Tag: Fiction

The Terrible Decision

The Terrible Decision

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She could have stayed. It may have been better to stay. How hard could it have been to stop, take a deep breath, count to ten? Too hard, apparently. She left. It was a split decision, even as she was doing it, she floated above, watching herself doing it. The walking to the hook, the grabbing of the key, the thoughtful stopping to pick out sunglasses and wallet from her purse…clearly she was able to think, and so the leaving must be seen as coherent, a decision.

Even as she drove away she was hovering above. Truly she was driving, sitting in the seat, the heated seat which had seemed an extravagance in California now a necessity in Montana, still she was physically in the seat and driving, her hands upon the non-heated steering wheel, an extravagance she’d gone without and now wished she’d splurged for…like remote start functionality. At any rate, there was her body, in the seat, hands on the wheel, feet on the pedals, and she was physically determining her future. But emotionally, psychically, she was floating above. Looking down at herself. Slightly in awe of her power and also completely overwhelmed by the happenings.

Would she be able to go back? Would she want to? Would she be allowed back? Would they want her?

Did it matter?

…

She’d always done things by the book:

  1. got good grades in high school
  2. got into a prestigious college
  3. graduated from said prestigious college
  4. obtained a successful career
  5. obtained a desirable partner
  6. got married
  7. bought a house
  8. had kids

She’d done all that was every expected of her, overtly or subtly. And as she was doing it, she knew it wasn’t right.

She realized near the end of high school that she’d been played.

Everyone else goofed off and had fun in high school. Everyone else partied. She studied. She got the perfect grades. She got the extra-curriculars that looked good and the extra tassels to wear at graduation and the pomp and circumstance and ridiculousness and she realized she’d been cheated. Never even had a beer.

But too late, because now she had to continue to tow the line because college was also required, expected, demanded. So now through the gauntlet again. Only now she was bitter about it, only barely making it through, changing her prestigious major for one that allowed her out in four years, anything, underwater basketweaving as they say. But she did it, and was done and out and on to the next thing on the list.

Her life was lived by everyone else’s rules but how could one point and complain or cry or rail against the injustice of it when one was ultimately accepting and following and not pulling up the reins and saying “NO!” It was too late. On to the next thing on the list.

The career came next, something with customer service that caused her to drink more coffee than even a night before finals required. Lots of smiling and cheek biting and swallowing of words, not to mention matching nail polish and jewelry to uniforms. Truly awful.

But she was good at it and up the ladder she rose. As expected, and therefore too late to back out and try something else.

Next came the husband. Good good, nothing to see here, move along.

A house. Kids.

Check. Check.

And then one day, it may have been the lack of sleep, insomnia being a result of those non-stop caffeine injections, or it may have been that the kids were just especially tired from the heat and the extracurriculars and school having started up again and the stress of all the things that used to stress her out about the unspoken and spoken expectations and the not-so-minor-aggressions inherent in them, and her inability to inflict upon another what was done to her and it was almost an audible snap.

Almost, because no one else seemed to hear it.

One minute she was arguing with herself in the form of a toddler and the next she knew this was all wrong. This was not her life. Or rather it was, but it oughtn’t be. None of this was her life and even though it was always too late to start over, every step telling her too late, too late, too late, she found herself out the door, in the car, down the road.

This #writethirtyminutes session was prompted very loosely from “A Year of Writing Prompts” by Writer’s Digest, available here
The Injury

The Injury

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It wasn’t supposed to be permanent. The injury. The injury was supposed to heal, to mend, to become a thing distantly remembered and the scar discussed at a roundtable of drunkards a la Jaws. But it didn’t. Heal, that is. The injury didn’t heal.

…

People had rather gotten used to the young woman limping to and from town every few days. Always the same route: post office, library, market. Those who saw her insisted she ought to have a bicycle, a wagon, a horse, something they’d say as they watched her pass. No one ever asked if she wanted a lift to wherever she was going when she left town. No one. Not after the first week of watching her routine, nor after the first year. What could possibly be so intimidating about a young woman with a limp?

…

He watched her limping towards him. It would be 10 am on the dot when she arrived. Always was. Just as he was finishing up the post office boxes and preparing the outgoing mail. He’d taken to checking that his watch was accurate by her arrival, checking that the old clock kept on the wall didn’t need new batteries.

The first time she came he’d noticed the similarity in her gait, the hitch in her giddyup as he thought of it. So familiar, like watching himself approach, if you didn’t notice the long light dress or the long bundled hair, which he did. How could he not. His first thought was that he’d finally found her, the perfect woman, the one who’d understand. His second thought was that she was much too young to settle for the likes of him, not once she knew…though maybe she’d be just as relieved to find herself in him. No, he shook his head, dismissed the thought, she was too young.

…

She never noticed the weather much, a heavier coat or a lighter one, waterproof boots or trainers. Weather was nothing more than a fact, and could easily be ignored, her life revolving as it did around supposition.

