Went through a stack of sticky notes near my computer. They looked like a multicolored pile of very thin slices of very thin bread. Started to read the years-old sandwich and at the very bottom of the pile a faded beige square of paper that had once been bright yellow. The name of my blog, which I totally had forgotten about, was printed neatly as if it were very important. It once was. 

Well here I am living in the land of forgotten.

High times back then !

Had just published my book. Was turning out my weekly column.  Still holding on to 'the writer's dream' so to speak. Now...

Well I won't go into the tribulations of aging or the miracles and disappointments that arise when deadlines are tossed. Life is good, very good in fact. Actually it feels strange that I write this even though I know there's no one out here to read it. No problem. 

Every day is a gift. 

I am blessed.

 

 Yup, still available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and working on another.

Heavenly Mom and Dad are proud. 

   

Well boys and girls I finally did it. I published a book. 

 

Rather than rue the truth of age bias in traditional publishing (ya can’t fight big business common sense) I decided to embrace my age as a huge positive. Can’t write most of the stuff I write and not have history, experience, and wisdom. Life is not made up, it’s real.

 

For thirty-five years I’ve been casting my words upon the waters. For the last couple I’ve put together what I think best communicates what I am about and what I feel best describes what life is about, with humor and a few tears. I’ve been told this book is for all women…almost, and for writers, for sure. It’s an honest book. Not all I have communicated soothes my writer’s soul. Some foolish and even heartless pieces have changed me. I do not have a problem admitting when I am wrong. I was wrong. But being on the mark makes me soar.

 

I’ve learned a lot about self-publishing in the past few months. Asking for help, accepting that I don’t know everything and being patient says it all. Side note: Because you don’t know how or where you are going is not a reason to hand in your ticket and get off the train. Find a travel agent and a conductor who have taken the trip before.

 

Not to bite the hand that doles out snacks along the ride, I learned that the behemoth of book sellers (who offers everything else too) is a difficult and not always best track. Barnes and Noble and sites less known have offered wonderful opportunities. I’ve learned that word-of-mouth from old friends and new readers is a strong and steady route. I’ve also come to recognize when it’s time to shut up and listen.

 

It’s been a long time since posting here. It’s great to be back among old friends in a place that has always felt like home.

Remember Cher in Moonstruck , kicking the can down the road. That's me. Well not actually. I'm not Cher, and no where near looking as good as Cher on her worst day but I'm still kicking, that can, down the road.

My God it’s been a year. Is anybody out there? Does anybody care? Yes, we were locked down. Two weeks, just us and our pain-in-the-ass mini wiener dog who is sweet and quiet only after the sun goes down. (They haven’t found my husband’s body yet.) Actually we did OK. We pretty much stuck close to home. Had food delivered until stores set rules in place and the state set mandates. Even now we do not go often. On-line shopping saved Christmas. Early on not visiting two of our grandchildren was heartbreaking. We got as close as hands against the glass and cried all the way home. Our other Little-One is part of our next-door-nest so we got to spend time with her. We played by the rules, watched the news, and rejoiced when change came in November. We’ve gotten our first shots and are waiting impatiently in line while jittering up and down for our second double dip dish of rocky road. I’m hoping the shots are our get-of-jail-free cards? What a heartbreaking year it has been. When I think of the fear, suffering, and loss that has taken place I am overwhelmed by it all. How can something so minute loom so large while seeking to annihilate our species? Comprehending the immensity of it is like trying to fathom the depth of the universe. It is just too vast. When I think of all the time I’ve had to write, and how I used those endless hours for something else, I feel profoundly guilty. Sustaining focus became impossible, editing became a nightmare, the dream of a title page became a stopped clock. Okay, enough of looking backward. Enough of wondering why, or how, or WTF. So here I am a year later replacing the double A’s, setting the hands, and listening for the heartbeat of the little mantle clock. Its rhythm is the song of my life. The title of the song? Write. Ever vigilant, and thankful, and grateful, and cautious, stay well my writer friends, stay well. 2Ns

Fate in the cards

So…here I am on March 1^st sitting at my kitchen table writing. All I can think about is how our world, yup the entire world, has changed regarding the possibility of a pandemic. Some say we’ve already jumped the fence and some say not quite yet.  Where I live we have not been touched just yet but considering how (cliché alert) few and far between my posts have been, by the time I jump on again the world may have gone to a dark and scary place.

