Introducing Another Wonderful Algonkian Writer - Kathy Ramsperger

     

    

     Spring is finally here! Ahhh.The sunshine and warmer temperatures energize me, making want to wake up earlier and stay up later. More hours equal more writing time! Querying, submitting, critiquing and just plain creating! It’s been great getting more chapters in on my new YA paranormal romance – book three of the Whisper Trilogy. It’s also been amazing to keep in touch with and follow all of the amazing writers I met at the Algonkian NY Pitch conference.

     This week, I would like to introduce the first person I met at the conference, the wonderful Kathy Ramsperger. I’ll never forget the first time I talked to Kathy, I thought to myself – Wow – this woman is the real deal. She’s a journalist, and she has her own communications company! I knew right away I had a lot to learn from her. 

Kathryn Brown Ramsperger wrote her first story in fourth grade, but she began loving stories long before that. She grew up sitting on her grandparents' front porch swing, listening to her relatives weave their stories of the day. After receiving her B.A. at Hollins University, she felt a pull to see the world, so she became a journalist, and then a humanitarian worker with the Red Cross. She's lived and worked in Europe and Africa and has a special interest in the Middle East. Her most recent story will appear in the Spring 2015 issue of forgejournal.com. She's written one other novel that received the Hollins Fiction award. She also writes for online publications. Her writing, fiction and nonfiction, is about the connections between (often very different) people. She lives and writes in Maryland with her husband, two teens, and two cats. 

1.      What kind of writing do you do - novels, poetry, screenplays, etc.... When did you start writing and why? 

Maybe I started writing by chance. I never remember not writing poems and songs.

I used to say, "Give me a subject. Give me a genre. And I'll write about it." I wrote my first story in fourth grade about a jack-o-lantern who came to life. A story I wrote in high school won an award, and so I majored in English instead of Music or Biology. I've never stopped writing because I simply can't. I've tried to run away from it, and I also do humanitarian work and life coaching. Yet writing feeds my soul. 

I had to make money, and journalism fell into my lap through an internship. I published poetry and stories along the way. Once I published articles in National Geographic and Kiplinger publications, and I headed the International Red Cross publications department in Geneva, Switzerland, I knew writing would always be part of me. I also write online, with articles on Yahoo Parenting, yourtango.com and thegoodmenproject.com. I consider it a job, but I also consider it a meditation, a way to put two and two together to see the bigger picture.

These days I'm more selective about what I write, though. I write about how human connection can heal us. How we're more similar than different. I always wanted to get back to writing fiction - what I went to college to learn how to do. I won an award for a Young Adult novel in college, but I never tried to publish it because I was too perfectionistic at the time. Called Moments on the Edge, it's about the connections between two women, one coming of age in the Industrial Revolution, the other coming of age in the 1970s, during the Space Age, a revolution in technology and communication. Most people know this era as one of sex, drugs and rock and roll, but it was much more.

     After surviving melanoma in 1999, and facing all sorts of terrorism in my neighborhood in 2001 and 2002, I decided I finally needed to write and try to publish a novel. I also wanted to write a novel that would heal the rifts between continents, many of them reverberating to this day. Writing and revising what I'm now calling The Shores of Our Souls was the easy part. Its road to publishing has been long. Yet those words I wrote, no matter what happens now, will leave a legacy and a goal accomplished. That's the message I'd like to leave all writers: Just write.

2.       What are you currently working on?

     My most recent story is published in the April issue of Forge. (forgejournal.com) It's called, "A Rug, A Piano, A Quilt, A Voice." 

     My current novel has a new title following Algonkian. The Shores of Our Souls, formerly Incongruent, tells the story of two people from opposite sides of the world, differing in culture, race, nation, gender, and age, and their journey together towards healing. Dianna meets Qasim and falls for his educated charm and adventure. Yet she has trouble trusting him, more because of her own past than because of his mercurial moods, which ebb and flow as civil war expands in his homeland - 1980s Lebanon. Dianna, immersed in her own challenges, doesn't realize that Qasim is as fractured by family and societal expectations as she. Her own secrets, which brought her to New York City, keep a wall between them, much more than their differences. Yet life continues to reunite them each time they run away from each other, Dianna ending up in Sudan's civil war and Qasim rising through the ranks at the U.N. Both caring for families back home. Can they sidestep society, tradition, and their own hearts to find love and peace? 

