Charting My Way

Charting my Way

 

I like lists.  I am the sort who plans her day in a somewhat haphazard way. I have given up on should (ing) myself.  If it doesn’t happen, I am fine with how the day has gone as I look for what happened.  So, I started a list, a very random chart of what I hope to drink, eat on every day, perhaps read, cook.  It seems to be working.  I keep revising and adding to it as I go along.  I like it. It is not great writing and sometimes my handwriting leads me to mark the wrong food group, or with a huh, what is that?  But I don’t worry, I just head to the kitchen and eat it or start cooking if I don’t get distracted by a book.  Writing without glasses leads to interesting things

I assume everyone believes or knows our bodies change as we gain the years around the sun.  The aches, the pains, the loss of things not working seems to be happening more. But I have decided to adopt a leisurely attitude to it all.  It happens and I am still moving. 

I started writing this on July 21^st, 2022. I am still grateful for being able to move but my list of things I am grateful for has grown. I now have Parkinson’s. 

***

The Parkinson’s Poet

 

I have Parkinson’s.

I am a poet.

This is part of the story.

Which rambles, stutters, leaning into silence

Changing with each tick of the clock.

It hovers until a desire to walk, to reach, to hold, to grasp, to do

Anything, all things even speaking with a voice

A voice without the trills, crescendo passages of joy

Lingering in the air. Now disappeared.

Endless rests without reason, a mind asleep before an open door

Where beyond is things, ideas, and moments of opportunities.

Yet, sitting, drinking tea or coffee is a common event without shaking of limbs, yet.

Fingers obey the request of tapping, tapping on keys, chopping, cutting, even the simple flossing

Of tired teeth from chewing, chewing for the swallowing, swallowing.

This is part of the story.

I am a poet.

I have Parkinson’s.

***

I am grateful for life. I was able to have a baby, raised him with the help of the man, my husband. I am grateful for being able to work and go on vacation with my son and my husband. Both my husband and I are actors. I remember dancing and singing on the stage. Sometimes, acting is very physical. I died in Act I and then Act II of a play.  I did prat falls when I died.  Oh, I can still get up and down off the floor, but it is with great intent as I carefully bend down and ease myself down for an easy yoga workout. I take meds faithfully, morning, noon, and night.  It is a good time for gratitude when I think of the scientists who develop the meds, the manufacturers, and the traveling my meds must do before they reach me.

I think my gratitude must start with the awareness of my first breath in the morning as I swung my legs off the bed. Afterall, I am still here. 

***

Just what have I been doing in my spare time. Napping has been a high priority. Walking, I love walking particularly in the early morning with all the birds waking up and greeting the day. Writing now and then with the emphasis on then. I have been writing short stories, and I am excited to be included in several anthologies. Here is one of them. Release date is May 11, 2026.

 

https://amzn.to/4smFmKA

My husband, Scott Branchfield is also included in this collection.

Invited in from the Street

 

Invited in from the Street

 

Part of you dissolves, melts away when you cannot do what you used to do.  The inspirations need a different source to feed on. So, when I was invited by a woman on the street to join a writing group at the house I was passing, I jumped or rather slowly followed her with my walking stick up the ramp and into the house.  As I told the man, my husband later, I didn’t think of my safety, what was beyond the doors. I was being noticed, I was wanted, and I went.

I was surrounded by a group sitting in a circle, on chairs and a love seat. There was only one young person without the white or gray of years gone by in the group.  I asked where I could take a seat and choose a chair with arms. I was without my walking stick. I parked it in the living room with my hat and wind breaker. I was hopeful to get up out of the chair without much difficulty. I was right. When the time came, I stood up and moved out of room to retrieve my things before I left with ease.

They were a writing group. Getting together to mainly share memoirs of things happening in their lives. The youngest of the group, a young man later shared a fantasy piece. They introduced themselves while my mind was a tumble of faces being matched to new names. They were lucky. There was only one of me and I shared my name with a member of the group, a plus for them as a way of remembering it.

After the introductions, they got on with it. They read from handwritten scribbles, typed written sheets. One refrained from reading as her eyesight was poor, and the notes were unforgiving to the eyes. When they got to me, I had nothing to offer but I rambled. Here is a bit.

                                ****

As I sit here, looking at blue socks with cats,

I am surrounded by those I do not know.

I struggle with names and faces

As I look around at those I do not know.

