And when it’s over,
I’ll sleep.
I’ll sleep
the sleep of
the fighter
the maker,
and I’ll take my rest
with a side of
satisfaction,
thank you very much.
For such a hard week,
it’s gone fast,
almost done.
Ranking it from ten to one,
I’d say –
zero.
But I’m still here,
and soon enough,
the work goes on.
creative writing
Tabula Rasa (A Short Story)
“What were you like before you were my mama?”
I cradle Daisy to my chest, and we rock back and forth to the gentle rhythm of my breathing.
“I was different.”
I smooth her hair, trace my fingers along the hollow, soft spot just below the crown of her head.
“Were you scary?”
“I might have been,” I say. “I might have been lots of things.”
“Like what?”
“I think we’ll never know for sure, little dove.”
“But why not?”
I’m quiet for a moment. I say, “Because we all get to make our own stories, and this is the one I’m making.”
Daisy’s room smells of peppermint and lavender, a combination of my tea and her soap, and something else. Something old, damp, and dusty, but familiar, like home.
“Mama, can you sing to me?”
I hum a soft lullaby, and as Daisy drifts off in my arms, I think of the decision we made, all of us. The decision to be careful with our words, to let our children tell their own stories. We felt like it was a mercy, in a cruel world, to let them make their own history and their own future.
One day, far away from now, maybe I will tell her: There’s power in words. That’s your first lesson. And there’s power in their absence. That’s your second.
Or maybe I won’t. Right now, she is free and new and utterly, completely herself. How long can this last? Time will tell.
I don’t think anyone ever really, truly knows whether the thing they’ve chosen is the right thing. When all of this started, I didn’t have Daisy. At least, not completely. She was a blip in the universe, just a tiny thing knitting herself into my body. I only had myself and a collection of painful memories, existing within a world that didn’t seem to want me. The thought of starting over, of starting anything, and of creating a better place, washed over me like a warm summer breeze, and I was certain, in that moment, that I’d made the best decision for myself.
But for Daisy?
I worry.
She’s sleeping now, curled around her favorite crocheted bunny. I hope she has good dreams, always. I hope she grows up carefree and happy. I hope she is strong.
But I worry.
What is strength without adversity? Courage without knowledge? Wisdom without history?
There are nineteen families here, all of us raising children, all parents carrying burdens we never want them to see. We all have our reasons. They are good reasons, I think, but they belong to us, not to our children.
I asked Daisy a few days ago to tell me about her bunny.
“What does Bunny do when you’re busy at school?”
“Bunny stays home,” she said.
“Yes, Bunny doesn’t go to school with you. But what does Bunny like to do when he’s not with you?”
“He sleeps in my bed and hops around my room,” she said.
“What else?”
“Sometimes, he likes to look out the window.”
“That’s fun!” And then I asked, “Is there anywhere he wants to go when he looks out the window?”
“No,” she told me. “He’s happy here.”
Daisy’s world is so small. She’s got me and our cottage, Bunny and her friends at school, the green grass and the blue sky. But there’s so much she’s missing.
“Doesn’t Bunny ever want to go places? Maybe to the beach?”
“What’s the beach, Mama?”
I didn’t tell her, not really. I only said it’s far away and warm.
We’re supposed to let our children make their own worlds, to use our words and our knowledge sparingly, to give them space to create. I don’t know if anyone else questions the goal, or the method we’re using to get there, but I do.
I do.
Because they need us, don’t they? They need our stories, they need our wisdom and our experience. Don’t they?
I hear Daisy on the steps.
“Mama,” she calls.
“Yes, baby?”
“I had a dream.”
“Tell me about your dream,” I say.
“It was a bad dream,” she tells me.
“Come and sit with me,” I say. And then, before I can stop myself, I add: “I’ll tell you a story.”
************
Thank you for reading! This is the sixth of twelve stories I’ll write as part of my 2022 Short Story Challenge. Twelve months, twelve stories, and the theme this year is: Folklore
Here are the first five, if you’d like to read them:
I hope you join me in the challenge! I think it’s going to be a very good year for stories. But just reading is good, too, and I’m glad you’re here.
The next story will be posted at the end of July.
June’s Short Story
It’ll be up tomorrow! And I think it’s a good one. So be sure to check back!