By the way, the novel's title is derived from a Khalil Gibran quote: "Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."

3.      Do you outline, or do you write by the seat of your pants?

            I fly by the seat of my pants in almost everything in life. I like adventure. In writing, I come back to earth after the first draft. I outline, then revise, then outline again. I also use Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Journey to help me plot once my major scenes are written. He wrote this Jungian-based how-to for screenwriters to use, and I usually see my books play out like a movie if I close my eyes, so it was perfect for me. It connected my right-brained writing approach to a logical plotting method - a marriage made in heaven. I also graph my stories if I get stuck to see if the action is rising and falling in the right places. If you connect voice, plot, and setting to the heartbeat of a story arc, you're on your way to a good story.

4.       What was your impression of the Algonkian Pitch conference, and how did it specifically help you in your journey as a writer?

I'd been marketing my novel for quite some time, and I'd taken all the comments I'd received to heart. Some of these comments were objective and true; others were based on myth. The Algonkian Pitch conference separated fact from fiction and directed me forward. As Michael Neff explains in pre-conference exercises, "The pitch wags the novel." I’m now on my way again - not only to a better pitch but to a well-crafted, well-organized novel. While in New York City, I made connections I wouldn't otherwise have made, including our workshop leader, Susan Breen, one of the best teachers I've ever met. This conference gives writers a way to meet with the insiders in publishing and to learn from them face-to-face. I returned home with a plan for revision and, I hope, publication. And I want to express my gratitude to everyone who was there!

5.       Top 5 favorite books?

Most books have transformed my life. These are the dog-eared books I carry around and re-read:

Middlemarch by George Eliot (pen name for Mary Ann Evans)

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Letters to a Young Poet by Ranier Rilke 

The Eye of the Story by Eudora Welty

Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott

Just one more? The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

6.      Where can your readers find you?

You can find more about my novel at kathrynbrownramsperger.com.

You can also reach out to me here:

@kathyramsperger

facebook.com/kramsperger

ramspergercommunications.com

groundonecoaching.com (I coach Creatives.)

http://www.yourtango.com/experts/kathrynbrownramsperger 

Interview with an Algonkian Writer - Kimberly Bunker

     

     Last week, I shared a little about the amazing Algonkian Writers NY Pitch conference I attended in March. I am still making connections from the conference and reaping the benefits of all that I learned there. I was lucky enough to be placed in group C, under the training of Susan Breen, an author and professor at Gotham University. She taught our group how to perfect our commercial novel pitches so that we were ready to pitch to editors from impressive publishing houses.  It truly was the best writers conference I've ever attended. If you'd like to read more about it, last week's blog post contains much more information about the conference itself..

     Our group, which we have since called The Algonkian 14, has created a Facebook page on which we can share ups and downs, our success stories and information about writing and publishing. We now have a place to go to support each others’ careers, share pertinent field information, and simply stay in touch. We have the wonderful Kathy Ramsperger to thank for creating the FB page, and I’ll be sharing her interview next week.

     This week on Whatever Inspires, I would like to introduce you to the talented Kimberly Bunker. Kimberly lives in upstate New York, where she is finishing both her novel and her MFA from St. Joseph's College. Her fiction recently won Glimmer Train's Very Short Fiction Contest and The Story Plant's Authors First Short Story Content. She's also had stories published in PANK, Used Furniture Review, and other magazines. When she's not writing or reading, she's learning a new vegan recipe or practicing aerial silks.​

1.      Tell me about yourself and your writing.

     My focus is on my novel, but I also write short stories​. I work as a freelance writer, so I write​

Nonfiction too​ - blogs, articles, etc. But my heart is in fiction.

​ 

     When did I start writing?...when I learned to write, I suppose. I stopped being embarrassed to show it to people a year or two after college. I was working for a nonprofit that led life history workshops into a women's prison. I was leading one called Live Your Dream, and the discussion question was, What is your dream? For me, the answer was easy - it came immediately, though I'd never said it out loud. "To write a novel."

 2. What are you currently working on?

        My novel, Dream, Awake, is about an artist named Jessi who, for the past year, has made a living working for the elderly recluse Errol Spice, who pays her to sit at his bedside, listen to a dream he had, then paint it. The story starts when he dies. Days later in the mail, she receives a letter that was written to him years before she met him, yet mentions her by name, and insists that he can save himself from some tragedy if only he contacts her. Shocked, and intrigued, Jessi goes in search of the letter's writer, turning first to her paintings for clues. She finds herself on a quest to uncover Errol Spice's past, and how it - and his dreams - intertwine with her own.
 

