tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5407345572207184152024-03-04T23:30:20.469-08:00The Laura Becker BlogAnother blog, by another blogger, for all of her vanity and verbosity
Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.comBlogger82125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-26063114431231615282023-01-19T09:32:00.011-08:002023-01-19T10:17:09.699-08:00No, All Of That Scrimping Will Not "Save" You<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyAxQzblhGpcI19uJN7S2opibug2281DsPM83i8C-wJ4eoyVbQ_cZ8u9kJGWXUmASGjJyZhyYb-mMe7bNC0iw7eYUs_sZ9qt1gTzkZfS9BzOeqvLYgkqK6SE31UTbK9P_IbUF---SswoHMUvdWVOs5LuBbiFPdtUEWBampaWLvdTSeyggvgEC6z9Bx1Q/s3504/pexels-imustbedead-10835793.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3504" data-original-width="2336" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyAxQzblhGpcI19uJN7S2opibug2281DsPM83i8C-wJ4eoyVbQ_cZ8u9kJGWXUmASGjJyZhyYb-mMe7bNC0iw7eYUs_sZ9qt1gTzkZfS9BzOeqvLYgkqK6SE31UTbK9P_IbUF---SswoHMUvdWVOs5LuBbiFPdtUEWBampaWLvdTSeyggvgEC6z9Bx1Q/s320/pexels-imustbedead-10835793.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: medium;">I keep running across articles about smart ways to save despite inflation. That’s fine.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><span>But, no, these will not truly “save” you.</span> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I was born in 1973. The year everything “broke.” There are too many to list but here are a few highlights…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> ⁃ Watergate<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> ⁃ Dollar devalued by 10%<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> ⁃ Gas shortages <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> ⁃ Unemployment <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> ⁃ Vietnam<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> ⁃ Airline terrorism<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> ⁃ Arson<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> ⁃ Bombings<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> ⁃ Assassinations<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> ⁃ Kidnappings<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> ⁃ Bank robberies<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> ⁃ Heroin/opioid epidemic<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> ⁃ Global political and market destabilization<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">And…THE GREAT INFLATION which technically began in December 1972, but would kick into high gear in January 1973 and carry through the rest of the decade into the 80’s. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">It was with me from the very beginning and throughout my growing up. And it has clung to my bones. Seeping into the marrow of my being. Brought on by the boxing up of our belongings and move out of state to:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Perry, Iowa - for 8 months <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Huxley, Iowa - for 6 months <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Charles City, Iowa - for 2 months…where we lived in a motel.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Until my father had finally reached his limit with the relocations by this finance company he worked for, brought on by all of the defaults…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">One night at the A&W drive-in, just trying to have dinner without a kitchen, in temporary digs, after his third relocation in 16 months, where each of the previous had promised to be his last; his toddler daughter running up and down the back seat and his newborn son wailing away, with root beer and French fries everywhere and the possibility of yet another relocation on the horizon…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">There was one last spill and with a “Son of a bitch!” the window tray slammed to the pavement just before his squealing tires tore out of there back to the motel, heaving the bags into the back and hightailing it back “home” to take a new, more stable job, with an oil company.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">A solid industry. Much more reliable than finance. A sensible decision. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">But…this oil company, Skelly, was somehow rolled into another. Who relocated us just 2.5 years after moving “home” when I was in kindergarten.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0in; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">This time, the move was to Kansas. Where, over the next 7 short years…<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0in; text-align: start; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Skelly was finally fully merged into the Getty Oil Company.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->The Getty family fought over the entire company to the blows.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->It went up for sale<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Was approved for purchase by Pennzoil<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Was fought over by Pennzoil and Texaco.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Was purchased by Texaco<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Who was sued by Pennzoil<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->Landing Texaco in bankruptcy<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">-<span style="font-stretch: normal; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]-->And my dad “downsized”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">My dad was suddenly out of that “stable” job and found himself loading barrels on a dock for minimum wage. I was in junior high, throwing newspapers and babysitting like crazy. Mom was caring for other people’s kids in our home, baking, sewing, and whatever else came along. And they owned two rental houses that now, with the economic downturn from all of this crap taking its toll on the community, sometimes covered their costs…that my parents couldn’t get rid of because there was no one left to buy them.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The job finally opened that he had been promised if he would hold on and load barrels, but not the way he was originally promised. It would still be his…if we relocated. So we packed up, with 3 unsellable houses listed in Kansas, and moved. Again. To where the work was. Not “home.” But Iowa.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">And the houses FINALLY sold. In my Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior years. At a loss. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">And it has all stuck with me. All of it.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">But I don’t see anything in articles on “smart ways to save” that would have made a difference. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Turning down the heat doesn’t prevent corporate takeovers.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Buying in bulk doesn’t keep people from defaulting.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Bargaining for an extra $50 off of a mortgage a month doesn’t stop downsizing.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">The common thread of everything above and the most base element it all boils down to? GREED. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Greed is not good. It makes a great soundbite, but greed has consequences. Human consequences. And there are not enough coupons you can clip to combat it. It’s all a mirage. How do I know?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Because those consequences rarely land on the greedy themselves, who will gouge and grab and boast of bootstraps…and then demand a bailout. I have never once seen any of them whip out a burgeoning booklet of spit slathered S&H Green Stamps to cover their losses, even in those decades these self-proclaimed smart savers have been lauded to have “survived.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">I do not have all of the answers, but these are not them. And just like these people, I was there. Through all of it. And it’s still with me. Forever.</span><span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><style class="WebKit-mso-list-quirks-style">
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</style>Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-4684089655454525602022-04-15T14:42:00.006-07:002022-04-15T14:58:36.705-07:00A Second for Second Grade<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfSL8shfCBkxsv-EBp1P1jBhqWbBWDPF9rsuhyZrFNCKp4gPPZ7_HvYcyaAWKtXJYlxOEihyMxLG8zEuOnMdcGnkd4oODeDkcgbQO7BfekhhZwmOikb_2EiYgLOmarAWSGWtImkvV_B6WG7brHz-gCNJD214EoXDYVkyaCLkijsTbjvuUTUVLsdCzm4A/s1043/A3D6C60C-FDE7-44E4-B3F2-74E9155FFEEF.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1043" data-original-width="631" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfSL8shfCBkxsv-EBp1P1jBhqWbBWDPF9rsuhyZrFNCKp4gPPZ7_HvYcyaAWKtXJYlxOEihyMxLG8zEuOnMdcGnkd4oODeDkcgbQO7BfekhhZwmOikb_2EiYgLOmarAWSGWtImkvV_B6WG7brHz-gCNJD214EoXDYVkyaCLkijsTbjvuUTUVLsdCzm4A/s320/A3D6C60C-FDE7-44E4-B3F2-74E9155FFEEF.jpeg" width="194" /></a></div><p>This yearbook page popped up in my memories today. It got me smiling about 2nd grade…probably one of my most influential years ever.</p><p>- My teacher was new and had her master’s degree. I had never, in my little life, met anyone who wasn’t a doctor or a priest who had one of those!</p><p>- The girl who sat next to me had a Bee Gees lunchbox, which lead me to discover the delightful decadence of DISCO!</p><p>- During reading time, I went, on a special grant my teacher wrote, to a playwriting class and it was everything I never knew I really wanted. It made my tiny heart sing!</p><p>- My baby brother was born halfway through the year, I brought him for show and tell.</p><p>- My teacher’s husband and toddler were in a terrible car accident, during the school day. I remember the look on her face when they came to tell her. And her matter of fact, straight forward explanation to us about why she needed to leave in that moment. She told us the truth, nothing more than what she did or didn’t know, and that being the exact moment when it truly and thoroughly sunk into my 8 year-old skull, clear down to my soul, that all of these adults around me had whole and complete lives beyond these bricks and mortar that bound us together during the day.</p><p>- Carter and Reagan went head to head….and I knew it was a big deal, but I really didn’t get it.</p><p>- I saw 9 to 5 at the drive-in and danced to the theme song in costumes, mine was a candy striper, for our class’s PTO (Parent Teacher Organization) performance. I fell completely and totally in love with Dolly Parton…still am. </p><p>- We had a class newspaper </p><p>- We made butter </p><p>- We made paper</p><p>- I wrote a poem about flies that I still have memorized to this day.</p><p>- I met and made my best friends.</p><p>- We walked home “alone,” together, for the very first time that year. We would continue to do so, in one combination or another through the summer of 7th grade, when we moved to a different neighborhood, before moving completely away right before I started high school.</p><p>- I got my first scrapbook. </p><p>- I saw my first live performance of a play.</p><p>- I got my first diary.</p><p>- I had my first crush.</p><p>- My mom cut my hair and made almost all of my clothes. She was pretty good at it. My aunt made me a dress and I had a hand-knit confetti sweater with a tie belt and matching yellow double knit pants made by a neighbor lady. (I’m wearing them in the photo at the bottom. My back is turned to the camera). It was the last year I really wore very much that was homemade. Life got busy. I wish I had appreciated it more.</p><p>- I wanted to be a writer and a teacher and a nun and an actor. My true self is somewhere in that mixture.</p><p>- I went by my middle name, Teresa. She’s still in that mix somewhere too.</p><p>- And life was magical and terrifying and changing and good and awful and wide and wonderful and all just waiting to be tried. And it is probably the year of my childhood that I remember most, thanks in large part to the people pictured here that made it so.</p>Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-23494335488049262402021-01-13T10:40:00.002-08:002021-01-13T11:18:26.759-08:00Press Release From The 10th Circle of Hell<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv_HbqjRYpru_H95ivMHS7NhNsGiK5asSs0lLn4F9jEqb6IKXVUo6Qg_vcSL_zVzsHVd9uydsTJl3FQ4Ht-qi7o2CuwzfyvV_Oq6gNzE44SrPdbsLPLOK7VOUFc0RBa1rVaKyezVfTvv_n/s746/Vanity.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="488" data-original-width="746" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv_HbqjRYpru_H95ivMHS7NhNsGiK5asSs0lLn4F9jEqb6IKXVUo6Qg_vcSL_zVzsHVd9uydsTJl3FQ4Ht-qi7o2CuwzfyvV_Oq6gNzE44SrPdbsLPLOK7VOUFc0RBa1rVaKyezVfTvv_n/s320/Vanity.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: helvetica;">For Immediate Release: VANITY NOW A VIRTUE NOT A VICE!</span></p><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">To: All Members Of The Christian Faith, The United States Of America<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">From: The Office of Public Relations<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">10<sup>th</sup> Circle of Hell<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">666 Lake of Fire Dr.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">Hades<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">Dear Church,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">On behalf of the other nine circles of hell, let me begin by telling you what a great pleasure it is to announce, that after a centuries long review, it’s finally official: VANITY IS NO LONGER A VICE!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">We must admit, we were originally disappointed, when vanity was not catapulted to the pinnacle of prominence as one of the original seven deadly. It just flew under the radar, simply slapped on as a sub sin in the category of Pride. But in the long run this has been an unanticipated benefit for those of us who never saw social media coming.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">So, after centuries of struggle, we now submit to you that this vice has been promoted to virtue. And please trust us when we tell you that this declaration needs no higher scrutiny, for as we have observed over the past year, you have personally proclaimed yourselves as the highest possible authorities in existence, and for this we cannot thank you enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">It’s beyond our wildest dreams to see you finally fully embracing the false notion of your own infallibility. Publicly proclaiming, in post after post, how absolutely right you are. And should someone find fault with something you’ve said or shared or done or chosen, you simply point out someone else’s wrongdoing, magically transfiguring the current culpability and all future failings. Cleansing at least your conscience, if not your soul.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">And let me further applaud your efforts at crafting a Christ trademarked in your own image. A very American Messiah tested and tried against the gospel according to your gut. Who coincidentally only supports your worldviews and wants. Which you are happy to prove by dipping into doctrine, dragging out dollops and shaking loose any context or culture that could make it mean anything other than what you want. After all, the Bible sounds so much better in sound bites, don’t you think?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">Guilt free gods yourselves able to worship what you please, be it political party or patriotism or self-preservation or appearances. After all, America first! And believe me when I say you have our full support in this because who needs all that hooey about “no other gods before me.” I mean how vain is that?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">Thus proving our point that vanity is a virtue! See how convenient scripture snipping can be?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">But we especially want to thank all of those who have remained relatively silent. Who have spoken little out of fear of rocking the boat with your fellow American Christians. Who’ve exchanged pleasantries in the pews to help keep up appearances. Your vanity in this area has been the greatest gift of all. And we owe you more than we can ever express. Your quiet compliance has helped make all of this possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></div><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><!--StartFragment--><!--EndFragment--><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24px;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">So keep up the “good” work with all of your statuses and selfies and self-centered worldviews. Or by saying nothing at all. Because when you look good you feel…well at least everyone will think you’re good. </span><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Because after all, you’re an American Christian. And vanity is now a virtue.</span></div>Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-61865108044277072542020-12-14T08:42:00.003-08:002020-12-14T08:42:48.662-08:00I Don’t Want Anyone To Die For Me, I Just Want A Barbie<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvEdrT21u879rhfqbjI7n2WXgFsOkZ0juXyUCXj5n6dXwPJ1Oy21x0nR_-ZKLGYoB1kY3t6xXXHf9USGh8QmSUN3nnb_Dxwi7OaTal5U1OL4HgU6j2BjyCzDPD4qLUeqRYQLgK2onYTBB4/s1600/Nativity.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvEdrT21u879rhfqbjI7n2WXgFsOkZ0juXyUCXj5n6dXwPJ1Oy21x0nR_-ZKLGYoB1kY3t6xXXHf9USGh8QmSUN3nnb_Dxwi7OaTal5U1OL4HgU6j2BjyCzDPD4qLUeqRYQLgK2onYTBB4/s320/Nativity.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; font-size: xx-small;">From the archives 2016</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">The moment my Dad lined the three of us up along the lip of our harvest gold and walnut couch, I knew it was a trap. I may have been seven years old, but I was savvy enough to see through “Do you know what Christmas is really about?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">“Jesus!” I proudly parroted, certain I had just saved myself and siblings from the ensuing spiel. And then he turned to my six-year-old brother. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">“Do you know what Christmas is really about?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">Come on! Come on! You can do it! It’s a trick question. You just heard me say the answer.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">“Jesus!”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">Oh, thank God!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">But then he turned to the toddler.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">“Do you know what…”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">“Santa Claus!”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">Nooooooooooooooo!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">I caved into the cushions as he launched into a lengthy lecture, one with too much information for my age and stage, that completely crushed that cute little Christ in a crèche and left me a very sinister second grader who had savagely slain someone with her sin.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">When it was over, my brother and sister happily hurried off blissfully oblivious to their offense after becoming completely lost immediately after the opening bit about the babe in Bethlehem. However, the gravity of my guilt settled on my shoulders as I made my way over to the console TV where my mother had placed our nativity set, as she had done every year, ensuring we all would see it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">I surveyed the ceramics from Sears. There were the wise men still way off in the corner of the console working their way west for the Epiphany. The shepherd who carried his sheep for some reason rather than letting it walk. The ox and ass, who through stifled giggles allowed me to say “ass” at church. The angel with a clipped wing that had chipped when she slipped from her nail and crashed where the cradle should have been. And Mary and Joseph, all staring expectantly into the blank space where my youngest sibling would reach her chubby little fingers in on Christmas morning, to place the baby, ceremoniously signaling the start of our festivities.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">All awaiting the arrival of Jesus, just so I could kill him.