Suppose instead of going to the post office, the library, and the market, she went instead to a beach somewhere. Surely there’d be all the same necessaries, but perhaps with a better view. Not a beach though, her leg would stick out like…well, anyway. Perhaps a city, a major one, where the library would have multiple levels and ladders that rolled along walls. But no, that would all require more strength than she felt she had, despite walking the mile in and out of town every few days. No. She was where she belonged, even if she didn’t yet feel settled. Known.

And how was a body supposed to be known anyway when that body never made the necessary overtures.

Perhaps now that she was well and truly decided upon staying, perhaps now that a year had passed and her routine had settled, although who was she kidding, perhaps…

…

“I wonder if you know a good place to eat?” she asked.

He blinked twice, trying not to appear ruffled. This being the first personal question she’d ever asked him. Although what was so personal about it really? A place to eat. Not what deodorant he wore or which side of the bed he slept upon. Food. Simple. He blinked twice more in quick succession, and tried to reply without a stammer, not wanting to be taken as slow.

“The market there has take away items, if you’re in a hurry,” he knew she’d be heading out of town and on her way to wherever she went in an hours time, but realizing that perhaps he oughtn’t know her schedule or exactly where she went every time she came to town, he rushed ahead, “there’s also the little cafe round the corner there, a bit french if you like that sort of lighter lunch with a bit of wine?”

She smiled at his pronunciation of cafe as though it were a baby cow, a light lunch of veal, she pictured herself a fork in one hand, steak knife in the other, a big eyed snotty calf standing docilely before her.

This post was written as a thirty minute writing exercise, no editing, no stopping and was inspired from a writing prompt in Bryan Collins’ “Yes, You Can Write!” book available here.

Going Back

Going Back

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They say you can never go back, but I had no choice. When my grandmother got sick there was no one to care for her. No one but me. So I went back.

My grandmother raised me when my parents died. They weren’t even together, like how much did God hate me to make that happen? My mom was on a regular weekly grocery shopping trip when a semi truck blew through a red light, crashed directly into the drivers side of her car, and killed her instantly. Everyone says at least it was a quick death. I don’t get the comfort in that at all. My dad was coming back from a business trip to some big city, I can’t even remember and don’t want to, the fight was perfect, the landing was stellar, by all accounts there was absolutely nothing notable about the flight, except that when it landed there was a dead body in one seat. Heart failure. And I always thought you had to have a heart for it to fail.

So my grandmother raised me for the remaining three years before I could legally emancipate myself early based on my ability and the fact that my grandmother was too old to be raising me, especially when her memory was failing and what she needed was someone to care for her. But I didn’t know that at the time. She hid it well. If she was even hiding it. Who knows? She seemed fine when I left a couple years ago.

I left at sixteen and started my career. Ha. It’s not work to throw paint around on a canvas and have everyone under the sun declare it a masterpiece because what they’re really seeing is your tragedy. At eighteen I’m more famous than that Warhol guy although I never really understood his “genius” either.

Eighteen and going back to figure out what to do with my grandma. How do you care for someone who doesn’t even remember you? It’s only been two years! How did things change so much, and why didn’t I notice?

I guess I should be grateful. I may not know how to care for her, but I have enough money that I can pay someone who does. Grateful. I should be grateful my mom went quickly and grateful my grandma won’t but that I can afford to care for her. This makes no sense. I’m supposed to be grateful for opposite things? What a racket.

It would probably have been better to pack her up and send her to me rather than going back to her. She wouldn’t know the difference anyway. I still don’t know why I didn’t do that. I did think about it. I’m not completely witless. But I didn’t. I came back to this place I swore I’d never come back to. I guess a part of me had to see if it changed.

It didn’t.

In books the characters are always going back and realizing how small everything is when it all looms so large in their memories. What a crock.

Everything is exactly as I left it. Small town, small house, small minds. But I supposed I’m meant to be grateful for that too. Whatever.

This post was written as a thirty minute writing exercise, no editing, no stopping and was inspired from a writing prompt in Bryan Collins’ “Yes, You Can Write!” book available here.
Please note that I’m well aware I am not using Bryan’s prompts as he intended, but because they are spurring the pieces, I’m giving credit where it’s due.

Start

Start

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She woke early, before the sun had risen, but she could tell it was going to. The kind of mostly dark that comes just before the world begins to brighten. She could hear her husband’s deep breathing beside her and gently extricated herself from the blankets, the bed creaking a bit as she rose up. She paused, hoping the creak hadn’t woke him, gratified to find it hadn’t. It wasn’t often she had a morning all to herself.

She walked out of the room, gently tapping her thigh so the dog would follow, and closing the door behind them. She went to the back door and opened it so the dog could go out and relieve himself. She shivered a bit in the chill that morning air, considered wrapping her robe tighter around herself, but opening it instead, enjoying the chill, appreciating the warmth of the house even more.

The dog came back in and she closed the door. The kids must still be asleep, too, and probably would be for another couple of hours. They’d taken to staying up late and talking, laughing for hours rather than go to bed at their appointed bed time. It was fine with her as long as they stayed in their room and got up in time to help with morning chores, which they always managed to do.

