lips look cracked.

I look in front, I look back.  Where I saw smiles and slow walks I now see the rush and threat of the busy street.  My heart beats with shame.  

“Witch,” I think (but with a B), but I know she is right and it hurts.   My shame grows.  I feel the title mom turn into the curse “fraud.”  I cringe and call once more to my small one who has run out in front. I turn off my phone to grab the one in back.

But, a new plain clothes judge gets off the bus and shouts, “Whose kid is this?  Where is her mom?  It is a shame, a shame the way some moms don’t seem to care.”

“She’s with me,” I call, “She’s okay.”  My girl smiles and takes short strides my way. But she is too close to the bus.  She may fall or worse this new rat may snatch her up. 

“It is not okay” comes the reply from the cavy queen.  She vents her shock and rage.  I reel from the force of her cold call down.  Much of what she says is true.  Risks I can not count come to mind.  I can not keep them safe.  Three is more than I can watch all at once. What can I do?  I am flawed.  I fail.   At last, she gives me a shake of the head and a silent boo. 

I can not move.  A pain grabs my heart and my breath is short and weak.  

My kids still smile and make their way at their own pace.  The fast boy stops in his tracks at the red WAIT hand and the slow one hops over each crack.  I love them all so bad it hurts.  

I start to breath a slow plea to God to give me grace, to help me just to be.  I ask the Son of God to let me take one step and then the next.  I ask Him to take the blame, the guilt, the fear that hold my feet in stone blocks.  

And He is there.  He is real.  I pick up my small girl and hug her tight.  I walk to my first born son and hold his hand.  I look at my baby’s face and her eyes are still closed in peace and sleep.  

Writing Update

Here is a letter I wrote to my friend a few days ago.  As I was writing I felt like I was writing to everyone who reads this blog, so I decided to post it.  

Hey--
     So it has been entirely too long since we talked!  We need to catch up.

     No word on my Glimmer Train submission but I have been writing.  I hope you have been too!   If there is one thing I've learned from reading "The Artist's Way" this summer, it is that everyone has something to say.  I mean you can paint it, glue it, dance it, sing it or write it but I (mostly) loved the challenge of writing 3 pages every day.  It definitely forced me to be more disciplined about writing. And it opened my eyes to the opportunities all around me.  Most of them are at the library which I love!  #nerdalert

          I was really wishing you were with me tonight because it was the very first meeting of the Writer’s Collaborative I joined!!!  The way it is set up is in a workshop style which means each time we meet we have all read one person’s piece (at least twice) and written comments.  The one we read tonight was a totally spooky Stephen King-like horror story.  I actually liked it which is very unlike me because usually blood and gore are not my thing.  Probably the closest thing I’ve read to “horror” is Harry Potter.

       But this workshop was such a cool experience. Everyone got there super early.  I was on time (which for me now that I have three kids is super early) but I was the last one there.  Plus we had a prompt that we could write about as optional homework and everyone did it but me!!!  Help me not become a slacker.  The prompt was...

Word Choice: One Syllable Words

Write a response (fiction, nonfiction, a scene, a description of a person or place, ect.) that is roughly 500 words and is made up of ONLY one syllable words. This exercise highlights the importance of word choice and pushes the limits of your vocabulary. You may even have to break out a thesaurus!  

           Anyways, I really need to get serious and write something that I can put up for critique.  I mean it takes courage to write but then to sit (silently) in a room while 20 people discuss what they thought was awesome and what they found to be BS (baloney and salami) takes a real solid backbone.  The main thing I loved about the format was that it was like being in a book discussion and in a writing seminar at the same time. I was reading really good writing (almost everyone in the group is published, excepted yours truly #pennedbutnotpublished.blogspot.com) and learning new writing techniques like new ways to hook my reader.

       So my next blog post will be my stab at the one syllable story prompt.  Until then....onward and upward!

( And I'm always looking for guest writers, so shoot me whatever you are working on if you get a chance:)
       
         

Writing Prompts

One of the greatest hopes in every teacher's career is that you will get at least one student who really listens to you.   They not only listen but they understand.  They understand on a deeper level than most and they do something amazing with the knowledge they gain.  I have had a few of these extraordinary students, one of whom I’d like to write about today.   Day after day she listened to me chant, “Write, write, write!”  She understood that I wanted each and every student to learn how to use words to advocate for themselves and others.  She realized her potential as a great writer.  

Over Christmas break she wrote me an email asking me to help her with her new year’s resolution.  She wanted to write one short story every week. They would be rough drafts of course but every single week they would be delivered to my inbox and I would give her feedback.  I also gave her the prompt at the beginning of each week.  I collected these prompts from Writer’s Digest.com, teachers I admire, teachers’ blogs and websites, I take no credit for the prompts myself but I thought each week I might put a few out there and see which were your favorite.  Try them out and let me know what you think.  Please feel free to share your ideas and work here.  

Week 1-  At exactly midnight on New Year’s Eve you receive an email labeled “Open Immediately.” The really strange thing is that the email is apparently from your self at age 25. What does 25 year old you have to say to  you now that is so important?  Write a story about it:)

Week 2- A mad scientist captures you and tells you that he is about to change your life —he will heighten one of your senses, but it will make one of your other senses duller. It isn’t optional; he’s going to perform the surgery, but you get to choose which two senses.

Week 3 -Eleanor Roosevelt once said, "You must do the thing you think you cannot do." Write a narrative  about a time when you did something you thought you could not do. Be sure to include specific  details so that a reader can follow your story.  

Week 4- You have made a very important discovery–one that will make you famous throughout the world.  Write a story in which you tell about your discovery and how you made it. 

Week 5- Write about a time you or someone else lost something important. What happened?  How did everyone feel/act?  

Week 6-  Describe a time when you were ill or injured.  What did that experience teach you about yourself and your life?  Make sure to include the details of who was there and  how they reacted.

Week 7-   One day, while hanging out on the beach, you notice a boat slowly drifting to shore. It eventually lands near your spot. A person, draped in pirate clothes, yells to you from the boat, “I have a treasure map and I need help. Are you in?”

Week 8- Describe the most beautiful smile you've ever seen.  Be sure to include where and when you saw it and describe the person and the reason they were smiling.  

Week 9-  You decide to run for president of your high school class only to find that your opponent is running a smear campaign about you, trying to make you look bad so people won't vote for you. Worse yet, your opponent has been telling everyone that he/she will drop a bombshell announcement, revealing your darkest secret, in front of the entire school during your first debate. The debate is here. Write the scene where the bombshell secret is announced and describe how you react to it—remember, the entire school is watching. 

Week 10- Create a written snapshot of the moment in which you are living...for 15 minutes stop and listen until the silence is deafening...Look around you and notice every detail..  The stains on the walls or furniture, the labels on any boxes or bottles, stickers, magnets.