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">It was a good thing I had been preparing to make my first confession in a couple of months. We had really only covered the venial sins in my Baltimore Catechism. You know, the little ones, like fighting with my brother and not making my bed. The stuff that would still let me into purgatory where I could be on a payment plan of penance. Nothing so dire it deserved damnation. But it turned out we should have been covering the mortal ones, because I was unwittingly a murderer!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">Mrs. Johnson, my Wednesday night CCD teacher, had mentioned the mortal sins as a category not to concern our elementary school selves with because those were really big ones like killing someone…which I had apparently already done! And the only way to get a mortal sin off of your soul was to go to confession. So, I would have to sit and stew in my sinfulness until that Saturday in spring when I would finally be capable of confessing to this capital crime and cleanse it from my conscience. I was going to have to be extra careful not to take any unnecessary risks to ensure I survived until then!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">Over the next several days, at recess, I stayed off of the ice my friends were so gleefully gliding across and sat on the steps. I skipped going to my best friend’s house after school. And every time we got in the car, I secured my seatbelt, even though this was 1980 and seatbelts were completely unnecessary unless we were on vacation and even then, I am pretty sure they were only required to keep us from climbing all over the car and driving my parents crazy on cross-country car trips.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">I didn’t go out and play in the first snow of the season. I skipped sledding and stayed safely inside watching the neighbor kids out the dining room window. And this is when my mother was sure something was amiss.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">“I know that Santa is watching, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want you to have any fun.” And then she winked.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">Mom was well aware I knew who was what. I had known since Kindergarten. It started with suspicions about The Tooth Fairy, then barreled through the Easter Bunny and snowballed right on over to Santa. I had always been an over-thinker and in a matter of minutes my five-year-old mind had managed to decimate the magic, much to my mother’s dismay.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">But it stayed our little secret. She knew that I knew that she knew that I knew. But ne’er a word was said about it since that day more than two years earlier.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">However, it wasn’t “Santa” that concerned me. It was that other guy in red. The one whose name also started with an “S.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">And as my worries piled up just like the snow outside, I finally could take it no longer.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">“I don’t want anyone to die for me, I just want a Barbie.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">And then there were tears.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">And a very simple response.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">I don’t remember exactly what she said, only that she pointed out how very much she loved me. 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<![endif]--><!--StartFragment--><!--EndFragment--><br />Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-56342068390819080582020-12-11T07:59:00.000-08:002020-12-11T07:59:18.752-08:00Amish Underpants and All<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOWzr63F11j67NfFXeGjNU_4BxuCgMjXtVzY36Km1JeT1Km8e4BN4RAgdGtxMKX7z4URqPxeqalMdxYvrjxOeMD2aKr8WbGdbO_Ui-RLrb9jmaUjyh9ot2QCH2T_MDtybRY-8x9Aw8QlH6/s1125/Screenshot+2020-12-11+at+9.52.41+AM.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="625" data-original-width="1125" height="178" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOWzr63F11j67NfFXeGjNU_4BxuCgMjXtVzY36Km1JeT1Km8e4BN4RAgdGtxMKX7z4URqPxeqalMdxYvrjxOeMD2aKr8WbGdbO_Ui-RLrb9jmaUjyh9ot2QCH2T_MDtybRY-8x9Aw8QlH6/w320-h178/Screenshot+2020-12-11+at+9.52.41+AM.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: helvetica; font-size: xx-small;">From the archives 2017</span><p></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“Are you at the good Denny’s?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Three motels, one with its hourly rate proudly posted, and the adult bookstore directly across the street made it clear I was not.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">I had been expelled from a closing airport and sent to spend Christmas Eve at the "bad Denny's" to be hit on by an aging gangster named Foot while sitting adjacent to Chardonnay, a stripper with a stack of singles and feather roach-clip earrings, wearing a black Santa hat emblazoned with the word "Naughty!"<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“I don’t think so…but I need to reserve a cab pickup…”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“Ma’am, we don’t make reservations for pickups from Denny’s. Especially that Denny’s.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Click!<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">All eyes turned to me, the pariah from the police car, who had just been plopped in the parking lot. I stood there, Delta Dawn incarnate, wearing an ill-fitting 17 year-old wool winter coat and ripped yoga pants, clutching a small suitcase.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Just hours earlier, I had been racing through an underground tunnel at LAX because the first leg of my flight had been switched and was suddenly being serviced by a completely different airline…in a totally different terminal…on the opposite side of the airport.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">I made it, just in time to reprint tickets and tags and rush to the gate…where the flight was delayed. I had just set my carryon down and was readying to settle in when --<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“Here, watch him!”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">A complete stranger, not even bothering to make eye contact, shoved her son at me and disappeared…for half of an hour. She blew back in the same whirlwind in which she went, phone squeezed tightly between her shoulder and cheek, whisking him up as she hurried past and on off down the hallway hollering back to me without even glancing up, “Hurry up Helen! I can’t do this all myself!” No, she couldn’t. She definitely couldn’t. And poor Helen, wherever she was.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">But now, I sat, plates piling high on the pressed wood table, ordering course after course from the menu to bide my time until the airport reopened in a few hours. I preferred paying rent on this sticky tabled booth rather than at the hourly motor lodge across the way where there was a good chance that the surfaces were just as sticky. I ordered $16 worth of food. $16 is an immense amount of food for a single person at Denny’s.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">I swirled my straw through three dollars worth of strawberry shake.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“What you doin’? What you doin’ with that bad ass?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">I looked up to see a bandit-bandanaed-blonde-bombshell airbrushed across a black t-shirt just below some numbers and the letters “O.G.” sliding into the booth across from me.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“Foot” slurred a thick tongued introduction fragrant with fermentation as he extended his tattooed fingertips; a tinted motif that flowed up his forearm, then slipped under his sleeve unseen to later resurface, slithering up his neck and culminating around his eye in teardrops, dots and digits. He continued by unleashing an uninvited ode to my ass. That same, travel tired tush that was now respectfully tucked away in torn yoga pants under a large tunic.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">The rip in the rear was the result of a snag from some stable doors set up in the sanctuary for Christmas Eve service. I was cleaning up the frankincense and myrrh when my derriere was detained by the doors just minutes before boarding an airport shuttle to make it to my original flight in the nick of time…before it was changed in every way possible. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">A flight that I was taking to catch up to my husband who had already headed to the Midwest a few days earlier. A flight I had to take solo because I worked at a church and Christmas Eve is, well, a workday. A flight that was supposedly a “connecting flight” that had just landed at a tiny airport that “doesn’t do connecting flights.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“Ma’am, you’ll have to leave. The airport is closing. It’s Christmas Eve and everyone wants to go home.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“But I’m supposed to get on a connecting flight in a few hours.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“Ma’am there are no connections. This is the end of the road.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">I stood there wagging my tickets for the remainder of my trip. Tickets printed by an airline that doesn’t service that airport. Tickets that no one would even look at when I asked them to because it wasn’t their airline. Tickets that cost hundreds of dollars, but were getting me nowhere except kicked out of the airport because it was closing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“Ma’am. How did you even get here? Who dropped you off?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“I flew. I just got off of a plane a little over an hour ago.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">And then the walkie-talkie was whipped out and I was described as a confused lady in a red wool coat. A really old red wool coat. A red wool coat that I was wearing even though it was at least 70 degrees outside.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Two Novembers into our marriage, I had no winter coat nor the budget for a winter coat. But was surrounded by Iowa weather that required said winter coat. This was back before you could order things online, so we went shopping. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">There was a beautiful red wool coat, at Yonkers department store, that I loved. Then, there wound up being one functional coat at another place that was the only one that fit me and the budget. The store closed before I could go back and get it. I resolved to return the next day.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">After work, I swung by home to change out of my bank teller’s uniform before heading out to make my practical purchase and there, lying on the bed, was the red wool coat. That red wool coat took extra hours. That red wool coat took giving things up. That red wool coat made me cry. And even though it has gone out of fashion and I live in the heat of Southern California, I still wear that red wool coat every year when I travel home for Christmas. It is the only winter coat I own. It may have been seventeen years old, but the intent and love behind it are still the same.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“Well, all of the cabs are gone now, and by the time one gets here, we’ll all be gone and it’s not safe to leave you standing outside alone. Is there someplace I can drop you until the airport opens again in the morning?” The airport cop had been summoned to deal with the confused lady in the red wool coat.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“Maybe a 24-hour restaurant like an IHOP?” I offered.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“I don’t know. A lot of things are closed.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">I checked my phone to see what I could find. I found a Denny’s. He said that was doable.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">I climbed into his squad car with my carryon luggage in my lap, closed the door, and as the car pulled away from the curb, the questions began. Familiar questions. Questions we used to have on a list for a nonprofit I had worked for. Questions that were asked of mentally unstable people off in an alternate reality.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">And according to my phone, we were not headed towards the Denny’s. Not by a long shot. I was headed to spend the early morning hours of my Christmas where those deemed “confused” who show up in old red coats at dead end airports with tickets for airlines that aren’t there wind up. So rather than starting at the beginning again. Out of desperation, I chose to start at the end. The destination. Rural Iowa. My mother and father-in-law’s house and how they would be waiting to pick me up, along with my husband.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">And as fate would have it, this cop, way out on the west coast…had family…in the tiny town just one county over. And knew all of the places and even some of the people from my husband’s hometown. And at least for a moment, long enough to turn the car around, decided maybe I wasn’t completely deranged and dropped me at that Denny’s.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">That Denny’s where I now sat across from a very large man, with very identifiable associations on his skin, as he wound up his ballad to my butt.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“I’d really like to kiss you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“Dad, leave her alone!”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">And there he was, the son. Foot had a son! A son! A son with miraculous timing. A son whose face burned with embarrassment as he dragged his elder from my booth toward the door, apologizing profusely. A son who said he hoped his father hadn’t ruined my Christmas as Foot staggered back toward me offering, in his own way, to…keep in touch.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">“For the love of God, Dad! Get in the car! Now!” And one kick to Foot’s own “bad ass” and they were out the door and into the waiting car.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">I spent the next few hours in the booth next to Chardonnay and across from an autistic tree surgeon named, I kid you not, Gabriel. Who, from what I gathered, came in every night to sit on the same stool and eat the same thing. He would sit at the counter and talk about trees, to anyone and everyone, as loudly as he could.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">He knew everything there was to know about trees! Their insides, their outsides, their bark and their bite. And how at this time of year, everyone loved trees. He got to string them with lights all throughout gardens and hedges. And shape them and tie them and make them look lovely. So of course Christmas was his favorite! And what better way to spend Christmas than with his favorite strangers and at his favorite place, Denny’s.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">And he wished each and every one of us a merry Christmas and us him in return. And in those wee early hours while we were still in the night, all of us waiting for…something; the strays and the castoffs, the unwanted and wandering, the fringe and forgotten were gathered together and wished well and welcomed and given glad tidings of great joy from Gabriel, about his evergreens.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">It was going to be okay. I had a place to be. I was warm and I had $16 worth of cold spaghetti and sides splayed out before me. I was pretty blessed and soon I would be with people who loved me...with or without underwear.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Yep. When I finally arrived at my destination, my luggage was lost…for five days. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Despite everything, I made it back to the airport, onto an outbound flight and to my mother and father-in-law’s house. Where I finally replaced my ripped open pants with a pair of pajama bottoms I opened for Christmas because I had nothing else to wear.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">And being Rural Iowa, everything was closed for the holidays. I eventually had to give in and buy some underwear from a Mennonite supply store just to get by. These behemoth britches came way up past my belly button and my husband and I called these sizeable, sexy specimens my “Amish underpants.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">But I had made it to my destination. To people who love me, Amish underpants and all. And I know that I’ll never have another Christmas Eve like that one…<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #16191f; font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: "System Font Regular"; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Because next time, I’m going to the “good Denny’s.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Audio version available here produced by Medium Studios: </span>https://medium.com/@TheLauraBecker/amish-underpants-and-all-71dae2b0adad</div>Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-16415048424262948812020-12-01T06:04:00.002-08:002020-12-01T06:07:20.812-08:00The Beauty of an Ugly Brown Hairdryer <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFvXz1V4NrkaDSxKXqewuTAcEsFyrl16wenR-WdgvE3Pwfnh6jEGAvORrfVznGhKLeUEOBaFMHv2XFURX7_dzfb0_KeJNtYozxAl_UDt0kOeAd0E02sVA-ls7h_yp7Y8ytgDCQ6XoNTUwT/s1125/B97CEAFE-BE83-4DA1-8FC7-6A275E789C58.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="790" data-original-width="1125" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFvXz1V4NrkaDSxKXqewuTAcEsFyrl16wenR-WdgvE3Pwfnh6jEGAvORrfVznGhKLeUEOBaFMHv2XFURX7_dzfb0_KeJNtYozxAl_UDt0kOeAd0E02sVA-ls7h_yp7Y8ytgDCQ6XoNTUwT/w320-h226/B97CEAFE-BE83-4DA1-8FC7-6A275E789C58.jpeg" title="Republished from archived material" width="320" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: xx-small;">From the archives 2016</span></p><span style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;">It’s a big, brown, slightly broken, archaic monstrosity…but it’s mine. The hairdryer I got in the 8</span><sup style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: helvetica;">th</sup><span style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"> </span><span style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;">grade, for Christmas 1986.</span><p></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Despite its thirty-plus years, it still works. However, I have apparently tripped over the cord and bounced it off of the bathroom tile one too many times because occasionally, I have to squeeze the seam back together while flipping the switch to get it running. But, with just the right finessing, it pops back into place and purrs back to life.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">My husband has offered, repeatedly, to get me a new one. Reminding me that it’s perfectly alright to replace it. But I just can’t. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">You see, it was my Christmas present. The present. The only present…8 months before my family finally threw in the towel and limped our way kicking and screaming to Iowa after my dad's company was "acquired."<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">My 13 year-old self learned the ugly meanings of lots of words like “acquired,” including "merger" and "downsize" and "independent contractors" as she was swept up in the aftermath of what has been called "one of the ugliest takeovers in Wall Street history."<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">My brother and I had paper routes and I babysat like crazy to pay for school clothes, shoes, and all the other little things that came along the way. I helped out in the school kitchen for free lunch. My mother watched kids in our home, made cakes to order and sewed clothes and costumes for neighborhood customers. And my dad took the extra hauls, whenever they were available.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">But by my 8<sup>th</sup> grade year, my dad had gone from driving a truck to loading one, for minimum wage…with a wife and five kids. And I still remember, that tearful moment when my parents told me, that as the oldest, there wouldn’t be much for me under the tree. I was okay. I wasn’t worried for me. I wasn’t the one with the tears.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">But on Christmas morning, somehow, there was a box with a bow and a big brown hairdryer. And then I was the one in tears.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"> “It’s not that bad,” my brother soothed, oblivious to the true reason for the tears. And as I looked down, yes it was. It was huge and horrible and just…well…a hairdryer. But it was MINE.