The elephant has to go. I place Tiny in the wagon next to the cow bank. Balancing the sailboat on the top of all my other treasures, I drag my radio flyer out of the pink garage. Can you believe it—our house is pink. I don’t know what my mother was thinking when she painted it that way. Dad said it was because the color was special to her. I don’t think she knows how silly I feel living in a pink house.
I line up my toys along the driveway in the grass, their price tags showing. Mom helped me decide on the prices. I might have enough for my Playstation after today. All I need is ten more dollars.
Waiting for the first customers, I touch Tiny’s chipped ear. I remember when Dad brought him home from his trip to India. It doesn’t look much different than the ones you can buy in a toy store. But because Dad dragged him all the way back across the ocean makes him that much more special. I pick him up and hold him so I can see the details painted along his back, and flipping him over, I see where Dad carved my initials. I can’t sell this one, he’s too special. So I tuck him in a hiding place in the garage so he won’t be sold.
Back at my place on the lawn, I notice the stuffed bear. Grandma gave it to me for Christmas when I was a baby. We used to live with her then because Daddy was going to school. I press my face into the matted fur and pretend I can smell her favorite perfume. Grandma sprayed it on its fur when we moved far away so I could remember her when I missed her. The smell is long gone, but I imagine lavender and mint. No, I can’t sell this one either. I put him with the elephant.
I wait for customers. A nice lady with a little girl picks up the Mickey Mouse hat. My insides feel funny. Not my hat, I think. I bought that with my own money when we went to Disneyland three years ago. That’s the year that Grandpa died. He used to make a squeaky mouse sound and tease me about my bug-eye glasses. He said they matched the ears on my hat. I snatch it. “I don’t know how that got in there.” I race it into the garage and hide it under the teddy bear.
The bully from the street wanders onto the driveway. His bike is parked next to the light pole. “Gotany dollies?” He picks up the green car and makes varoom varoom noises and bumps it along the cement, before crashing it into the wheel of the wagon.
“That’s not for sale!” I yank it from him, surprised that I had the guts to do so.
Mom looks up from her book. “Arnold, I think you best go on home now.”
Arnold kicks at the wagon, the ray gun topples out, but I’m fast and snatch it up. I race it and the car into the garage and hide them with my other treasures.
My wagon is almost empty now. Just an old pair of goggles from when I learned how to swim at summer camp and the birdhouse I built in cub scouts. I can’t sell those either. I spent too long painting the triangular piece of wood to house a nest. I’ll hang it in the back yard and put some seed in it. No sense in wasting a masterpiece.
Last is my sailboat. Just before we moved a year ago, Mom and I sailed it one more time on the lake behind our house. I just can’t get rid of this. I look over at Mom. She pulls her hat down over her bald head. I look back at the sailboat. It’s the last time we’ll ever get to do something like that again.
Dad brings out glasses of lemonade and hands a couple of pills to Mom. “How’s the sale coming?” He asks.
“Great.” She says. “Maybe we’ll have enough to pay for that trip back to Seattle after all.”
That’s where she is from, where Grandma still lives. Mom wants to go see her old home one more time before… My eyes mist up and I drag the back of my hand over my nose. I’m supposed to be too young to understand what’s happening. But I do.
I look at my empty wagon and then into the shadowed garage where my treasures are hidden, and then I steal a glance at Mom. Her eyes are tired from the treatments. I know what I have to do.
At the end of the day, I empty my cow bank. I look into Mom’s eyes and hand her not only my Playstation money, but my treasure sales. “Now you can go to Seattle.”
I am a writer. As long as I can remember, I've loved the way words sound, look, feel. Words have power to build, power to destroy. With words I create my own realities. When you read my words, we take that journey together. Thanks for being my traveling companion. ~Betsy Love LDS Author
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Writer's Ramblings
Why am I still up at 1:27AM. A very long Sunday nap, that's why. I'm so glad that tomorrow is Monday. What? Are you nuts? You may ask. My secret is that it's fall break and I can sleep in...well for a little bit anyway.
