Let’s Not Be So Certain

Sometimes a person will grab a glimpse of life which in its commonness and obviousness stuns us. And wouldn’t you know, it’s usually a poet, god bless them. Those creatures of vision that manage to catch an unexpected edge of life, suggesting we not be so certain about what we think we know. Marie Howe, in her poem, ‘What the Living Do’ written in tribute to her brother, Johnny, who died a few years prior of Aids, turns the drear of the ordinary into a moment of unanticipated infatuation:

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some

utensil probably fell down there.

And the Drano won’t work but smells dangerous, and the

crusty dishes have piled up waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called.

This is the everyday we spoke of.

It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep, headstrong blue, and the

sunlight pours through the open living-room windows

because the heat’s on too high in here and I can’t turn it off.

For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the

street, the bag breaking, I’ve been thinking:

This is what the living do. And yesterday,

hurrying along those wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk,

spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush:

This is it. Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold.

What you called that yearning. What you finally gave up.

We want the spring to come and the

winter to pass. We want

whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and

more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of

myself in the window glass,

say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a

cherishing so deep for my own blowing hair, chapped face,

and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless:

I am living. I remember you.

It is all too easy to believe we know winter because we’ve seen it for years or that boredom is an appropriate response to day-in, day-out life, or that being in love is time limited or that dreams are for people under 50. We’re comfortable defending inertia’s downward drag, convinced of the impossibility of undoing habits and willing to defend stability over serendipity. Marie Howe would have us remember how it is that against the backdrop of the seeming ordinary the extraordinary can be most easily noticed. So who’s to say in a universe as relative as ours what we should disdain and what we should hallow. For in one short, illuminating moment, say when we wake to the harbingers of spring, robins, standing in fresh January snow, singing for all their worth, we could have our dull yet comfortable certainties shattered by the enchantment of the unfathomable.

Falling

One thing you never have to concern yourself with if you subscribe to my blog is the possibility of my filling up your inbox. It’s been awhile since my last blog. If I don’t have something that I suspect is worth your time to read, I don’t write. But last night, an incident presented me with material.

I run at night – because that is when I have time and because I am a night hawk and am most active at night. The downside of this predisposition is that it is dark and every now and then, I toe into a small rise of some sort – broken blacktop, bad seam, or poor paving and meet the road with various parts of my anatomy. Last night was one of those, and though overall not as bad as some, it did leave a long split of skin for which my dear husband matched the edges back together and secured with “butterflies.” The wait for healing begins. I mention this not for sympathy because I played a role in this scenario by not paying attention. Earlier in the run a motorist had been rude and threatening, and I was still, in my mind, back there. Just as I said to myself, “That’s enough Christina, leave it,” I hit the rise in the road and down I went.

My life has been about asking questions, many of which sought to understand the nature of this mind we’ve been endowed with, using the modern idiom—an extraordinary piece of technology—which routinely had us in one location, in our mind, while our physical body is someplace else doing something else, most often without our awareness of this fact. Sure I knew I was on the road. Sure I knew I was running, BUT not in any of those precise moments when I was rendering my irritation over yet another angry, careless driver. We would swear we are aware of both at the same time. The brain fools us because its speed is phenomenal. It jumps back and forth between, in this case, my attention to the road and the conversation in my head that I was having with the driver long gone. Our awareness is generally not developed enough to notice when our minds make the jump from where we are physically to a scenario in our minds. We truly believe we can “multi-task.” It just isn’t so. In that blink of the jump from my attention on the road to the rant in my head, life could have ended, depending on the circumstances. Fortunately, for me, this time I’m merely incapacitated.

I have spent a lifetime studying this phenomenon where we are one place in our mind at the same time as being another place with our bodies. People can go through their entire lives without realizing that their present reactions or emotions in no way reflect their present environment. The best modern day example is people talking on the phone while driving. Their attention can be miles away depending on the conversation, even decades away, and we’ve all noted at one time or another how that effects what they are actually involved with – operating a car.

The growing interest in mindfulness is a heartening indication that more and more people are beginning to realize how much of their actual lives they miss by spending it in endless conversations in their head. We can change this as the practice of mindfulness can show us.  I have spent many years working to silence that otherwise seeming endless conversation that so robs us of lives

that we could have, ones where our awareness is involved with the actual moment we are living. Obviously, I still have work to do, but

I’ve had a taste of that delicious freedom that accrues to us when the mind is still, and that is why I sat this morning feeling a deep sense of rapport with Mary Oliver and her sense of wistfulness when she says in the last half of her poem “Blue Iris”:

“What’s that you’re doing?”        whispers the wind, pausing

in a heap just outside the window. 

Give me a little time, I say back to its staring silver face.

It doesn’t happen all of a sudden you know.

“Doesn’t it?” says the wind, and breaks open, releasing

distillation of blue iris.

And my heart panics not to be, as I long to be,

the empty, waiting, pure, speechless receptacle.

An Autograph

I’ve never been a hero-worshipper or found myself in throngs of squealing fans enthralled with some new star. It wasn’t that I didn’t want heroes; I think it was just having a few too many disappointments rather early on. So imagine my chagrin when I found myself thrilled to receive an autographed copy of a Mary Oliver book for Christmas. I actually gasped. There on the inside cover, right in the middle of the page in black ink from the medium-fine nib of a fountain pen was her name. No fancy script, no curls or flourishes, just basic cursive, completely readable with a dot over the “i” that ran a little to the right, and then a period after the name as if it were the end of a sentence.  