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">And it still is.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Because over time, I have also come to learn the beautiful meaning of the word "gratitude" for something as ugly as this big brown hairdryer.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(67, 67, 67); color: #434343; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15.84000015258789px;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">follow me on Instagram and twitter @thelaurabecker</span></div>Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-63794600017494757862020-11-07T11:33:00.008-08:002020-11-07T19:49:07.173-08:00Hope<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8WNZCmQkyQDamfPtAY352BKMCOJWWBtPp-xOFbOcaugAcwYokrvJiAljDg-GmBFZwgBIEB9sZ9U1HRINzZ0u-a5ebTTG1whSqaFJwMiONlBs9UCS4FsFx6ncKXKnaSwF27lWNInOPxPlR/s979/BC3FBF2D-B1DD-41A8-AF13-5EC5E1A4DD7F.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="553" data-original-width="979" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8WNZCmQkyQDamfPtAY352BKMCOJWWBtPp-xOFbOcaugAcwYokrvJiAljDg-GmBFZwgBIEB9sZ9U1HRINzZ0u-a5ebTTG1whSqaFJwMiONlBs9UCS4FsFx6ncKXKnaSwF27lWNInOPxPlR/s320/BC3FBF2D-B1DD-41A8-AF13-5EC5E1A4DD7F.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Archived 2018 and published for this Election Day announcement because the dawn was inevitable)</span></p><p>Hope provides a pressing forward. A progression. A pursuit. The result of looking beyond that dimmed horizon with our hearts to the coming dawn…which is inevitable.</p><p></p><p>In our despair, we fall back, dragging deeper into darkness, fueled by fears fed with what-ifs, finding ourselves further still from that place where we finally see the light. A pointless position where we’re somehow persuaded to take up residence. Ruling out any possibility of the very real rays just beyond the ridge.</p><p>But no one can stop the sun from shining. Prevent it from pouring forth, casting out shadows. It can merely be obscured, as we’re shielded with clouded considerations and foggy forgone conclusions. Lies we’ve let linger in an attempt to prolong the night so we might hide from the whole truth and our parts in it just a bit longer. But the sundown cannot sustain. Nor should it. For the shade is always shifting.</p><p>So, by all means, mourn.</p><p>But do not surrender hope, just because it is asked of you. Or easier. Or lost. No!</p><p>Seek it out! Snatch it back! And soldier on! Holding it tight, like a torch, leading us into that impending tomorrow filled with a radiance that cannot be rescinded.</p>Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-25136623163560375092020-11-05T15:00:00.002-08:002020-11-05T15:08:12.688-08:00Laura's Lament<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcTBhfqZ8a2TzpdFBwdavvhgtVwaHk933fIFpKon2Zmz0ickwWuomVztM2WUiV4asMuiM9TgXe1vTxAyEgaUI_I06Fi3-UvBWj-d40dSsOvUeYssbr-x6-Ou_m4bq3W6GOFAn24YrYzn26/s1465/IMG_1938.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1465" data-original-width="1125" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcTBhfqZ8a2TzpdFBwdavvhgtVwaHk933fIFpKon2Zmz0ickwWuomVztM2WUiV4asMuiM9TgXe1vTxAyEgaUI_I06Fi3-UvBWj-d40dSsOvUeYssbr-x6-Ou_m4bq3W6GOFAn24YrYzn26/s320/IMG_1938.jpeg" /></a></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">You. <o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">You reach your presence out to us and promise:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">“I shall never leave you nor forsake you” <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">And yet…<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Here we find ourselves in a hell-storm of hatred where those with wicked hearts are revered and cruelty is commended, <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Armed to the teeth with weapons and words with the safety long unlocked; the trigger tickling the tips of our tongues and annihilation just a keystroke away, <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Socially distanced across a chasm that already cut right through the basest blue and red wrongly assumed to be all that we are, leaving intact only the white of the flag that we’ve formed into one of surrender to our fears.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">A house divided, where one will not forgive the utterances of another and in return the sins shared betweenst, bent on the blasphemy of banning hope.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Where love is rejected and all are judge and jury, but there is no order in this fictitious court of our own creation stacked with personal preferences and prejudice,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Ordering orientation of others and sentencings of self-denial, shoving our sisters and brothers to the backs of closets from whence they once came for our own comfort and convenience because acceptance might just take a smidge of effort and empathy and enlightenment,<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Because we like it dark ‘round here where we do our deeds disguised as dignified through the commercial commoditizing of our lives, which we weigh against potential gains and losses, <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Sold on an auction block that was supposedly bygone, but still bets against the brown and black skin of our siblings whom we deny in the presence of the purveyors’ empty promises in a ‘Merican market of mayhem and marginalization that devalues us all as we sell our souls to perpetuate the privilege.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Appetizing our angst into soundbites as we down the decay of dishonesty and disinformation disguised as delicacy, ruminating and clenching our jaws on what should never have passed our lips in the first place, fighting to swallow as it sticks to our insides, bringing about a heartburn that has little to do with heart and more with reflux and reflex and regurgitating poison talking points begging purge until the acidic untruths ulcer within, ultimately eating us alive.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Because we’ve put it all into hock with the attempted short sale of our salvation, as if its grantor, falsely deemed a lender, would ever approve, <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">But we’ve convinced ourselves we can trade up, if only we sell out somebody else to make it so. Betting we can bargain our birthright on margin in an attempt to get ahead of all of the “others” well beyond unworthy because the prosperity gospel declares them so. With their poverty pronounced sin, they wouldn’t be there in the first place if they were people of price because it’s not possibly a problem of those perpetrating it through superior positions. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">And it’s alright says the alt-right with wayward words that award whiteness the winner with nothing done to deserve it. Granting grievance over grace, gift wrapped and given to grind down the already downtrodden, heavily heaped upon scape goats gone forth amidst the slobbering mob which seeks to satiate their emptiness by tearing to shreds those sent to us from elsewhere. Yes, sent, as strangers seeking reception, yet winding up against walls with their little ones locked away falsely calling it security claiming to “protect” us from brownness at our borders when there’s already a terrible malignancy marking us within. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">A cancer that cannot be overcome because we refuse to acknowledge the diagnosis and insist it’s nothing more than the remnants of that bad something-or-other we had once upon a time, long, long ago that somehow just seems to linger. And linger. And linger.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Until we full-on relapse like the addicts to our own self-delusion that we are. Again and again. Going back to draw from the dry hopeless wells of deceit repeatedly continuing to drink dirt, miraged as miracle under the politician’s promise, rather than receiving the living water offered if only we will share a cup. But our vanity intervenes, bringing us back to the lie that there are lives worth less, suffocating on the dust to which we will ultimately return and of what we are made because we refuse to even touch the tumbler on which another’s lips may have landed.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">We turn up our noses returning to the Jim Crow fountains, now more refined, as a sort of bottled water version of bias, pumped up from our darkest desires and slipped into the secretive storehouses of sin safely inside the gated walls of our “good neighborhoods” where the other is not wanted. Slurping down the subpar swill that is nothing new, all just repackaged and repurposed for the current century and will only leave us thirsty again and standing in the desert of a vanished oasis that never really was…on stolen land.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">And for this, I am furious…that it’s all disgustingly done in your name! <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">And we, your supposed people, say nothing. We wish not to rock the boat when it’s already sinking asunder from centuries of neglect. The lazy inaction of sitting on the sidelines, infuriated by those actually in the game because some of them may be kneeling rather than worshipping an idolistic image, claiming you as our savior screaming, “America first!”…forgetting or flat out forfeiting the truth that you come far, far before that.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">And yes. Yes. I have fault in this. A fault that I can never fix myself and so I ask that you please save us. Please. Stop this sorrow and save us yet again from ourselves. And send us toward that long arc of justice ever curving, reaching down to the deserving someday to crush us underneath, but by benevolence at last grabbed out by your grace for abatement.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Have mercy oh, God. And forever change in us that which we are unable to change ourselves, overturn our unwillingness, and hold us accountable to all that we are responsible to reconcile if only we will…however hard it may be. Because avoidance brings you no glory. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">And let it be for that. Not as loss or waste, but for the remembrance of your righteousness. To be told and retold and told yet again, of your reigning resolve to cherish your children. ALL OF THEM. And speak as witness with gratitude for your promise: <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">“I shall never leave you nor forsake you”<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;">Amen.</p></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-56576603967530916332020-10-09T12:11:00.004-07:002020-10-09T12:43:00.587-07:00Behind the Back of the Back of My Backyard<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsUlKClGLYsL5UKi_6wlSvF03Kh0ehVrskdqr82Da6AZ3rj31CMPjfLtAASxJOGTVL5ZCy3EIY1Xmwt7isARd6DhtreI-TUMXmx9m2uN4SYOxoVaObD-5IbDoBHeu_QCfbyBUNMZ6k7lxO/s2048/frantzou-fleurine-BALZ8uogVjs-unsplash.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsUlKClGLYsL5UKi_6wlSvF03Kh0ehVrskdqr82Da6AZ3rj31CMPjfLtAASxJOGTVL5ZCy3EIY1Xmwt7isARd6DhtreI-TUMXmx9m2uN4SYOxoVaObD-5IbDoBHeu_QCfbyBUNMZ6k7lxO/s320/frantzou-fleurine-BALZ8uogVjs-unsplash.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p><span style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Today I went wandering...</span></span></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Winding way away</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Beyond the eastern boundary of our not-so-big burg </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Behind the back of the back of my backyard </span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">On a gaunt twoway tract of Texas tamed by blacktop over bridges and byways </span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Under cornflower skies clouded with cotton, so wide they reach beyond the corners of the mind’s eyes to the afternoons of childhoods past where they filter through lenses of reminiscence amplifying the azure to a sharpness that pierces the heart with want for all of the promise once promised</span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Impaled by that point, bleeding bygones over bridges past bales and barns where cattle and cactus and cottonwoods cross paths with cemeteries and new construction and antiquity scantily secured by the rusting rails of what remains </span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">With wounds inflicted by wishing, but not necessarily needing, nursed for no reason other than the harassment of hindsight all of the way to an apparent nowhere</span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: helvetica;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Out past the prior passages ventured to for a view of anything other than the day to day of pandemic perimeters imposed by our present predicament</span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Finally, filling my lungs with a refreshing that afforded the opportunity to turn back to where I belonged </span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Wayfaring a backtracked route through that wild tangle of what once was and now is and one day soon shall be, lined up all along the asphalt that divided its direction with nothing more than a thinly dotted line that can be crossed over, so easily sending one off in the wrong direction</span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql ii04i59q" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Beyond the eastern boundary of our our not-so-big burg </span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: helvetica;">Behind the back of the back of my backyard</span></div></div>Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-65392010479643267862020-10-05T13:07:00.008-07:002020-10-05T14:23:56.569-07:00She Just Works with Kids<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9md6ITLkXlRJJWZnUKnuMrLrnE9NG_htLQxLpetCmQoFob2yd-qiBIc5vETDAmmsZwFDO7ZvwCPEyjnWS-qqr7P-XKHOY2e8TiUP6oaev_RFLl4E81822zLMJJguZLkXRRkz4PL9m6-tB/s2048/silo+children.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1495" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9md6ITLkXlRJJWZnUKnuMrLrnE9NG_htLQxLpetCmQoFob2yd-qiBIc5vETDAmmsZwFDO7ZvwCPEyjnWS-qqr7P-XKHOY2e8TiUP6oaev_RFLl4E81822zLMJJguZLkXRRkz4PL9m6-tB/s320/silo+children.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She doesn’t do real ministry</span><span style="font-family: arial;">…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">she just works with kids.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She can’t be on the speaking schedule…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">she just works with kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She wouldn’t have any insight…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">she just works with kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She couldn’t teach that class…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">she just works with kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She wouldn’t understand…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">she just works with kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She wouldn’t be tough enough…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">she just works with kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She wouldn’t know how to do the research…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">she just works with kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She’s not a real pastor…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">she just works with kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She’s not actually in leadership…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">she just works with kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She doesn’t need to be included…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">she just works with kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She doesn’t need a day off…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">she just works with kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She couldn’t handle the complexities…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">she just works with kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She really sold herself short…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">she just works with kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She’s not important enough…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">she just works with kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She really doesn’t matter…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">she just works with kids.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><o:p><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She has had all of the above said about her without a second thought because...</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in;"><span style="font-family: arial;">She "just" works with kids.</span></p></div>Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-41779559825727895602020-10-02T16:36:00.003-07:002020-10-02T20:50:53.438-07:00Laugh Along<p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp8nasRmaXkgsXNpoHIWaigf5qoub_dtpWFJjlj_x2FhEvyPed2ywMaTOLv9Jmyq04eBxD6VHq3PgBQsBkjcZhymxHyc-gRatUq5kWOviyJyKvuwaJ-E0e6hEtUnmibBP2FXEKkyRbRWwr/s719/IMG_1765.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="283" data-original-width="719" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp8nasRmaXkgsXNpoHIWaigf5qoub_dtpWFJjlj_x2FhEvyPed2ywMaTOLv9Jmyq04eBxD6VHq3PgBQsBkjcZhymxHyc-gRatUq5kWOviyJyKvuwaJ-E0e6hEtUnmibBP2FXEKkyRbRWwr/w467-h184/IMG_1765.jpeg" width="467" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">I was baptized on April Fool’s Day.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">In second grade, after accidentally eating little smokies during lent, a boy in my class told me that they were going to have to take me to church and pray the weenies out of me. I was horrified. But my mother later assured me, much to her amusement, that there was no Roman Catholic ritual for the exorcism of miniature kielbasa. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">At my confirmation, my dress blew up over my head in front of the cathedral.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">And while giving my high school baccalaureate speech, to my amazement and delight, I was not struck by lightning. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">I’d anticipated in my adolescent brain that this just might be a possibility, as it was the first time I ever intentionally used honesty and humor to share with others about faith in a public forum. It was then that I began to truly believe that God just might have a sense of humor after all. Something I now see was being clearly conveyed to me all along. First off, I was created female (Ha!), in a Roman Catholic household (Ha!), with a gift and calling for ministry (Ha! Ha! Ha! HILARIOUS!) So, as I headed off to college, I couldn’t help but think that somehow, the joke was on me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">My first weekend away, I went to church…and then didn’t return. For weeks. Then months. Then finally years. I want to be clear, this was an absolute surprise to me because I wasn’t raised a “casual Catholic.” I completed my </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #222222;">Confraternity of Christian Doctrine with almost perfect attendance. My entire growing up I only missed church twice. EVER. Once when I was having an appendectomy and the other when I went to New York with my choir…but went on a weekday to make up for it. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif">But as a young adult, I loathed it. It really grated on me. Not because I didn’t believe in God, or want God in my life, or even love God, but because the talents and calling I had been gifted with and the beliefs I had brewing, just didn’t reconcile with the rest of it. That little mustard seed of grit I was granted was not gone, it just needed to be planted elsewhere. But I had no idea where to begin. So, I started with the Catechism of the Catholic Church and I went through it a page a day because leaving something so central to how I was raised was a big deal. </span><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #222222;">And it took a long time. But before I was even finished, I could see it wasn’t who I was meant to be. So, who was I?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #222222;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; color: #222222;">Well, after a lot of deliberate research, study, and discernment turns out I am a Presbyterian, who recommitted to Christ and officially joined the church when I was 30, with a wicked sense of humor who loves storytelling and still hasn’t forgotten what it was like to be that little girl from way back when. But who is able to laugh about it. And write about it. And talk about it. And be absolutely okay with others laughing along and seeing themselves somewhere inside. Someone who’s taking it just a page turn at a time like with that hefty catechism, slowly discerning what to do next and always waiting for that wonderful punchline that I now know is never at my expense.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-39517963043976615612020-02-21T05:56:00.000-08:002020-02-21T06:41:07.660-08:00Things These Little People Taught Me That I Needed To Relearn <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMKXsyS615f0CQ2jvvuixZ1t5NP_5KFTLAqSJ7g25kGv6_CLKeqL1lBAHCGq-AzvhP0xQMDcdcw-HeyLiunotrPEVlJJDlS3mXIX5HYlLt3pNg4Hb_R6RaYYxIUwWesVCIlYJJzqEgOYoI/s1600/F5C313F9-FFC4-4AF9-A835-F506EE5EF6B9.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="643" data-original-width="1014" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMKXsyS615f0CQ2jvvuixZ1t5NP_5KFTLAqSJ7g25kGv6_CLKeqL1lBAHCGq-AzvhP0xQMDcdcw-HeyLiunotrPEVlJJDlS3mXIX5HYlLt3pNg4Hb_R6RaYYxIUwWesVCIlYJJzqEgOYoI/s400/F5C313F9-FFC4-4AF9-A835-F506EE5EF6B9.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