How long has it been since I blogged? I check the date of the last one....Are you kidding? That long? What happened to my resolve to blog? So much for my 12 step program. I still love Facebook. I guess that's an addiction I'm not willing to give up yet. But what am I doing with my writing? At the moment, quite a bit. I'm editing Identity for the hundredth time. I hear Leatherwood is looking for mystery/romances. I think I'll send it to Valor first. Tristi Pinkston read it and made some great suggestions on how to make it better. I've taken a good look at my main character and decided she really wasn't as nasty as she should be. So I made her selfish and self absorbed. I really love to hate her. But that's what we like about a character, right...watch her grow and change.
In the meantime, I'm also working on my fantasy. It's finally finished and ready for revisions. As soon as I get my other novel done, I'll work on this one. That's two of my books under construction. I have two more begging for attention as well. What is it about writing that is so gratifying? For me at least, it's a way of living vicariously through someone else. It's also a way to get to name "children" without having to raise them in the same way you raise the ones you give birth to. The ones we mentally give birth to are so much easier to train...or are they. Sometimes those kiddos take on their own personalities and opinions, just like your own children. At least with a character, if they get to out of hand, you can shelve them until you're ready to whip them into shape.
How long has it been since I blogged? I check the date of the last one....Are you kidding? That long? What happened to my resolve to blog? So much for my 12 step program. I still love Facebook. I guess that's an addiction I'm not willing to give up yet. But what am I doing with my writing? At the moment, quite a bit. I'm editing Identity for the hundredth time. I hear Leatherwood is looking for mystery/romances. I think I'll send it to Valor first. Tristi Pinkston read it and made some great suggestions on how to make it better. I've taken a good look at my main character and decided she really wasn't as nasty as she should be. So I made her selfish and self absorbed. I really love to hate her. But that's what we like about a character, right...watch her grow and change.
In the meantime, I'm also working on my fantasy. It's finally finished and ready for revisions. As soon as I get my other novel done, I'll work on this one. That's two of my books under construction. I have two more begging for attention as well. What is it about writing that is so gratifying? For me at least, it's a way of living vicariously through someone else. It's also a way to get to name "children" without having to raise them in the same way you raise the ones you give birth to. The ones we mentally give birth to are so much easier to train...or are they. Sometimes those kiddos take on their own personalities and opinions, just like your own children. At least with a character, if they get to out of hand, you can shelve them until you're ready to whip them into shape.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Writer's Block--or 12 step Facebook program
There are some times when you know you just have nothing to write about. Like a dry well, the bucket keeps bringing up dust. What do you do in a moment like that? Do you get wrapped up in Facebook? Find yourself lost in Twitter? Or abandoning those two pastimes for something really mundane like Shockwave.com, playing hours of endless, mindless, unproductive games? Yup, that’s me lately. I’ve become the shell of a writer that I used to be. So what do I do now? What about the numerous novels I’ve started? Or how about the ones that are finished, in need of some severe rewriting?
It’s serious time to kick myself in the proverbial britches and write. Did you hear that? I said, “I’m going to write.” I will not play Farmville. I will resist the urge to see how many pointless words I can create on Text Twist. From today, I commit to writing 250 words per day on any work in progress. And should I stray from this less than lofty goal, I will spend that time editing. Either way…Good bye computer…at least in the sense of unproductivity.
I heard once that if you want the muse to inspire you, she better find you hard at work.
It’s now 8:12PM. I figure for the next hour my fingers shall be flying across the keyboard in gross absorption of the literary kind, and maybe, just maybe my muse will tickle my brain.
It’s serious time to kick myself in the proverbial britches and write. Did you hear that? I said, “I’m going to write.” I will not play Farmville. I will resist the urge to see how many pointless words I can create on Text Twist. From today, I commit to writing 250 words per day on any work in progress. And should I stray from this less than lofty goal, I will spend that time editing. Either way…Good bye computer…at least in the sense of unproductivity.