 I ran my finger across it, slowly, then jumping the gap, I tapped the period. That’s probably as close to Ms. Oliver as I’ll ever get, but it was something, a meeting of sorts, creating substance in that book that went beyond that of her discerning thoughts and penetrating observations.

It has been a treasure to live in her time, share the world she’s seen and experienced. Her poetry and her prose never cease to leave a sustained impression for she is real. Art of the highest caliber takes more than a talent that one is willing to raise to its most skillful level. Art also requires that an artist not back away from life, that they face whatever is dished up to them and stay with it alert, engaged even when the demons howl. Mary Oliver has known blistering poverty, illness, the loss of one she loved for over 40 years and sundry other challenges that rocked her life. But she persisted and remained open and intimate with the world around her.  Emerson once said, “…we only believe as deep as we live.” It is Mary Oliver’s gift to us that she has lived so deeply.

What follows are excerpts from the book she wrote after the loss of Molly Malone Cook, entitled Thirst:

‘When Roses Speak, I Pay Attention’

…And they went on. “Listen,

the heart-shackles are not, as you think,

death, illness, pain,

unrequited hope, not loneliness, but

lassitude, rue, vainglory, fear, anxiety, selfishness.”

The fragrance all the while rising

from their blind bodies, making me spin with joy.

‘A Pretty Song’

From the complications of loving you
I think there is no end or return.

No answer, no coming out of it.

Which is the only way to love, isn’t it?

This isn’t a playground, this is
earth, our heaven, for a while.

Therefore I have given precedence to

all my sudden, sullen, dark moods

that hold you in the center of my world.

And I say to my body: grow thinner still.
And I say to my fingers, type me a pretty song.
And I say to my heart: rave on.

‘Praying’

It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones;

Just pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence into which
another voice may speak.

Is it no wonder I would like to be closer to her? But if it is just occasionally running my finger across her name left from her pen in my book, I will be grateful for even that proximity to a being who so astonishes me.

Sharing the Gift of Love

A Christmas gift suggestion

This is the time of year when so many people, events and tasks clamor for our attention that I feel almost apologetic for adding one more, but you can sense already, can’t you, that I am going to anyway. Why? Because this is the holiday season more devoted to love and loving kindness than any other we have. To that end, retaining love as our foremost consideration, I suggest for those on your Christmas list a love story you and they may have missed. It is a profound love story, not just about the love of spouse for spouse, parent for child or friend for friend, but a love that asks even more. A young Black woman, illiterate, yet discerning and witty accepts a behest from her mother, one that has kept her lineage alive through centuries of trials and suffering. The behest: To love the world – no exceptions. Miss Imogene assumes this responsibility through the politically divisive, racially charged 20^th century, with nothing other than a deep faith in goodness, the ear of her dear friend and cart horse, Polly, and an inner strength which she comes to know only through her trials.

Reviewer Patricia Macvaugh described what drew her into the story: “…I was compelled to see if loving the world, that world of hate and ugly racism, was truly possible.” And her conclusion: “I hope to channel Mrs. Imogene Ware as I walk through this world of ignorance, terrorism of all kinds, and cruelty to Mother Earth. It isn't easy, but she [Miss Imogene] never said it would be.”

There is always another way; there always is. That is my raison d‘etre for being a novelist, to offer such stories. This Christmas you can make the gift of love tangible by sharing this novel set with those you love easily as well as those who challenge you. It is a compelling story of a lone Black woman attempting to contend with the life destiny bestowed on her through where and to whom she was born – while struggling to save and salvage the lives of others, especially one particular white child originally in her care.

Accidentsof Birth – Books One & Two

Available in Paperback or Kindle Format from Amazon

The Night the Moon Touched the Ground

        

It was just another ordinary fall evening. A friend had been visiting our farm having come up to give us a hand with some renovations before winter set it. She always enjoyed her stays with us, and we enjoyed her skillful carpentry and great company. Living as far north as we did, visitors from our former life down south were rare to non-existent. So Pearl’s 400 plus mile trek to our place in northern Alberta was more than appreciated.

While we kept on with hauling hay and combining grain in the face of fast approaching winter, Pearl refurbished the outside of the old house we lived in. It had been one of the first in the district we’d been told, the living room often used as a courtroom when local behavior deemed such decision making processes necessary. I still remember the first land tax notice we received. The home place acreage where the barn and house were located was worth less than a similarly sized parcel of crop land. I laughed and asked my mate if he thought the home actually lessened the value of that piece of land. It was serviceable but old indeed.

On the particular day in question, Pearl had finished a new set of stairs leading to the closed-in porch. She was testing them out, sitting on the top one having her afternoon coffee and cigarette. Since we didn’t smoke, she never smoked in our house. She was always respectful that way. I had just come in from hauling hay ready to start evening chores. I had a cow to milk, chickens to feed and sheep to bring close in for the coming night before we sat down to eat. The days were already shortening, so I hurried along to get chores done. A beautiful sunset was stretching out across this big sky country in shades of mauve and burnt orange and the air had a nip to it reminding me of what was soon to come.

When supper was over, Fred went out to his shop to work on some equipment repairs, I was separating cream and making butter and Pearl took her coffee out into the brisk evening to once again sit on her new stairs, relax and have a smoke. She had been out there about 20 minutes when all of a sudden, I heard the door open quickly and her whispering voice, tinged with alarm saying, “Christina, come out here – quick.” I was in the middle of washing the separator, but I stopped, and began to dry my hands on a tea towel. Her head poked in the door this time and she was even more insistent. “Hurry!” 

