2013: The Best of My Worst, The Worst of My Best

I'm in my pajamas on New Year's Eve.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.  Say what you will, but pajamas make nearly almost everything better.  Even Wal-Mart.  Pretend you don't agree--I won't believe you.  

My stomach is protesting for the fourth day in a row.  I'm afraid to eat the salad with Italian dressing I'm craving knowing salad is never awesome the second time around, knowing I hold no interest in becoming a human Salad Shooter.

A pain throbs between my eye sockets and the base of my skull.  I've seen movies like this, where a person's head splits in two, revealing the sparking, beeping innards of the robot menace within.  I'm hoping there's a robot menace within, at least, because I have a busy weekend ahead and the human menace (me) doesn't want to deal with the holiday clean-up that this dumb virus has delayed.

It's probably dehydration.  Darn.

Two Advil and a lot of water later and the headache's not getting better, so I pull on my sleep mask while Mr. Ohboy watches Moonshiners.  Seriously, Moonshiners.  I can't get behind this show, even with a main character, a full-grown adult named Tickle.  No.  With the twangy lullaby of sweaty gentlemen wearing overalls and no t-shirts, I'm asleep by 8:30p.m.

An hour later and the unofficial neighborhood fireworks wake me up.  I proceed to text my friend Allison, who always seems to get the "Seriously?  Fireworks?" texts from me and I don't know why, other than to also stress her out because now she owns a horse who may or may not appreciate said fireworks.  We quickly established that my age bracket is sliding closer to that of a Medicare recipient than its rightful place of 35.  (The fireworks and random machine gun firing awoke me again just after midnight.  Happy New Year!  Huzzah!)

On New Year's Eve I like to write a blog post reflecting on the past year.  It's not happening tonight. The pressure of my pillows against my head and my back make me feel nauseated and sore.  I'm in a bad mood.  I'm uncomfortable from the tippy-top of my head to the ends of my toes.  I feel sorry for myself, which makes me cry.  Sad me is sad.

My guitar hangs from a peg on my bedroom wall.  I'm mediocre at so many things, but I especially struggle with the guitar.  While my youngest was still in the womb, I took lessons with a little old Irish guy at a local music shop that has since gone out of business.  In the hands of my teacher, my guitar sang like a heartbroken lover or a carefree dancer.  In my stuttering hands, my guitar hesitates and falters.  Practice makes things perfect, usually, but I haven't been able to bring myself to practice in a couple of years.  Last night, so lost for something to do, I pulled the guitar down and tuned it.  I thumbed through a few easy melodies, single notes, no chords.  As I pick away at a phrase, my baby boy, now four years old, walks in and watched me.

"What are you doing?"  He asked, sucking in his lower lip beneath his front teeth.

"Do you remember when I used to play guitar when you were in my tummy?"

"Yes."  He says.  I don't know if he really remembers, but I want to believe it's true.  That even my imperfection means something to him.  Even the best of my worst (or the worst of my best) tickles his memory of a time before.

I've managed a lot of good things in 2013.  I've written two novels and a short story, all of which I hope to edit and do something with in 2014.  I've randomly become a runner and completed my first race, a 10K (6.2 miles) in December.  All good things, but I feel guilty.  In pursuit of any of my goals I've been more withdrawn from friends and family and lately I've been feeling like I'm the reason why certain of my kids struggle in school or my house isn't very clean.  

At the moment, all that I accomplished in 2013 matters little to anyone else, even my family.  My kids don't care that I can run a mile in 11 minutes or that I'd like to try to run the equivalent of a half marathon in one outing before 2014 is through.  They don't care what happens to Claire or Liam, or if Lucy figures out why she's in Mitte.  They don't care if my horse gets ridden every couple of days or if there's manure in the pastures.  Maybe they will care someday, but right now I don't see it.