I heard once that if you want the muse to inspire you, she better find you hard at work.
It’s now 8:12PM. I figure for the next hour my fingers shall be flying across the keyboard in gross absorption of the literary kind, and maybe, just maybe my muse will tickle my brain.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
The Case Against My Mommy
Some of my earliest childhood memories include Mommy tortures. What mother sends her child into the yard to be eaten alive by ants, or forced to choke to death on lima beans, or provides electrocution items to play with, or ties her child to a tree? Let me explain...
The house we lived in, to the best of my recollection, had a gigantic oak tree in the front yard. The yard was mostly dirt with only small patches of grass. Mommy would give me a half of a Popsicle (the kind with two sticks) and make me eat it outside. On this particular day, I sat in the dirt eating my treat and having finished it, decided that the remaining wood made a great digging tool. I proceeded to unearth whatever might lie beneath the soil. Surely someone had left some treasure for me to discover. Now for whatever reason, those toddler eating critters could smell my flesh, now dripping with melted sugar water. They made their way into my coveralls and panties and began munching away on my legs and bum and tummy. Screaming, I pranced into the house doing the ant-bite dance.
Even though I managed to survive that ordeal, I did not lose my hunger for Popsicles. My mommy knew how much I loved them but utterly detested lima beans. Nothing would make me suffer through the torture of eating those dry, nasty, green, deplorable, marble-sized, disgusting things that someone, somewhere had the outrage to call "vegetables." I know vegetables well, and love everyone of them (ok, not okra or brussel srpouts, but that's a story for another day). Picture this, a beautiful spring day, the weather is perfect outside, and it's my lunch time. What better way to ruin a perfect morning than to place these..."things" in front of me, and then tell me that in order to get my Popsicle, I must eat each and everyone of those "things". I stared at them long and hard. They stared back. I choked down every last one of those...(say it with me)..."Things". And before I had the last one chewed, those THINGS came racing back out of my stomach and gagged me with such force they spewed all over my plate.
THOSE NASTY,
MASHED,
MASTICATED....
TTTTHHHHIIINNNNGGGGSSSSS!
Mommy, in her desire to torture me, takes one look at those...THINGS and says. "Oh, Sweetheart, your tummy must be upset. I can't give you a Popsicle if you're not feeling well." Where is the justice, I ask you?
The next tragic event happened while I should have been napping. I hated naps...but not as much as lima beans. Every day after lunch Mommy put me on her bed to sleep, most days I have no recollection of falling asleep. But...on that fateful day I got electrocuted. From my vantage point I saw the most interesting slots in the wall about nine inches from the floor. They were just the right size for a bobby pin to fit into, and as destiny would have it, several of those probes sat on the night stand within easy reach. To test my theory that they would fit, I grabbed one, slid off the bed and poked that tormentor into the outlet. The demon inside grabbed my chubby fist, shook it, blackened it and the wall around socket before throwing me across the room (okay it wasn't all the way across the room, perhaps it didn't throw me at all...but hey, it's my story and that's how I chose to remember it.) Where was I? Oh, yes in the death grip of the monster in the wall. The beast then belched out flames and had the audacity to laugh at me. If Mommy saw me out of bed, I knew she would have probably inflicted more pain on my backside. The ants and lima beans had been enough torture, not to mention getting electrocuted. Nursing my burned hand I crawled back onto the bed and cried myself to sleep.