Hungry (A Poem)
Today, I woke up
(late, but)
hungry.
To eat, sure –
I’m always that kind of
hungry.
But also, to see –
to read,
to write,
to ponder,
to listen
and hear
and learn,
to know.
I am so
hungry,
in fact, that I think,
if I lived a thousand years,
and wandered
the whole world,
I would still
never be
full.
Reflections on an Accidental Week of Writing Poetry
I mentioned in Friday’s post that last week’s all-poetry theme wasn’t intentional. The fact of it is, even though I pretty regularly post poems here, I’m always sort of amazed that I’m writing them at all.
I’ve never considered myself to be much of a poet. In high school, I hated the lessons that involved writing poetry – not as much as anything to do with math, but a lot. In college, I stayed very (very) far away from any class that would have had me writing poems, a policy that kept me from getting a concentration in creative writing. And even as I started this blog, and my current creative writing journey, I remember thinking to myself: “Well, I can write anything but poetry.”
It’s all very strange, because I love poetry.
I love reading it, performing it, pondering it, memorizing my favorite poems and quoting them, usually in full and often at inopportune moments. And so I asked myself, over the weekend, why I’ve always had such a hard time with the idea of writing it. And I think the answer is really simple: I don’t feel like I’m good at it.
Rest assured, I don’t need validation or compliments here, though kind words are always appreciated. What I’m getting at is, I think, a larger issue in our culture, whereby we seem to be operating under the incredibly damaging and entirely false belief that if you’re not really good at something, there’s no reason for you to do it.
Not a great singer? No karaoke for you. Go sit in a corner and be embarrassed at your wobbly warble.
Not a good runner? Find another form of exercise. No running groups for you! You’ll slow everyone down.
Can’t draw? Get out of here, false Picasso. No room for your stick figures on this canvas.
And I’m sad to say that for the longest time, this is how I felt about poetry. It doesn’t come naturally to me, and I’ve read so much good stuff (hats off to you, poets of WordPress!), and so I fell into the trap. Why even spend my energy on it? No future for me in it, so it’s a waste of my time. I’ll never be great, so why do it at all?
Except, I was wrong. Of course I was wrong. And these last couple of years have been a journey of discovering just how wrong I was. Because the why has nothing to do with greatness, or compliments, or money. The why is so simple: I enjoy it.
I’ve found, as much to my surprise as anyone’s, that I actually, truly, completely enjoy writing poetry. It makes me happy. I love the rhythm of sound and silence, and the way the words dance when you get them just right.
For me, there’s joy in writing poetry, even bad poetry, and that’s enough.
And frankly, that’s enough for anything – drawing, singing, running, writing… You don’t have to be an expert, or a natural, or even any good, to enjoy something. And enjoying it is reason enough to do it. Life is just too short to live it without joy.
So here I am, a not-very-good poet, clacking away on my keyboard, enjoying myself and appreciating that poems exist in this universe and I can write them (sometimes badly). It’s taken me years to get here, but I can say confidently, in this moment, I write poetry.
A Naani Poem (or, A New Way to Say I Can’t Sleep)
Finishing out this week of poetry! (It wasn’t intentional. I guess I was just feeling poetic. Not mad about, it, though.) Here’s a naani poem for the June poetry challenge over at Fake Flamenco:
Staying up to greet the dawn,
to welcome the new day –
once a pleasure,
now a curse.
As with many of these challenges, I’ve never tried this poetry type before, and it was a lot of fun! I like learning different ways to put words together and create music out of sound and silence. 😊 If you want to give it a go, as well, I think you should!
It’s always good to try new things, right?
Go For It (A Poem)
They say:
“All things in time,”
and that’s true.
But
time doesn’t wait,
and neither should you.
Hello, Summer (A Poem)
Hello and
warmest welcome to
the bluest sky
and greenest green –
it’s good to see you.
Hello to long days
and lightning bugs,
and a breeze that
hugs trouble away,
to a season of rain
and sunshine,
and a time for
holding on.
Here and gone
in a lightning flash
and a thunderous song,
we know you can’t last.
But hello, old friend,
for while you’re here,
and soon enough
back again.
What I Know About Love (A Poem)
Powerful,
poetic,
proud,
all around,
and resoundingly not
a finite resource.
No one can
stop it
restrain it
or legislate it
even if they hate it.