There was a definite look of fear in her eyes. I wiped any leftover water on my jeans and jumped into my wellingtons. I came out the door and turned to the east where she pointed. “What is that?” she asked, pointing perhaps 80 yards away toward the end of the barnyard. She was standing behind me as one does when they feel the need for protection. I was standing stock still in awe of what stood before me. 

“Pearl” I said over my shoulder, “what are you smoking?” Then I giggled.

She was in no mood for humor. “What is that?” She was dead serious.

“Pearl, that’s the moon.”

“No,” she countered.

“Yes it is.”

Before us sat a huge orange ball. It appeared to be two to three stories tall in diameter. It looked like it was sitting smack on the ground, as if you could walk right up to it and touch it. It was a sight I will remember the rest of my days.

I turned to Pearl who still looked a bit disbelieving and asked, “What did you think it was?”

“A UFO or something.”

I laughed softly and said something about damned city-slickers, and then I gave her a hug. We both laughed like young girls sharing yet another secret of life as we watched it all too quickly begin to seemingly shrink and rise.

I have felt since a child that the great tracts of nature are an ongoing gift to us humans. They stand just at the end of our lanes, just out beyond our back yards or in my case, at that time, just where civilization melts into wilderness; and there they are. In the words of Wallace Stegner:

“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed ... We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.”

And that wild country includes not just what is on the ground with us but the alluring, incalculable vastness of what also lies above us, especially on nights when it appears to have come for a visit.

Here’s what one such “moon visit” looked like in Wellington, New Zealand. Do take a peek.

https://vimeo.com/58385453    

The World is not an Easy Place

Several Christmases ago, I received one of those gifts that keeps on giving – a full set of Mary Oliver’s works. I still haven’t read them all. That means only there are treasures on the shelf just waiting for me to take them down and be newly awed and inspired. Today, I reached for The Truro Bear and Other Adventures. Not one essay and eleven poems in, Miss Mary caught me again. The poem was entitled “Turtle,” the story line being Ms. Oliver watching the inevitable as a turtle follows a line of soft, new brown teal chicks following their mum around a pond’s edge, while mother duck attempts to get them across the water without harm. When the inevitable becomes reality, Ms. Oliver has this to say:

…my heart will be most mournful

on their account, but listen.

What’s important?

Nothing’s important

except that the great and cruel mystery of the world,

of which this is a part,

not be denied.

Ms. Oliver has grown most wise in her years dedicated to

observing and understanding nature—both that of human beings and the natural world. And her vast talent lets her reveal it on a razor’s edge of poetry which can separate the painful from the poignant without nicking either.

It is a more recent development in my life, this willingness to let the world be, to drop the need to slather everything with meaning such that what lies beneath is used to support my momentary needs rather than disclose its inspired truths. The mystery asks only that we remain open-hearted, and invariably, if we’re willing, it reveals how we can live fulfilled in our day-to-day struggle in a world seemingly more cruel than great. 

The end of Ms. Oliver’s story has her finding on a city street in summer:

… a dusty, fouled turtle plodding along—

a snapper—.

She then says she knew what she had to do.

I looked it right in the eyes, and I caught it—

I put it, like a small mountain range,

into a knapsack, and I took it out

of the city, and I let it

down into the dark pond,

into the cool water,

and the light of the lilies,

to live.

That’s the part of the mystery that’s fascinates me the most, noting its subtle, silent resolutions, the unimagined calm that always, I mean always, follows, even in the face of our most distressing struggles. And amazingly, whether we understand or not, we are included in its sweet, enduring comfort.

The world is not always an easy place, but it is never without wonder and, sooner or later, grace.

Short Story - Saving Grace

by Christina Carson

When can never truly know the power our smallest gestures of kindness or goodwill have on the lives of others…

  Adrienne Wall Photography 

Mrs. Gerhardt squatted down in front of her five year old daughter and worked feverishly to roll up the waistband of her child’s ruffled pantaloons so the pants no longer dragged on the floor. She hadn't had time to try the new outfit on her daughter earlier due to the seeming never ending list of must-do’s that defined her life since her recent divorce. He just walked out, she thought. Shacked up with that woman from work and walked out. Realizing where her mind was heading, she pulled her thoughts back to her present task before her anger reached another boiling point. The dress that was part of the ensemble fit fine, but Gracie was not a tall child and the hem of the pants covered her shoes and then some. Her mom struggled to get it all hiked up evenly. But every few seconds, her hand would come out from under the dress, and she’d push the heel of it into her forehead and rub hard and slow. Haggard was the word that best described Tricia Jo Gerhardt and late was the second best; today would make it three times this week in fact. She was struggling up the corporate ladder now; she needed the money. But tardiness was not well tolerated.

“Hold still.” It was a command, not a request. Gracie had been unaware she was in motion of any sort, so she just kept standing there as she had been. “I spent a great deal of money to get this dress for you, so you could look pretty on picture day.” The dress she was referring to was la haute couture for the preschool set. Peasant dresses were what they were called, the material hosting multicolored patchwork with ruffles at the wrists. The bloomer-like pants worn underneath the dress had ruffles at the ankles. Gracie would have preferred being outside playing with her dog, Billie, rather than getting all gussied up. This foray into preschool had not been her choice. She smiled over top of her mom’s bent head at her golden retriever, who watched this early morning fiasco yet thumped his tail expectantly, like they’d go play when this was over.