The next torture inflicted on me at Mommy's hands was ultimately the cat's fault.But I still blame Mommy. Our house, remember the big oak tree in the front, was situated close to the highway, which ran through the center of our tiny town. (Cows...a bazillion, population...my family, including cousins, distant cousins, and a few even more distant cousins. Mommy was new to town, therefore new to the gene pool, hence I escaped the inbreeding. Again a story for another time.) Where was I again? Oh, yes...the oak tree and the cat. Our gray tabby had a severe case of wander-lust. No one could explain why it never stayed around? Perhaps because of its long pull tail, ears and whiskers. If the cat and I were in the same vicinity, I made it my mission to stalk it. I'd seen it do that plenty of times with innocent field mice. Mommy's punishment for following the cat was to tie me to the oak tree. Here I have to admit my memory is very fuzzy. I actually don't recall being tied to the tree, but I've heard Mommy tell the story enough times to get a vivid picture of exactly the kind of torture she inflicted on me. I imagined myself trussed up to the tree with my back against the trunk, screaming "Daddy, save me, save me." I'm surprised the ants didn't hear me and seize that opportunity to have me for breakfast. Alas, I was only set free to come inside to choke on lima beans and be electrocuted.
It wasn't until years later that I confronted my source of pain that I realized that the things my mother was doing were "for my good." The ants in my pants...purely an accident, and I don't remember Mommy covering me in calamine lotion. The lima beans...again another accident. She really did think I was sick. The electrocution...another accident. How was she supposed to know that a curious toddler would poke those bobby pins into an outlet. She discovered the blackened socket, my burned fingers and doctored me up with as much love as a mother would. And the trussing I received? She tied one end of the rope to the tree, the other end to my waist much like a leash. This was the only way she could get anything done without me under foot. The cat? Killed crossing the highway.
I guess my mommy loved me. She's been gone now for seven years. I miss hearing her tell me of how she rocked me as a baby, how she loved dressing me up and taking me places because I was such a pretty baby. (I have the picture to prove otherwise). That has to be love. I know my mommy loves me. Now when my children come to me and say..."Do you remember the time you hit me in the head with the brick? Or the time you left me at a gas station in California? Or the time you pushed me out the kitchen window? Or the time you...?" I smile...because it really was an accident. And if that child only knew how much I love him, he certainly wouldn't keep bringing it up.
So why am I bringing it up now? Because, Mom, I love you. It must have been hard to be 18 and so very far from your own mother. and then raise me in a town that didn't love you back. You were a great mom, and hope I've been just like you!
The house we lived in, to the best of my recollection, had a gigantic oak tree in the front yard. The yard was mostly dirt with only small patches of grass. Mommy would give me a half of a Popsicle (the kind with two sticks) and make me eat it outside. On this particular day, I sat in the dirt eating my treat and having finished it, decided that the remaining wood made a great digging tool. I proceeded to unearth whatever might lie beneath the soil. Surely someone had left some treasure for me to discover. Now for whatever reason, those toddler eating critters could smell my flesh, now dripping with melted sugar water. They made their way into my coveralls and panties and began munching away on my legs and bum and tummy. Screaming, I pranced into the house doing the ant-bite dance.
Even though I managed to survive that ordeal, I did not lose my hunger for Popsicles. My mommy knew how much I loved them but utterly detested lima beans. Nothing would make me suffer through the torture of eating those dry, nasty, green, deplorable, marble-sized, disgusting things that someone, somewhere had the outrage to call "vegetables." I know vegetables well, and love everyone of them (ok, not okra or brussel srpouts, but that's a story for another day). Picture this, a beautiful spring day, the weather is perfect outside, and it's my lunch time. What better way to ruin a perfect morning than to place these..."things" in front of me, and then tell me that in order to get my Popsicle, I must eat each and everyone of those "things". I stared at them long and hard. They stared back. I choked down every last one of those...(say it with me)..."Things". And before I had the last one chewed, those THINGS came racing back out of my stomach and gagged me with such force they spewed all over my plate.
THOSE NASTY,
MASHED,
MASTICATED....
TTTTHHHHIIINNNNGGGGSSSSS!
Mommy, in her desire to torture me, takes one look at those...THINGS and says. "Oh, Sweetheart, your tummy must be upset. I can't give you a Popsicle if you're not feeling well." Where is the justice, I ask you?