                                ****

The group continued with their offerings of days gone by, lost in the past, sometimes moments shared with others until one woman shared the writings of her husband now gone. She claimed she was not a writer, I would claim she was wrong. Afterall, reading the works of others enable you to be a writer as you grasp the words, the sounds, and find meaning. I write because the words huddle there, hounding me, taunting my thoughts until in desperation I submit to the pen on the page, typing at the keyboard, whispering into a recorder. Not all days leave me sweating at my brow with inspiration beckoning but never coming. Some days I receive gifts. Those are the days I am grateful.

I have included a poem of sorts from my encounter.

                                ****

I sit here looking

At blue socks with cats.

At a face I do not know

In this room of strangers,

Names fluttering in the light

Not attached to anyone.

 

A woman sits in a corner

Of a couch, her name

Identical to my own

And she speaks of memories

For Jerusalem, of places

I will never see.

 

I will call you L

Sweet old thing on the other end

Of the couch. Her story is filled

With fondness of a celebration

Being with her family and friends until the end of the day

Fills the hour with conversation.

I have nothing to offer

But ramblings, observations

Of the moment as I sit.

I listen. Repeating names

Over faces in hopes, I will

Have them filed. In the caverns, with threads to pull on

For another day.

 

On my right is a story

Filled with imagery of glory

Celebrating a holiday long past.

The writer tells of a woman filling the space

With the magnificence of her costume.

She is portraying Lady Liberty.

 

We go fishing with a man seated here in a chair.

So much I do not know.  Having only thrown my fishing line

Baited with worms into creeks, and rivers.

Inside my mind, I lick my lips, and I dream of halibut, and sole freshly caught.

Though I am not hungry.

 

Her husband is long gone now

But today in this room

His voice rumbles on. His wife says she is not a writer. She is a reader.

And she reads on, and on of a day in which her hero returns.

Tired, worn, with indeed having carried the cares of the world

On his shoulders from steep hills of green.

 

A young man reads. From his corner

A tale of the sometimes invisible

Bigfoot and friends on a rescue.

Penguins were never so big

But a creature on a mission

Adapts. Secure in its costume.

It is necessary.

 

Our hostess, the lady of the house reads

Her memories fill the room, and I rejoice in sharing,

These moments of other lives.

They are seeing a play outside.

Not one I know, not Shakespeare

Or Death of a Salesman or

Jaunty songs reflecting life.

But of life beyond the stars.

Star Trek.

 

I was taken off the street

Welcomed in

To sit among strangers

And I, someone unknown

Was welcomed, stolen from

My morning walk.

 

What time is it?

    Lately I have felt like I am running out of time.  Not sure what part of time I am losing.  It seems as if I have enough time to sleep in, to eat, to walk, and to read in.  But I am a great procrastinator, a dawdler, I like to dilly-dally. The problem is, for me, what am I forgetting to do? I do the breathing, check. I always seem to wake up. Score a big one for me. I am still mobile, able to walk, talk, and think in some manner.

    I have grown closer to my mortality. You see, I have been diagnosed with Parkinson's. I have discovered drugs are wonderful. By the magic of medication, I am nearly back to being normal. I am back in my kitchen on a daily basis. Cooking. I love cooking. The man, my husband loves eating. We have been the perfect match for over forty-two years.  It really is the simple things in life. 

    But back to the problem of what I am forgetting to do? I have several stories brewing, including a couple of novellas, maybe a novel. Perhaps, I am forgetting to get the work done. I get distracted. I am working on a book of poetry.  I am excited somewhat about it.  It could be depressing. It is depressing. It is glimpses of my life with Parkinson's. Particularly before the meds.  

    I am ever more aware of what days I have left. I am doing well. But it is a chronic condition. No turning back, no time outs, no re-dos. I have today.

On a good note. For now.

I have been accepted for two of my short stories. 

 http://purpletoga.com/2024/11/16/announcing-the-final-list-of-authors-for-rainbows-arent-just-for-leprechauns/, so far, anyway. 

  https://purpletoga.com/books/it-takes-a-village/

I am excited and thrilled to be included in this anthology collection of stories, essays, and one poem (written by yours truly) along with a short story I have written. Here is a link to preorder. The book is scheduled for release on Mother's Day. 

Meanwhile, enjoy the day.  
 

A Walk Through Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

 

A Walk Through Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

My husband and I read nightly or rather he reads to me from a book we have selected together. Sometimes, it is a book he is wanting to read but is waiting to share the experience with me. He is always spot on when it comes to knowing what might please me. A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is a book we had on the bookshelf and not having anything else we started reading. My mind was taken on a journey, I was familiar with some things I had experienced in my own childhood and with the other experiences of the author, Annie Dillard, I had pause to think. Since my husband and I have a great deal of education concerning biology, both plants and animals, etc., it started out as an interesting read. But it made me wonder am I where I should be? In my life, in the world, and the universe. I had forgotten to look. I have just been traveling through the days.