Once Mrs. Gerhardt had finally reached a length with the bloomers that allowed Gracie’s little satin ballet slippers to show, she pinned the fabric to the waistband and sighed. Still squatting, she gave her daughter a final once over starting with her ringlets, which she bounced a few times with the palm of her hand then shook her head and breathed out through her teeth. She hated that wildly curly hair her daughter had inherited from her father. She felt it made her look a bit too ethnic, is how she put it. Next, she licked her index finger and cleaned off the corners of Gracie’s mouth where some toothpaste had gathered. With that accomplished, she pushed herself up to standing, the silk in her slacks having suffered some heavy creases from that crouch. As she walked off to grab her purse and keys, she attempted to smooth them out, but in a fit of impatience she shook her hands like she was removing water from them, only the gesture depicted a woman on the edge. She left Gracie standing there, the child unsure if the inspection was over or not.

“Gracie what are you dawdling over. Come on. We’re late.” Gracie trailed after her kicking her heels up in a little gallop, stopping to hug her dog, then just outside the kitchen door she stopped again to pet her stick horse. Her mom stood by the car door, her fingers drumming out what sounded like a horse galloping, waiting.

As they drove to the school, Gracie’s mother lectured. “Now listen, I can’t be at the picture taking today, so here’s what you must do to look pretty for the photographer. Plump your skirt out and do not, under any circumstances, pull at your bloomers. Do you hear me?” Gracie nodded, never taking her eyes off her mother as she doled out her instructions. “You usually make that silly looking grin. Don’t so that this time. Smile pretty. And don’t let the camera lady take your shoes off because I paid a bundle for those slippers, they are real ballet slippers, you know. So leave them on.”

Gracie was trying desperately to remember each item of behavior that was now her responsibility. But all that she managed to remember was the comment about her smile being somehow wanting. That worried her most for she didn't know what a nice smile looked like or how to make one. The parting shot as her mother opened the car door, undid her seat belt and tugged her out was when she said in an edgy voice, “ I love pretty girls and smart girls, so don’t disappoint me.”

In the time Mrs. Gerhardt had dropped Gracie off at her classroom and then disappeared down the street with the speed of a small caliber bullet, Gracie drooped like a four-day-old cut flower and walked to a quiet part of her classroom hoping to hideout. She was usually a buoyant little girl; quiet yet sweet, but this morning she felt frightened. She knew words to describe what she sensed in her mother— angry and sad. But she had no awareness of states of mind like driven or frustrated or abandoned, the state her father had left them in.  What made sense to her was that she was somehow responsible for her mother being upset. And that made her feel like she was bad. She just didn't know why.

Gracie stayed over in the corner hugging her bunny which she managed to sneak into the car with her. She hid it in the folds of her skirt so that he, Mr. Welty, would be there if she needed him. She sat rocking on a little wooden chair, trying smiles on her face, hoping to do one that felt right. She thought she had a good one and held Mr. Welty out in front of her to give her feedback. But before he got a word out, the teacher was there asking her if everything was okay. It so startled her that she leapt up from the chair, feeling her bloomers slide down as she rose.

She hadn't noticed the ruffles had gotten under her feet, and her sudden jump up pulled them down to mid-thigh. Gracie had been so wrapped up in her smile practice that she couldn't focus on the teacher’s question. Instead, she worked to get her bloomers back up to her waist.

“Is your pretty new dress for picture day?” the teacher asked.

Gracie nodded her head several times.

“Well you look lovely today. Your mother will be really happy to have pictures of you looking so pretty.”

That eased Gracie a bit, because she remembered her mommy saying she loved pretty girls. She looked up at her teacher and asked, “Do daddies love pretty girls too?”

The teacher winced knowing the situation at home. “Oh yes, Gracie, daddies especially love pretty daughters.”

She wanted to talk with Gracie more, but some minor outbreak across the room forced her to leave Gracie without further comment. The little girl turned back to practicing smiles, but the teacher was now calling the class together. Gracie didn't know when their pictures would be taken, but every time she thought of it she felt frightened in a strange way. She didn't know the word dread either, or she would have understood what was happening to her.

On the other side of the school, Mattie Bolton, who had been taking pictures of preschoolers all morning at Haines Elementary, was returning from her fourth bathroom break of the day wondering if people would begin to think she had a medical condition of some sort she’d spent so much time in the washroom. Had they investigated, they would have found her leaning against the wall trying to regroup. It had been a long day so far and now the afternoon stretched before her. She’d been involved with this photography gig for years, but it seemed of late the kids had become more ill-mannered and uncooperative than prior times, often almost impossible to work with. They either cried and whined or behaved like over-wound wind-up toys careening around the set with no concern for her equipment or props. And their mothers, when present, merely sat watching, making no effort to rein them in.

It seems every generation complains about kids relative to their own past, and Mattie was at that age where there were more years behind her than out front.  But she was beginning to sense a growing agreement among adults of all ages that kids today were more akin to those in Lord of the Flies than Anne of Green Gables. And if you want to see this in all its glory, try to take their pictures.

She took a deep breath, rallied her last bit of patience and walked slowly back to the room where her set was located, hoping she’d not find one of the little imps hanging from the backdrop or swinging round the light stands....

To finish this story, click here.

Living on the Street

How close to the edge will you come, to know something you really want to know…? a short story by Christina Carson

It was one of those gorgeous fall days. Leaves were beginning to mottle the grass still green from fall rains. The ones still attached to the park trees rattled in the now cool breeze sounding like old bones clacking together. Sadie lifted her face toward the sun as she walked idly along the cement path that mimicked the lake’s curves. The sun’s heat was no longer scorching and now felt soft on her skin.  Her hands, clasped behind her back, hung onto a small brown paper bag, her lunch. She had brought it to the park to eat away from all the noise and endless drama in the corporate scene where she worked. She often ate in this park and was fond of a particular bench under a clump of crepe myrtle trees just up from the lapping water. The spot felt like a natural shelter and at this point in her life, shelter was something Sadie sought in many forms.

