I’ve been trying to write something else. Something to play around with to start my next book. Something different than this.

But.

I’ve spent years involved, one way and another, with the pro-life movement. I was a freshman in high school when the cases were coming to the courts, the court my father was involved with, the New York State Supreme Court. I had not heard of abortion before my freshman year in high school. I was horrified when I learned that some women, some mothers, would choose to end the life of the child growing in their bodies.

I am the fourth of six children. The image of the Madonna and Child was a family portrait. The holiness of life, the holiness of each individual life, and soul, underlined and contained the essence of the gospel reinforced by the images of saints and the stained glass windows that were an essential part of my living space. The consecration of the Eucharist and the culture of sacrifice that before I was born, for generations beyond counting before I was born, was imbedded in my DNA.

From the moment I heard that word abortion, I identified with the child. Not the mother. Not the father. The child. An Innocent. Each child breathed into being by the whisper of God. It wasn’t biology, it was divinity. It was elegant. Romantic. Simple.

At that young age I knew the mechanics of conception. Man and woman; egg and sperm. And I knew that it was wrong to engage in activity that might lead to a child if you weren’t married. That had certainly been scared into me in my Irish Catholic home and community.

I also breathed in the lessons that if anything ‘happened’ to a girl, it was her fault. Her fault for being attractive, for leading boys and men on by being herself.  I learned that women were ‘the occasion of sin’ just for being female. I heard my mother say that a woman should not accuse a man of rape because it would ruin the man’s life. The man’s life. I heard my father comment on girls ‘walking by in their summer clothes’ as Mick Jagger sang, who knew what they were doing by dressing in shorts and sleeveless blouses. They knew they were driving the boys crazy and they enjoyed doing it. And the boys couldn’t help themselves for the thoughts and feelings, and thus, actions, which such vixens would inspire.

Years ago I was asked to ghost write a newspaper article for a dear friend of mine who had an abortion when she was nineteen. By then she had four children and I was pregnant with my fourth child.

I struggled, gut wrenchingly struggled, with this task. How was I to write from the perspective of someone who got up on a table in a clinic, opened her body to a stranger for the purpose of removing this ‘product of conception’?

Then, slowly, painfully, I realized just how scared she was. She was engaged but not married. Her parents would turn on her, turn away from her. She broke the rules. She disgraced the family. At the moment she got on the table fear of her parent’s disgrace and anger was bigger than any bunch of cells threatening to turn into a baby. And years later, she mourned for that child. Mourned for that child and for herself for being shamed into doing something that betrayed who she was.

And now. With men in black suits and vestments, men who will never become pregnant, or in the case of Catholic priests, never become fathers, speaking out on Capitol Hill and in state senates and radio broadcasts, speaking of ‘conscience’ when it comes to contraceptives and their availability to women. Men who have no understanding, no empathy, no compassion, for women and all the responsibilities and burdens and depths of understanding of life and its mysteries, yes, mysteries, where women dwell, still, they are making policy and belittling women, echoing, if not quoting the old teaching that women are ‘the occasion of sin’ and they have asked for whatever happens to them.

I’m looking for an ending phrase, sentence, or paragraph to tie this post up, but I don’t have one. There is nothing neat and simple about this.  So I will have to continue next time.

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I haven’t posted here in such a long time. I have been working on revisions for the book I mistakenly thought was completed. My timeline was out of order, so I have corrected that. I have filled out many scenes, and added many more. For whatever reason that urges such things, I thought I’d share one such scene with you. I love to hear from you, so please leave comments or questions.

Rose takes the arm that Dennis offers as they exit the church. It snowed overnight and this morning Rose feels she is standing inside a pewter cup; the image of Don Quixote with the barber’s bowl on his head makes her smile in a quizzical way. The thoughts we have, at the oddest times, she thinks.

She takes her seat in the limousine next to Kieran and Marie. Dennis drives their car. The heavy clouds have snuck into her brain somehow, causing her to feel muffled. Every thought she has is dull and impotent, a soft mess of tragedy and comedy.

The hearse drives slowly through the stately iron gates that separate this bit of earth from the homes across the street on one side and the cars zipping by on Metropolitan Avenue on the other. Angels and saints and large stone crosses rise up alongside ancient trees that stand sentinel over the occupants covered in dirt and memory. This is a place of reverence; there is no rushing here, no need to rush ever again.

There is no direct route to the patch of ground this dark procession is heading toward. This is some kind of metaphor, Rose thinks, designed to symbolize the winding roads of life that bring us ultimately, here. The earth is blessed, words echoing baptism are proclaimed by the deacon whose job it is to minister to the dead, to sprinkle holy water and make the sign of the cross that bought our eternal life, so she has been taught since infancy.

The ground is still soft at the Banfry family plot, still rounded from when their father was buried just weeks ago. The big square hole next to Phil Banfry’s mound is deep.  The casket is suspended on straps so it can be lowered gracefully into the damp dark earth, to rest above the bones of their sister. Rose wonders what is left of Cilla, thirty years here. Surely the flesh is gone. In movies they open caskets to expose naked bone, hollows where eyes and nose once lived. Lips and face evaporated, teeth large and bold in a mockery of the once living person .