Their kitchen wasn’t large or fancy, and she was glad, it was functional. It was perfect. They’d taken out the cutting board that nested above the silverware drawer, the cutting board was too large to be useful and too cheap to be attractive. The whole above the drawer wasn’t exactly easy on the eyes but it made the silverware drawer easily and quietly accessible which she loved. She reached in and grabbed a spoon then opened the cupboard with the coffee grinds and the French press. She measured her coffee in no particular way, a heap was a heap after all, and two heaps were all that was needed for the perfect cup of joy.

Five minutes later, a warm cup between her hands, she walked out to the sun room. It would be planting weather soon and she checked on her starts. She’d had much better success this year, whether because she changed seed companies or because they’d finally had enough years working their compost that it now did the trick. Either way the starts were popping at a record 98% and she was excited at the prospect of being able to sell some in addition to planting their entire crop.

It was still too chilly to water everything, so she sat in her chair, the one her husband had wanted to throw out because it didn’t match anything, but that she quietly secreted to the sun room, confident he’d never miss it and that she’d have the chance to use it at some point. It had become the highlight of her occasional quiet mornings, this lone ugly chair. She never worried about ruining it or sitting in it properly. She’d sometimes sit sideways, legs dangling over the armrest, sometimes legs crossed beneath her as though in meditation. The chair never complained.

She watched as the sky lightened, only a few colors from this perspective, not the full range of a stunning mountain morning. Still she appreciated it, savored the quiet. The chill in the air was almost gone and she suspected today might actually be the best day for planting. She looked over the starts again, smiling, then went back into the house to start breakfast.

They’d had pancakes yesterday, a once a week tradition that they’d started when their first was born and which they’d continued to this day, despite the fact that she and her husband were only mildly pancake people. The boys, on the other hand, loved pancake day and always wanted to pick the fruit each week leading to a mild altercation about who had picked the week before, cries of “nuh uh,” and “but I don’t even like blueberries,” abounded meant to prove their case.

Today she thought she’d make eggs, poached. Some bacon, no, they’d had that with pancakes, her secret indulgence the smearing of the bacon in the leftover syrup, heaven. Sausage then. And hashbrowns, they had some potatoes she needed to use before they started to get soft. She checked the fridge to be sure they had spinach and ketchup, too, which they did. Good. She’d have spinach with her breakfast instead of sausage and the boys wouldn’t touch hashbrowns without ketchup, so the plan was a go.

She began scrubbing the potatoes. She considered peeling them but since these were organic and from their own garden she left them on, a few extra vitamins and minerals would be good for the boys and smothered under ketchup they’d never notice anyway. She got out the grater and went to work, humming low some nameless thing that came to her sometimes when cooking. The potatoes ready for the pan, she got out the egg carton and noticed it was a bit light. Looking inside she saw not the dozen she knew she should have but one. Someone hadn’t done chores yesterday.

She sighed and went to the mudroom, stepping into her muck boots and grabbing the egg basket from the hook. She walked out toward the coop, still humming, her robe now loose and billowing about her. She looked in the chicken run on her way towards the nesting boxes and saw all as it should be. The hens clucked at her, hoping she’d brought some kitchen treats and the amiable rooster, Emmett, whom she’d fallen in love with, the only rooster she’d never had to take a stick to, puffed up his chest and fluffed his wings at her. She was convinced he was in love with her, too.

Walking to the nesting boxes she lifted the lid only to find several pairs of eyes pop open and stare accusingly at her. All four boxes were full of hens and one box even had two girls in it. “Oh come now,” she said, exasperated. Her least favorite hen, the old biddy who went broody every time an egg was laid was sitting to the far right. She reached over, scooped her up and off the nest, and placed her on the ground. The raucous she put up would make someone think she’d been beaten within an inch of her life rather than picked up and set down. “Really?” she said aloud, before grabbing at the pile of eggs and dropping them two at a time into her basket.

She emptied the nest, fourteen eggs, closed the lid, and walked back to the house.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

Teeth

Teeth

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When the waves began she didn’t notice. The waves had come before, in a different manner, true, and a different place, but still. She knew the waves were nothing to concern herself with and so she didn’t. Until they began coming closer together. Coming more often. Coming stronger. The waves began coming in a pattern, she could guess when the current one would end, the next one begin, she began to notice a feeling she could call pain but was more like discomfort, not pain. Not yet.

It would be time soon, she’d need the midwife, she’d need hot water. She’d need towels. She finished the row and stopped seeding the field. She marked with a stick where she left off; she’d need to finish the seeding quickly or it would be a difficult winter. She went to the barn, ensuring the animals had enough feed and water, a habit she’d gotten into every evening for the past month. A caution. A responsibility.

Closing up the barn she stopped to breath. The discomfort was coming closer to pain with every passing wave. She closed up the barn and went for the house. She’d need to phone the midwife before doing anything more, give her time to collect her things and get to the farm. Give her time to put her own animals away. For the first time she considered that perhaps she had already waited too long to make the call.