Today I got the pleasure and privilege of spending time at the park in the crisp air with a small pack of preschoolers and their parents.<br />
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Things these little people taught me that I needed to relearn:<br />
<br />
1.) Try it all, every last thing, before it’s time to go home!<br />
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2.) Ask for help, not necessarily to do it for you, but to hold your hand when you’re feeling unsure. Someone who will promise to not let go...until you’re ready.<br />
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3.) If you fall down, take a moment to decide if it’s an owie or a surprise. This will help you to determine the best course of action to get you back up on your feet again. They’re two very different things, but both pretty unpleasant, and sometimes you just need a little acknowledgement.<br />
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4.) Take your shoes off, at least for a little while. Even when it’s cold. How else are you supposed to get every last wiggle out, clear down to the tips of your toes?<br />
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5.) Celebrate your accomplishments and look back at how far you’ve come! You stretched yourself for every inch of that climb. Enjoy where it’s gotten you.<br />
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6.) Squeal with joy from that fantastic feeling of going fast. Because it all goes fast. So very fast.<br />
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7.) Share a spot on a blanket in the sun. It’s warm and wonderful, but even better when there’s someone sitting there beside you.<br />
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And last but not least...<br />
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8) Tell your mom you love her. Then do it again. And again. And again.Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-9008819113045552672020-02-12T08:56:00.001-08:002020-09-30T09:41:33.446-07:00Chirp!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtYI4rI7fOuMCQf97GIdaH37lKfVqmseRqf4yiBKWhTJznE1o_ReMIUJqAPH5kFHOwfomqu6NsO9JXo_FQRZgMHZwlQzSpuKw7ElonUVr8plFFKwmEgacgCq_z2eUp7t7MSCHBWIO-Kb_I/s1600/CDFF7BBF-5A53-44C8-BAC3-6FA963469418.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1317" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtYI4rI7fOuMCQf97GIdaH37lKfVqmseRqf4yiBKWhTJznE1o_ReMIUJqAPH5kFHOwfomqu6NsO9JXo_FQRZgMHZwlQzSpuKw7ElonUVr8plFFKwmEgacgCq_z2eUp7t7MSCHBWIO-Kb_I/s320/CDFF7BBF-5A53-44C8-BAC3-6FA963469418.jpeg" width="262" /></a></div>
Our smoke detectors, although they require emergency batteries, are wired up through the ceiling electrically and communicate with each other.<br />
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Last night, before bed, very LOUDLY, the one in the master bedroom, begins...<br />
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Chirping.<br />
<br />
I step up to the offender, on the ceiling, right inside the doorway and test/reset it. Test beeps are fine. All units communicate.<br />
<br />
I step back down.<br />
<br />
Chirping.<br />
<br />
I climb back up but cannot reach the battery.<br />
<br />
My husband climbs up. Changes battery. Climbs down.<br />
<br />
Chirping.<br />
<br />
I climb back up. Reset. Climb down.<br />
<br />
Chirping.<br />
<br />
Attempt to remove entire unit. Can’t quite reach it. Husband can’t either.<br />
<br />
Chirping.<br />
<br />
Climb down. Completely undress. Put on real clothes. Drive through the rain to Lowe’s just before closing. Buy taller ladder.<br />
<br />
Flip down seats. Wrestle taller ladder into my vehicle in the rain and drive home through said rain.<br />
<br />
Unload ladder. Get it into the bedroom without dripping or scraping anything. Climb back up. Remove unit.<br />
<br />
Chirping.<br />
<br />
Hallway detector now chirps to let me know bedroom unit has been compromised.<br />
<br />
Remove battery. Drain remaining backup power. Clean with air. Replace battery. Replace unit.<br />
<br />
Chirping.<br />
<br />
Back up ladder. Remove entire unit except mount. Remove battery altogether. Set aside.<br />
<br />
Hallway chirping and now, regardless of the fact that I’m holding the main master bedroom unit in my hand with no batteries in it at all, the doorway unit MOUNT itself apparently continues...<br />
<br />
Chirping.<br />
<br />
Internet search. This sequence of chirps is indicating that the carbon monoxide portion of this unit is toast.<br />
<br />
I am not happy because these are relatively new and Lowe’s is now closed.<br />
<br />
Chirping.<br />
<br />
Back up ladder. Attempt to fill mount with alternate smoke detector from other location that does not have CO monitor to fool the system.<br />
<br />
Chirping.<br />
<br />
Attempt to call company. No one answers because it is late and offices are closed.<br />
<br />
Chirping.<br />
<br />
Inspect unit mount. No way to disconnect power without shocking myself or causing other units to alarm. Decide to turn off breaker in attempt to reset system with this unit unhooked or at least stop electrical power to unit.<br />
<br />
Out in rain to breaker box.<br />
<br />
Chirping.<br />
<br />
Breaker off longer. Rain harder.<br />
<br />
Chirping.<br />
<br />
All breakers off. Even the yard lights and the pool, standing in the pitch blackness and pouring rain waiting for coyotes and wild hogs to eat me. My husband reports from inside on the ladder...<br />
<br />
”Chirping!”<br />
<br />
Drip my way back inside. Everything electrical is now flashing the wrong time or resetting.<br />
<br />
Chirping.<br />
<br />
Wipe up muddy floor. Fight with husband. Rummage for earplugs. <br />
<br />
Chirping.<br />
<br />
Pump up air mattress in office at other end of the house for alternative plan in case (and the case is highly likely) the screeching proves to be too much for earplugs and guest rooms.<br />
<br />
Chirping.<br />
<br />
Exasperated. Done. Surrendering to the fact that the smoke detector/CO monitor company now, forever, permanently owns my sanity.<br />
<br />
Chirping.<br />
<br />
Remove the ladder from the doorway pulling it into the master bedroom rather than out so I can scale it first thing in the morning and resume fighting the good fight. Slam the rarely-if-ever-closed-in-a-house-with-no-children master bedroom door behind me to muffle the screeching that is radiating through the rest of the house.<br />
<br />
And there on the wall, always obscured by the open door, is an ancient carbon monoxide detector not at all connected to anything else...<br />
<br />
CHIRPING.<br />
<br />
I rip the AA batteries from its heart. Tear the unit from the wall. And flip it off like the mature adult I am.<br />
<br />
#ourbedroomwallwasredatsomepoint Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-44742766609773077902019-05-30T09:14:00.003-07:002020-09-30T09:50:00.290-07:00A Nudge of Nostalgia <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiof7jClAUWr1ZzEziSVVi7iA_7HCaYbnnxRC0V14Ua0eMFlZCyjI-C5_vQbVStyBx837NEUV1hV5ielSujfvo3om4HnBem-cUwWNp0GlHI3A_hItPhJ2NbckBBHn9B1IUx8QdQLxeWwM0A/s1600/AAE39C67-6F03-4DD5-B419-E70116B6F413.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="578" data-original-width="750" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiof7jClAUWr1ZzEziSVVi7iA_7HCaYbnnxRC0V14Ua0eMFlZCyjI-C5_vQbVStyBx837NEUV1hV5ielSujfvo3om4HnBem-cUwWNp0GlHI3A_hItPhJ2NbckBBHn9B1IUx8QdQLxeWwM0A/s320/AAE39C67-6F03-4DD5-B419-E70116B6F413.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: arial;">The time capsule phenomenon of revisiting a childhood bedroom in adulthood is a fascinating concept, yet alien actuality in our household.</span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13.8px;">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: arial;">My husband’s childhood home burned down...on our anniversary...early in our marriage when we were still just kids ourselves.</span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13.8px;">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: arial;">And my parents moved shortly after my high school graduation, but I had had 8 different bedrooms (6 that I can clearly remember) up to that point anyway.</span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13.8px;">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: arial;">And so, the potential of being able to step across time through the threshold of my adolescence, perfectly preserved in an attempt to rediscover the core person that I was and so shall evermore be at my very heart, is oh, so elusive and I occasionally find myself filled with envy when it flickers across my screen as a storytelling device.</span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13.8px;">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: arial;">But they’re only stories. Myth manifested by imagination. Much like the memories sifted through rose colored, nostalgic filters, filling those nonexistent rooms of my far gone past.</span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13.8px;">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: arial;">This, this photo, of how my sister “shared” the bed. And that precariously protruding toe that always managed to find its target with missile-like precision is the reality. I didn’t share with her for very long before the bedrooms were again, rearranged.</span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13.8px;">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: arial;">This photo, procured on my 110 camera was the photographic evidence as to why an immediate reshuffling was required.</span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 13.8px;">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span></span><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: arial;">Note: The blazing camera flash through the pitch darkness didn’t even cause her to alter her course of attack!</span></div>
</div>
Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-14377224140444836902019-04-22T11:51:00.002-07:002019-04-22T11:51:37.811-07:00The Promise <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_i9gjP97trKt9K4tawTEEMTWOhITUexmvVuAAoaRPTf7ApJubzlBLpxl6aSOGxbN4HfR1EuuP9Uss0NIOb84JNQbxp91ut_vzVGiw1DpB5yA_dOBco4i9qtzBJGueoR17NUhaCDWTMSCn/s1600/3D688CE9-DC31-408E-85F2-FF75DB1D1EF2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="696" data-original-width="1057" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_i9gjP97trKt9K4tawTEEMTWOhITUexmvVuAAoaRPTf7ApJubzlBLpxl6aSOGxbN4HfR1EuuP9Uss0NIOb84JNQbxp91ut_vzVGiw1DpB5yA_dOBco4i9qtzBJGueoR17NUhaCDWTMSCn/s320/3D688CE9-DC31-408E-85F2-FF75DB1D1EF2.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<div>
<div>
There is a promise of fulfillment found in the starkness of an elementary student’s smile.</div>
<div>
Housed in the hollows between past and permanence.</div>
<div>
The result of a reluctant relinquishing of that outgrown and the expectant searching for the slow but steady showing-through of the still oversized.</div>
<div>
Both the baby and beyond beaming back at us on a face freckled with the familiar and the future as it transforms right before our very eyes into everything it was always meant to be.</div>
</div>
Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-79641613920789767252019-03-11T16:16:00.007-07:002023-04-06T08:15:15.082-07:00The Holy Grail of Crystal Gayle: Chapter Three<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqB1TecvkHw73hmwFPqC_vwGk8paPcpaI5jNLh7998NF5yt3On13rodbgRayAg6sOtQ9xjT8FavC53MkbPKGMv4sHO2HnQ25kIjmYoSNA-ixuP9-bRbRmH-P5NbkiincIHc7NixJ6uvLJc/s1600/mailbox.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="492" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqB1TecvkHw73hmwFPqC_vwGk8paPcpaI5jNLh7998NF5yt3On13rodbgRayAg6sOtQ9xjT8FavC53MkbPKGMv4sHO2HnQ25kIjmYoSNA-ixuP9-bRbRmH-P5NbkiincIHc7NixJ6uvLJc/s320/mailbox.png" width="246" /></a></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="3608">
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“We’ll bring it back with a full tank!” Towanda promises as she lays a few taps on the pedal, gunnin’ it to keep the rusty Impala from dying’.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="3608">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="34ec">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Shhhhh! Quiet! Mama’s gonna hear!” Junior Junior shushes, shruggin’ his shoulders clear up to his sideburns. </span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">“You sure I cain’t just come with?” Junior Junior pleads. </span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">“She’s pretty temperamental and I know all the finessin’ she needs.”</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="7e22">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="7e22">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Poor Junior Junior, he has somehow convinced himself that he knows “all the finessin’” any “she” needs. Not that I’m worldly by any means, but I know a bit more about the female body, havin’ been in one the whole of my life, than Junior Junior does, I’m sure. If he can’t get past assultin’ a woman’s ears with his whinin’, he ain’t never gonna get to finessin’ the parts that need the most finessin’. Like her heart.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="1296">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="1296">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Nah, Junior Junior. We got this,” Towanda says, slappin’ down the lock on the ledge of the driver’s side door.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="1296">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="a745">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“We really do appreciate this Junior Junior,” I reassure, knowin’ full well my requestin’ is the reason he was willin’ to roll outta bed well before dawn. But I still ain’t convinced that when pedal goes to metal he won’t change his mind. But really, what’s he gonna do? It’ll be too late by then. Won’t it?</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="096e">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="096e">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Hey maybe, when you get back, you wanna go sit out at the Sonic or somethin’?”</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="096e">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="4060">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“I’m tryin’ to cut down on my cholesterol,” Towanda tosses in, crankin’ the window up to a crack before Junior Junior’s fingers bring that to a halt.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="4060">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="1828">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“So what exactly am I gettin’ outta this whole deal? All I’m askin for is a burger.”</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="bceb">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Towanda clenches her hand on the crank as she retreats her rotation a few tense twists.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="bceb">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="324c">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Junior Junior, you didn’t pick Whataburger, you picked a drive-in, where everybody stays in the car. We both know that you’re askin’ for way more than that.”</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="324c">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="4d9f">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And for the first time, it dawns on Junior Junior that even though he’s outside, standin’ in the street, he might just be the one in the driver’s seat. Or at least the passenger one. Or at the very very least the trunk.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="4d9f">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="ea7f">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“When we get back, I might be willin’ to go get a burger, but we’re gettin’ outta the car.” I relent. The boy has always had mostly manners, so the Sonic selection may just be a misstep.</span></div><div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="ea7f"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="54f6">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Then how are you ever gonna make me a man?” And he winks. HE WINKS!</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="54f6">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="f22c">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">What on earth makes him think somethin’ like that is ever gonna work? Especially since it ain’t nowhere near the truth. Even I know bein’ a man goes way beyond your wiener. But beyond that, men are still pretty much a mystery to me. I mean what exactly is wanderin’ through their minds that makes them let loose with somethin’ like that?</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="f22c">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="9f2b">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Sometimes men appear to be perfectly fine and then outta nowhere just flip around to flat-out misguided! And I ain’t even got a clue as to why.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="9f2b">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="836b">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Especially men like my daddy. Now he ain’t never sexually asulted nobody at a Sonic that I’m aware of and he ain’t never been perfect, so don’t hear me sayin’ that neither, but before life changed for both of us after losin’ both my brother and my mama, he was halfway normal. Or at least I thought so.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="836b">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="5b97">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And then, one day he sent me out to the garage to go grab a Philips cause he was fixin’ the light fixture. Yep. We used to live in a real house. With a real yard. And a real family. And what I had always assumed was a real boat. Not that we’d ever been out on the water in it. It just sat all covered in one corner of the garage under a big blue tarp, with the oft spoken commandment to just leave it be. We weren’t to touch it. We weren’t to look at it. And I’m pretty sure we weren’t to even think about it.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="5b97">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="09bb">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But this one time, out there seekin’ a screwdriver, fetchin’ for what he was fixin’, I just couldn’t keep my curiosity under control. So curiosity caught the cat. And that cat was definitely me.</span></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="09bb"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="d477">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In the past he had always sent my brother out for all of the bits beyond his reach, but this time he was busy holdn’ the ceilin’ fan blades back while Daddy dinked with the bulbs and glass. Finally, my turn to help.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="d477">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="fab0">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I can still remember the sound of my elated hard-soled, sandled feet slappin’n against the cement floor of the garage as I made my way towards the tool chest, when that one corner of the tarp, that trapped the unseen boat in the back corner, caught my eye. It was undone.