Ashes to ashes.

Her dress is probably still there, Rose thinks, covered in the dust that was once Cilla, that white dress she wore so proudly on her First Communion, holding a small bouquet, twirling the skirt out, tapping her white patent leather shoes on the tiles in church. The white is probably gray, maybe yellow.Empty dress. You’ve done your job. What was she spared, Rose thinks, for the first time, what was she spared being taken so young?

She turns back to her brother. In that box, such a lovely box, with brass handles, polished to a high degree.He slept on the floor in a room he never cleaned, now his broken body lies on satin, wearing his father’s suit. Our father. His dead face was not fit for viewing, smashed and torn on the rough asphalt. She had to identify him hours after he died. Yes, that’s my brother, that’s Jimmy. Though she only nodded and turned into her husband’s chest.

We had that one night, that last dinner of pot roast and beer. Do this in remembrance of me. He stood in the backyard, arms open to the rain, to the lightening. A second baptism; his last rites.Rose asked for the chaplain who served the morgue, asked for the anointing of the dead, though Jimmy may have scoffed at that, she asked for him because she needed to see her brother prayed over, signed with blessed oil.The ancient rites that join us generation to generation.Words of consolation and hope.Words of promise that this life was not in vain.This life mattered.

 And, sudden as a gust of wind, a terrible possibility indicts her.

Did I do this? I wanted to save my brother, didn’t I? I wanted to have him in my life, I wanted him to be whole. I wanted him to be someone other than who he was. Someone clean and happy and successful.

But more, I wanted him to know my wounds! See, you were not the only one hurt by them. I wanted to let him know that all the years I was alone had taken their toll on me. I wanted him to take some responsibility for this. He was my big brother!! Why didn’t he protect me? Protect me from that soul disfigured priest. Protect me from our mother who lashed out because I was the only one there. Protect me from the pain of the absence of our father.

Did I do this? Did I kill my brother? The questions echo in Rose’s head. Did I ask too much of him?

This wildness in her!  Standing here while the deacon reads from the gospels and they make the sign of the cross, even now, she makes the sign of the cross in unison with everyone while beneath these gestures, the real Rose is accused, tried and condemned because of her selfishness.

Pay attention! Here these men, strangers, in their dull black suits and black ties. Their uniform. Professional pall bearers. Professional mourners. We have to hire people  to show us how to do this, this act that is just as much a part of life as birth. They go home to their lives and tomorrow there will be another family to escort to the grave.

They are so careful with his remains.Would they have noticed him just last week? Would they have crossed the street if they saw him coming toward them? Disheveled, dirty. His anger contagious. His illness a disease to guard against. I would have crossed the street. Hell, I wouldn’t have even been in the same street with him to begin with.

What did he need from me? Need from me? I only thought of what I needed, wanted. I wanted him to go back in time and save me from that priest, save me from my aloneness. I wanted him to be the son my parents wanted so there would be peace in the family.Was that too much to ask? Why did you have to make trouble, Jimmy? Why did you have to move in with Kathy? Why couldn’t you just be good, like they wanted?

This is just a nightmare, right? A nightmare and now I’ve learned the lesson. Now I can awaken from this terrible dream and know not to have expectations of Jimmy that he cannot handle.

What’s the use of learning if the price paid for my mistake is his death?!

There is no coming back from death, no chance, no second chance, no third. I’ve learned my lesson, God. I’ve learned. Oh please, let me wake up!! Let me wake up and see my brother, alive, whole, happy. Let Me!!

Who am I yelling at? A God who will not hear. A silent God, a God whose only answer is that Jimmy will remain dead and I will have to live knowing that I killed him. Knowing that I killed Cilla because I was tired of her being sick all the time?

It’s time to go. Dennis steers her with her elbow back to the car.

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What’s the deal with dissing Santa?

It’s bad enough we can’t have Nativity scenes, but now there’s a major retailer putting Santa down.

I object.

I know, it’s supposed to be humorous. But the defender in me always rises up when I see those ads about how the retailer can best Santa in the game of gift giving.

Just so you know: I’m a dyed in the wool, steeped in the DNA Catholic.

I love the sacramental infusion of the smells, the bells, the holiness of the ordinary, the ritual, the language,  the music, the art, the mysticism of Catholicism. And the gracious, non-deserved, no naughty and nice list of the Gift of Christmas.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s why I love Santa Claus.

Long, long time ago, when I was a young mother of a two year old, I was standing in the back of the church, holding the Lectionary waiting to process up the aisle. Next to me was a woman, probably in her fifties, a kind of “church lady” with her sensible gray hair and plain grey skirt. It was Christmas morning and I was the lector at the 10:15 Mass, and she was a Eucharistic Minister.  I mentioned the fun of Christmas with my toddler daughter, the anticipation of Santa and the gifts.  She very plainly said, “oh we never bothered with all that with our kids. We emphasized the spiritual rather than the Santa aspect of Christmas.”