Shaking her head to clear the thought she entered her home, stripping off her mucky boots at the entrance, her hat, the small pistol she always kept when working outside alone. She sat on the bench for a moment longer letting another wave peak and begin it’s slow recession. She reached up to brush a stray hair from her head and noticed she was sweating. Already.

She made the call, the midwife easy to hand and quick to reassure her she was on the way. The waves were coming much faster now and though she’d always been a quiet woman, stoic even, she realized she was beginning to get quite loud. She was surprised by the sound, and listened to herself for a moment. Was she speaking? No. These were just sounds, not animal, she’d seen and heard her own animals give birth. The sounds she was making were not animal.

Her vocalizations were primal, loud, and sounded like a dull roar. Perhaps animal after all. Not a farm animal though. Or at least not one she’d ever encountered. Still, it was familiar. A sort of chuffing, like a cougar. Yes. That was it. She smiled a bit as she chuffed, smiled and grimaced, and opened her mouth wide to roar.

She realized she was pacing, hadn’t remembered getting up or walking, but she was. Big round circles around the room with an occasional short streak from one side to the other and many stops to squat a bit and roar. And then the roaring stopped. The waves were different now. They were no longer fast, no longer peaking.

The new waves were longer with no clear middle. She rode the waves no longer roaring. She smiled, grabbing the counter in the kitchen, the perfect height. When had the midwife arrived? She hadn’t noticed. Still, there she was. Knitting in a corner. She looked up from her project, must have felt the eyes upon her or the change in the room from effort to surprise.

They smiled at one another. The midwife went back to her knitting. She went back to her laboring.

The baby was born shortly after, the sound of first crying the sweetest sounds to a mother’s ears. The baby was put immediately to the breast, and suckled with gusto.

“Mind the teeth,” the midwife warned.

“Teeth? Ouch!”

Releasing her nipple from the babe’s mouth the new mother looked with awe into the gaping, crying mouth and saw teeth. Not a complete set mind you, but teeth. She’d never seen such a thing, never heard of it. She must have made a face because the midwife felt the need to intervene.

“First I’ve ever seen,” she said, “though I’ve heard of it. Doesn’t happen often, see? From what I know, they are sometimes loose enough to pull right out, and other times stay in just fine. Did you want me to try and pull them out then?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“The babe will work around them to feed, won’t be a problem for long. We can leave em in and see,” the midwife suggested.

“Yes. No. I…let’s see if they’re loose.”

The midwife left the infant in his mothers arms and reached over with one hand to open his mouth, using the forefinger of her other hand to reach in and test the teeth.

“Nope, not loose,” she stated, “they won’t interfere, I’m sure of it. Just make you more nervous than anything. I’ll be back in the morning to check on you.”

With that she packed up her bag of things, double checked that she’d set out a bowl of soup and some water for the mother, and eager to let the mom get some sleep and bond with the baby, she took her leave.

The babe had quieted and fallen asleep after the indignity of a finger in his mouth. The mother looked upon him in wonder. So perfect. So big. He was a huge baby, the largest she’d ever seen. She felt sure she could put him down and he’d begin crawling he was just so large. Her arms ached not only from the strain of holding his weight but from the sheer exhaustion of the birth.

Laying him down gently in her bed she went to the bowl of soup, famished. Rather than scoop the contents into her mouth she simply picked up the bowl and drank, pausing occasionally as a large morsel fell from the bowl into her mouth and required chewing. She sucked down the remains of the soup, using a finger to slide the last little bits into her mouth. She drank down the glass of water and poured another, drinking it too, this time slower.

She went to the bathroom, her body unsure exactly how to perform this act under the new conditions but eventually catching on to what was being asked of it and complying. She let out a sharp but brief cry before relaxing and cleaning up. Realizing just how bone deep her fatigue was she limped back to the bed, sliding in between the sheets, her quilt tucked up over her chest, the enormous new body instinctively wiggling closer to her. Her scent? Her heat? Something drew the new creature closer and she draped an arm around him.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

Meditation

Meditation

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She’d never been one for meditation. She wanted to, of course, so many benefits, she just couldn’t get herself to sit still for so long. Nor to let her thoughts “go,” whatever that meant. Go where? They were her thoughts, oughtn’t they to stay with her? At any rate, meditation, a solid no.

Weeks spent indoors with no foreseeable end in sight changed all that.

She went out to the little patch of concrete that was her “yard,” put her earbuds in, clicked the meditation app on her phone and twenty minutes later…

Yeah, no, still can’t meditate. Valiant effort though.

The next day she tried again.

Huh uh.

Again.

And again.

And yet again.

After a week of spending twenty minutes a day on her little patch of concrete, ear buds causing her ears to thrum slightly with the odd stretch they inflicted, she realized she was actually enjoying herself. She may not be a Buddhist monk or even a man with a sexy British accent who was once a monk, but she was meditating, even if for only a few of those twenty minutes.

And she loved it.

She found herself throughout her otherwise unremarkable day thinking to the twenty minutes spent outside on her patch of concrete. She found herself flicking through her binge watching options on the television and then realizing she’d just drifted off in her mind to quiet, to silence, to peace.