The next tragic event happened while I should have been napping. I hated naps...but not as much as lima beans. Every day after lunch Mommy put me on her bed to sleep, most days I have no recollection of falling asleep. But...on that fateful day I got electrocuted. From my vantage point I saw the most interesting slots in the wall about nine inches from the floor. They were just the right size for a bobby pin to fit into, and as destiny would have it, several of those probes sat on the night stand within easy reach. To test my theory that they would fit, I grabbed one, slid off the bed and poked that tormentor into the outlet. The demon inside grabbed my chubby fist, shook it, blackened it and the wall around socket before throwing me across the room (okay it wasn't all the way across the room, perhaps it didn't throw me at all...but hey, it's my story and that's how I chose to remember it.) Where was I? Oh, yes in the death grip of the monster in the wall. The beast then belched out flames and had the audacity to laugh at me. If Mommy saw me out of bed, I knew she would have probably inflicted more pain on my backside. The ants and lima beans had been enough torture, not to mention getting electrocuted. Nursing my burned hand I crawled back onto the bed and cried myself to sleep.
The next torture inflicted on me at Mommy's hands was ultimately the cat's fault.But I still blame Mommy. Our house, remember the big oak tree in the front, was situated close to the highway, which ran through the center of our tiny town. (Cows...a bazillion, population...my family, including cousins, distant cousins, and a few even more distant cousins. Mommy was new to town, therefore new to the gene pool, hence I escaped the inbreeding. Again a story for another time.) Where was I again? Oh, yes...the oak tree and the cat. Our gray tabby had a severe case of wander-lust. No one could explain why it never stayed around? Perhaps because of its long pull tail, ears and whiskers. If the cat and I were in the same vicinity, I made it my mission to stalk it. I'd seen it do that plenty of times with innocent field mice. Mommy's punishment for following the cat was to tie me to the oak tree. Here I have to admit my memory is very fuzzy. I actually don't recall being tied to the tree, but I've heard Mommy tell the story enough times to get a vivid picture of exactly the kind of torture she inflicted on me. I imagined myself trussed up to the tree with my back against the trunk, screaming "Daddy, save me, save me." I'm surprised the ants didn't hear me and seize that opportunity to have me for breakfast. Alas, I was only set free to come inside to choke on lima beans and be electrocuted.
It wasn't until years later that I confronted my source of pain that I realized that the things my mother was doing were "for my good." The ants in my pants...purely an accident, and I don't remember Mommy covering me in calamine lotion. The lima beans...again another accident. She really did think I was sick. The electrocution...another accident. How was she supposed to know that a curious toddler would poke those bobby pins into an outlet. She discovered the blackened socket, my burned fingers and doctored me up with as much love as a mother would. And the trussing I received? She tied one end of the rope to the tree, the other end to my waist much like a leash. This was the only way she could get anything done without me under foot. The cat? Killed crossing the highway.
I guess my mommy loved me. She's been gone now for seven years. I miss hearing her tell me of how she rocked me as a baby, how she loved dressing me up and taking me places because I was such a pretty baby. (I have the picture to prove otherwise). That has to be love. I know my mommy loves me. Now when my children come to me and say..."Do you remember the time you hit me in the head with the brick? Or the time you left me at a gas station in California? Or the time you pushed me out the kitchen window? Or the time you...?" I smile...because it really was an accident. And if that child only knew how much I love him, he certainly wouldn't keep bringing it up.
So why am I bringing it up now? Because, Mom, I love you. It must have been hard to be 18 and so very far from your own mother. and then raise me in a town that didn't love you back. You were a great mom, and hope I've been just like you!
Monday, July 20, 2009
Remembering Heaven--Almost
Life is good--I am happy. The weather stinks, but then what can I expect? It is Arizona, the desert, in the middle of the hottest part of the year. We had a nice little "achoo" from heaven tonight. It made the earth smell incredible. What is it about rain that makes us think of heaven? Did it really smell like that there? They say that smell is the strongest of the senses for bringing back memories. Is it possible that Heavenly Father wanted us to remember in some way a part of who we are?