To dam it up
hide it
flee it
fight it
deny it
is a worthless war
of losing battles.
So drum it up.
Choose it.
Ally it.
Sing it.
Say it.
Be in it.
In short,
I can sum up
what I know
about love
in just two words,
and it’s this:
IT IS.
Sally’s Mill (A Short Story)
May 1, 2019
Here’s how I imagine it happened, back in 2001:
The weather outside was almost unbearable. An early heatwave loomed over the fields, and the storms that rolled through that afternoon left behind a swampy, balmy soup of thick air and hovering mosquitos. Bad as that was, the atmosphere inside the mill was worse. Thirty some bodies crammed into a dark, dusty space, all breathing and dancing and spilling drinks, jumping around to music so loud it shook your brains, yelling and singing, and just hot, frenetic chaos.
“I’m going outside,” Jo Whitney said to no one in particular, because no one could hear her, anyway. At least, that’s how I imagine it. I’ve been told I have a good imagination.
People wondered later where she’d gone, and no one told the police about the party when they came around asking questions. A bunch of kids drinking alcohol in an abandoned, condemned building on the night before graduation? Not one of them said a word, and they wouldn’t have had anything to say, either, because Jo slipped out of the mill and into the night, and that was the last any of them – or anyone at all – ever saw of her.
May 2, 2019
Joanna Whitney’s was the tenth disappearance associated with Sally’s Mill. It wouldn’t be the last, and I think we’re on number thirteen now. Or so the rumors say. And still people go there. Kids party, the curious search, police patrol, and every few years, some unlucky soul goes missing. It’s not our town’s oldest tradition – that would be the Winter Hunt – but it is the most talked about. Well, that would probably also be the Winter Hunt, but Sally’s Mill is a pretty close second. There’s even a rhyme we say, when we’re young and more amused than afraid: “Stay away from the hill, and from old Sally’s Mill.”
It’s not much, I know.
May 5, 2019
As it turns out, my dad got caught up in it once, all the Sally’s Mill craziness, when he was about seventeen. He told me this story today, and I’m recording it here, in my second journal of the year, because I feel like someone should write this down, and because he never reads my journals and so he won’t know I told on him.
Here’s what he said:
It was a stormy night, heavy and damp and dark. Thunder rumbled through the trees, and on the horizon, lightning flashed bright and white against the black sky. My dad was at a party, and went outside to get cigarettes from his car. As he stood outside the door of the mill, smoking (gross, Dad!), he heard hounds and the call of hunting horns, howls and yelps, and people shouting, and the braying and steady gallop of horses. He heard them over the music from the party, and the rush of the wind. He said it sounded like they were only down the hill, so close by, but he didn’t see anyone. And as the sound moved closer and closer to him, he said it was like the air froze, and all he could think was, “What in the hell?” And then he ran inside, and he never told anyone. Not because he was scared. He never told anyone because he dropped his cigarette when he ran, and it started a small fire in the brush, and everyone had to run away and the police investigated and declared it an arson. The good news is, no one got hurt, and the fire didn’t do too much damage. The bad news is, my dad’s guilty of arson, I guess.
They say nothing good ever happens at Sally’s Mill. I guess they’re right, huh?
May 11, 2019
It shouldn’t be ninety degrees in early May, but here we are. Today is Saturday, but you couldn’t pay me to go outside in this. Today will be a reading day for me.
I feel bad for writing down what my dad told me. I think it’s sort of a silly story, but I wouldn’t want him to get in trouble for something that happened so long ago, especially when it was an accident and it didn’t hurt anybody. I’m thinking about tearing out that page.
May 12, 2019
I did some reading yesterday on fox hunting. I’m surprised it’s not obsolete. But I did learn that it never happens at night, so I don’t know what my dad heard. He was probably drunk. It was dark, and the weather was awful. He was just a kid who made a mistake, and I wonder if he made up the whole story just to justify what he did. It’s a horrible thing to think, isn’t it?
May 18, 2019
I just can’t help but wonder why people keep going to the mill. I guess people just can’t get enough of scary stories, but still: I wonder, I wonder, I wonder. My grandmother always told me she was proud of how curious I am. I’m starting to think it’s actually a curse. There are always more questions than answers, and every time you get an answer, it just leads to more questions. It’s enough to drive someone crazy. Not me, but someone.