Though I am one of those so called high risk mature-types if the monster mounts my porch and slithers under my welcome mat I will deal. If for some reason our little town were to be locked down for two weeks (and staying indoors was the order) the biggest risk (and I can’t understate this) my husband and I would be at each other’s throats by about day 3.

So…here I am on March 2nd sitting at my kitchen table, setting aside the news and working on a family tale-of-truth. This new project chronicles a financial miracle which came down our little country road almost 20 years ago, knocked on our door and changed our lives. It is the stuff of dreams. I AM NOT UNDERSTATING THIS.

Fate plays an amazing game with our lives sometimes. Whether it be a virus the size of a nightmare or an unimagined life changing incident…my advice…never ever discount the possibility that at your darkest hour a wild card may be flipped your way.  

A glossary of terms for writers (UPDATED)

 

 For the New Year I have resurrected and updated my

GLOSSARY OF TERMS FOR WRITERS 

 

Glossary – a really lame dictionary.

Writer - a person who thinks they have something to say so they write it down even though they are afraid to have someone read it.

Fiction – brain drivel.

Non-fiction – brain drivel by an expert or by someone who claims to be an expert.

Memoir – a written document with the consensus that your boss will fire you, your friends will shun you, your family will disown you and your children will claim to be orphans. When it becomes a movie you will be tapped for loans or sued, by all of the above.

Novel – clever untruths built with a lot of words.

Short Story – clever untruths built with less words than a lot.

Essay – clever truths. Less words interesting. A lot of words boring.

Cliché – a smartass use of someone else’s smartass phrase.

Spell check - the penicillin, Salk vaccine and morning after pill for all writers.

Edit - leaving the fancy outfit on the floor for the perfect jeans and T.

Punctuation – all the little marks writers use to convey speech patterns on paper.

Period – the 28 day dot (.) to denote when the writer runs out of thought.

Question mark – do you think it is a hook with a dot (?) to denote when the writer doesn’t have an answer?

Exclamation point – a line with a dot (!) used sparingly to denote, really, really, and I mean really, exciting wow-words!

Comma – a tiny, little, itsy bitsy curve of a line (,) when the writer takes a big breath.

Dash - that little line (-) right after the word “dash” that most writers don’t know when to use.

Preposition – a word, which by its use at the end of sentence, illustrates a writer’s frustration such as, finding an oven in which to place one’s head in.

Bold – this.

Italic – that.

Title - a royal’s preface.

Preface – what a writer really wants to say first-off which no one wants to read.

Title Page – depending on sales, a birth certificate or obituary.

Plagiarism - stealing someone else’s drivel and calling it your own drivel.

Sentence – amount of time a writer spends in prison after stealing someone else’s drivel.

Agent – a writer’s love/hate all-in-one vice-principle, first-mate, heir to the throne, sentry/bouncer who reads really fast.  

New York Times Bestseller List– If your book is on it you will have the title tattooed on your ass.

Oprah’s Book Club – like being the first to be picked for dodge-ball.

Oprah’s Book Club Update - Is there still an Oprah’s book club.

Query – a writer’s post-it bio combined with Tolstoy’s War and Peace as a Hallmark Card.

No Response Means No – a Dear John letter lost in the mail.

Form Rejection – a Dear John letter not lost in the mail.

Personalized Rejection – if you lose weight and have breast implants John might ask you out.

Publisher – a cross between God with a small “g” and your freshman English teacher.

The Call – comes when phone lines are down, your cell phone is dead, your computer has a virus and the garbage truck runs over your mailbox.