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="67f4"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="graf graf--p" name="67f4">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Not that we’d ever been allowed out in the garage alone to linger near Daddy’s precious boat. Ever. So it wadn’t one of us. Daddy musta come out to sneak a peek at all of his past memories and forgot to fasten it back.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="67f4">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="f852">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And deep inside, I knew that I knew that I shouldn’t, but…I just wanted to know. I wanted to see what all of the fuss was about. Just like Junior Junior’s “she” that he shuttled us around in. I wanted to see the “she” that had captivated not only Daddy’s desires for alone time, when he went out there just to sit with her and collect his mind, but one whole corner of our garage so we couldn’t even fit the car in there.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="f852">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="e740">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I crept over and lifted that loose edge. And I will never forget how my tiny tummy fell clear down to my toes. Under that tarp there was no boat. Nothin’ even like a boat. Just a boat shape. Built outta boxes. Boxes and boxes. Case after case of Crown Royal, evidently bought in bulk. Enough, well, to fill a boat. A boat that was nowhere to be found because it apparently never existed. But I had finally seen my daddy’s secret “she” that had the beginnin’s of goin’ way beyond baitin’ or beguilin’ to full on bondage, for the resta his life.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="e740">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="ff7b">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I had always inexplicably had plenty of those little purple and gold corded bags for puttin’ pencils in for school, bagin’ up bottle caps or makin’ Barbie sleepin’ bags and now I knew the mysterious source. The dark secret of the supposed boat, that would eventually sink us all.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="ff7b">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="dcb2">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“What did you just say to her?!” Towanda roars! “You kiss your mama with that mouth?” And Towanda has had enough. “I bet you do!”</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="dcb2">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="5ab2">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“I’m sorry! Shhhh! I’m sorry!” Junior Junior looks back to the house for newly lit up lights.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="5ab2">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="27b0">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Nasty! What on earth makes you think Twyla Shane would ever show you her stuff at a Sonic?”</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="27b0">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="b7df">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Shhhhh! Okay! Okay!”</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="b7df">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="e876">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Just nasty! I’ll take a strawberry shake and a big side of nasty!”</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="e876">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="89c0">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“I said I was sorry!”</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="89c0">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="854e">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Yes you are, you definitely are Junior Junior! And to think, we were gonna do you the favor of bringin’ the car back with a full tank.”</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="854e">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="70d4">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Wait a minute, idn’t he doin’ us a favor by loanin’ us the car?</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="70d4">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="9c3f">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“And then you have to haul off and go turnin’ a hamburger into somethin’ dirty.”</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="9c3f">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="c32f">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Twyla Shane, I shouldnta done that. Like I said, I’m real sorry.”</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="c32f">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="7329">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“I don’t know, she looks purty upset from the propositionin’ to me.” Towanda looks me up and down and then back to Junior Junior. “I cannot believe the likes of you! Solicitin’ prostitution from a nice girl like that for the use of your car!”</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="7329">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="d512">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Prostitution?! Now hold on…”</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="d512">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="9f73">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Lookin’ for a little tit for your tat! How dare you! How dare you sir!” Towanda revs the engine and puts it in gear. “I think we’re gonna need a coupla days just to calm down from all of this sexual tension and tauntin’ and insinuation’”</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="9f73">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="9272">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Oh, I get what she’s gettin’ at. Though she is kinda right about all that Sonic nastiness. But it ain’t the first time somebody just assumed since I live in a school bus I must live like complete trash with no morals and all. And they can just do whatever ’cause I’m a girl to boot. But I’m kinda disappointed in Junior Junior. I pegged him for far more mannered than that. But then again, he is quite a mamas boy. Maybe he’s just lookin’ to move strait from his mama’s tit to somebody else’s, skippin’ the whole man milestone in the middle. And I got a feelin’ Towanda’s about to teach this man boy another lesson.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="9272">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="80a4">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I start fannin’ myself.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="80a4">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="3b74">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Yep, Junior Junior. I’m gonna need at least three days to cool off before we can come back inta contact,” coincidentally the exact amount of time we’re thinkin’ it’s gonna take to get to Nashville, cut and fluff and hightail it right on back here.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="3b74">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="72ca">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“But what am I sposta to tell mama?”</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="72ca">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="8064">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Oh, for cryin’ out loud! Come on Junior Junior! You wanted Twyla Shane to help make you a man, well she just did! Figure it out and grow a pair!”</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote" name="8064">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="8adc">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And with that Towanda floors it, whippin’ the Impala the rest of the way outta the driveway, scrapin’ the bumper on the curb and knockin’ down the mailbox. Then lays on the gas and gets us right into the glare of oncoming headlights before swervin’ us onto the opposite shoulder right before rightin’ us on the right side of the road.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="8adc">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="4607">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In the rearview I can see a little yellow light flip on in an upstairs window and I start wonderin’ just how much of a man he’s gonna be once Lidia starts layin’ into him here shortly. And with Towanda’s drivin’ if we’ll even make it outta the Oklahoma City limits all in one piece.</span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="4607">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="graf graf--p" name="2072">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Between the KOA and right here in Junior Junior’s front seat, I’ve suddenly started wonderin’ lotsa things. like why Towanda’s in such a hurry to get on outta here tonight? Like what will Daddy say when he wakes and finds I ain’t there no more? And in the faintest, back little corner of my mind, what exactly happened between Towanda and Delbert? And where exactly is he now?</span></div>
Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-1365085594426093472019-03-04T15:24:00.000-08:002020-12-03T13:03:01.076-08:00The Holy Grail of Crystal Gayle: Chapter Two<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7soRtK7-G4P7S4b7BtVvAPNLN5CLkkah4Q0LmJCvTzGrhLo2Ckl9Y9xnT3clzSv65c13-nbQHkt10CwYcTSMn12zoOh-5bXBwGFvWsrNwzkKsyVvFy_cioll3Htrtoyqd13T-nIM_uph5/s1600/Bug+Light.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="904" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7soRtK7-G4P7S4b7BtVvAPNLN5CLkkah4Q0LmJCvTzGrhLo2Ckl9Y9xnT3clzSv65c13-nbQHkt10CwYcTSMn12zoOh-5bXBwGFvWsrNwzkKsyVvFy_cioll3Htrtoyqd13T-nIM_uph5/s320/Bug+Light.jpeg" width="264" /></a></div>
<div class="graf graf--p graf-after--figure" id="ca43" name="ca43" style="line-height: 1.58; margin-top: 38px;">
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">ZzzzzT!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">I jolt as another June bug meets its electrifyin’ demise in Towanda’s bug zapper.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“I hate that thing! It’s so cruel,” Towanda shivers.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Then why don’t you take it down for cryin’ out loud?”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“‘Cause Delbert wired it all up through the porch light somehow. I can’t take it down and I can’t shut it off neither.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Towanda smacks a mosquito with her magazine.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“That thing’s cruel, but killin’ ’em with a magazine is humane?”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“The June bugs and moths didn’t do nothin’. These mosquitos on the other hand are suckin’ the life right outta me.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Towanda’s a saint. More like a martyr. She’s sufferin’ through the suckin’ on my account. Well, really on Daddy’s account. We always sit outside her camper after Dallas. Just in case Daddy starts hollerin’ or stumblin’ around or what not. It’s closer to home without bein’ too close.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“It says here Dolly does all her own wigs.” Towanda tosses me an article with a giant chop outta Ms. Parton’s midsection. There musta been somethin’ “speakin’’” on the backside of her boobs.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">I lick the last of the orange cheese puff dust off my fingers before pickin’ it up.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“I’m sure she does. I just love her. I really wanna see that </span><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">9 to 5</em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">. I seen pieces of it a while back, over the fence out by the drive-in, but I mean I wanna see it in a real theater with sound and all and red velvet curtains and fancy flip-down seats.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Ooh la la! And just what were you doin’ over by the Sky-Vu?” Towanda presses.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Nothin’ interestin’ believe me. Just walkin’. Stretchin’ my legs.” And avoidin’ Daddy’s wrath. “Don’t worry, I’ll confess ya all my sins if ever I get a chance to have any worth confessin’.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Well, don’t have too much fun. Everything’s forgivable. But everything’s got consequences,” Towanda quips as she snips.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Where’d you pick up that little nugget? Cosmo?”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Nope. Life.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Well, that’s a miracle! A piece of wisdom that didn’t fly your way on F5 whirlwinds or on the backside of a Velveeta cheese coupon.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">She points her scissors in my direction for emphasis. “It was on the backside of a feature they were runnin’ about that new rocket space shuttle thing.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“I shoulda known you meant the magazine and not the real thing. I spose you coulda meant the board game or the cereal box. Or don’t Milton Bradley and General Mills know the Lord?” I tease tippin’ my lawn chair and reachin’ for the radio.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Oh you can laugh all you like, but the Lord works in mysterious ways.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“But yours are always in black and white, with color photo spreads.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">She smiles and smacks me with her magazine.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Uh, oh. Does that make me a mosquito?”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Nah, you’re more of a moth type, drawn to the flame. If I really wanted to squash ya, you’d be squished by now. You’re lucky I like ya.” She giggles smearin’ rubber cement over another page of her giant 1978 Sears Christmas Catalogue. It’s the literal glue that binds the bible of her whole quazi-consumer-Christain belief together. The pages contain her collection of prayer cards, pop culture, and pages from a Gideons motel Bible that survived a tornado. You see Towanda is convinced those pages are the only ones worth their words ’cause they’re the ones the Lord left her with. But over the years she found them a little light on personal revelation, so she started supplementin’. She figures if the Lord led her to those words, he must be leadin’ her to all of the other stuff that resonates. Sears just provides a convenient bindin’ for free.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“I’m just lucky regardless. You are the best friend there ever could be,” I strain as </span><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">Lookin’ for Love </em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">reaches through the static clearer and clearer with each twist of the dial.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“What did you have to go and say that for?”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“‘Cause it’s true.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Towanda puts her hand over her face, sniffles, and runs into her camper.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Towanda? Are you cryin’?”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Yes.” Sniff.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">I ain’t never seen Towanda cryin’ before. This just ain’t her style. Typically she’s so light, you could put one of those 110 negative strips up to her and she’d just project the positive images.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“What on earth for?”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Towanda’s sniffley voice drizzles outa the camper.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Cause I ain’t a good friend. I ain’t even a good person.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">I get up and go into the camper where Towanda’s face is buried in her arms on her little flip up table. I put my hands on her heavin’ shoulders.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Towanda, that ain’t true. You’re always doin’ nice things for me, like the chicken, and the sweepin’, and lettin’ me keep all of the good perfume samples from your magazines for special occasions.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Towanda dabs her eyes with a little embroidered handkerchief. Towanda has an endless supply of little embroidered handkerchiefs all with different flowers and figs and fanciness. Even though she lives in a camper, she’s always had all the little necessities of proper lady life.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“No, I ain’t!” Towanda throws up her hands. “ I wasn’t sposta be the one gettin’ promoted to the grandeur of Fine Jewelry. I was sposta get bumped up to register three, when Lynnette got promoted to the grandeur of Fine Jewelry.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">I move a stack of mangled magazines and sit in the booth beside her.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Towanda, it is not your fault that they picked you for the job. They thought you’d be the right one on accounta you been such a good worker and so reliable at your duties.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“No they didn’t.” Towanda sniffles again and starts flippin’ through a copy of </span><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">Good Housekeeping.</em></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Sure they did.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Nope.” Towanda insists. “They picked me on accounta Lynette’s been swipin’ from the till. And I told.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“But that was the right thing to do. That don’t make you a bad person, it makes you a good person.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Yeah, but I didn’t tell ’cause I wanted to do the right thing. I told ’cause I wanted the grandeur of Fine Jewelry. I’m a selfish, awful Judas.” She melts back into the temporary tabletop.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“I think you’ve got somethin’ mixed around here. Lynette was the one that took the money.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“That’s true.” Towanda straightens her spine feelin’ better. Maybe even a little justified.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“She’s the thief that had no intention of makin’ reparations.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Oh no, she did. She gave it all back but twenty dollars.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Why didn’t she give it all back?’</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“‘Cause she had consequences. She gave me twenty dollars not to tell but I told anyway ’cause, as you said, it was the right thing to do and I kept the twenty to teach her a lesson.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“But Towanda, that was stolen money.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Where she got it ain’t my problem, it’s hers and the Lord made sure I came out $20 ahead for doin’ the right thing. I’m so glad we talked this through. I was beginin’ to wonder where he was in all of this and now I see he was there the whole time!”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">I shake my head and smile. Her logic may be a little screwy, but her intentions are not.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Besides, I used that twenty dollars for good works. Your daddy’s been pretty calm all night.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">And that, I thank the Lord for myself.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Twyla Shane, honey, I know it ain’t my business, but why on earth do you stick around and let your daddy treat you like that? Why do you put up with it?”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">I look down at the spotless wood laminate tablette in front of me searchin’ for any other answer than the truth. But I find none.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“‘Cause my mama ain’t alive to put up with it herself and somebody has to.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Towanda stops her flippin’ and takes my face in her hands.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Nobody has to do nothin’ of the sort. And you don’t have to be livin’ in a broke down school bus in a KOA. You’re better than that.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“But </span><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">you </em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">live here.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“I do not live here. I’m just passin’ through. This is my temporary residence. An exit ramp from the wrong expressway. A place to get myself together and get on outa here. Just like everybody else. Honey, everybody’s gone and your daddy’s stayin’ is his choice, not yours.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">And I see that she has a point. In truth, Daddy and I are the only ones I know that have stayed. Sure sometimes people stay for a year or so, but everybody’s on wheels and they eventually drive on outa here, except us. Ours went flat long ago and Daddy never sought nobody out to fix ’em up.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“But Towanda, I don’t know the first thing about leavin’. I don’t know what I’d do. I don’t know where I’d go.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Well, you just leave that to me sugar. I do it all the time.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">And it’s true. Towanda’s been everywhere. She’s even been to the Gulf of Mexico. I don’t know much about it, but every once in a while she’ll tell me about somewhere she went. She always mentions where, but she never mentions with who. I’m pretty sure it wadn’t Delbert, ’cause when they first arrived here, they were newlyweds. They had to get married on accounta Towanda was against sex outsida marriage, so she insisted they get married first. Then she was just kinda against sex with Delbert. He’d been married before which Towanda didn’t have a problem with, it was the not bein’ divorced that teed her off. They’d only been here two months when the truth came out and it’s been about two more since Delbert up and left, or got kicked out, or however exactly it occurred. One day he was here. And then one day, he just wudn’t.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Well it’s all a nice idea, but I mean, I have a job workin’ for Tanya and I can’t just leave her like that after all she’d done for me. And I gotta finish beauty school, once I pay what I already owe so I can go back. And what’s gonna happen to Daddy if I go?”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: rgba(0 , 0 , 0 , 0.843137); font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Consequences!” Towanda blurts, then buries her nose in a </span><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">Lady’s Home Journal. </em><span style="text-indent: -0.4em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Her signal that she’s reached her limit with my naysayin’ negativity. Part of why Towanda has such a positive outlook on life is ’cause she just refuses to hear anything that won’t reconcile with her </span><span style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.04800000041723251px;">reasoning</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">’.</span></span></span><br />