3. Do you outline, or do you write by the seat of your pants?

     More so the former, but I wouldn't really call it outlining. I happened upon a new method a couple summers ago, when I was living in North Carolina. I would go off on a long walk with one scene in mind, and I would just climb into that scene and live in it. Then, when I got back to my computer, I'd have that scene  in my mind, vivid and real and sensory, and I could write about it from a place of "having been there." Of course, I'd still need to revise it a hundred times, but that was the method for getting it on paper. 

4. What was your impression of the Algonkian Pitch conference, and how did it specifically help you in your journey as a writer?

     Publishing, and trying to get published, is not antithetical to the "art" of writing. On the contrary, trying to get published has helped me become a better writer. For so long I've been told that I shouldn't care about getting published - I should just write for the love of writing. But those two aren't mutually exclusive. Instead, they - getting published, and loving writing, and becoming a better writer - are all interrelated; they augment each other.  

​​

​Also, now, I can't imagine ever NOT writing a pitch before I start a new project. Writing a pitch is so effective in chiseling down a big story into the essential parts, the motives and the crossroads and the bare bones of the story. ​

5. What are your top 5 favorite books?

"Look at the Harlequins" - Vladimir Nabokov 

​"Kiss of the Spider Woman" - Manual Puig 

​"Slowness" - Milan Kundera 

​"Eat, Pray, Love" - Elizabeth Gilbert

​"Final Exam" - Julio Cortazar​

6. Where can we find more information about you and your books?

     I'm still working on building up a platform. Truthfully, I haven't done much yet. I'm getting there. For the moment, I'm just on Twitter - @kimberly_mb.​ Also, you can find one of my publications in Glimmer Train’s bulletin online -   http://www.glimmertrain.com/b81bunker.html

Thanks Kimberly! Looking forward to seeing Dream Awake  in print someday soon!

Until next time, be inspired!

    

     

The Writer's Backstory - The Algonkian NY Pitch Writer's Conference, and How it Inspired the Lives of 14 Writers

     

     Last weekend, I was privileged enough to attend the Algonkian Writers New York Pitch conference in Manhattan. Directed by the contagiously enthusiastic Michael Neff and taught by a faculty of talented writers, literary agents, and editors, The New York Pitch conference is devoted to helping writers develop a strong pitch for their commercial novels. Pre-conference work forced attendees to pick apart our novels on a deeper level than we usually might. We were instructed to come up with several comparable books, decide on a working title, flesh out our protagonists and antagonists, and plot our conflicts through a series of exercises.  Once we arrived at the conference, we were ready to pitch our projects.

     …Or so we thought.

      After being divided into groups that were organized by the genre of our novels, we spent hours working through our pitches with our designated mentors. We pitched. We revised. We pitched again until we had our spiels under our thumbs and could speak them with fervor and faith. On Friday morning, we were finally prepared to pitch to our first editor. She was from Berkeley Penguin and was gracious enough to both listen to our pitches and give us helpful feedback.   By the end of the conference on Sunday we’d pitched to four editors –all from big houses based in New York City. A handful of us got requests for pages and went home with a new found spring in our steps!

     The New York Pitch conference was by-far the best writing conference I've attended.

     Now I not only have a fabulous pitch and editors who are interested in reading my work, but I have a group of writing peers to support who can support me back. Our group, group C, consisted of fourteen writers from all over the country. Susan Breen, who is a successful writer and an alumni of the Algonkian workshop, was our fearless leader. She led us through the pitch writing trenches and ushered us into the world of publishing with a new and improved product.  We were so grateful to have been her students for the weekend.

     Since the Algonkian Writers New York Pitch Conference made such an impression on me, I’ve decided to post a blog series about it. The series will be entitled “The Writer’s Backstory,” because although we are encouraged to limit backstory in our projects, I happen to LOVE it! Every week I’ll post an interview of one member of the Algonkian fourteen, group C. Interviews will focus on each writer’s backstory, their careers and projects, as well as their impressions of The NY Pitch conference – specifically how the workshops helped each of them grow as writers.