2013 was kind to me, but I want 2014 to be kind to my entire family.  For the blessings that surround me to surround them, as well.  I want the best of my worst and the worst of my best to mean more to everyone I love.  That's what I want for 2014, not just riding and publishing and miles.  

To mean.  To matter.  To make a difference.

Third Time's a Charm

On July 22, 2011 I met Claire Darling for the very first time.  At the time, Claire was an 18-year-old high school student by morning, horse trainer by every spare hour after that.  She quickly became a friend of mine because she's sarcastic and self-deprecating, a good soul.  Two-and-a-half years and three books later, she and I are pretty tight.  I've fought for her to fall in love and I cried with her (over and over) when her heart was shattered into pieces.  She's struggled and she's endured.  She's no Super Woman, but that's why she's real.  Well, real is a relative term, but you know what I mean.

Over the past couple of years, I've come to adore good guys Liam and Graham.  I've loved to hate all those shady characters--Rayna, Rowan, and Maureen.  Maybe you've found the strings of your emotions tugged by one or more of them, too.  If that's true for you, then I thank you for investing yourself in my humble words.

There's so much I want to say, but so much I can't because I don't want to give anything away.  That, and I'm so overwhelmed by the day that I don't know where to begin and where to end.  

Maybe Liam says it best in the last paragraph I wrote today that brought the third and final novel to a close:  

"With any luck, tomorrow his big heart will eclipse anything he lacks. At least, this is what I pray as I stare out at the stars strung in the deep blue. I want him to find his own place to belong, because I’ve found that place for myself, a home, and I’m homesick."


Like Liam, I've found a home in Hope Creek and I'm already homesick. 

Thanks, guys, for everything you've given me.  You'll never know what you've done for me.

A Doll For Daphne

I press my lips together and follow him as he leads the way toward the nuns in the back.  He’s so focused he doesn’t realize a soft doll slips from one of the bags under his arm and falls to the ground.

“Liam!”  I call out.  “You--”

A girl with brown ringlets framing her round cheeks runs toward the doll before I catch Liam’s attention.  She looks both ways to be sure no one sees her, then snatches it up and into her arms.  The doll fits perfectly in the crook of her arm and a smile brightens her face.  

“Hey!  Little girl!”  I say.

She freezes and clutches the doll tightly to her body.  Her fearful blue eyes dart to me and back to the doll as I step toward her.     

“Hey!”  I repeat, coming closer.  From a few yards away I can see the tremble in her shoulders.  The little girl drops the doll and runs from me.  

I stoop down and pick the doll up from where she’s landed in a heap.  There’s a smudge of dirt on its plastic cheek and I wipe it away with my thumb.  Liam’s over talking with the nuns, and he glances my way.

“That girl--who is she?”  I ask when I reach them.  I don’t wait for introductions.  One of the nuns, the younger one with round spectacles and a pointy chin, looks like she really wants to give me a quick lesson in manners.

“I’m sorry, dear?”  The older nun says, wrinkling her forehead beneath her habit.

“There was a girl, maybe four years old.  Curly brown hair, blue eyes--or at least, I think they were blue.”  I scan the yard as I describe the little one.

The older woman smiles, bouncing the child on her hip.  “Ah.  You must mean Daphne.”

Do I mean Daphne?  I have no idea.  

“She ran from me.  Do you know where she might have gone?”

The thin, bookish nun nods towards a strand of trees near the rear of the property.  The trees are short and sparse, obviously very young, and don’t offer much shelter.  A little form huddles at the base of the one in the middle, facing away from us.

I peel back the corner of the foil around the cookies and grab a couple, then hand the tray to the young nun.  When I reach Daphne’s hiding spot, I find her with her knees tucked into her chest.  Tears streak her face, which she presses to her knees.

“Can I join you?”  I ask.  I don’t expect an answer, and she doesn’t disappoint.  I sink to the grass, leaving several feet between us.  “My name is Claire.  They told me your name is Daphne.”

She remains quiet except for a soft shudder.