As she rounded the last curve at the far end of the lake, she stopped, dismayed. Someone was sitting on her bench. She stood still for a moment fretting. She wanted to be alone, but she also wanted the comfort of her special spot. She studied the man who now occupied one end of the bench. He was sitting almost statue-like. A few pigeons had come up to see if he had any bread for them. He stared down at them and appeared to say something she was too far away to hear. His hands were folded in his lap, his long legs stretched out in front of him. The pigeons seemed to enjoy his presence for even without food, they pecked around his boots and stopped to rest in his shade. That helped Sadie with her decision. If the pigeons thought he was safe, perhaps he was, and she could share the bench with him.

As she got closer, she could see he looked a tad tattered. Street person, she thought. Hope he’s not schizophrenic or drugged up. She grimaced a moment as she noticed how much she’d changed. Years back she’d never have thought about that and it wasn't just changing times that brought up those concerns. She could feel how hard her heart had become, how pinched off from life she was. For christsake, she thought, I’m not the only 45 year-old whose husband ran off with a younger woman. But no matter how rational she tried to be, whenever her mind began to rummage through that heart-rending year, the pain of betrayal owned her before her next breath.

Still eyeing the man on the bench, she wondered, who was he? She huffed her breath out her nose as she realized what she had just thought, Was; who was he? Who was she for that matter, for she certainly felt more was than is.

She had been approaching slowly, but something about that last thought brought a resolute pace to her walk. Not wanting to scatter the pigeons, she walked behind the bench to the other end and looked at the man as she asked, “Mind if I share the bench with you?  I like this end of the lake best.”

He said nothing, nor did he look at her. She began to feel uncomfortable. About to excuse herself, she said, “I’m sorry…”  Still staring straight ahead, he raised his hand slightly. Then he patted the bench seat. She lowered herself onto the far end of the bench, offered him a quick little bob of her head and said softly, “Thank you.”

She followed his lead, stretched her trousered legs out in front of her and leaned back. She laid her lunch bag in her lap and began to quiet herself, since that tiny hint of rejection that had gone through her when he didn't reply had already started her heart thumping. The pigeons didn't come under her legs. She guessed she didn't feel very sheltering to them. What a basket case I am. If I think this behavior is so stupid, why can’t I stop it?

She scanned the lake, near tears, and attempted to get her attention on the mallards that were slightly off shore. “It will pass,” he said. The kindness in his voice made it almost impossible for her not to begin sobbing. “Don’t hold your tears in. Let them wash you clean.”

Her emotions were so conflicted now; she hardly knew what to do next. She studied him out of the corner of her eye. He had several days’ growth of beard reminiscent of the young lions’ in her corporate scene in their attempts to create an image they never quite achieved with their smooth skin and unweathered lives. Underneath the ashy pallor of the man, there sat, nonetheless, someone who felt solid. His fingernails were dirty, his clothing worn and a bit dingy, his hair wild from too few cuts and too many mornings uncombed, but still he appeared unapologetic. No, that wasn't quite it. He appeared to feel comfortable with himself. She wondered how that could be? How did he get to that place from where he was?

She began to open her lunch bag to the cheese sandwich, baby carrots and apple she’d thrown together this morning when she decided to eat at the lake. Absorbed in unrolling the bag’s open edge, he startled her when he said, “Are you comfortable now?” The bag fell out of her lap. She made three quick grabs to reclaim it before it hit the ground but with no luck. She scooped it off the grass imagining how silly she must have looked. “Apparently not,” she replied.

He smiled deeply, the way people often react to the easy comfort honesty brings to any moment. By then she had the bag open, the wax paper off the sandwich and was offering half to him. He took it not like a man who was hungry but a man who was touched.

He bit into the sandwich and asked, “Did you run out of imagination this morning?”

This time she laughed, “It is pretty dull isn't. I decided at the last moment to eat here, and this, she held the remainder of her half sandwich up before her eyes, was the product of that lack of planning.”

“Are you sure it was a problem of planning?”

To finish this story, click here.

A Night of Confessions

by Christina Carson

Death, the word that usually clears the room, only it didn't clear the room this night…

“Heh, Buddy thanks for inviting us to your place tonight”.  Chip clapped Buddy on the shoulder as he and his wife Liz squeezed past him in the narrow entry way of Buddy’s apartment. “I've had it with the noise in that pub where we usually get together.”

“Can’t stand the noise, eh. You getting old, Chip?” Andy yelled from across the room.

“Well as a matter of fact, yes, and so are you.”

Andy chuckled. “Only in years, Chip. My inner me is as insane as ever.”

Chip rolled his eyes. Liz, ignoring them both, spotted Andy’s wife, Judy, in the kitchen. She was putting together some cheese plates with crackers as well as warming some finger food. They hugged like sisters. They were roommates their first year in university and unlike many of the girls forced into sharing a room with a stranger, Judy and Liz became fast friends.

That left only the other singles in the group to arrive, and for unknown reasons, they were always last. The group had suggested many theories as to why that was, most not at all flattering, but it hadn't daunted Susan or Zach and the next door bell was Susan standing in the hall, leaving Zach to arrive a good twenty minutes later.

 It was an unusual group, seven people who deemed one another important enough to nurture this friendship over thirty years. Now in their mid-50s, children raised, jobs less riveting, ex’s banished, and futures less programmed, a new phase of life was upon them, the end game, and though they had shared their problems of smart-mouthed kids, financial worries, job losses and marriage break-ups through the years, they were loath to explore this stage of life in any way other than jokes.