Publishing Deal – comes moments before you decide that writing is a sucky waste of time and head for the tallest building in the city from which to throw yourself off of.

The End - this.

Time, use it wisely

We’re in.

It is heaven to finally be surrounded with our things. Heaven to be back to just us. Heaven to cook for two people only.

Living with our daughter, her husband and our three year old angel of a granddaughter was a privildge but now, living in our new and spectacular in-law apartment has us settled in, finding a new routine and loving it.

My biggest revelation is how easy it is to live with less. I’m amazed by how the once seemingly unimportant has been pushed to the front of the line.

Things hold memories. And not simply things that enhance our limited space. The nonsensical, the battered, the broken and repaired little things that speak of someone dear or of an incident to precious to risk ‘forgotten’ I saved and display and use and remember.

We live in a mere 620 sq. ft. That’s a smidgen bigger than a two car garage. But sweetie, this ‘ain’t’ no garage. The ceiling in the living area soars above us almost fifteen feet. The space has a wow-factor that still surprises me every time I enter the room. The kitchen is bigger than my former kitchen and shares the wow-factor vaulted ceiling. The bathroom is huge. No sharing laundry facilities with the big house or traveling to a laundromat, my stackable washer and dryer tuck in their own nook. I love not having to go to the basement to wash clothes. Our bedroom is small. Queen sized bed, a couple of end tables and shelves for books, TV and memorable pieces. No dressers because our HUGE closet holds all our clothes and whatever else has to be stored away. We even have an attic above (almost full) and a half-high basement below. Amazing what less-used things we have stored down there even though we have to stoop over to move around.

I designed our small home and I’m so proud because it, (cliché alert), suits our needs to a T. I can’t think of one thing I’d change.

Living with less has become a blessing. We are sheered sheep. We have shed all the snarls and are brushed smooth of snags.

As I sit here writing, listening to beautiful music and looking out a window that slopes down a gentle hill to the road I realize how much my life has changed. I am grateful that a little over eight months ago I survived, grateful that I acted fast and had a medical team whose only task at the time was to save my life. Grateful that my family has taken on the huge changes we have made and forever in debt to the higher being who contemplated my existence and said, “not tonight Carolynn.” You have some time left.

I hope I use it wisely.

Yesterday I cried.

I got to unpack the boxes we have stored since the beginning of our new beginning. The in-law little home in not complete yet but we are almost there. I loaded the kitchen cabinets with all my kitcheny stuff. Pots, pans, dishes and glasses it was like seeing old friends after being apart for a long time.

I cried because I am so grateful to hold close the ‘things’ I have held, offered and washed  for decades. Yes they are simply things but they tell of dinners and get togethers. They tell of family. They tell of holidays, birthdays, wedding and baby showers. They speak of a houseful of friends and family after funerals too. They speak of the planned and the spontaneous. They speak of the "us" I got back yesterday.

Oh how I cried to touch them all again and bring back that which fills our lives.

Soon we will move into our little forever home. It has been more work than we could have imagined. Like I have said before, thank God we’re doing this now because we want to, not because we have to.

This experience from the unexpected and unimaginable, to a new home, from separate islands, to family living a blanket away has been more than a day at the beach. It has been a journey of enlightenment. Maybe I should write about it.

How lucky we are.
How damned lucky we are.

I am a book in a blender

Life for me (for us) has been tossed in a blender. Right now it is switched on hi. If I wasn’t so afraid of boredom and lack of purpose I’d probably jump out of the jar and head for the couch. If I wasn’t so concerned about time running out I’d probably stop the quest to move forward. If I didn’t have a wake-up call in March I’d be going along as if I didn’t have a f-en care in the world. But that smack in the face by the reality of motility still raises a welt from time to time.

So I ask myself:
Why write?
Why dream?
Why try?
I’ll tell you why.

 

Because writing seeps out of the soul like no other art form. Through symbols it is a silent communication of spirit from mind to mind, heart to heart. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. I say a simple phrase can paint a gallery of pictures.