“Daphne’s such a pretty name,”  I continue.  “A pretty name for a pretty girl.”

The little girl raises her head to glare at me.  Blossoms of crimson burn at her cheeks.  “Go away.”  She hides her face again.

I place the doll next to her gently, so gently I’m not sure she knows I’ve done it.  “That’s a nice doll you have there.”

Daphne brings her head up again and starts to say something angry.  Our eyes connect and I glance down at the doll laying next to her.  She looks down, too, and then back at me.

“It’s okay, pick her up.”  I say.  “I brought her for you.  I knew you would take very good care of her.”

The girl scoops the doll into her arms again and snuggles her little cheek against its plastic face.  Her eyes squeeze shut in joy.  When she opens them again, I smile.  “Would you like a cookie?”

She nods and tentatively takes the cookie from my outstretched hand.  Daphne reminds me a lot of Taran--flighty, suspicious, and upset.  Like Taran, I don’t push her.  I eat my cookie as she eats hers. When it's gone I stand up and slip away.  She doesn’t follow behind me like the horse does, but that’s okay.

Right Away, Great Captain!

I'm guilty of turning on an album and leaving it on repeat for days.  Months, even.  My husband hates this about me because he and I tend to have very opposite tastes in music (him:  Anything Country.  Me:  Florence + the Machine, which is totally a genre, by the way!).  Though it's not working at the moment, we had an iPod jack in our room where we could plug in our iPods or phones and play our music over speakers in the ceiling or on the porch.

At some point while Moe was sick, I turned on Right Away, Great Captain and left it on.  I remember walking away from  his still-warm but lifeless body on the grass and wandering back to the house wondering what could possibly be left without him.  The only thing to do was crawl into bed in the middle of a sunny day and cry.  Right Away, Great Captain crooned me to sleep on that horrible, beautiful day.  I let it play on in the days to follow because it held Moe and I together, this thread of mournful music.

Tonight I'm getting ready to say good-bye to one of my characters and I don't want to because it's like letting my boy slip through my fingers again.  My heart hurts and it feels right to play Right Away, Great Captain! again to pull myself back into the grief.  

It's no more than two lines into the first song before I can see him stumbling and feel his slick neck against my cheek.  The curl of dread tightens in my belly as I watch the vet check his pupils and slowed breathing over and over and over until he is satisfied and I know it's done.  I'm broken, with pieces that will never go back together quite right.

Sixteen months and it surprises me how sharp the pain still is and how little it takes to bring me back to that good-bye.  That is the power and wonder of art.

Oh.  How will I ever do this?

Joy

Do you know joy?  I do.

I hear it in the giggle of the girl bouncing along with her pony's trot.

Do you know joy?  I do.

I see it in the grin of the man whose legs cannot move him, but his horse can.

Do you know joy?  I do.

I feel it in the happy step of an animal connecting with their human.

Do you know joy?  You should.

The Problem

Liam

When I finally felt steady enough to rejoin Alfie, he'd moved on to replacing a broken fence board in one of the paddocks.  He didn't say a word about my breakdown, and I’m thankful for it.  I helped him in silence, holding the plank steady as he secured it to the fence post with a hammer and several nails.  Alfie was getting on in years, he shouldn’t be doing this work on his own.  

He took a breather after the next board was up, and stared off towards the few horses still living here.  

“Tell me about the horses, Alf.  It’s nice to see you, but they’re why I’m here.”

Alfie swiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand then gave a short nod.  “I hated to bring you back, y’know, but with Rowan out of the picture, I didn’t know who to ask.  Besides, you always were better with the horses than him.  He’s got a wicked temper, that one.”

“That he does.”  I agreed.   