It wasn’t like sleeping, although the first time it happened she thought she’d fallen asleep. It wasn’t like reading a book or listening to music or any of the other things she’d done in the past to wind down, or let her subconscious cruise. It was both more relaxing and more gratifying. She found herself returning throughout the day to that feeling of ease.

She expanded her meditation session to thirty minutes.

After another week she expanded again to two sessions of thirty minutes, one in the morning and one in the evening.

It was really lovely, waking up in the morning, boiling water for her coffee, pouring the water into the French Press, and then meditating while it steeped.

It was really lovely, last thing in the evening, brushing teeth and getting fully prepared for bed, then meditating before turning off the lights.

She found herself less anxious with each passing day. Less unclear of what she wanted from her life. Less troubled.

She was slowly gaining insight into herself and she found those moments of anger she used to have, the ones that would flare up disproportionately to the situation and constantly, disappearing. She’d still feel a twinge every now and then, but always with that twinge came the realization that she was choosing her emotions, her reactions. Nothing was outside of her control when it came to herself.

The freedom of all this control was electrifying. She reveled in the power of her own self.

She also noticed how much more empathy she had for others. No longer clucking or tapping her foot with impatience in the grocery store line when someone wrote a check they very well could have been writing the entire time they were being rung up. No longer rolling her eyes and sighing when someone couldn’t find their wallet at the ATM even though they’d been waiting in line behind someone else and could have been getting their wallet ready then.

She realized everyone was on their own path. That everyone was doing the absolute best they could, and maybe their best didn’t look like her best, and so she didn’t immediately recognize it as such. She became more forgiving, more accepting, more loving.

It was the closest she’d ever been to acceptance. Not just of others, but of herself. She felt connected to others and to herself in a way she’d never felt before. Amazed at what an hour a day of silence, relaxation, lack of judgement could do for her entire life, and wondering why she hadn’t ever been able to get herself to meditate before. Wishing she’d started earlier, and also recognizing that she simply may not have been ready before.

She was grateful she was ready now.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

The Move

The Move

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She’d always been a planner. Never could do anything without spending hours upon hours researching first. So the decision to up and move without seeing where she was moving to (except in pictures online) was a bit extreme. There was something equal parts thrilling and anxiety inducing about it. Would she like the house? Would it be big enough? Too big? Would it feel like everything had a place that fit it perfectly? Would she fit perfectly?

The idea was to create something self-sustaining. A farm, but not exactly a farm. How much farming can one person do? No, this would be a not-a-farm, a hobby farm, a way to prove to herself that she could survive the zombie apocalypse she felt sure would never come but that it was interesting to imagine.

She already knew some basic gardening and how to care for chickens. She’d read extensively on how to care for goats but had yet to care for one. She’d also read up on pigs and while she was anxious to try her hand the idea of pigs also scared her a bit…a holdover from watching Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels perhaps?

At any rate, she had packed up her belongings, selling a few things she couldn’t bear to pack and unpack for the hundredth time and that were much more a part of her old life than the new life she was heading to. Everything fit perfectly in her little hardbody pickup truck. It was a bit of a Tetris game to get it all in there in such a way that it would travel without moving, but she’d done it, and she’d done it on her own.

She’d debated about the best time to leave more as a reflection of the best time to arrive than anything else and had decided that if she left after lunch on Saturday she’d arrive by lunch on Sunday with a short rest stop break Saturday night for a nap. With all that in mind she headed out Saturday after a lunch of tuna salad that she barely tasted, her stomach all aflutter with the adventure before her. She took one last pee break, locked the door on her old life, dropped the key in the mailbox, and made her way toward the future.

The drive was less than idyllic. Mostly cities and the craziness of the Interstate for hours on end. In fact it wasn’t until her first stop for fuel that she realized she’d left the cities behind and was now in desolate country. Nothing but dirt in every direction with the occasional off-ramp offering fast food and fueling stations. When she realized the cities were all behind her she began to relax. And sometime into the eighth hour of her drive she heard a loud pop and the tension between her shoulders disappeared.

She alternately filled the time with music and silence. The silences just as loud in her head as the music had been in the cab. Her head was awash with possibilities, questions, ideas, and the things she tried to ignore: her fears. She told herself she wasn’t scared, that there was nothing to fear, failure would simply mean another change of direction. But she was scared. She was afraid of something she couldn’t name.

She drove as long as she could and finally near eleven that night she was too tired to continue. She pulled into the next rest stop she found, checking for other vehicles as she drove in and parked. The stop seemed empty with the exception of one big rig, lights off, the driver likely sleeping just as she hoped to now. She jumped out and used the restroom, brushing her teeth quickly in the cold, and rushing back to the warm cab of her truck.

She considered leaving the truck running to keep the cab warm, but decided against it. She pulled her Carhartt jacket off and draped it over herself. It would be good to sleep as long as possible, the cold would wake her up in a few hours and she could continue her journey. A perfect little ninja nap.