     There will never be enough words to thank Michael Neff, Paula Munier, Jackie Cantor, Silissa Kenney, Lyssa Keusch, Leis Pederson, Susan Breen, and Caitlin Alexander. For your enthusiasm and time, your field expertise, and your greatly appreciated organizational skills, we all thank you!

     Without further ado, I give you the first of the Algonkian 14 – Geraldine Donaher, a Philadelphia resident and member of The Delaware Press Club. A talented writer with a background in Diocesan studies and experience living as a religious sister, Geraldine recently finished writing her first novel. Her book touches on some really interesting issues – the ins and outs of living and leaving the convent life and also life with post-traumatic stress disorder.

1.      Tell me about yourself and your writing.

I consider myself a woman's fiction urban writer. I've been writing since I was in second grade. A few years ago my mom apologized to me for not helping me in my writing career. She said as a child, I wrote constantly and was always sharing what I wrote…but with twelve brothers and sisters, she didn't do anything with my passion. She said she saw it dim over the early formative years. Actually, it didn't dim, I just stopped sharing it and have trunk loads of journals/diaries/stories/poems that I figured no one wanted to hear….but I never stopped writing.  Ten years ago, at 40, I decided to throw my passion out into the world and see what would happen. Like my family, maybe nobody wants to read it, but at least I can try. I think I already have thick skin because of my family. I've learned that's an ok thing to have.

 2. I love it that you kept on writing for yourself, even though you weren’t sharing with anyone. I think so many of us simply must write for ourselves! What are you currently working on?

 I lived as a Religious Sister in a convent for six years, and thought people may be interested in how religious life influences a young woman as she tries to create a new life for herself. I learned that religious life attracts women for different reasons: austerity, piety, redemption – even escape.  In my novel, Clara's Voice,  it’s the quiet. Growing up in Philadelphia with thirteen siblings and strict Catholic parents, Clara's empty parish church is a respite from family discord. By age twenty, these simple visits have grown into a personal relationship with God and she decides to enter the convent. For six years Clara enjoys the teaching apostolate and theological studies, but she struggles with loneliness. Unable to connect with the community aspect of Religious Life, Clara decides to leave and ventures out into the Philadelphia area.
   What follows is a different kind of soul searching as Clara struggles with boyfriends, bills, and binge drinking. Self-doubt grows with her destructive choices but In the middle of the chaos she finds quiet, confident Anton. Their friendship creates a nurturing space where Clara learns to trust her judgment again. When their friendship grows over three years into a loving relationship, Clara and Anton marry and she is confident that she’s found the companionship she has been searching for.
 When a difficult pregnancy ends with a stillborn son, Clara’s self blame exacerbates her grief. Post-traumatic stress disorder fills her with disturbing images and Clara struggles with irrational urges to kill Anton. To silence the intrusive thoughts of PTSD and save her loving relationship with Anton, Clara journeys back into the quiet that first led her into the convent. Only there, will she find the peace and love she shares with Anton. It's been waiting for her all along.

 3. Do you outline, or do you write by the seat of your pants?

For Clara's Voice, I made a very general outline (not sub bullets). I'm working on a novel now called The City's Allee and am actually using an outline approach - following The Algonkian Pitch articles we had to read,

4. What was your impression of the Algonkian Pitch conference, and how did it specifically help you in your journey as a writer?

Validated what I've already done, but didn't sugar coat anything, I think I have a realistic view on what I still need to do. I like the constructive criticism. That's where the thick skin comes in handy.
 

5. What are your top 5 favorite books?

Ahab's Wife, Z- a novae of Zelda Fitzgerald, The Orphan Train, The Red Tent, Year of Wonder - and probably ten others :)

6. Where can we find more information about you and your books?

I'm from Philadelphia and like to write about ways people better their lives through education or small business. I have a website www.geraldinedonaher.com where I interview people, and blog about some of the things happening in big cities - good and bad. The blog also organizes my information on the horrors of sex trafficking. People don't realize how close it is to their own homes.    I have a degree in English Literature, Theology, and Pennsylvania Certification in Education. I taught for fifteen years in Philadelphia Archdiocesan parochial schools and put many of my classroom experiences into Clara's Voice.  I'm the eleventh child of thirteen and put a lot of the frustration, anger, joy, and love that is the wonderful mess of family into my stories.

/http://www.geraldinedonaher.com/

Thanks Gerri! Looking forward to seeing Clara in print someday soon!