When I was younger, I was more introspective concerning my place in the world, but I did not worry about the next minute, hour, or day. Instead, I would spend hours with my belly hugging the ground watching ants go in and out of the mound, rest on my back watching clouds move through the sky and go for long walks watching everything I saw. I was complete.

Come to think of it, I still do not worry. I have great faith something will happen and it is all good though sometimes a bit rough about the edges. It is the edges getting me down on occasion until I remind myself “This too will pass.” I still possess a wonder about the world. From the various songs of the birds in the morning to the baying and barking of dogs in the distance, I find myself wanting to know what they are saying high in the treetops or low in the now greening bushes. The dogs are of equal interest, are they alone in their home, yard, or kennel? Is the animal waiting to be fed? Or sad because their person had to leave them home? Then there is the silence. I like it. The peacefulness of a deserted street early in the morning. I can hear the birds better, I can notice the chill of the wind, and hear the beginning patter of the rain falling.

I marveled at Annie Dillard’s descriptions of what she saw around her. It is something, I could not do as I lack the knowledge of the life of various animals and insects, mostly, it is experience. I left the innocence of nature for college and the busyness of being there. I left the river, the fields, the mountain, and the hikes along the ridges. The elk across the river in their winter pasture, the frost on the inside of my bedroom window and the icy, snowy trek to the outhouse in the night. Instead, I was discovering a whole new world in which I saw The Wizard of Oz for the first time in color when Dorothy reached Oz. I found out I could be accepted without much attention placed on the tone of my skin. Growing up indigenous in a small community was not without difficulties. I survived.

Life is survival. I am quite accepting of the heaven in my small circle of existence. I am grateful when I wake up, after all I am still here and isn’t that the root of it all? Being still here.

 

The Struggle is Real

 

The Struggle is Real

I have started writing again and finally sending some of what I do out into the world for others to see. It is an ongoing struggle with distractions hounding me, chasing me around, and being plagued by nap attacks. But what can you do? Finally, I gave in to a title which I have no idea where the story is going, the characters on the stage, and the reason for writing it. Is a mystery. No, not the story though I suppose everything we write is a mystery one sentence after another. I guess I need to keep plugging along until I can determine what I am doing.

This is the teaser for the cover for an anthology in which I have two pieces in. A short story and a poem. Full cover will be released closer to book release in May.

The Body (beginning of something, I hope)

 

This is a new idea I am kicking around. This is a character from something else I am working on.

The Body

            As murders go, it was not the worse. The body was cold, limbs a bit twisted as if falling in motion as an attempt to get away. It would have been processed by the locals, except for the fact a member of The Authority had been present. The officer was on loan for a particular reason, what was considered a lack of performance at the last incident. Called an incident because things were lacking normalcy, feathers, everywhere. A lack of a body but lots of blood, fluids scattered throughout a suite of five rooms. The Authority had been there before anyone else could arrive and this particular officer had contaminated the scene and neglected to wear booties. But the worse offence was a tissue which had fallen out of the pocket of the officer, it was covered in his own body fluids, snot from his nose, complete with a nose hair. Allergies will get you all the time.

            Agent Accent of The Authority was not pleased.  She was currently investigating a quite puzzling case with overtones of the abnormal. But what is one more puzzle? She examined her booties carefully and pointily glared at the slightly trembling Authority officer on assignment to a normal branch of duty. Another officer moved the tape baring entrance so she could enter.  Her eyes flickered over the scene, the normal police, emergency workers had been removed and her own team was in place including the disgraced Authority officer. Agent Accent stifled a sigh, he was her problem now.

            The victim had been a woman with augmented body parts, not overly done but rather a way to hide what would have had shown clearly, if you knew what you were looking for.  Agent Accent sniffled the air but only smelt the tang of red blood, the emptying of bowels, and beneath was a floral tone, hard to distinguish from the more potent scents. She walked carefully about the body, noting the palm of the left hand turned outward as if it was a final attempt at warding off what was coming. Agent Accent wanted to close her eyes and look more deeply at what might be lingering, a ghost, a glimmer, an essence but first, a look at what had triggered needing her presence and the team from The Authority.

            The trembling, disgraced officer now assigned to this case came forward at her beckoning. “Show me.” Agent Accent was referring to the starred marker on the floor and next to wall nearing the front door. A discolored spot was on both. The young officer licked his lips and lead her carefully to the possible evidence, a clue perhaps to what might have done this. What, not who?  The spots on both the floor and wall were maybe body fluids from an unnoticed nick or cut on the perpetrator.