I am not proclaiming a competition among art forms. I paint and have won first place ribbons. I play the piano and have written music for a band and have basked in applause.

For me the last thirty-plus years of writing has been the most meaningful. Published hundreds of times as an essayist, op-ed writer, and columnist has taught me the power, the joy and the responsibility we must realize as writers. And I have come to know how much I still have to learn.

That’s why I continue to write, dream and try to tell my story.

I am a book.
So are you.

Sometimes the pages are flipped fast and sometimes they turn slowly. I’m not ready to shelf my book of efforts and dreams. I’m not willing to give up.
 
My latest project?

It is about that one thing families always hold close until the very end, secrets. Not the nasty ones. Not the controversial. This multi-generational story is about that one thing we hold so dear, survival of the spirit when the last wisp of hope departs.

This project has taught me that sometimes hope hides just beyond the tree line. A walk in the woods, taking an old path, creating a new one is what sustains my effort to make it to the place I never knew existed.

Come on. Wear comfortable shoes and walk with me. Discovery resides where we have never been.

Life for me (for us) has been tossed in a blender. Right now it is switched on hi. If I wasn’t so afraid of boredom and lack of purpose I’d probably jump out of the jar and head for the couch. If I wasn’t so concerned about time running out I’d probably stop the quest to move forward. If I didn’t have a wake-up call in March I’d be going along as if I didn’t have a f-en care in the world. But that smack in the face by the reality of motility still raises a welt from time to time.

So I ask myself:

Why write?

Why dream?

Why try?

I’ll tell you why.

Because writing seeps out of the soul like no other art. Through symbols it is a silent communication of spirit from mind to mind, heart to heart. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. I say a simple phrase can paint a gallery of pictures.

I am not proclaiming a competition among art forms. I paint and have won first place ribbons. I play the piano and have written music for a band and have basked in applause.

For me the last thirty-plus years of writing has been the most meaningful. Published hundreds of times as an essayist, op-ed writer, and columnist has taught me the power, the joy and the responsibility we must realize as writers. And I have come to know how much I still have to learn.

That’s why I continue to write, dream and try to tell my story.

I am a book.

So are you.

Sometimes the pages are flipped fast and sometimes they turn slowly. I’m not ready to shelf my book of efforts and dreams. I’m not willing to give up.

 

My latest project?

 It is about that one thing families always hold close until the very end, secrets. Not the nasty ones. Not the controversial. This multi-generational story is about that one thing we hold so dear, survival of the spirit when the last wisp of hope departs.

This project has taught me that sometimes hope hides just beyond the tree line. A walk in the woods, taking an old path, creating a new one is what sustains my effort to make it to the place I never knew existed.

Come on. Wear comfortable shoes and walk with me.

Boxed and Waiting

Imagine a stack of white Staples storage boxes six high and six long. Then imagine it as the front stack with another stack of mismatched liquor store boxes behind. Add a small china cabinet, a couple of dining room chairs and a few end tables and that was our family room divider until we decided to rent a storage unit. I would not have taken on that extra expense, let alone the monumental task of moving the hastily built room divider, except that the kids said they’d haul it all there and back once we moved out and into our new in-law tiny house.

It was nice having the boxes gone because that room and the whole downstairs was beginning to look like an office building storage room run by a bunch of hoarding accountants.

I stripped the kitchen of everything that belonged to us. Because kitchen, food prep and table-top has been my retail management specialty for over twenty years there was a mountain of stuff to store. With cabinets and drawers empty I went through kitchen withdrawal. When I arranged my one cabinet delegated to our food I felt much better.

For the next couple of months I realized I’ll be cooking with my daughter’s pots, pans and utensils and we’ll be eating on her dishes. I’ll be cutting with her knives and drinking out of her glasses. It’s not like I cook every meal. We trade off and there is take-out of course.