Until next time, happy writing! Happy pitching! Happy happy!

   

    

     

Music Matters - Kinky Boots and If/Then.

     I found myself crying today. Why? Because… music.

     Music evokes emotion. It can make us feel excited and “dancey”. Pharell’s Happy comes to mind – images of myself swerving and bouncing the car along a country road near our home, my kids jamming and woo-hooing in the back seat.

     Music can make us somber or relaxed. Celtic Treasure or Sandy Meldrum’s piano music chills me down and evens me out. Music digs memories from our pockets and places us at events from our past. Sometimes we smile at the nostalgia. Sometimes we quickly change the station.

     Today, iTunes released the album from the musical If/Then. I happened to order the album about five minutes after the closing scene of the Broadway show, while I was standing in line to exit the theater. At that moment, I wanted to re-experience every song right away. Unfortunately I had to wait until today, but the album was so worth the week and a half wait.

     While I was driving my daughter to the orthodontist, I got the Amazon message that If/Then was available for listening. Immediately I plugged my phone into the sound system, and we fell right into the voices of Idina Menzel and Anthony Rapp. They sing about the choices we make, the big ones and the seemingly insignificant, how we experience certain adventures and tragedies by following the paths we choose, how we can only imagine what futures may have been awaiting us along the paths we opted out of. They sing about how we are all connected – the idea that the random person you flip the bird at for cutting you off in traffic today may well turn up three days from now as the doctor who’s operating on your child. 
     The songs and the musical itself force us to ask – what if?
     What if I’d gone to the party that one friend invited me to instead of going to that bar where I met my husband?
      What if I’d studied abroad for that year instead of getting a head start in my career?
      What if I’d gotten on that plane?
       How might my life look different today?
       It’s such a simple idea, but the musical poignantly portrays a middle-aged woman and her life along two possible pathways. The audience gets to experience what would have happened to Elizabeth (Idina) if she’d made the other decision. In the end, my takeaway was this – where you end up is not as important as the love you share with others and the lessons you learn along the path of your choices. None of life’s roads are without bumps, valleys, and high points, and If/Then spoke to that.
      The music from If/Then is laden with emotion, with the angst, fear, and giddiness of choosing to leap into a new circumstance. Whether a relationship, a job, or even parenthood, every choice births a new set of possibilities that never would have been if…
      Then, my daughter and I listened to the music from Kinky Boots. I couldn’t “dance the car,” as my kids like to call it, because we were on the highway, but we were bouncing and arm swaying and singing at the tops of our lungs.  Where the music from If/Then makes me feel thoughtful, Kinky Boots just makes me want to dance.
      That’s not to say Kinky Boots doesn’t hit some serious issues over the head with the sledgehammer that is a fitting symbol for Billy Porter’s crazy amazing voice. Because it does. It tackles transgender issues with humor and wit and drags even the most conservative among us to our feet until we are standing and dancing and clapping for a crew of talented men who just happened to be dancing in some very bright, very high heels.
      Kinky Boots’s message – be who you want to be – is told through the story of Charlie, a young man who inherits his late father’s failing shoe factory and Simon, a cross dresser who goes by the name of Lola. Together, the two learn and teach others how to accept people for who they are, follow dreams, and persevere.
      Before we left for New York, when I told my husband we were going to see Kinky Boots, he looked at me like I had three heads. Why on earth, he wondered, would we want to see a show about a guy who wears big red high-heeled boots?  
      “This just doesn’t sound very interesting at all,” he said, rolling his eyes and poo-pooing my show choice.
     A week later, he knows every word to the show’s hit song, The Sex is in the Heel, and sings along with the windows open in the car.
     Why?
      Because of the music.
      It snagged him right away.
      The music makes us feel alive. It stirs us up and slips us into the shoes of the characters we watched on stage.
       I can say with one hundred percent certainty that I’ll never find my husband wanting to stroll around in a pair of high-heeled red boots.
       But, watching Kinky Boots helped us to understand what it might feel like to be unable to express ourselves. It made us wonder how we would react if our loved ones weren’t proud or even accepting of the people we turned out to be.
      The show made us feel something.
      And now, the music brings back that emotion.
      Oh, how I love Broadway.
      To the directors and writers and to everyone involved in the making of these two crowd pleasers – If/Then and Kinky Boots - Bravo! I couldn’t pick a favorite if I tried.
      And, a word of advice to anyone going to Times Square any time soon – see Kinky Boots. See If/Then. I’ll know you leaped into the choice if I see your car dancing next to mine.