She slept hard at first, then fitfully, the sounds of the highway and the occasional semi truck pulling in and out of the rest stop keeping her from any sort of restorative sleep. When the cold finally became too much to ignore she opened her eyes and checked the time. 4am. She’d slept less than she thought. But she felt good enough to continue.

Once again she checked her surroundings before jumping out and using the restroom to pee and brush her teeth. She also splashed some cold water on her face. Before rushing back to the truck she checked the vending machines hoping for one that offered coffee. Sadly the only options were soda and candy. She decided to look for coffee on her route and jumped back in the truck, ready to get where she was going.

She turned on some music and cracked her knuckles, a habit she hated and still couldn’t seem to break, and headed on her way. She sang along to the songs she knew, and hummed along to the ones she didn’t. She found a coffee place, drive thru no less, and was happily zipping along when she realized she was being pulled over, and that she had to pee.

“Shit.”

She considered pulling off at the next off ramp instead of pulling over on the highway, but couldn’t see an off ramp up ahead and didn’t want to risk angering the cop. She pulled over as far as she could, rolled down her window, and turned off the engine. She sighed and watched in the side mirror as the cop rummaged around in the cop car before exiting.

She put on a tentative smile and answered the cops question with, “I didn’t notice. Was I over the speed limit?”

Twenty minutes later she was not only so desperate to pee that she considered jumping out and peeing right there in front of the cop, but she also had a hefty little ticket in her hands. She decided not to risk further ire and started up the truck, continuing on her way and hoping the cop would pass her so she could pull back over and relieve herself or that she’d see a restroom in less than two minutes.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

Forage

Forage

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The stay home orders were loosely defined. Technically one shouldn’t leave one’s home except for emergencies and necessities. She considered her sanity a necessity. And she figured she’d kill her kids if they didn’t get out and burn some energy. That made the leaving a necessity and an emergency.

She packed a lunch, mostly snacks because no one had the kind of food required to make entire meals anymore. She remembered growing up with actual meals, meals prepared mostly by restaurants and occasionally by her mother, there’d be salad and a plate with three kinds of foods and a dessert. There was nothing like that now, ever.

Now her kids ate what she grew up calling “plate of small things,” which is basically a little bit of lots of different things until your plate has enough on it to call it a meal. Foraged fruit here, foraged mushrooms there (and these were extremely rare because she was so afraid of picking something poisonous accidentally), bits from a found can here…tragic meals really.

At any rate, she packed a lunch of snacks, grabbed canteens, and told the kids to get moving: it was time for an adventure. They all piled into the car and she triple checked the fuel levels. Three quarters of a tank. It would be enough to get them there and back but it would be there last trip anywhere; she’d try to make it count.

The kids sat up front with her, there was no backseat, and she buckled them in. She made sure she had some tools, just in case, and that all the dials on the car were turned off before starting the motor. The old car started up like it had been driven daily when in actuality it had been sitting for at least three months, maybe longer. She tried to remember her last trip to town and couldn’t be sure.

They cruised down through the empty streets, and finally onto the highway. They headed east towards the mountains. This time of year would be good for picking the last of the berries, finding the first falling acorns, and hopefully finding a few mushrooms. If they were extremely lucky they’d find some apples, even if they were still small and sour.

The kids were quiet as she drove. A blessing, and one of the reasons she would miss being able to drive with them. As the road steepened and curved their little heads began bobbing and soon they were asleep. She let out a sigh of relief. She loved them desperately and also needed a few minutes to herself to think.

She would have to come up with a better plan. They couldn’t keep hiding out in that house. No one around was both a blessing and a curse. Just the other day she’d had to tell the kids they were playing a silent game of hide-and-seek when really it was a potentially fatal one with a group of men who sounded like the guys she went to boot camp with. She didn’t want to run into guys like that without a Sergeant around.

Maybe the mountains? She knew them pretty well. There were lots of places where she and the kids could live. She’d be able to find food and water and the only real predators would be mountain lions and other people. With winter on the way that didn’t sound like such a great idea. There’s no way they’d be able to keep warm with clothes and quilts. They’d have to have fire. Too risky.

She gripped the steering wheel too tightly and felt the ache in her fingers and wrists. She relaxed her grip and stroked the wheel up and down for a moment. Think. Think, think, think, think, think. Right on the other side of the mountains was a desert. The desert would be perfect for the winter. In fact, it would be a little hot now still, but not too terribly bad. Better than where they were now, assuming she could find water.

There was lots of water in the desert. You just had to know what to look for. And she knew. Boy did she ever know. The danger would be in all the obvious places. The oases were out. Anyone could look across a desert see a mountain of green and know there was water. No. She’d have to go to the places that were less obvious.

A hot springs.

Hot springs would be perfect. Not usually a lot of greenery but definitely water. And while the water wouldn’t taste good, it would be full of all kinds of calcium and bicarbonate and would be really good for their mineral deprived bodies. She thought about the desert they were heading towards. There was a huge hot springs on the south side, but everyone would know about that. She needed something subtle. Something difficult to get to maybe.