As each grabbed a LeBatts Blue and scattered themselves over the chairs, chesterfield and floor, it was Zach who would speak the words that always started their evenings together. There had been occasional attempts in the past to drop this tradition, labeling it corny or childish. But, now that they were getting older, the ritual had strangely become infused with new meaning. Wherever they chose to meet, the convener stood, which quieted this talkative crowd, an often caught the attention of nearby tables. Then he or she would speak these same words they started with so long ago. Zach, who’d been a Fine Arts/Drama major and had gone on to stage and screen, was the convener this evening and everyone liked his delivery best. Zach stood and said in piglet’s high squeaky voice:

“We'll be Friends Forever, won't we, Pooh?' asked Piglet.

Even longer,' Pooh answered.”

Pooh & Company was what they called themselves back in the day, and Pooh & Company they still were. Yet, little did they know the further poignancy the quote would acquire before this evening ended. 

With the gathering convened, small talk popped up in various groupings of the seven. They kept a serious line of chatter going until Chip said above the din, “Did you all hear about Richard?”

Richard had started with the group when they graduated from university. He brought his new wife Drew to it and stayed until his marriage broke apart. Everyone tried to get him back, but he plunged into his engineering career and began to travel internationally on oil and gas seismic crews. Chip had seen him a couple of times, but each time Richard was evasive and distant. Chip told the group he thought Richard was in trouble, maybe depressed, but it was impossible to follow up as he’d ship out and be gone again without warning.

“I ran into Toby who told me Richard had a heart attack last week and died on the spot in Kuala Lampur or some place in Malaysia.”

The group stopped talking, then intermittently murmured then sat quiet, then murmured again. They were at that time in their lives when death was a new frontier, one that was increasingly in their purview, and tonight, thanks to Richard, these friends crept a little closer to its edge.

“Is there anyone among us who believes they’re not afraid of death, their own that is? Just curious.” Susan, a professor of literature, asked the question and quieted the room better than an old schoolmarm wielding a ruler.

To finish the story, click here.

Two Ships Passing

A Vietnam Vet and a war protester meet in a telling moment…

by Christina Carson

He was handsome, mid-twenties perhaps, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and silent, not exactly silent but remote, wary almost as if he were watching you even when his back was turned. His chiseled jaw appeared more an after effect rather than that which he had from birth. Intensity radiated off of him like heat off a fire. She could feel it across the room, and it caught her attention, attracted her strangely. She turned to watch him discreetly. She was stretching, and he was adding weights to his bench press bar. It was unusual for a woman to be in the weight room at the gym in those days, but it had become a natural habitat for her, the wife of a competitive heavy-weight weightlifter. It was a slow time in the weight room, mid-afternoon. That’s when she usually came. She felt awkward, later in the day, when it was full of men. Now there were just the two of them, and yet the space felt turbulent like the moments preceding a storm.

She started her exercise routine, and he sat on the bench watching. He made no attempt to be coy or surreptitious. Neither was he rude nor boorish. It was as if he’d been stripped bare of any desire to engage with the tiresome games of polite interplay, like a man with no lies left in him.

“You’re new here,” she said without looking at him. It was mid-semester at the university and the weight room crowd didn't usually change at that time of year.

“That I am,” he replied without reducing the directness of his stare.

“You in graduate school?” There was more latitude for graduates and that would explain his presence now.

“I think so. I’m just not sure yet.”

“They let you in on that basis?”

“They don’t know what my basis is.”

“I see.”

“No you don’t.” The words came with certainty. He was a man setting some rules of engagement, and she noted it.

She picked up her dumb bells and started her next repetition. She wasn't sure how to respond. But after that set, her curiosity began to own her and she took a risk.

 “What don’t I see?”

He didn't answer.

She tried a different route. “What’s your degree program in?”

“Philosophy.”

“A study I find quite interesting,” she said.

“It’s not a study for me.” Again the response was uncommonly frank.

“A path then, a way to understand or make sense of something?”

“That would be right.”

She put her weights down and sat on one of the other benches.

“What would you say if I told you I just got back from Vietnam, and I went AWOL?”

“That’s why you’re here in Canada?”

“Yes. I need time to figure things out. They’ll be looking for me; my rank, my status, what I've seen. Then they’ll be coming for me.”

“I have no use for that war. My husband’s a dodger. That’s why we’re here.”

“Your husband? You don’t wear a ring, why is that?”

“We were forced to get married when we crossed into Canada. We haven’t reconciled to that yet.”

“So you’re free to come and go?”

She had never been put in that position before. She had allowed herself the sense of owning her own life, not being ruled by a husband’s hand. She felt independent, like her own person, had her own friends, male and female, but she could feel where he was going, toward something more real, more honest. It was a place she’d avoided.  She stared at the floor unable to answer.

He chuckled in a knowing sort of way.

 “Why did you go to war?” She wanted to change the topic.

“A family of war heroes. My father and grandfather graduated from West Point. A man’s got to find out who he is sometime. That was the way I chose.”

“Did you find out?”

“Sounds like a simple question to answer, doesn't it? Well it’s not. But I did find out what a load of crap war is. And I at least found out that there is a limit to how long I’ll lie to myself. And that month I had to wait for an honorable discharge was a month too long. My father said, ‘Couldn't you have waited one month more? What a mess you've made of your life now.’ I really think he thinks that if I had just been discharged honorably, I’d be fine now. Fine now… what a laugh....”

 To finish this story, click here.