 

    

    

    

    

New York City - Center of the Universe

New York City. Oh... the energy! Every time I emerge from the Holland Tunnel into Manhattan, I feel like I've suddenly come awake. The buildings breathe. The sidewalks pulse. The very air sings with aromas of cultural delicacies I can't wait to taste. I am reborn with the purpose of experiencing all that life has to offer on this tiny island that seems to have its very own big, beating heart.

My husband and I have been involved in an ongoing love affair with New York City for about twelve years now. When he announced to me on our first wedding anniversary that we would be driving to the Big Apple to see a Broadway show, I thought it sounded fun. I had no idea that trip would become a recurring celebration of our love of food, musical theatre, and the indelible richness of Manhattan.

Over the next few weeks, I will be posting a series of blogs about New York City. I'll focus mainly on restaurants, musicals, shopping, and culture. If you love New York, you'll want to check out the articles for some suggestions on where to eat, what to watch and how to make the most of two days in the city with and without children.
 
Having just returned from one of our semi-annual excursions, I'm basking in the afterglow of  the high I feel every time I breathe the same air as so many amazingly talented Broadway stars. This past week-end, we saw two shows - Kinky Boots, starring the crazy awesome Billy Porter and If/Then with the powerful diva -Idina Menzel. We had fourth row seats at If/Then.
 
Four rows from Idina and her pipes of glory.

Wow. Just wow.

We couldn't have chosen two shows that were more different from each other than these two, but, when asked to pick a favorite, I wasn't able to. Both shows were surprisingly beautiful and truly awing. Later in the week, I'll post my first NYC article, and it will be devoted to these two performances. So if you're looking to visit Broadway, and you're trying to decide on a show, you can read my take on Kinky Boots and If/Then here on my blog.

Until then, I will be listening to my Kinky Boots album and enjoying the remnants of my Eataly purchases - chocolates, imported pasta and fresh baked prosciutto and provolone bread. Mmmmm... can you guess what another post will be devoted to?

Please share some of your favorite places in New York City, some of your memories, what made you fall in love with the city. Start spreadin' the news! I'd love to hear about your experiences! Leave comments below or tweet to me @danafaletti!
   

The Freedom of Fourth Grade Field Day

Grey clouds hovered over the track like curious spirits, waiting for the charge of energy that could remind them of life’s crisp brightness. Suddenly, it appeared, the bulging crowd of children, and it was heading toward us with an alarming speed at its feet. Faraway laughter grew louder as the boys and girls raced down the dewy green hill to the track, their colorful tee-shirts already stained with the sweat of anticipation.

     “Fun!” their smiles cried. “Finally!”

     It was field day.

     The image of my daughter’s fourth grade class sprinting down the hill from the school to the track on field day brought me back to the easy joy of childhood. These children were thrilled to have just a couple of hours off from the intensity of the classroom and strict rules of upper elementary life.

     School is not the simple institution that it used to be. Today’s classrooms are jam-packed with language-infused math, guided reading, and lists of detailed rules that even make some parents go “hmmm... What do you think that one means?”  There are positive reinforcement programs, allergy action plans and behavior checklists. Assignment binders themselves weigh a whopping five pounds and can barely be stuffed into the giant backpacks the children carry around.

     There are so many tests.

     There are so many standardized tests.

     There are so many really important standardized tests.

     Growing up, I knew I had to finish my homework before I ventured outside to play. At that time, fourth grade homework took thirty minutes or less, so there was always plenty of daylight left after I finished math and spelling. If my parents wanted to take our family on vacation during the school year, they did so, without a second thought. My brother and I completed our make-up work and caught up when we returned from our adventure, never worrying that we’d missed the Science Olympiad or so and so’s half birthday celebration that was the event of the semester. As parents now, we have to fill out specific forms that show the educational value of our vacations. If our children miss too many days without doctors’ excuses, we are threatened with heavy fines and meetings with the magistrate. Make no mistake - school is serious business.

     Also, everything is online.

     Everything.

     From classroom newsletters to spelling lists to report cards.

     And if your wi-fi is glitching for whatever reason on a particular school night, be assured that an anxiety attack the size of Texas will ensue once your child realizes he or she is unable to access the teacher’s virtual homework page. Especially if it was a prep exercise for the really important standardized test that’s coming up.