And then she remembered the story her great grandma used to tell her. The story she’d always insisted was true but sounded so far fetched no one ever believed her. The story of their great great grandfather who had lived out in the desert for twenty years. She tried to remember the whole story, but could only get pieces, fragments more ephemeral than the oasis they bespoke.

“What was the rhyme?” she asked herself, humming a little trying to find the tempo.

“More east than south,
You’ll find the mouth,
Beware the bite…”

“Damn.” She couldn’t remember. Wasn’t even sure about the “beware the bite” part, that sounded right but out of place.

“‘More east than south,’ at any rate,” she mumbled as she continued up through the mountains.

Fall was beautiful in the mountains, even this early in the season. She drove higher before finding berry bushes that appeared to have been untouched. She pulled over carefully, looking all around and leaving the engine running for moment after putting the car in park.

Continuing to look around but seeing no one, she decided to turn the engine off and wake the kids. With the engine off there was no need to wake anyone, the kids woke themselves and began clambering to get their belts off and their buckets out of the back. Berry picking was a special treat and they were eager. Before she could issue any warnings or rules they’d shot out the passenger door and headed to the bushes.

Giving one last look around she left the keys in the ignition, grabbed her bucket from the back, and headed towards the bushes, too. The easy berries were all picked clean. There were no shoe or footprints around, so it was all wildlife that had gotten to the berries. Still, there were quite a few in the highest spots and the deepest spots of the bushes.

Amid cries of “ouch” and “ack” the three filled their buckets as best they could.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

The Farm

The Farm

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When she bought the farm she had grandiose dreams of how it would be: growing all her own food and operating a little farm stand out by the highway or maybe running a CSA delivery on the weekends. She’d be tired but happy, dirty and fit, responsible to no one but herself and completely self-sufficient. It was such a naive but beautiful dream.

Looking back on journals from that time, from before she knew what she was getting into, was such a laugh. Such a treat on a cold winter day, her body aching to get back out to the soil and also grateful for a few months respite. She both dreaded and anticipated the first hard snow, eager to have a couple months to read, mend, try new recipes, and come up with new ideas for how to use her harvest.

She loved her life, there was certainly nothing about it that she’d change. But it wasn’t easy. Her mother had once warned her, “I’d never want to be a farmer. So much work and so little reward.” At the time that had made her decision all the more romantic, all the more laudable, all the more magical and necessary and pure.

Even in winter there wasn’t really a “break” from the farm. There were still animals to care for morning and evening, still fence to ride, tools and clothes that needed mending, supplies to order, decisions about planting the next years crops to make, and all the marketing stuff she didn’t have time to do during the growing season. Emails and newsletters and recipes and ideas and thank-yous and and and and….

There was never a time where she sat with nothing to do. Never. In fact, there were times where she’d realize she’d been staring at the fire for twenty minutes, completely lost in thought and she’d begin to chastise herself for the lapse before realizing that twenty minutes had created a truly novel idea. She’d quickly write it down before she lost it and then spend the next hour working on whatever sock needed darning or newsletter needed fluffing all the while the new idea simmering around in the back of her mind.

Her fourth year into the farm was her best yet. She’d finally broken even. She hadn’t made any money, nothing she could say “look, here it is, my profit. I am profitable!” but she also hadn’t lost any money for the very first year. She took this as a good sign and looked back over what she’d done that had made money and what she’d done that had lost money. She did this every year, of course, in a struggle to always do better and strive to make her dream a realistic reality, a sustainable reality.

She was looking forward to her fifth year and had just finished the design for the newsletters, the majority of their info for each month pre-filled and ready to go allowing for her one hour each month of current information (the part her subscribers claimed was their favorite). The weekly emails were also pre-formatted and ready with recipe ideas based on what she knew for a fact would be included in that weeks CSA no matter what, and also with a small space for her to add whatever interesting bit came up that week (again, her subscribers favorite section).

Her subscribers loved that her life seemed so free to them. The stories of the barn cat that moved in from nowhere and proceeded to have a littler of kittens. The rooster she’d decided to let live because he protected the flock from a renegade coyote one day. The goose she lost to a mountain lion after she failed to bring the animals in one night. Even when the news was morbid her subscribers loved it.

She was living the life they all wished they could live, but didn’t really want to live. They just wanted her fresh produce, to know they were supporting her lifestyle, to tell their friends how they personally knew the woman who grew their food. And she was grateful for it. All of it. She worked hard to keep them well fed physically and emotionally.

She spent a lot of time coming up with all the right instructions for bottling your kombucha, dehydrating your own beef jerky, canning tomatoes with an InstaPot. She worked hard to find not only the things that worked but that her clients loved. Some of her clients even tried the things she told them about although most of them again loved the ideas she provided more than the practice.

She would occasionally stop to think about the things she’d given up: marriage, kids, a solid retirement fund. She’d sometimes become nearly paralyzed with the anxiety of these things she’d chosen to miss out on in order to live her dream. But these moments didn’t last long, and didn’t happen often, and as the years went by they became less of a hazard.

