Process

Let's not start at the very beginning.  Let's start smack dab in the middle with the girl who was the turning point.  Her name was Debbie.  She was big as in tall, big-boned, big breasted, big voiced, big eyed and big in personality.  She spoke her mind and carried herself with a self-assured authority which belied her level of education.  I took to her right away.  She came into my life at the time when another relationship was ending, my marital relationship, and I was facing a lot of firsts. It is difficult to put into words how it feels, even now, as I recall the approach of those firsts - the first birthday, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's and Easter as not a family.  The loss is more than the tragedy of the way things are, it is the trauma of losing what had come before.  Things like the Thanksgivings when my Mom and Dad came to visit our family in our single story four bedroom rambler on a third acre in my favorite Sou...

It was the summer before tenth grade when Purple Rain came out in 1984.  I sat in my chair on the left side of the theater watching the screen, pretending not to notice my friend making out with her date in the seats next to me.  Today I wonder why had I been invited to tag along and why had I said yes?  It is not hard to put myself in my room at my parent's house with the telephone in my hand, dialing the the push buttons and waiting for my old friend to pick up.  We hadn't seen as much of each other since my parents had moved us across the intercoastal waterway and North up I-95 to the town of Palm Beach Gardens the year before.  I'd probably called her and asked her what she was doing that weekend.  Did she want to hang out? Maybe she felt sorry for me.  Maybe that's why, when she said she had plans to go to the movies with her boyfriend, she said I could come along.  Maybe I said, "Okay," because I wanted any little bit of my friend I could ...

I began transcribing this section from my notebook today and it took an unexpected turn.  I present what I have below with some added comments to show the process unfolding. +++ Let's not start at the very beginning.  Let's start smack dab in the middle with the girl who was the turning point.  Her name was Debbie.  She was big as in tall, big-boned, big breasted, big voiced, big eyed and big in personality.  She spoke her mind and carried herself with a self-assured authority which belied her level of education.  I took to her right away.  Though the nature of our jobs kept us from working in close proximity, our paths crossed a time or two during the work day. She was kind to me.  On my first Thanksgiving separated from my husband, she invited me and the kids to her house for the holiday along with a few of her other friends.  ++ What follows is the turn.  It was not in my notebook but apparently is a segue which needs to be follo...

Every year we took a rafting trip down the Nantahala River on one of those big rafts with inflatable sides.  I'd tuck my tennis - shoed feet under it, in the hope that it would prevent me from being flung into the icy cold water.   My big brother thought it would be hilarious to send us down the rapids backward, removing all chance of steering ourselves as we'd been instructed under the cover of the Nantahala Outdoor Center's educational shelter.  Before loading up on the old school buses to be shuttled to the put in site, we'd sat on wooden benches listening to the do's and don'ts of the trip.  I'm pretty certain we were not instructed to go down the rapids backwards and pretty certain we were instructed to avoid the eddy on the right side of the rapids in front of a large rock because if we fell out, we could pulled under and into a washing machine like vortex which would spin us around and around under the water and may even be drowned.  Did I mention t...

Jessica sat facing me in her green armchair with a mug of water on the small table next to her, the one that held the Kleenex and the small clock which faced her. I sat in the middle of the couch and looked at the floor trying to get up the nerve to spit out my words. I had decided that this would be the day that I would tell her but now that I was there the words wouldn’t come out.  It was like like the time my mom stopped me in in the hallway.  I was naked with a towel wrapped around my little body. Perhaps I just felt naked or perhaps I’m remembering the black and white snapshot of me, naked and bent over sideways with a towel wrapped around my shoulders, and have inserted that snapshot into this memory.  I had just gotten out of her bathtub and was making my way down the hall to my room when my mom called to me from behind.   “Were you the one who left the heater on?” she asked in a tone. You know the one.  It's the tone that says she already kno...