We have delegated the dining room as an office for my husband (he’s self-employed) and a place for me to write. Next to my laptop one of my coffee mugs is filled with a stainless steel bouquet of a few pieces of our flatware. The mug and utensils were not stored away because they were in the dishwasher when I packed up the kitchen. It reminds me of how eventually I will use them in a new kitchen filled with our old stuff.

I’m as excited to move on as my daughter is excited to have us move out. Don’t get me wrong, we all get along, laugh a lot and are respectful of boundaries. But, the culmination of the big change, which I define as settling in surrounded by our familiars is on hold. Until the two huge flat beds pull up, unload the modulars, and we hook up to the basic amenities of power and indoor plumbing we wait. All that stuff packed in boxes and stacked in the storage unit, waits. My daughter having her parents under foot, waits. Us living in the guest room, I call our dorm room, waits.

Waiting is hard for some folks. For me it’s a process by which we shift our thinking. Waiting is not like anticipation which is the time between buying a lottery ticket and eventually checking the winning number. More often than not, that dreamy interlude is the only win we get. Waiting for our little house to be built, delivered and hooked up is already a winning ticket. All of us just have to wait until it’s cashed in. That’s when the boxes of old stuff in the storage unit come home to a new house. That’s when we get to settle in our forever-home. That is when I get to empty the mug and place the flatware where it belongs…in our house.

Where did I go and am I still there?

Well, where the hell have I been?

Packing!

Drastically downsizing.

We’re moving from a 2150 sq. ft. colonial into a 600 sq. ft. in-law apartment. (Tiny house.) That’s like fitting a double decker tour bus full of friends and family into a Smart Car. I’ve been going through stuff I haven’t gone through in decades. It’s heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. It’s freeing and yet the constraints of living with little to no space is frustrating. I might add though that the idea is very welcome.

Because of the many fires and floods this year across our country a lot of families have lost entire households of precious memorabilia as well as their day to day stuff. They didn’t have time to choose. The only choice they had was to save the ultimate, their lives.

I’m lucky because I’m making the choices of what stays and what goes. The choices have been relatively easy because almost all is going.  The photos stay but the “things” used by the people I have lost are on the way out. I’ve had time to explore the memories attached to each object and say a sweet goodbye to what once was. There have been emotional moments, like when my mother’s favorite blue bowl and vases which graced the center of our dining room table, sold at our yard sale. Sad to see it go but glad someone else would love and use them. I’ve come to believe that what we store away because of attachment should not be shut away but set free and shared.

Because our new in-law apartment is being built we have a couple of more months of living on the sidelines of a settled life. And until then, I have started writing again. (The novel is still in the works.) I have finally found a small spot in my daughter’s home (which was once ours) to claim as a space in which to write.

So hello. I’m here and counting down the days to resettlement.  Actually it’s kind of fun living in the guest room which my husband and I call our dorm room. From that double-decker bus to a smart car we are traveling an alternate route to a lighter and less stressful life. Now if I could just remember where my bathing suit is.

Planted without a sell-by date

 

Recently I faced a life and death situation that had me reeling. I went from mundane-everyday-WTF to I’m going to die in 5 minutes. Pretty damn scary, pretty damn life changing. Rather than go into the specifics let me just say that when something like that happens, you change how you view your existence, your purpose, and how tenuous your eye-blink of time is here on this great earth. This is serious stuff. It’s severe. It’s cataclysmic.

That the door unexpectantly opened for me to pass through and then was slammed shut has left me contemplating experience and effort. “Experience,” as in my belief that I have been blessed with a wonderful life of family and abiding love. “Effort,” as in, is the determination I spend on dreaming and achieving writing success, worth the bits and pieces and huge chunks of the time it will take to get there? And if my answer is no, what do I do instead.

It’s like something I remember reading years ago in (I think) Chesapeake by Michener. An epic for sure.

The one thing that has glued itself to mind from that book is about trees. It’s about the men as visionaries and dreamers, who put forth the grand effort to plant trees which they knew they’d never live long enough to see as full grown. They would never get to sit in the shade under the lush canopies, never get to shelter under them in a storm, and never get to see how spectacular they’d look while lining the broad roads leading to the mansions by the sea. If I remember correctly I believe the full grown trees were eventually taken down by a fierce storm. But that doesn’t matter because it is the planting of them that was so important. 