And then one day, early in the spring, when it was still too cold to start working the soil but warm enough to be out doing things like mucking stalls, she broke a pitchfork. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, she’d just go grab a secondary pitchfork and continue her chores. But on this day, she’d already broken her main pitchfork and had been using the auxiliary fork when the unmistakable crack of the wooden handle met her ears at the same time as she tried to quickly right herself before falling, all the weight at the end of the handle suddenly gone and all her strength at the other end of the handle still straining.

“Damn.”

She’d have to buy another, and it couldn’t wait. She’d be able to fix the first pitchfork with some soldering but that would take time and wasn’t something she could do today and still complete her chores. She’d have to go into town.

~~~That’s one hour~~~

The Painting

The Painting

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She often spent a day each month touring the antique shop. The one near the furniture stores. The one no one ever seemed to frequent because it seemed out of place. It’s nearest neighbor a party supply store. This particular antique shop had the very best prices on things she’d ever found and she often wished she could just find something she actually wanted to buy. After all, it would be lovely to support a place she frequented in order to feel she’d done something with her day, even if it was nothing more than browse.

There was always beautiful jewelry in the wall cases. Jewelry she could actually afford, jewelry that would appraise for much higher than was being asked. Jewelry she would never actually wear.

There were always interesting books on the myriad bookshelves, also for sale, strewn here and there throughout the store. Books with beautiful covers, worn covers, fabric covers. Books she would buy if she thought she’d ever read them, though she knew she wouldn’t. She already had a bookshelf of unread books in her own home.

She would often look at dressers, so many dressers, some oak, some painted to look old, some actually very old, all beautiful and heavy and slightly off in some way. She always wanted to take home at least one dresser, but how many dressers does a woman need? She already had two at home, one that lived inside her closet and one that lived outside. She had nowhere else to put another one, nor any clothes to fill one with. Still She’d look and debate and ultimately not purchase another dresser.

On occasion there’d be beautiful pieces of stained glass or paintings or artwork of some kind. Always things she’d appreciate from afar, perhaps even walk up to get a closer look, but never anything she could see taking up space in her space.

And then one day, just another ordinary day, she’d had her regular coffee and eggs benedict at her usual breakfast spot and then headed over to the antique store, just another day. Only on this day, after having spent the better part of thirty minutes walking through the left hand side of the store and coming up through the middle aisle to begin her jaunt down the right hand side of the store, as was her usual route, she saw something that stopped her in her tracks.

There was nothing particularly special about it. In fact it looked quite like something a grandmother would have hanging in her living room. The sort of thing that’s art but not art. Almost Thomas Kincaide-like. Only this was a barn. A barn in a field of white flowers. A blue sky, some trees, a bird here and there. Nothing particularly exotic or fantastic about it. The brushstrokes a far cry from Monet or was it Manet that did the outdoor scenes? At any rate, it wasn’t particularly anything really. And yet.

She loved the old frame, for the frame was indeed old. Wooden and ornate, not in carvings or decoration really, but not a simple single wooden frame either. The frame was plain wood on the outside band, then green painted wood on an inside band, then another plain wooden band, followed finally by a strip of fabric, before an ultimate thin strip of wooden frame and the painting nestled within. The frame itself was wondrous and if it had held a different painting would have belonged in a museum.

But she was glad there was nothing more than a barn painting within the bygone frame, for she loved the barn. She loved that it looked like a picture of tranquility, much more so than any picture of someone with their toes in the sand at some beach. The barn to her spoke of an age in which people cared for animals, cared for the land, cared for their neighbors, cared for themselves. The barn spoke to her of her ancestors and a life she’d never had to live, had never even heard about, a life she’d be hard put to describe aside from “hard.”

She approached the painting expecting that upon closer inspection it would fail to meet her approval, but finding only that she liked it even more and finding it only thirty dollars she picked it up from the wall and carried it to the cashier.

The cashier had seen her come in every month, had watched lazily and with little interest as she cruised up and down the store, lingering over dressers and jewelry but never purchasing anything. He was thus surprised when she approached with a painting in her hands. He looked at her expectantly, unsure what it was she needed him to know about the painting, perhaps it had fallen off the wall or was damaged in some way. He was even more surprised when he realized she wanted to purchase the painting and was downright flabbergasted when he saw which painting it was.

What in the world would this woman want with a painting of a barn that belonged in a grandmothers home.

He smiled as she left, there was no accounting for taste.

She went straight home this time, rather than continuing on to peruse dressers in the furniture shops, dressers she never bought but always lingered over. She went straight home and hung her new painting in her living room, where she could look at it when she rested her eyes when reading a book or when writing in her journal.

She looked up the painter, just to see what the piece was worth, just to see what she could find out about this painting that spoke to her as though she were an eighty year old woman who hadn’t been raised in a city. It turned out the painter was a man from Missouri, like her father had been, and barns were his shtick. He was quite famous for his barns, and while most of them sold in the thirty dollar range, some went for well over a thousand dollars. She’d never be selling this painting to stock her retirement fund, but that was just fine by her. She liked that it was an investment in herself, and not an investment.

~~~That’s one hour~~~