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Towanda slams her magazine down on the table in a state of full revelation and drives her finger right into the glossy smile on the right hand page in the middle of an add for Personal Touch Razors.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Now that woman’s got hair!”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">I look over at Crystal Gayle’ blue eyes, that were once supposedly so brown, smilin’ up from the pressed down page.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="text-indent: -0.4em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">“Twyla Shane, you are gonna do her hair. You have been called by God.” Towanda snaps her eyes shut searchin’ the insides of her eyelids for </span><span style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.04800000041723251px;">something</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">’.</span></span></span><br />
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Yep. It’s confirmed. You have definitely been called by the everlastin’ Lord, to give Loretta Lynn’s little sister a brand new do!” She throws the magazine in my direction and starts busyin’ herself around the kitchen, foldin’ down the table and clearin’ off counter tops.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“But why? Why on earth would God Almighty need me for somethin’ like that?”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Twyla Shane, it is not our place to ask why. Only what.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“But I didn’t ask what.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“But I did. And the Lord heard my prayer. And he answered. He told me exactly what you needed to do.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“But why didn’t he tell me? Why is he only always tellin’ you?”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Towanda stops her battenin’ down and burns her eyes right through me. “You’re jealous aren’t you?”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Jealous?’</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Yep. Of my close relationship with the Lord.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Wait, am I supposed to be jealous of you? Or jealous of the Lord?”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“I don’t know. It’s not my problem. It’s yours. You figure it out!”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Right now I don’t think jealousy is my problem. I think you are. I never heard God say one word about headin’ out to hack off Crystal Gayle’s hair. You did. It only came from you.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“‘Cause you’re not listenin’.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Oh, I’m listenin’ to plenty. I’m listenin’ to what sounds like a really bad idea. One that’s half baked right outa your brain.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“You just don’t know what you need Twyla Shane.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Oh, and you do?”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Yep.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Well right now I need a cigarette!”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">I blow out the camper door with Towanda hot on my tail.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="text-indent: -0.4em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">“I cannot believe we are havin’ our first fight over somethin’ so stupid!” I snap as I start flippin’ down my tri-fold banana lounger. There is no way I am leavin’ it here with this </span><span style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.04800000041723251px;">wing nut</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">.</span></span></span><br />
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“It’s not a fight. It’s a misundertandin’.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“What on earth is there to misunderstand? I am understandin’ when you find your way in </span><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">Women’s Day. </em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">And that’s fine for you Towanda. If it brings you comfort. Do what you do. But now you’re bossin’ me. In my life. And I already got plenty uh that. I don’t need no more. Especially from my friend. Maybe the only real one I got.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Then listen! Twyla Shane, it is time to get outta here. For once in your life just listen!”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">And suddenly, without explanation, through the cracklin’ static of the radio with the faintest of reception “You’ve been talkin’ in your sleep…” reverberates in the undeniable voice of Crystal Gayle. And I stop so still, mid click, right in mid foldin’ chair foldown, that you could push me over with a feather.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“This is no coincidence.” Towanda whispers, stunned by the sudden confirmation of her kooky convictions. She grabs my shoulders and stares straight through my skull. “Nothin’ ever is. We are leavin’ here now. Tonight.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Twila Shhhhhhane!” My daddy’s undeniable slur slithers through the night, across the campground and right down my spine. “You get your asssh home. Now!”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“It’s not comin’ in all the way. How can we even be sure?”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Did you hear me?” He slams the bus doors open with a slap.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“We have to track down Crystal Gayle.” Towanda determines. “That’s the only way we can ever know.”</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“I sssaid now!” He stumbles down the steps before fallin’ face first in the dirt at the end of our drive.</span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.003em;">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; letter-spacing: -0.003em;">I’m about to do somethin’ that makes not one lick of sense. But aside from a drunk daddy in a broke down school bus with flat tires goin’ nowhere, at a KOA on the edge of Oklahoma City, what have I got to lose?</span></div>
</div>
Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-16151625448965825322019-02-26T15:00:00.002-08:002020-12-03T13:03:04.515-08:00The Holy Grail of Crystal Gayle: Chapter One<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://medium.com/@TheLauraBecker/the-holy-grail-of-crystal-gayle-389d169ca554" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="498" data-original-width="750" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcRhQBbO-wr111BnmxxTaoa94AZiSxkF_tDT2U-PIk-H8e8t4ly9NTEvE8Eq90tbba9Y3yxlOLBCPfJTSXoafIiKBWFuDaBCCrmXsg1XmDRBYmvPCNQwOlTfaVqp5RNtBrhSGke3Z-9x49/s320/IMG_4711.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://medium.com/@TheLauraBecker/the-holy-grail-of-crystal-gayle-389d169ca554" target="_blank">CHAPTER ONE</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"Twyla Shane, this is not what I asked for!"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">I try not to smoke too much while I’m doin’ hair. But every week I go through three cigarettes just workin’ on Lidia. For cryin’ out loud, her hair’s so big it’s gainin’ on her massive ego. How in hell am I supposed to make it “p</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.04800000041723251px;">oofier</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">?”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Well honey, I’m tryin,” I exhale in a cloud of smoke. Of course it’s not what she asked for. She asked to look like Krystle Carrington, but she ain’t never gonna look like Linda Evans. Even with all the Aqua Net in the world. But every woman deserves to look beautiful on the outside, no matter how ugly her insides.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“I should’ve gotten it done by somebody with at least half a brain. I don’t know why I keep coming back here.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">’Cause I’m the only one in all of Oklahoma that’ll put up with your S-H-I-T. That’s why. The last beauty operator dragged her out of the chair, half frosted, and threw her in the street, cape, cap and all.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“I think it looks nice.” Tanya offers. “Glamorous. And anyways, if you get it too big you’re just gonna smash it on the roof of your car drivin’ home.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">God bless Tanya for tryin’. God bless Tanya for lots of things. I wouldn’t even have a chair if it weren’t for her. I’d still just be scrubbin’ scalps. I’m not fully licensed. So I never cut, just fluff.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Oh, like you know the first thing about glamor.” Lidia swipes, then contains herself. “You don’t think it makes me look fat in the face?”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Lidia what makes you look fat in the face, is all of that fat in your face.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">I grab my cigarette from the ashtray and jam it back between my lips before anything hateful comes outta my mouth. I gotta plug it all up somehow before it slips out. ’Cause who knows what Lidia’s hateful self is goin’ through that none of us knows about. Who truly knows what any of us is goin’ through. Truthfully.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“No Lidia. You look the way you’re supposed to look… done. Now cover your face and let’s give you one last blast.” Before she can protest, I just start sprayin’. That always shuts her up.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Oh, look at you, don’t you look like…somethin’.” Towanda with her perfect timin’ swings through the door all sunshine and bullcrap.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Alright Miss Lidia, my carriage awaits, as does Tanya over there to ring you up.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Thank you Twyla Shane. I hope I wasn’t too much fuss.” She slides me a dingy quarter. My tip.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Oh, thank you Lidia.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Lidia takes one last look in the mirror.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Well I guess it’s not the worst thing in the world.” She mumbles as she smears Tangerine Sunset gloss over her ever-movin’ lips. “Lucky for you I’m pretty enough to pull this off.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">She snaps the cap back on and kisses my mirror.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“See you next week.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Please Lord, let all of her hair fall out before then. Don’t get me wrong. I love doin’ hair. It drives me. But nothin’ drives me…all of the way up the wall quite like Lidia.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">I slip the quarter into my pocket and hightail it towards the back to grab my purse. It may be just a quarter, but Lord knows I can use every cent. One of these days, I’m gonna have enough to finish beauty school, get a car of my own, and drive to work at a real salon that’s not just a fixed up corner of somebody’s basement.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Lordy my purse feels heavy today. That’s a lot of weight for an empty wallet, a Kotex, two sticks of Juicy Fruit, a dyin’ lighter and a half crushed pack of Slims.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">I watch from behind the stitched up sheet that separates the front of the shop from the back. All it really does is separate the tiled part from the concrete floor around the sump-pump, but it gives us a place to stash all of our supplies and purses and what not. It also keeps the customers from seein’ the expiration dates on all the boxes of hair dye.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Towanda gets at it sweepin’ up hair even though she don’t even work here. But she’s like that. Always workin’ and scrubbin’ at somethin’. That cute little camper she lives in across from us at the KOA is neat as a pin. But no matter how much Pine-sol and Mop & Glo she spreads, it’s got this kinda rotten smell on account of her bathroom bein’ out of order. It won’t drain right. She should really take it somewhere to get a look, but if she could afford that, she wouldn’t be livin’ at a KOA would she?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Lidia is finally gone! Praise the Lord and pass the dustpan. Towanda sweeps the last of the fringe into neat little haystacks.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“I don’t know why you put up with her Twyla Shane.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Me neither. It’s not like I force you to do her hair,” Tanya says addin’ up receipts, her fingers flyin’ over the 10 key.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“‘Cause I wouldn’t wish her on anybody else.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Not that anybody would have her.” Tanya taps to the rhythm of her words.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Well she may be a delusional dingbat, but nobody should have to go through life with bad hair,” I sigh, dumpin’ the whisps into the waste bin.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Amen! But you’re preachin’ to the choir.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Well, somebody oughta give that Lidia some religion. I know I’d like to put the fear of God into her.” Towanda has a sweetness, but I think it’s there to cover that little dab of venom lyin’ underneath.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Tanya stops her tappin’.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Towanda, Sweetheart, you’re about as threatenin’ as a Hallmark card. When you tell people off, they leave thinkin’ you’ve done them a favor.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Well, so long as everybody gets what they deserve and we’re all good with it in the end.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">She told Delbert off and we never have to look at his nasty little bigamist face again. Who knows? Maybe he’s stepped up to full on polygamy by now. Not for religious reasons, just sleazy ones. None of us have seen him and none of us cares to either. He got the freedom to move on and add to his harem of unsuspectin’ wives and Towanda got the camper.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Towanda has a way of gettin’ what she wants. Don’t get me wrong, Towanda is a giver. She will go out of her way to help everybody and anybody. But once she’s reached her limit, she becomes a receiver and a keeper too.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Oh girl, we gotta go.” Towanda says washin’ her hands in the shampoo basin. “Dallas starts in an hour and I wanna pick up some of that broasted chicken on the way home.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“I thought you were doin’ Slimfast.” And potato chips.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“I am. The chicken’s for you. My treat. I know how much you like it. I’ll even make a plate for your daddy.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">And there’s that sweetness. It’s Friday and we both know my daddy’s paycheck is washed halfway down his throat by now. And even though he’s on his way to wobbly and wasted, he’ll still demand his dinner. Oh, it might wind up on the wall or in my face, but he’ll still be expectin’ it. Fried chicken’s his favorite. Friday’s are always better when there’s fried chicken.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Thank you Sweetie, but I’m at least gettin’ the cheese puffs. I gotta put that quarter Lidia gave me towards somethin’ worth while and they got the crushed no name ones in the back, four for a dollar.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Whatever you need Twyla Shane. But ya know I don’t expect ya to. You’re gettin’ the chicken regardless.” Towanda picks up her purse followin’ me toward the door, then stops suddenly, snagged by a glossy cover.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Ooh, Tanya, can I have this old </span><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">People Magazine</em><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">? It’s really speakin’ to me.” Things are always “speakin’” to Towanda on behalf of the Lord. Mostly magazines and catalogues. Especially ones with Marie Osmond on the cover. But none of ’em ever spoke to her about marryin’ with Delbert, while he was still married to somebody else, even though Towanda had her suspicions. Convenient how that happened.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“You’re the only one that’s picked it up in weeks. Have at it.” Tanya and I both know Towanda’s gonna take it home and hack it to bits with scissors decodin’ whatever wondrous word from the way beyond lies within. And it is always a wondrous word filled with opportunity. Like how God wanted her to apply at the Walmart.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">She saw this add for Nair, you know the one where they wear the short shorts? Well, they were also wearin’ those new black and neon sunglasses and it made her remember how she saw they sell’em out at the Walmart. She just knew God was tryin’ to tell her to get a job there. And she did, as a cart wrangler. But two days ago, she got promoted to fine jewelry and now she has a more glamorous life, all ’cause </span><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Redbook</em><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">was speakin’ to her. See, it’ really more screwy than sinister. People are always talkin’ about havin’ a personal relationship with Jesus. Well, all that “speakin’” is just to her and pretty personal, so there you go.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Bye ladies. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">If I could even come close to the things Tanya does, I wouldn’t be rushin’ out of here to listen to Dallas. I don’t have a television and Towanda’s vertical hold is broken so we could only hear who shot J.R. It only gets one channel anyways cause Delbert busted off the tunin’ nob one night bangin’ on it tryin’ to get the verticle hold to hold. Every once in a while we catch a glimpse of Larry Hagman’s big hat rollin’ by, but that’s about it.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">If I could do the things Tanya does. I’d set my Betamax and record Dallas like she does. I’d make popcorn in an air popper and sit on my very own sectional sleeper sofa in my own livin’ room drinkin’ RC Cola instead of Shopper’s Value. Can you imagine? I was upstairs in her house once and she has one of those glass dinette sets, just like on </span><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">The Price is Right. </em><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">And her whole livin’ room is all remodeled in this fancy southwesterny peach and teal. And it smelled like new carpet.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">If I could do the things Tanya does I would pick Towanda up after she got off work instead of snaggin’ a ride from her boss Junior Junior in his rusty, green ’69 Impala.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></em>