We walked down the fence row until we stood in front of one of the few occupied enclosures.  “We’ve got six horses still here, but no one with any horse sense at all wants to help with them, especially the one mare in particular.”  I turned my head in the direction he's looking, toward the rear of the paddock to our right.  When she noticed us watching, the dark horse inside snapped her body into alert, her head high, eyes wide, and ears pricked.  Minus her sun-bleached coat from living outdoors, she was a nice-looking horse and would make someone a fine jumper.  The bone structure was all there, I could see it, but so was the fear.  The longer we stared, the more her terror echoed back.  Without taking her eyes or ears from us, she shrank back against the fence.

“That’s Tarantella.”

I scrunched up my face.  “Tarantula?  Like the spider?”  

“No, no.  Tarantella.  It’s a dance--Spanish, you know?”  Alfie hummed a tune and snapped his fingers as he crossed and uncrossed his arms a couple of times and shuffled his feet.  It looked like no dance I’d ever seen or probably would ever see again, thank heavens.  

With a shake of my head, I said, "You'd better stick to horses, Alf."  

He chuckled and stopped dancing, "Anyway, Tarantella... she was going by the name ‘Taran’, but some of the kids started on with calling her ‘Spider’, so you’re not so far off.”

Spider wasn't a friendly kind of nickname. I wasn't sure what to think about that.

I unlatched the gate to her paddock and walked inside.  Taran pinned herself up against the boards of the fence in response, but otherwise regarded me with curiosity.  “She looks all right,”  I said, fastening the gate closed behind me.  “So, then, what’s the problem?”

It happened then, quite literally, with the blink of an eye.  The dark horse studied me for all of three seconds before blinking her eye and charging after me.  There was no time to fumble with the gate--she’d be on me before I could have made it that far, anyway.  My only option was to climb the fence, and with any luck I would be faster than her.  With thundering hooves at my back, I launched myself at the fence and scrambled over.  Taran clamped her teeth around the heel of my boot before I could swing it over.  The old man was doubled over laughing at me dangling in a rather unpleasant position, with one leg in safety, the other in a wild horse’s mouth, and my crotch somewhere in the middle.  

“That,”  He sighed, wiping the tears from his eyes, “is our problem.”

Grab On and Go For It! - An Interview with Rebecca Lamoreaux

Three-year-old Rebecca Lamoreaux wanted to be a writer.  Writing, at her young age, translated into etching circles into the margins of her books with crayon.  She loved dreaming up fantastic tales and then retelling them to others.  The magic of stories had clearly captured her heart.     

Her grade school teachers nurtured Rebecca’s love of storytelling.  When she was about seven years old, she was selected to participate in a special program for students who showed promise in writing.  Through this program, Rebecca remembers finishing her first story.  She has been writing ever since.  

Though she has dabbled in all kinds of genres, she mainly writes fantasy, romance, historical fiction, and magical realism.  Her historical romance novel, Lord Hyacinthe, is scheduled for publication through Pandamoon Publishing in April of 2014.  

Rebecca places high value on sharing within the writing community, but she did not always feel that way.  For years she viewed other writers as competition and feared her ideas might be stolen if she confided in the wrong person.  Her perspective changed when a friend contacted her in November of 2012 and invited her to join a group of authors on Facebook.  The Authors Think Tank group on Facebook became Rebecca’s first experience with a community of writers committed to helping other writers.  So impressed with groups such as the Author Think Tank, she sought out more writing communities.  Rebecca joined ANWA, American Night Writer’s Association, a network for women writers who are also affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  The best thing she did for her writing career was attending writer’s conferences.  After meeting other writers at an ANWA conference, Rebecca’s writing improved because of the influence of her growing writing community.  And when a publisher came across her novel during a contest on Twitter, a panicked Rebecca turned to her community to help tighten up her story and help her land her book deal.  

Rebecca’s advice to me, a floundering writer staring down self-publishing after turning down a book deal?  “Grab on and go for it!”

She knows what she’s talking about.

***

Check out Rebecca’s blog out at http://rebeccalamoreaux-anauthorinprogress.blogspot.com, or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AuthorRebeccaLamoreaux