Human Frailties

Another short story, this one about how disasters are rarely a result of what they seem to be.

by Christina Carson

Her hand reached through the blackness of the bedroom, hit the buzzer button after just one buzz and wearily slid back off the clock to hang limply over the edge of the bed. Lucy forced her eyes open to see the only thing visible in the room, the clock face indicating 3:00 AM. She dragged her weary body out from under the covers and was reminded of the temperature they suffered every winter in this wreck of an old house as she pulled the jeans on she’d left lying on the floor when she went to bed only hours earlier. They dragged the cold up her legs and over her butt as she gritted her teeth and shivered. She stuffed her long underwear shirt down in them to get something warm against her stomach again. Her wool socks were already on her feet which was a blessing, and she loaded a cotton turtleneck and then heavy wool sweater on top of it all. Her mate slept through her dressing, since his shifts were midnight and 6:00 AM. She always did the 3:00 AM shift, just that one, but the one the ewes were most fond of employing when it came time to birth their lambs.

The kitchen was a smidgen lighter, as the yard light entered the uncurtained windows but was checked by the coating of ice that encased them from the outside. Lucy next pulled on her quilted coveralls, laced up her snow boots, put a wool toque on her head and finally pulled on her parka. Her last act of dressing was sliding her hands into two sets of mittens – wool inners, leather outers. She took a breath, opened the porch door, and stepped into the porch the way astronauts step into their airlocks, only air was not her problem, cold was.

Sometimes at that hour of the morning she would be treated to the aurora, a waving curtain of brilliant colors in the deep darkness of a subarctic night. This night, however, was just dark and cold. She walked up the driveway, the dry snow squeaking loudly with each step. She went up around the log barn full of month-old lambs as yet unweaned and down a path worn in the grass and dirt from years of taking this same course. 

As she entered the lambing barn, her hand crept up the wall to the light switch overhead. It was utter pitch in that barn, and she didn't take one more step until the light was on. You never knew where a ewe would pick to lamb. As the room brightened, the ewes in their lambing pens, which were against the walls and ringed the room in orderly succession, blinked and squinted until they too adjusted to the light.

Lucy stood scanning the center section where they ewes awaiting birthing had free run in the thick, clean straw. She always left the radio on CBC, the only station available to them other than the local one which had been off for hours, as she felt the voices and music kept the ewes company. Their sheep were used to human contact and appeared to find it a calming and protective influence in their lives, so she thought the radio was good for them. 

As she looked to see if any ewe had lambed or was in the process, she heard the DJ, as part of his late night chatter, talking about the upcoming Challenger shuttle flight later in the morning. He was recounting the number of setbacks this particular launch had experienced so far. She paid it little mind as she heard a ewe in the far corner talking to her as yet unborn lamb, maa-ing out her foreknowledge as to what was about to happen. What it meant to Lucy was she wouldn't be getting back to bed for a while.

She checked to make sure the new born lambs and their mums  in the pens around the wall were fine. She picked up the occasional newborn to snuggle  against her cheek, smelling its fresh soapy scent, and tickled by its tiny lips that keep searching every inch of her face for something that might yield milk. She laughed softly at their determination dear and gentle as it was.

The ewe was now pawing the straw, bunching up a nest that she would soon lie in. Lucy slide down the wall into the soft straw herself and waited.

Once again the music stopped as the DJ offered some further difficulties with the shuttle. He was talking about how cold it was in Florida that morning.

She snorted. “Cold, she said, “What could they possible understand about cold?” She was accustomed to talking out loud as hers was a quiet world with few human interactions across the course of any day. Sometimes she’d treat the sheep as listeners and tell them about what was troubling her, or the jobs she had to get finished that day or ask them about their day, with her filling in possible answers. She loved sheep, their benign, joyful natures, and enjoyed their company. A ewe not ready to lamb, wandered around the room looking for tidbits of scattered alfalfa leaves, and then approached Lucy, moving up close enough to touch nose to nose. Lucy scratched her ears until the ewe decided to trundle on.

The DJ, obviously wanting someone to share this compelling interest he had in space flight, broke through the music again like an earnest newsman. His likely only audience at that hour was possibly six or so truckers on the lonely northern McKenzie Highway and a few shepherds perhaps. He alerted them to recent developments where the Thiokol engineers had informed the shuttle powers-to-be there could be potential problems with the O-rings that sealed the joints of the shuttle’s rocket boosters. They were vulnerable to failure at low temperatures.

Lucy listened a little more carefully for she knew about cold, its insidious nature and its power to ground human beings utterly. The station had picked up a broadcast coming from California. It offered snatches of conversation from various constituencies responsible for this amazing flight machine. She listened not just to their words, but was struck more by what they weren't saying. She lived in a world of frankness, after all the local farmers were in the same business, knew the same problems and didn't miss anything that happened in the community. To people whose fate rests in the hands of seeing things for what they are, she thought her neighbors could do a lot better job getting to the truth than these engineers, managers and NASA.

The ewe had lain down in her bed and was now breaking water. Lucy left the radio program to attend to her. Already two pointed hooves were pushing out. Aah, she thought, looks straightforward. Maybe I’ll get back to bed. But when the lamb didn't make any progress after ten minutes, Lucy washed up, and proceeded to enter the ewe and see what was wrong. 

To finish this story, click here.