<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">RONK! Bomp! Bomp! Bomp! </em><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">I swing open the passenger door and slide across the cracked vinyl of the bench to the middle. All three of us sit in the front ’cause the floorboard on one side of the backseat is rusted out so bad you can see the ground rollin’ by underneath it. Junior Junior says he don’t want nobody to get hurt, so he makes me sit on the hump seat, smashed up against him. I’m okay with it for now, so long as he remembers it ain’t that kind of hump seat and this is all of the smashin’ up against we’ll be </span><span style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.04800000041723251px;">doing</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">’.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Twyla Shane, you’re lookin’ lovely as ever.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Thank you.” And that’s all the thanks he’s gonna receive.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">You see, my keepin’ my distance ain’t about him bein’ nice or mannered or even sweet. Which he is. It’s about him bein’ only 19. It’s about him bein’ a mama’s boy. And it’s about his mama bein’ Lidia. I don’t worry so much that she wouldn’t like it, which she wouldn’t. I worry that I wouldn’t like it. I already have Lidia in my life once a week and that is more than enough. I don’t need her every holiday, weddin’, funeral, and tractor pull the rest of my life. And I have never been to a tractor pull. I wouldn’t be caught dead at a tractor pull. Only trashy people go to stuff like that </span><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">and </em><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">call their kids Junior Junior for cryin’ out loud. Even I know there’s a senior, there’s a junior, and then there’s a “the third.” But I guess it would be kind of weird callin’ him The Third, but no weirder than callin’ him Junior Junior.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Towanda climbs in and slams the door three times to make it stick.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">I put the lap belt across my middle ’cause I refuse to leave this world in Junior Junior’s rusty Impala.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></em>
<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Vrr-rrr-rrr! Vrr-rrr-rrr!</span></em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Junior Junior, you could have left the car runnin’,” Towanda scolds.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></em>
<em class="markup--em markup--p-em" style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Vrrrrr –rrrr-room! Vrrrrooom! Vroom!</span></em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">He starts the car and there it is, the smell of maple syrup. His defrost is stuck permanently on and that first puff of defrost in old cars always smells like maple syrup to me. It’s a warm smell. A happy smell. It reminds me of mamma heatin’ up the car in the winter. It reminds me of watchin’ my big brother jumpin’ through chilled exhaust clouds, playin’ air guitar to make me laugh. It doesn’t get super cold in Oklahoma, just enough for the rain to freeze up. Just enough for the roads to freeze over. Just enough to change everything.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“I’ll leave the car runnin’, when you start payin’ for gas.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“You know, bless your heart, you’re right. I didn’t even think. How rude of me.” Towanda pulls a twenty outta her purse and passes it long arm style across my chest to Junior Junior! What the hell? Where on earth did Towanda get an extra twenty bucks?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“You been truckin’ my hiney back and forth to work all these weeks and I never thought to offer. I’m so sorry Junior Junior.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">His face reddens slightly with shock and embarrassment and probably dismay. ‘Cause if she starts payin’ for gas, he won’t have nothin’ left to guilt us about every single day. Or to hang over my head waitn’ for a payoff.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Oh, it’s no problem. Really Towanda,” he says tuckin’ the twenty into his shirt pocket. It’s not a problem, but it’s not worth givin’ the twenty back neither.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“My pleasure Junior Junior. Hey would you mind stopin’ over here at the Shoptown? I’ll only be a minute. I’ll even pick ya up a six pack of Pabpts. 19 is not all that young. You could still drink all legal if they hadn’ta raised the age just a couple years back. And anyways, Jesus drank wine in the Bible,” Towanda offers, storin’ up favors for someday.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Junior Junior pulls into the Shoptown parkin’ lot. He even pulls right up to the door. He’s no fool. Findin’ somebody to buy beer for ya is normally a pain in the butt.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Towanda climbs outta the car and holds the door for me.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Leave the car runnin’ this time, would ya?”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-indent: -0.4em;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">“Sure thing </span><span style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.04800000041723251px;">Towanda</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">.”</span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Towanda rises, gives me a wink, then bends back down into the car, stickin’ out her hand. “I need cash for the beer.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Junior Junior, reluctantly, reaches in his pocket, pulls out the 20 and hands it back to </span><span style="caret-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.843137); letter-spacing: -0.04800000041723251px;">Towanda</span><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“But I want my chan…”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Towanda slams the car door.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“Junior Junior ain’t gettin’ no beer is he?”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">Towanda stuffs the 20 in her pocket.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“What is that child gonna do? Tell his mama? That boy is terrified of her.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em;">She links her elbow with mine as we head towards the door.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;"><br /></span>
<span style="letter-spacing: -0.003em; text-indent: -0.4em;">“I am savin’ that boy a world of hurt and teachin’ him a lesson. Drinkin’ is not the Lord’s way.” And that is Towanda’s way. The one that always has her doin’ someone a favor and comin’ out ahead.</span></span>Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-34962224257083302232018-05-21T10:22:00.005-07:002020-09-30T09:49:09.781-07:00Diligent Drowning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdBtN_rnUozm6Pr6OeGrJr-3OzWmgNN_ikZ_eoHNfkWTdfEN-96wDKyuqOMtQ-CjKgkL6Rgqt2BZLt5YtJ3EpQlkqdxr-weeaA4HwcuLfQKuGhdUU4ABQ1QS1Z5Ohl6PHUaT59vG8ny3Hl/s1600/Drowning.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="750" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdBtN_rnUozm6Pr6OeGrJr-3OzWmgNN_ikZ_eoHNfkWTdfEN-96wDKyuqOMtQ-CjKgkL6Rgqt2BZLt5YtJ3EpQlkqdxr-weeaA4HwcuLfQKuGhdUU4ABQ1QS1Z5Ohl6PHUaT59vG8ny3Hl/w200-h200/Drowning.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;">Sometimes, there are those that succumb to this something we just can’t put a finger on, even though we’ve seen subtle signs of its chronic companionship for so long. Unable to speak its name either out of ignorance or avoidance or undulating uncertainty. Until one night we bolt, wide-eyed and woke. Finally, fully aware of what was witnessed and ultimately, all it adds up to be. Sadly, suddenly sure, that there is nothing we can say or secure or summon in ourselves to save them from this self-imposed swell. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="color: #454545;">So we watch as those we love slide into a series of unstable relationships where they choose to be devalued and dominated, but don’t dare depart, because they know, on their own, they are unable to keep it together. Because this something surges suddenly and severely, sucking away their serenity and sense of self-centering.</span><br />
</span><div style="color: #454545;">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="color: #454545;">
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif">For this, they cohere to these calamities with cult-like commitment. Taking on traits and truths of their treasured tyrants. Trying to maintain what might be lost, with one last lunge at loyalty, if only for a moment.</span><br />
</span><div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;">Drinking and smoking...medicinally...alone, in those wee hours where hypergraphia takes hold, strangling and stifling the voice, forcing forward words which do not pair well with what previously so prominently marked their manner. And yet, we’ve garnered glimpses of these symptoms consistently, whether willing to admit it or not. Not knowing quite what to make of them. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;">But now this new something stampedes forth, flowing from the fingertips in a run-on race, speeding on without edits or second thoughts as to what the consequences of actually publishing might mean.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;">An all-in on entirely too much every time. Arguments, thoughts, ideals and intimacies. Intimacies confused and conflated with intellectual encounters to better their beginnings begun in bedrooms as one-night noncommittals brought on by imbalanced behaviors and bad judgment that now must take root as relationships rather than retreating to the realm of repeated rebounds they would rightfully be relegated to if only reexamined against the risky route life regularly runs.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;">Putting it all on people too soon precious and passionately proclaimed partners, if not for life, at least for now because they manage the mania and malaise that cannot be maintained alone. So power and viewpoints and mind remaking are relinquished into their domineering hands in exchange for intense direction, leading to sharp, sudden pivots on platforms and politics and personal preferences, perceived by those with long shared histories as we take pause and pose the question, “What exactly is going on here?!?”</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;">An answer which we likely already know but until recently were just unable to pinpoint...or face.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;">As we watch the wayward veer from their core course previously set by an inner compass that pointed toward the harbor of a heart that held hope and humanity. </span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;">Watching the bobbing above and below the surface of the undiagnosed as they defiantly look directly into our eyes before again, deliberately diving out of sight, sequestered and reclusive, slurping their survival from the false security of a bubble about to burst. Taking up residence with whatever awaits in the abyss...so appealing, it apparently calls to that core, corrupting the compass with a magnetic north nowhere near up.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;">Seeing them occasionally surface, sucking for air, defying their drowning. So we reach for them with firm hand attempting assistance that is swiftly accused of attack. Slapped and bitten before they disappear again to be snagged and sunken until whatever has grabbed hold this go-round releases. Hopefully, before the beauty of what we once knew them to be is completely waterlogged...washed away...never to be seen again.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;">And there they’ll lie, lifeless, battered on the beach, as we wait with watchful eye for just one more resurrection. But these repeated rescues and resuscitations by those currently closer than we, are wearing thin. And the attention grabbing just before deliberate drowning is drawing on deafness to this one particular vocal tone as we tend toward tuning it out, at last tiring of the the tidal to and fro. As those of us not blood relation feel that fondness draining fast from our hearts as we head up to healthier, higher ground escaping the again incoming surf with its relentless riptides, tempting us to be towed back into the tempest.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;">So we retreat, resigned to the reality of what is, knowing that it can be no different, despite our desires and well wishes for these wave-worn willful, until they see for themselves it’s time to come ashore. To actually set foot in the sand and see someone about this something that cycles like the tides with its highs and lows and loves and losses.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: arial;">Because what can you do with someone drowning determinedly?</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">After repeated rescue, what of those who successively slink right back into the surf? </span><br />
<span face=""helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">When are we willing to allow them their wish, slowly surrendering as they succumb to sea lost at the end of a far-too-long farewell?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span face=""helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Is it even our choice?</span><br />
<span face=""helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span>
<span face=""helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Follow me on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/thelaurabecker/" target="_blank">Instagram </a>and <a href="https://twitter.com/TheLauraBecker" target="_blank">Twitter @TheLauraBecker</a></span></span></div>
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<span face=""helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: arial;"><br /></span><span face=""helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-size: 12.800000190734863px;"><br /></span></span></div>
Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-53753445804052356812018-05-14T12:12:00.001-07:002018-05-14T15:42:20.910-07:00Not-Necessarily-Mothers Day Weekend<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBDw_ZzqBWEW5_6BWhHYgDSbb1_P9RiFwRltqNG9YftnR4E5gLeS3kvQanj06DSMUjfr1tYRvTCChsOr8T_N5BU7DwQPbjV8tCQvU9GEHEfmJaIpTx2Q0WClXkJGTeoaIx-IR244y5S4BW/s1600/Not-Necessarily-Mothers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="1024" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBDw_ZzqBWEW5_6BWhHYgDSbb1_P9RiFwRltqNG9YftnR4E5gLeS3kvQanj06DSMUjfr1tYRvTCChsOr8T_N5BU7DwQPbjV8tCQvU9GEHEfmJaIpTx2Q0WClXkJGTeoaIx-IR244y5S4BW/s320/Not-Necessarily-Mothers.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Howling!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Cackling!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Just below screaming!<o:p></o:p></div>
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Outright, unreserved laughter brought on by truths. The
type that tend toward both the beautiful and bungled and in some cases
bare-it-all ballsy, shared about ourselves. Those long untold tales that lie in
our rearviews on not-so-straight roads to the women we’ve become. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Baring to one another the intimate uglies, so deeply
furrowed by our far-gone failures, fears, and forefathers that despite their
being done with, they have scarred below the surface. And although we are no
longer internally bleeding from the battles and blunders gone by, they no longer
fit the out-front façades and hard-fought foundations of our current lives. And
yet, they are so permanently and profoundly a part of these people, that there
is need to share them in the closest of confidences over cocktails and coffee
tables. Narratives of juvenility no longer needed nor tolerated, held tenderly
by those with whom we have the truest of trusts.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Women who span 11 years in age, but not in spirit. Who hear
one another with open hearts and healing hugs. Who hold our stomachs after too
much laughter, but never our tongues because the truth flows where it will. Wondering
and wincing at the underlying similarities, although not complete sameness of
the tales told. Finding funny in our failings as we identify ourselves in
someone else’s story, when for so long we thought that maybe we were the only
ones. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The much needed recharging with those further off on a daily
basis than we may like, even when they are, on some occasions, just a few feet
away. And yet, the absence breeds a fondness for friends like no other. And
although we may speak sparingly, when we find the treasured time, the love we
feel for these fearless few is never stingy. It is lavished with an abundance and
attitude only dished to those dearest.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<!--EndFragment--><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
And as the weekend winds through arrivals and arrangements
to dressups and dinners and returns and retreats into robes around the
fireplace, just before heading off to bed, there is a late-night proposal and
ponderment of slumber party parlor tricks from girlhoods gone by leading to
ridiculous revelations that bring further sidesplitting screams before slipping
into shortened sleep…because we have lasted into the wee witching hours attempting
to suck every last bit of marrow from the bones we have picked from our
petulant pasts that persist in providing all manner of entertainment before
bagging up our booty and saying our goodbyes. Sending our hearts out with one
another to wander this world in good company, until next time, when we will
again toast to one another, in all that we were. All that we are. And all that
we are yet to become. We women of the Not-Necessarily-Mothers Day weekends.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Follow me on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/thelaurabecker/" target="_blank">Instagram </a>and <a href="https://twitter.com/TheLauraBecker" target="_blank">Twitter @thelaurabecker</a></div>
Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-90562769195588336772018-05-07T18:35:00.001-07:002019-03-06T10:25:15.757-08:00The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth...So Help Us God<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcjxqvv_CXtBVUCrWFCBTDnz5DEs1RSd3mtXyZdyap5pDFI_nZ-xNNlPxRrFbyYZb9P6Av8R1dtTq3uKRX95GV-cv5cM9M061Q-u_-_6qAXFxZrUbXqfkpcItWODwgf-MGn7kSEQMTpxzI/s1600/Truth+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="498" data-original-width="750" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcjxqvv_CXtBVUCrWFCBTDnz5DEs1RSd3mtXyZdyap5pDFI_nZ-xNNlPxRrFbyYZb9P6Av8R1dtTq3uKRX95GV-cv5cM9M061Q-u_-_6qAXFxZrUbXqfkpcItWODwgf-MGn7kSEQMTpxzI/s400/Truth+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Information is not truth. Do not be confused. The two are
not interchangeable. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A bunch of information cobbled together does not make truth,
but it can lead us there. It can point the way. But we have to go.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Knowing where to find the truth is nothing. It does nothing.