     As a child, I remember giggling through fire drills, whispering with friends and shivering on the asphalt playground until being ushered back inside for sustained silent reading. Today, there are emergency drills that force elementary age children to imagine what it would be like if a gunman entered their school. We need these drills.  Sadly, this is the new reality.

     Still, it’s a lot for our young children to take in and carry around on their little shoulders every day. And this is why I found myself relishing the happiness of the moment when the kids hit the field for a day that was entirely carefree. Oh, how they needed this.

     Rough red kickballs littered the fields, evoking memories of being chosen last for the team. I pushed away the nervy nostalgia and focused instead on the sheer pleasure that oozed from my daughter’s face as she emerged onto the track with her grinning buddies.

     The teachers were dressed down and ready for fun.

     The kids were chatty, competitive and even a little unruly.

     The water balloons were over-filled and tempting.

     What a perfect way to celebrate the end of an effort-filled school year and the arrival of summer’s bliss.

 

 

 

    

 

    

 

In Honor of Mothers and Grandmothers everywhere.... On the Red Porch With the White Striped Awning

     In honor of Mother's day, I would like to post a short story I wrote some time ago. I've been  blessed by the women in my life, my grandmothers and mother as well as my aunts. Each taught me different life lessons and portrayed aspects of the woman I would become. My own mother, a very strong woman, taught me to speak my mind, to stand up for myself, to put family first. My grandmothers were also pillars of strength, models of kindness and servitude. Their generation was so steeped in self-sacrifice. These women gave up everything for their children and families. It was just their way.
     As I get older, I wonder about my grandmothers and who they were as women before they became wives and mothers. Did they ever yearn for more or question their choices? Did they have choices? I never asked way back when. I can't ask now.
     This story is a testament to those women who endured hardships so that the lives of their children and grandchildren could be easier. Oh how I wish I could thank them.

 

3 generations making our beloved great grandmother's homemade ravioli. We've had them every Thanksgiving for as long as I can remember.

On The Red Porch with the White Striped Awning

      On the red porch with the white striped awning, she sat in her wooden folding chair, watching the city morning come to life. Business men in their suits rushed past her, anxious to meet their day’s sales,  to land the hot deal, to pocket that crispy dollar. She smiled at the contrast of their frantic bustle to her quiet sigh inside the noise.

     The huckster stopped his truck in front of her porch.

     “Morning, Mary.” He nodded up to her, the rim of a baseball cap shadowing his smile.

     “Hi Sam.” She stood from her chair. “You wanna cup of coffee?”

     “No thanks, Mary. Gotta keep moving this morning.” He grabbed two boxes of fruits and vegetables from the back of the truck and hurried to a house across the street to make his delivery.

     “Have a good day, Sam.” She sat back down and crossed her hands in her lap, her thumbs worrying the deep wrinkles on her knuckles and the sides of her fingers. 

     Time had taken its toll on her body, leaving lines whose origins could be traced back as far as her childhood.  As a dirty-cheeked pre-adolescent, she’d worked the land on Sicilian hilltops, plucking figs and prickly pears from scorched September trees. The wrinkles on her face spoke of summers that were anything but kind. Only the coolness of the Ionian sea, its gentle fingers lapping over her skin, had  allowed tranquility to flow over her during those intense harvest seasons. She’d left her childhood there, inside a pebbled footprint along the shore. Traded it in for more lines.

     The more recent lines had been painted by a fabulous artist, a man whose passion wasn’t always tender. At first, his hands had left her speechless and immobile, so full of what she’d once called love. Later, they became brutal like the Sicilian summer sun, leaving her with bruises as purple as a starless sky. She’d had to bear many a shameful morning on account of his relentlessly passionate hands. Her husband may have become quite famous, could have been named the most prolific linear artists known to man, had he not met his fate by the bottle.

     The day he’d died was the beginning of her “year of the black dress.” On day three hundred sixty-six, she’d donned a gorgeous shade of blue with shoes to match. She’d paid her wifely dues of tradition and had at last felt owed her due of serenity. The blue dress spoke peace to her.  It was the color of the sea where she’d left her childhood. It was the color of her firstborn’s eyes.