In the Time of Love

A short story about life’s most complex arrangement – loving another human being.

by Christina Carson

It was the dog days of summer, the heat and humidity of July causing even the most motivated to sink into lethargy, sulky and brooding. Jill was a fine example. She lay stretched out on the sofa of her grandmother’s back porch shaded by two huge old maple trees. She was trying to finish one of the ten books she needed to read before her junior year in Literature began in September, but she was distracted. The heat had stuck her T-shirt to her like a second skin and her naturally curly hair now looked like Orphan Annie’s, but today she hardly noticed. She doodled on her legal pad where she had been taking notes on Ulysses. She drew a big “M” thickening the lines with each pass and thinning out to curlicues on the ends. She spoke her thoughts to the steamy air, “What has happened with him?” The him referred to her boyfriend of two years. Matt and she had seemed such a great fit she thought. They had the same sense of humor, the same dreams and seemed so compatible. Then he got a grant to work on a science project this summer and rather than encourage her to stay and seek work in the adjacent town, he suggested they take the summer off.

“Off from what,” she asked confused.

“You know.”

“No I don’t know.” She could feel her stomach knotting up.

“Sometimes it’s good for two people to have a break from each other.”

“Explain to me why? I’m not seeking a break from you. So that seems to leave you who need a break, I guess, from me. What’s going on?”

“I’m just feeling corralled.”

“I thought we were enjoying each other, that we both liked being together. How did I get that wrong?”

“I just need some space that’s all…” each word accented by his frustration. His face twisted in annoyance as he shoved himself away from the table with a force that pushed the table toward her. Somewhere between apologizing or being miffed, he chose to walk out with no reply. 

That night, Jill packed up her belongings, loaded them in her friend, Judy’s car and left school for the summer holiday. She asked Judy to drop her off in another small college town where her grandmother lived. Jill, a child of divorce, found living with her grandmother the best of her options. So late that same evening, she unloaded her belongings into her attic bedroom at her Granny Bette's and prepared to live there for the summer, alone.

***

Jill got up from the sofa, picked up James Joyce’s heavy tome and walked back into the house to find Granny Bette in the kitchen. She stood in the doorway staring at Bette. She hadn't noticed before just how young-looking this 62 year-old semi-retired English Lit professor was, but she had noticed how enigmatic. Usually old people walked about embarrassingly unmasked for Jill, like they didn't care anymore what you noticed about them.  But Bette, she displayed an air of dignity that made Jill comfortable in her presence.

Bette turned from the stove where she was making curry and stared back at Jill. “Is it Ulysses that’s proving in tolerable or just life in general?" 

Jill smiled, the kindness in Bette’s eyes softening her frustration.

“Life is beginning to make Ulysses look like child’s play.”

“Ooh. Sounds like heart disease to me.”

Jill chuckled this time, then asked, “Granny Bette, what do you know about men?”

“The worst and the best, my darling child, yes, the worst and the best.” Her gaze drifted off for a second as if she was recalling it all.

Jill didn't know where to start with that reply so she stuck to her present problem. “Matt says he needs space. I don’t understand that statement. Why would someone need space?”

Without a pause, Bette starting reeling off the reasons. “Possibility one, the most obvious, he’s flirting with another relationship. Possibility two, he’s getting nervous about the seriousness of his relationship with you. Responsibility scares him. Possibility three, he’s a cad and a liar. Let’s hope that isn't the case. Possibility four, he’s a dolt who truly can’t separate uncut gems from beach pebbles.”

“How many possibilities are there, for god sakes?”

“You don’t really want an answer to the question, do you?”

“What scares me most is that I never saw any of this coming. Am I that obtuse that I actually thought we were in love with each other, only one of us wasn't? What are the rules here? What about fair play?”

Bette considered her, studying the face of this sensitive, dark-eyed young woman. She reminded Bette of herself at that age, a believer in goodness rewarded, but she knew Jill’s understanding of men and women in love, however, was a fool’s tale at best.

“Dear girl, there is no greater treachery than the affairs of love. Anytime humans are attempting to complete the cosmic equation of one plus one equals one, stresses and strains abide. It’s then that each participant’s true character is revealed, often as surprising to oneself as to the other. Which way do they lean under pressure – toward kindness and tolerance, inflexibility and control, blame and judgment or do they just jump ship?  It’s the ultimate gamble.”

“Is it worth it? I mean what’s the point if it’s so difficult and the odds seem against you from the start? You’re single and your life looks full and satisfying.”

 “Does it?”

Jill stopped dead when Bette said that. She suddenly realized she didn't know the first thing about Granny Bette’s life other than the obvious.

To finish this story, click here

A Most Extraordinary Story

by Christina Carson

There are some books that present stories that would be impossible to imagine were they not true. And There Was Light is one of those. This is an autobiography of the first 21 years of Jacques Lusseyran, and though it might seem strange to write an autobiography of such a short and usually less than eventful period of one’s life, Jacques Lusseyran’s first 21 years were extraordinary.

Blinded by an accident at 8 years of age, this good-natured young boy never missed a step because of it. In fact, because he could no longer look out toward the world, he became aware of an inner life that is within us all, only he became involved with it and learned from it such that he developed an inner vision and awareness that grew over the years to serve him in all manner of capacities. He offers some of the most vivid descriptions of what he encountered and how he learned to function more fully as a result of it that I have ever read.

Where the book begins to take on epic proportions is when 17 year-old Lusseyran organizes a resistance group in his home country of France, which by then had been taken over by Germany in WW II. He manages to survive prison and 15 months in Buchenwald concentration camp and his descriptions of how he managed that are unlike anything you might have encountered from other survivors of such living hell.

This is not only a story about an unusual man but also one describing the equally amazing consciousness within us all, and what is possible were we to develop it as Lusseyran did. There was no mind numbing sadness in this man, no sense of victim or despair. His played to joy, deep friendship and an abiding optimism, in a life most could not have endured even as a sighted person.

This blind man has something to teach us all about seeing.

Available on Kindle and in Paperback at Amazon