For a few days after my own personal hurricane I stared at the full manuscript of my WIP, printed and ready to send to an editor who likes to work with paper pages, not on screens. I had already bought the envelope in which to send it, already addressed it and then thought about how futile the continued effort to find a traditional publisher for that book is. Or should I say, might be. It’s the fourth book I have finished, the others are shelf novels. Should I set it aside? And then what do I do, take up knitting or shuffle board?

I mailed it.

It’s planted.

Though I am aware that I may never see its branches lush with leaves, (but then again I might), I know that I have at least continued forward, one foot in front of the other, a day at a time. Even though I don’t know how many days, or if any, will stack up behind me, writing that book has brought me immeasurable joy.  I am not ready to give up on joy just yet.

I’m still in the stages of making sense of what happened and vacillating between I may live to a hundred or drop dead a minute from now. None of us, and let me repeat, NONE OF US has a sell-by date. Trees don't either.

I’ve been given a second chance and I’m taking advantage of it.

Wouldn’t you?

Your future? Discounted.

Finally an update on this New Year. Not sure why I have been so absent because time has become my friend again. Maybe it’s because my conversation here is read by so few. (My fault.) Maybe it’s because what I want to say doesn’t seem so important regarding our brave new world as it was, as it is, and as it may be.

Well anyway, my novel is complete and has been off to first-readers for quite some time. I have learned that the holidays are a lousy time to expect reader-feedback. Hopefully off to an editor soon. (Hello Jennine.)

I am on to another project that lit a fire which has been smoldering for a long time. I have hesitated on this one because the scope is imposing and counter to every other project I have attempted and completed. But I love the genre and read it all the time. Don’t have a log line yet, and the outline looks like the sparse road map in and out of Death Valley. But, I’m 10-grand in and hoping to hit completion before Christ is resurrected (again).

Within this new story the what-if questions are enormous. Let’s just say, (and I probably shouldn’t at this point but I will anyway), I’m combining an imagined J.K. Rowling kind intricately detailed world with a Suzanne Collins Katniss-like senior character. Dare I say it’s a dystopian novel for senior citizens?

I hate the term “senior citizen,” but if you are one this story will scare granny pants off you.

In our daily cycle of news which is proving by the hour how easily millions can be swayed by falsehoods and shallow promises, “70Y70D” will be your road map to heaven or hell depending on which side of the 10% senior discount you are on.

So there you have it. A futuristic novel for readers with futures far shorter than their pasts.

Happy New Year everyone. Hope all is well, for all of you, and if it’s not, write about it.

Ginger Ale in a green bottle

I am nine years old, sitting in the backseat of dad’s Studebaker

Station wagon. We are on our way from Elizabeth, New Jersey to Nana and Pop-Pop’s house in Norwich, Connecticut. The drive seams endless (interstate highways are not yet complete). After half a day on the road we pay a 10 cent toll over the Connecticut River, and the anticipation of being nearer Nana’s, far outweighs the hackneyed “are we there yet” my mom and dad became deaf to 15 minutes after we left.

Being almost there has my brother and me sitting straight, not slumped in our respective corners. Being almost there has him hanging over the back seat blabbering into my father’s ear, and me drumming my hands on my thighs until my mother says playing percussion is not for girls.  The anticipation of visiting my grandparents, my aunts and uncles and cousins begins to effervesce like a green bottle of all-shook-up ginger ale on a summer day. Almost there and the cap is ready to blow, almost there and I can taste the Saturday night beans and hot dogs. Sitting on the front porch after dinner with the family, (there are dozens of us), waiting for the Good Humor truck to stop, is the exclamation point to a perfect day.