May 20, 2019
Okay, so I’ve done some research. It’s interesting, actually. There’s nothing in the history of Sally’s Mill that makes it a haunted or a frightening or an unsafe place, other than the fact that it’s condemned, of course. It was built around 1810 by the Marsden family. They’re still around. Named for John Marsden’s wife, who lived long and happy, and tended by that same family or their relatives until it closed down for good in 1981. John and Sally had several children, kept a couple of houses in the state, and were involved in all sorts of local issues and events. The only thing I found that made me nervous is that there was a Civil War battle in the area, and some of the soldiers did hide in the mill at one point. They got caught, of course, and carted away as prisoners.
And then, I guess, there are the disappearances, but maybe that’s just coincidence? I should do some research on those, too, but I’ve got end of school exams and essays and such coming up, so I don’t know when I’ll have time.
May 25, 2019
There’s a party at Sally’s Mill tonight. Should I go? I’m not actually invited, but one of my friends is, and I’m sure I could tag along unnoticed.
May 25, 2019 (later)
I’m going. Even though it’s hotter than Hades right now and I’m not really invited, I’m going. But I’m going in smart. I’m bringing supplies: a flashlight, a whistle, a camera, a recorder, and just because I know it will be loud and miserably sweaty, some earplugs and my portable neck fan. I know I’ll look like a dork. I don’t care. People don’t really notice me, anyway.
I’m nervous, though, still. Maybe because I’m not a social creature, or maybe because of the disappearances, or my dad’s story. I’ll update tomorrow. If I come home, that is! (Oh, God, why did I even write that?)
May 26, 2019
What an absolute waste of time! A big, fat, annoying nothing. I stood inside, I stood outside. I waited. I saw nothing. There was nothing. Just the mill, and the hot weather, and a bunch of kids drinking warm beer. My head hurts. I dripped enough sweat last night to fill five buckets, and I came home with a bruise of my knee from falling down a set of rickety old stairs. And I ripped my favorite jeans.
Never again, Sally’s Mill. You and I – we’re not friends.
May 26, 2019 (later)
I spoke too soon. I feel awful. I can’t believe it.
Jackson Fletcher disappeared last night.
He never came home after the party. I did see him there, in a corner with his buddies, but I don’t remember if he left before me or not. I did see him go outside. Did I see him come back in? I’m not sure. I don’t know. I DON’T KNOW. Maybe he’s just at a friend’s house. Maybe he crashed his car and he’s in a ditch somewhere. That’s not better, is it?
WHY DOES ANYONE GO TO SALLY’S MILL?
And why him? Why him, of everyone there? Why not anyone else? Why not me?
May 30, 2019
I’ve considered ripping out all of these pages and burning them. I don’t know where I’d burn them, but I just don’t know if I ever want anyone to read them. I’m only a few pages into this journal, anyway, and I could scrap the whole thing.
Jackson Fletcher is still missing. I don’t think he’ll ever come home. I see it in my head. His mother saying goodbye to her son for the last time on Saturday evening, his face at the party, laughing and bobbing his head to the beat of the music, and not one of them knew. Not one of them knew it would be the last time, that he wouldn’t come home. It’s just horrible.
I looked back today on my entries about Jo Whitney, and I just…I can’t believe I wrote about it like that, like her life was a story. I can’t believe it happened again. I guess it just never seemed real.
I don’t know what I’ll do with this. I don’t know who I can tell – about this journal, my dad’s story, Jackson, the mill. Any of it. But if I don’t trash it, and you find it, and you read this one day, I’ll tell you, because now I know it’s true, what they say. I hope you stay away. I hope they tear the whole building down. I hope it burns. I hope it collapses. I hope it rots away and becomes just a distant, terrible memory. I hope you believe me.
Nothing good ever happens at Sally’s Mill.
************
Thank you for reading! This is the fifth of twelve stories I’ll write as part of my 2022 Short Story Challenge. Twelve months, twelve stories, and the theme this year is: Folklore
Here are the first four, if you’d like to read them:
I hope you join me in the challenge! I think it’s going to be a very good year for stories. But just reading is good, too, and I’m glad you’re here.
The next story will be posted at the end of June.
A Virginia Writer's Diary 