Every once in a while, do you ever get the feeling that you can almost remember something, like it's on the edge of your brain, just getting ready to peek around a corner and say, "Boo! Remember this?" But the more you try to get a closer look the farther away the corner becomes. Or have you ever felt like someone was looking over your shoulder and you turn to see who it is, and no one is there? Oh, good, I thought perhaps I was going crazy. I'm glad you've felt something like that.
Do you ever miss heaven? Is it possible to miss some place you can't remember at all? Do you ever get those yearnings to return home, but know that you have to stay here for the duration. Do you ever wonder how long your duration is? Some days I wish it was short, that is until I look into the faces of my grandchildren.
Oh, speaking of children--do you think a baby's skin smells like heaven? I think Heavenly Father must have given them that delectable aroma so that we won't completely forget heaven. Do you think your spirit remembers perfectly what heaven is like and tries to remind you from time to time?
According to my friend Theresa, who is the heaven/earth time specialist, I've only been here about an hour and 10 minutes. That shouldn't be long enough to forget heaven, right? Then why can't I seem to grasp it? Oh, well...
Also according to Theresa, I should be going back in about another hour or so. I guess I should start packing. Let's see, what will I need. Hmmm...nope can't take that favorite painting, or my toothbrush. What will I take? How about my love for my husband...yes I think that will fit in my suitcase. This will squeeze in right next to it, love of children, grandchildren, parents, siblings, aunts uncles, grandparents...wow, I didn't realize I had so many family members. I hope they'll all fit. Oh, and then there's all those amazing friends I've made along the way. Do you think they'll fit too? What about my love of God? Country? Learning?
Something amazing is happening to my suitcase. The more love I put in it, the bigger it's getting. I'm so excited to get back and show my Savior all my souvenirs of love. I think He'll like them. I hope so. In the meantime I think I'll see just how much love I can fit in there.
Every once in a while, do you ever get the feeling that you can almost remember something, like it's on the edge of your brain, just getting ready to peek around a corner and say, "Boo! Remember this?" But the more you try to get a closer look the farther away the corner becomes. Or have you ever felt like someone was looking over your shoulder and you turn to see who it is, and no one is there? Oh, good, I thought perhaps I was going crazy. I'm glad you've felt something like that.
Do you ever miss heaven? Is it possible to miss some place you can't remember at all? Do you ever get those yearnings to return home, but know that you have to stay here for the duration. Do you ever wonder how long your duration is? Some days I wish it was short, that is until I look into the faces of my grandchildren.
Oh, speaking of children--do you think a baby's skin smells like heaven? I think Heavenly Father must have given them that delectable aroma so that we won't completely forget heaven. Do you think your spirit remembers perfectly what heaven is like and tries to remind you from time to time?
According to my friend Theresa, who is the heaven/earth time specialist, I've only been here about an hour and 10 minutes. That shouldn't be long enough to forget heaven, right? Then why can't I seem to grasp it? Oh, well...
Also according to Theresa, I should be going back in about another hour or so. I guess I should start packing. Let's see, what will I need. Hmmm...nope can't take that favorite painting, or my toothbrush. What will I take? How about my love for my husband...yes I think that will fit in my suitcase. This will squeeze in right next to it, love of children, grandchildren, parents, siblings, aunts uncles, grandparents...wow, I didn't realize I had so many family members. I hope they'll all fit. Oh, and then there's all those amazing friends I've made along the way. Do you think they'll fit too? What about my love of God? Country? Learning?
Something amazing is happening to my suitcase. The more love I put in it, the bigger it's getting. I'm so excited to get back and show my Savior all my souvenirs of love. I think He'll like them. I hope so. In the meantime I think I'll see just how much love I can fit in there.
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