I am not nine years old anymore but that bubbly feeling of being almost there feeds my (on a keyboard) drumming hands. Today, years of thought and planning and writing and months of self-editing - done. I will complete a last read-through and later today my novel is off to a first reader (many states away) that is tough, kind and beyond brilliant when it comes to books people want to read, can’t wait to read, and spend money to read.

She wants a hard copy so on my way home from the post office I will buy ginger ale in a green bottle.

balls...Balls...BALLS

omg…OMG…OH MY GOD !

I’m tooling along finishing my WIP, with only a few thousand words left to go, and in the back of my mind the reason why two characters pretty much can’t stand each other eluded me. That there was an issue kept bumping into my thoughts like a golf ball rolling around in a bowl.

why…Why…WHY?

Then, a few days ago I’m writing a sentence and

boom…Boom…BOOM !!!

There it was spilling out onto the page like water down a slide into the deep end. It's a stunner.

Wow…Wow…WOW !!!

(Okay so enough of the three word fancy reactives.)

Anyway:

The result is that I have had to go back and plant seeds (hints) that are restrained enough, so as not to be obvious, until the reader discovers the surprise.  

This throws a bag of shiny new Titleists into the bowl because now I have to make sure I keep the readers engaged enough to get to the heart breaking and mind blowing surprise. Wait a minute I was supposed to be doing that already wasn't I.

(And I thought I was almost done).

Oh well.

Ain’t writing...fun…Fun…FUN?

Sorry couldn’t resist just one more.

I'm not a leaner...yet

So…what is retirement really like?

And, have I retired from everything?
It’s awesome and no I have not.

In the middle of the day I see them in the super market, gray hair, or no hair, pushing a carriage with a grandchild in the seat. Or maybe there is no child and dinner and a snack in the seat portends of the rest of the day’s repast.

When I see a shopper bent over and leaning on the cart for support I wonder, do they really need the cart to hold them up and help them on their way, or have they always shopped that way. And, why do I analyze how they shop the way they do? Is my life so boring? Am I hyper-critical because I see myself that way years from now, months, next week or tomorrow?

I am not a leaner. I straighten up, walk tall and fast because I do not consider myself one of them yet. Yes, I may shop in the middle of the day, and yes, there is often a grandchild in the seat, and sometimes a second one walking along side me, or perched on the front of the cart like a hood ornament. Yup, I am one of them.

When we eloped, almost forty years ago, I loved being considered a member of the married club. Once we had children I relished being a card (and baby) carrying parent club member. Defined as, parent of a “toddler”, “teenager”, “college student”, and eventually “mother of the bride”, enrolled me in all the other clubs I’ve struggled through and thoroughly loved. The most recent, and cherished beyond words and feelings, is being a grandparent. It is much more than other grandparents have described to me.

Until our first grandbaby was born I only saw the generational gap, from the other side as a grandchild. My Nanas’ let me have ice cream when my mom said “no.” They told me I was beautiful even though I knew I was awkward and chubby. They told me I was smart when I felt stupid and didn’t have a clue what I was smart at.

My grandparents, (grandmothers in particular), filled in all the gaps my parents left open because mom and dad both worked and I was not an only child. It wasn’t until I became an adult, and my grandparents were gone, that I realized the importance of that generation’s existence in my life and how it influenced the person I have become today.

I am them.

The roll they played is now my roll.

Like them (for now anyway) I do not use anything to hold myself up. I’m a straight walker, straight talker and dish out platters of life lessons for the little ones to consume or discard.  Along with the time I am now blessed to have with them, to sometimes do nothing but sit and eat ice cream, I tell them how beautiful, handsome and smart they are. “Yes”, to another little toy, another cupcake, another movie and another handful of popcorn, even though mom and dad say “nope”, you’ve had enough. As best I can, I am filling in the gaps with more than just enough.

And what does this have to do with writing?  Nothing and everything.

Evelyn Wilkerson never had children, and yet, as a gray haired mid-sixties relic of the good life unexpectedly tossed onto the bottom rung, she fills in the gaps.

They say to write what you know about. I am not a leaner and neither is Evelyn.