It gets us nowhere. Truth takes action. We actually have to go there. All in.
All of the way. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Truth is a place. A complete state all its own. And once we
go there, there’s no going back to exactly where we were before. Ever.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But just because we made it there, doesn’t mean we’ll stay.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The truth has consequences. It always does. It is truth <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> consequences. Despite what people
may try to tell us, there is no “or” about it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Once we reach the truth. Someone will come after us. There’s
no avoiding it. They always do. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No matter what it is. Denying what we claim. Shouting us
down. Discrediting us. Sabotaging us. Outright lying about us. Assassinating our
character. And in some cases, they will even, literally, assassinate us. All in
an attempt to keep the falsehood afloat.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because although the truth is a good place, it is not a safe
place.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So, often we are tempted to seek shelter in a little white lie.
Sometimes to save feelings, but most often to save ourselves. And if we are not
careful, because that shade is always shifting, eventually not providing the coverage
we initially sought, we can roll right through dishonesty to the cool cover of
outright deceit where venomous and vengeful dangers lurk in the darkness.
Hiding from the truth as well. Concealed in the corners of that cavernous cover.
And as we recede into those alcoves, hiding further from the light, they are
there, unseen, waiting to strike. And in some cases, eat us alive. Still ending
in death. A death with no purpose. Unseen in the shadows. Wasted and worthless.
Food to feed the falsehoods and embolden and enable the benefactors of these
dark deceits.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And there is always a benefactor. Someone who benefits from
the lie. And we have all benefited from a lie. Let us not fool ourselves that we haven’t, because then we’re just lying to ourselves. And who benefits from
that?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The truth is also not easy and it is often uncomfortable. So
thoroughly consider what you are leaving behind before going there. Sometimes
it is very little. But sometimes it’s a lot. But go. Seek out truth. Because a
moment in truth is better than a thousand lifetimes in fear.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But to find truth, we must first know what we are looking
for. And there are no shortcuts. We must not be fooled. Truth seekers can be
detoured. Reasoned with reasons that are not at all reasonable, taking us down
trails far away from the falsehood, but nowhere near the truth. Lost and
wandering and wondering how on earth we got where we are. So turned around we
are unable to find up from down. In from out. Even right from wrong. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And when we find ourselves lost, we must go back to a very
basic place. Taking the tiniest steps in our discernment until there can be no
doubt the direction in which we are headed. Pointing ourselves in those tiniest
of movements toward good. Not engaging anything that is off track or leads away
from the truth to which we are headed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Truth and gossip are not the same thing. We all have things
we are ashamed of. But…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If it is exploiting someone. If it is abusing someone. If it
is stealing from someone. If it is about to draw someone into danger…it is no
longer gossip and must be told. And the perpetrator will not like it. The
people around the perpetrator will not like it. The enablers will not like it.
Even the people who may have been fooled will not like it. But speak it anyway.
Go there. Stand in the light. If only for a moment. Be there.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Feelings will be hurt. But feelings are not truth. They are
personal. And the truth is never personal. There is no such thing as a “personal
truth.” There is only perception.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Do not be confused on your way to the truth:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Kind and nice are not the same thing. And only one of them
leads to truth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Peace and pretending all is well are not the same thing. And
only one of them leads to truth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Patience and avoidance are not the same thing. And only one
of them leads to truth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Generosity and buying others admiration, appreciation,
silence, or compliance are not the same thing. And only one of them leads to truth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Faithfulness and blind loyalty are not the same thing. And only
one of them leads to truth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gentleness and cowardice are not the same thing. And only
one of them leads to truth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Joy and perpetual happiness are not the same thing. And only
one of them leads to truth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Self-control and denial are not the same thing. And only one
of them leads to truth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Loving and liking are not the same thing. And only one of
them leads to truth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Justice and punishment are not the same thing. And only one
of them leads to truth.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And once we have arrived at the truth. Once the lies, deceit,
hurt, abuse, theft, exploitation, misuse of time or resources, and all other
manner of wrongdoing is uncovered. Exposed to bring others to the truth as
well…FIX IT. MAKE IT RIGHT.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/u/3/blogger.g?blogID=540734557220718415" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Otherwise, we were not seeking the truth at all. We were out
for revenge. Seeking to shame. To humiliate. To be right. To show them. To
knock them down. Or if nothing else to triumphantly tout, “I told you so.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And we find ourselves out of the light before
it has even shone on our faces. Sitting in darkness with suspect motives
starting all over again. Lost and given over to our lust for self-satisfaction.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The truth is not self-serving. It is not selfish. But it is self-examining.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When we arrive at the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, we are forced to face ourselves and our own failings if we have
any plans to stay there. To take up residence in its radiance.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Asking ourselves questions that start with “am I” so that we
may find solid answers in “I am.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Am I…saying what I mean and meaning what I say?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Am I…doing what I am supposed to be doing?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Am I…seeking and promoting truth in every area of my life?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And when the answers fall short of “I am,” which they will,
more often than not…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Asking ourselves one more question. One that will set us
back on the path to truth:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
Am I…doing all I can to fix it? To make it right?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
Follow me on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/thelaurabecker/" target="_blank">Instagram </a>and <a href="https://twitter.com/TheLauraBecker" target="_blank">Twitter @thelaurabecker</a></div>
Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-80168126088644057192017-12-27T09:13:00.001-08:002017-12-30T06:04:58.304-08:00The Stars Might Lie But the Numbers Never Do<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">As we head into another new year, for some
reason, it’s suddenly all about counting. Everything! In every area of life!
How many? How far? How much? But if we didn’t quantify it, how could we know
exactly how much success we were having? And that’s the most important thing,
right? And the numbers don’t lie…unless we help them out just a bit.</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many steps in a day?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Just the ones the device actually counted?
Or all of them?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Including the ones I faked by swinging my
arm?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many pounds does the scale read?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">With one hand on the counter? Toes hanging
off? Heels?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">After I’ve reset it to “true zero” because
it weighs heavy?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">After I’ve thrown it across the bathroom?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">What size do I wear?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Well, what size are my fat jeans?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">What size are my skinny ones?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">What is the average?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Including underwear size, because those are
tiny numbers?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">No?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">What does it matter? Really? On say, a scale
of 1-10?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many calories in a day?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many carbs?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many grams of fiber?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many grams of protein?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How much fat?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How hungry am I now from thinking about all
of this?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many hours until dinner?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">What is my heart rate?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many beats per minute?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How come it says zero?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How come this stupid thing isn’t counting…?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Oh, for the love of…what…?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Why won’t you @#%*ing work?!?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How come that number's suddenly so high?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many glasses of water have I had today?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many should I have?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many can I safely drink in the next hour
to catch up without peeing myself?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How much farther?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many miles?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">No? How many minutes because of weather or traffic?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How late are we going to be?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">In addition to the amount that we were
already late? Or how many later than late?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many more times do you think they’ll
believe it was weather or traffic?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many likes?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many views?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many shares?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many comments?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many friends? Actually friends?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many followers do I have?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many people, other than me, think that
sounds like a cult leader?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many opportunities have I missed with my
face in my phone?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How much does it cost?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How much do I have?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How much do I owe?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How much is enough?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How much, exactly, is more?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many times have I failed?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many have I quit?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Gotten back up?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Started over?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">How many times have I just stopped
counting…for just one day?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Stopped quantifying success?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica"; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Just been content?</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<!--EndFragment-->Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-63068977549132587642017-12-19T15:56:00.001-08:002017-12-19T15:56:16.227-08:00Audio of "Amish Underpants" Now Available!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://medium.com/@TheLauraBecker/amish-underpants-and-all-71dae2b0adad" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="889" data-original-width="750" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFLSsZUWyfC-z6ho1N3GOwqftV67ZVKAAA829Np-ZtS1-RoAntDZY3NQn2qypowSnuZLdE7x5A3Z5OYvjEKqRjzWqYeyzwMk0euvZNMS_IDlezmXgs8ir3LAnl_DxoTeKWv9u1ExlKtYd8/s400/Amish+Underpants+Audio.jpg" width="336" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://medium.com/@TheLauraBecker/amish-underpants-and-all-71dae2b0adad" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Audio version of Amish Underpants and All is now available on Medium!</span></a></div>
<br />Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-62575505298574221552017-12-14T17:45:00.002-08:002019-12-12T05:42:41.883-08:00The Annual Reddening Of The Face Is A Tradition I Highly Recommend<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN6bV55Xiu2CwqXcU38no8D40IhgUYsDrydH3T9yg-IHj4d1M_Mgy_1U_En3lSocAw46zMvHaBlLLjKNheQC3fa7DCXNotc_I3k1LoEWi6PAHlOH9m1rpAHePXpCLlVUWLfz8Qd1XXJ4FR/s1600/Child+Christmas.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="494" data-original-width="741" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN6bV55Xiu2CwqXcU38no8D40IhgUYsDrydH3T9yg-IHj4d1M_Mgy_1U_En3lSocAw46zMvHaBlLLjKNheQC3fa7DCXNotc_I3k1LoEWi6PAHlOH9m1rpAHePXpCLlVUWLfz8Qd1XXJ4FR/s320/Child+Christmas.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Running
in circles and hurling their halos, the preschoolers pressed on through their
presentation. This was their first time performing what we had rehearsed, on
the actual stage. A situation my inner voice of experience from so many years
of working with small children had warned me against…but I ignored. Because I
had planned. Because we had practiced. But mostly because before we even
began, I had known and accepted, it would be imperfect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "helvetica";">The
previous year, one bare bottom made its debut as a pair of tights suddenly
slipped down a backside after intense shaking led to their shucking. I could feel the crimson creep as I snuck up
to the stage and secured the spandex once more before they bashed
on. </span>The
annual reddening of the face is a tradition for those of us who have spent extensive
time with your tots. I highly recommend it. And it can be counted
on to happen at least once during the holiday season. Why, you ask?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Because
children scratch themselves through <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jingle
Bells</i>. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Songs
are sung far softer or louder or more off key than they have ever been.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There
is a spontaneous solo about Batman’s odor and Robin’s miraculous ability to lay an egg.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">All
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upside down. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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world’s most complicated costumes, even though they just went. And once one has
to go…they all have to go.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Angels
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Shepherds
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And
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because the children spy or at least suspect that they are out there and call to
them seeking reassurance.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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are teaching <i>us</i>, rather than the other way around.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica";"><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Because the annual reddening of the face is a tradition for those of us who have spent
extensive time with your tots. One that I highly recommend.</span></span></div>
Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-540734557220718415.post-47642470748139407222017-12-06T11:56:00.004-08:002017-12-08T07:44:34.910-08:00If I Had Known How Crazy Christmas Could Be, I Never Would Have Gotten Married In December<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Suspended by my seatbelt, I stared through the windshield at a snowy wall of white. The ditch was deeper than his car, now grounded on its grill, barely balanced by two tiny bushes that unbelievably broke our impact instead of surrendering us to slam headlong into the frozen fathoms below. This was not a good start to the wedding week.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If I had known how crazy Christmas could be, I never would have gotten married in December.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Just days before “I do”s we went careening off an icy rural road, crashing in the middle of the night. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was after a Christmas party. A party at my professor’s place. A party I had been late to the previous year because I had found myself unexpectedly pushing my car without help…up a hill…in heels. A feat, to this day, we still cannot comprehend. I guess if you’re mad enough in the moment, you can do just about anything.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But in this particular moment, I was more marveled than mad. And grateful beyond measure because miraculously, we had managed to make it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Just moments before, there had been a curve, that we didn’t take. Instead, the ice ensured we just journeyed onward under our own inertia right into the ravine. I remember watching in what seemed like slow motion as a mailbox came flying at my face and then thankfully thwacked off the glass. It had been the mailbox of the first house we approached after our accident, in the dead of winter, where no one was home.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This was of course back before smart or even stupid phones, so we had to walk another mile through the moonlit arctic intensity in our party clothes…and the party was now definitely over. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Weathering the winding road and whipping winds, we wandered on to the next drifted over driveway. Trudging on together.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Finally a farm had one little light glowing in the darkness. We knocked just after midnight and in their mercy they actually answered! Not only the door but our prayers! They welcomed and warmed us. Bundled us in blankets and sat us before space heaters until help finally arrived around three in the morning. The tow truck got lost on those outlying lanes trying to locate us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But we made it through the mayhem and emerged a couple brought closer by calamity. Even though, over what remained of that week, the chaos continued. I contracted walking pneumonia from the extra exposure, took my college finals, did my Christmas shopping and got married.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And we still are. Happily. Though in the years to come, there has seldom been a sedate anniversary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The celebrations have been spent sleeping in airports, putting on pageants, attending office parties, and wishing one another well from a distance because sometimes that’s just what December demands. But once it was even spent…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With his parent’s house completely engulfed in flames while our wedding album sat smoldering on the kitchen table. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And his parents, being the wonderful Midwesterners that they were, didn’t call to tell us that their house burned down that day…because they didn’t want to ruin our anniversary!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But that album somehow survived, a little singed and smoke stained having gone through the fire. Kind of like us, so we left it that way.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Because over the years, like most married folk, we have from time to time found ourselves a little road weary. Somehow missing those curves that we never saw coming and continuing on under our own inertia only to wind up in a ditch. Then, climbing our way out and wandering on, weathering whatever life whips our way. At times trudging, but always together.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And year after year, I reflect on all I didn’t know about the craziness yet to come, from Christmases and all other matter of life’s little lessons, and that decision to say, “I do”, despite it being December. And I find myself far more marveled than maddened. And grateful beyond measure because miraculously, we managed to make it.</span></div>
Laura Beckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17640991932662069826noreply@blogger.com0