     She’d nearly lost him. They’d tried to take him from her arms just as she was introducing him to his world. Those women of black and white silence who couldn’t even see past their rigid traditions to find the shades of gray that made up life’s most important choices. How could they have comprehended the color of unfettered innocence, the love in its most basic incarnation, that exists between a mother and her child? They’d reached for him, to remove him from her breast, to insert him into their colorless world. The glare her eyes shot forth drew lines upon her forehead so deep they could never be erased. And, at that moment, those cursed black and whites saw red and understood. The lines she acquired that day… they may have saved her life.

     Later came more babies, some with blue eyes, others with black, those who slept soundly and the ones who wept and shrieked from the moment the moon met the night until the sun kissed the sky. Seven became a lucky number for her, and each child left lines of laughter, lines of tears, smiling lines and lines that told the story of a worried brow.

     There was never much money to be spoken of. No frantic business man bustling into town to find his fortune. Oh her breadwinner was excitable, though! Fridays, he was as frantic as a blinded soldier, running in circles in search of the fastest route to the local tavern where he could drink up all of the bread.

     Charity always managed to rescue them though. Each of her little angels learned through toil and, perhaps some lines of their own, to make smart choices. None had chosen passionate linear artists who specialized in black and blue to accompany them on life’s journey. Not one of her babies had taken up the bottle. And, each knew the value of their creases – the ones on the faces of themselves and their mother as well as the green ones in their pockets.

     Now, she ran her hand along the thin lines in her cheek and leaned over, resting her chin upon her fist, squinting from the sun’s glare. If every line had been for naught she wouldn’t be able to sit here on the red porch with the white striped awning, awed by the beauty of normalcy and quite happy with the nothing and everything that was hers.

     “Why the grin, neighbor?”  Eva poked her gray-haired head out of the door of the row house that was attached to Mary. These connected homes had made it easy for her daughters to sneak out of the attic window at night and hop across rooftops to visit the boys down the street. They thought she didn’t know, but she had the lines to prove she’d known all along.

     Mary smiled up at her neighbor. “Eva, good morning.  You wanna cup of coffee?”

     “I have a doctor’s appointment this morning, Mary.”

     “You all right?” Mary asked.

     “Just a check on my sugar. I’ll see you tonight then.” Eva slipped inside and closed the door.

     Each night, about a half hour before dusk, the neighborhood ladies would congregate on Mary’s porch. They shared stories, bragged about their grandchildren and sometimes played Pokeno, an Italian bingo game. All of these women had wrinkles on their faces and hands, much like those Mary’s life had left to her. The wrinkles spoke of sorrowful legend, amazing bravery, and hideous tragedy. They told tales of joy and of fear, and, although they’d changed faces from young to old, from vibrant to withered, not one of these women would make the choice to erase a single line.

     Mary wouldn’t trade one of hers for all of that young businessman’s money, not for a thousand more days at the sea.  She licked her finger and rubbed it across a dirty mark on her blue shoe. For all the years she’d suffered through their making, she’d survived on the hope that someday her blacks and blues would give birth to gold.

     “Hi Nana!” The little brown-eyed girl burst outside through the front screen door and into Mary’s arms, sticky balls of sleep still stuck in her eyes.

     “Good morning, bella.”

     The smiling little girl cupped her grandmother’s face in her tiny hands and planted a kiss on the bridge of her long nose.

     “Why are you so wrinkly, Nana?” The little girl laughed, and Mary’s heart leapt at the lovely honesty of an innocent child.

     “Because I love you, little one.” It was the only answer she had.

     The little girl tilted her head to the side and seemed to search her grandmother’s water blue eyes.       “Will I have lines like this someday?”

     “Not as many as I have.” Mary brushed a sweaty lock of hair from the child’s forehead.

     “Why not?” the child asked, almost defiantly.

     Again, Mary smiled and answered simply. “Because I love you, that’s why.”

     For a moment, the granddaughter’s eyes quizzed Mary’s, seeming tempted to ask further but finally deciding not to. “I love you too, Nana.” With that, she hopped off of her grandmother’s lap. Can we have pancakes for breakfast?”

     Mary touched the soft cheek of this angel child. “We can have anything we want, bella.”

     The two left the red porch just as the sunlight was starting to reach its fingers beyond the white striped awning, violating its shade. As the screen door slammed shut behind them, Mary thought once more on her lines and her lineage. Nothing was for naught, she thought, and squeezed her granddaughter’s hand.

     These lines are lifelines.