She was of so sincere. And humorless. What a drag.

For just a moment I felt chastened. I had been corrected by my elder on the true nature of Christmas and what’s important to teach children. But that didn’t last long.

What’s more Christian, more holy even, than a saint spreading the blessings of God on a world deeply in need of reminders of love?

We are physical, that is, incarnate, beings  not spirits just renting out space in a body–we need the sights sounds touch excitement, magic, yes magic, of Christmas and the  concrete expressions of love and undeserved gifts.

So when folks complain about the secularization of Christmas, I wish they’d leave Santa out of it. He’s a holy man. A wise man. A magi.

And, man oh man, he’s one of the best teachers of the holy that we’ve got.

Merry, Merry everyone.

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Sure then I’m here! Digging for apples, yer honour!’

`Digging for apples, indeed!’ said the Rabbit angrily. `Here! Come and help me out of this!’  (Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland)

I’m looking for a scene.  I started my first novel with a writing prompt at a seminar– I don’t remember the prompt but what popped to my brain was a woman holding tight to a miraculous medal and praying for a miracle.

That little scene of desperation, of pleading, of praying for a miracle, was the beginning of something. Since there is no story without a problem, something to conquer or work through, something to change, that is, I needed to discover what was upsetting her.

That woman clutching her miraculous medal stayed with me, moved in with me, so to speak.

Soon I had her walking against the wind in lower Manhattan, waiting for a train on a lonely subway platform and arguing with God.  Bit by bit her struggles revealed themselves to me.  Soon I had a name, more scenes,  more characters and a few subplots. Soon is not really the right word, it took a long time for things to shape up and a story to develop. But it started with a scene that promised a conflict.

That’s what I’m looking for now.

You might tell me that the world is full of conflict, problems, characters with something to solve. And you would be right. Various characters offer themselves up, but so far nothing has stuck to start my next novel.

So I’m digging for apples.

I thought NaNoWriMo (November is National Novel Writing Month) would be a good place to get my engine going.  I needed to produce  more that 1600 words a day to finish the 50,000 by the end of November.  Last year the challenge was a great help to me in moving my novel forward.  This year I hoped  the discipline of churning out that many letters on a page each day would help me find my next character or scene.

I started the month out with  more words than the daily goal, a tiny bit of insurance against the slacker days. But, I petered out. Not a surprise. I am a slow writer. I dip and dabble. Try out this and that. Ramble on  typing all sorts of stuff that makes little sense. That, after many years of trying to discover my rhythm as a writer, is how I work.

In one of my many ‘how to write’ books, a bestselling author said she never began a novel without having first figured it all out in her head and written an extensive outline. If I waited for that I’d never get anything done, and that includes writing out a grocery list.

I’m the kind of writer who discovers the story as it is being revealed to me. I don’t know how it’s going to end or who is going to show up. I don’t know what my characters are going to say until I see the words pop out on the screen  from the tips of my fingers.

As I was making my attempt at the daily word count for NaNo, I discovered something. Sometimes writing gets in the way of writing. I was digging for apples, but I was digging in an empty field. (Really, I do know that apples don’t grow in the ground, but that Lewis Carroll was never restricted by mere facts).

Boy, oh boy, I’d really like a nice juicy apple to bite into. Hey, isn’t that what got Adam and Eve into all that trouble?

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Well, I finally did it. I finished a book. Writing one, that is.

I cleared my calendar all summer of almost everything and gave myself an August 31st deadline. Here in Texas that wasn’t so much a sacrifice. Nearly everyday from May until the beginning of September the temperature was 100 degrees or above, except for those days it dipped to 99. So going out in that kind of oven was not the least appealing to me.

I wanted to be able to stop saying I’m working on a novel. After all, who doesn’t say that? (A friend pointed out to me that she doesn’t know anyone who says that, so it depends on the circles in which one travels.) I wanted to be able to say I have completed a novel, and now I have to learn how to get an agent, and then, a publisher.

For a few days I was so excited that I had achieved this milestone. Then, oh yeah, then, I realized all the problems with the book. I wondered about the narrative arc, the characters, the plot, for God’s sake. What’s the plot?  Then, very kindly, a dear friend in my writing circle told me what the plot was. Wheewh!  What a relief. I had a plot that someone other than me (or is it I?) could discern.

Now, with a whole week’s worth of distance, I have to go back through and revise. But since I work in such a fashion that I have revised and revised and revised as I went along, it shouldn’t be as painful as I anticipate. Plus, (now this is a big plus) I have a writing salon (sounds so literary, doesn’t it?) and together we have been revising and commenting on each other’s work all through the process.

Next question: How do you compose a query letter?  I’m giving myself one week to figure that out. Wish me luck.

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Readers,  this is the second half of chapter two.  Hope you enjoy.  Comments welcome.

Thursday, April 1, 1954

Millie was almost true to her word. One week she gave Meg.  Yesterday she called in the afternoon and told Meg that she would be preparing lunch at her house.

“I’ve got in a lovely canned ham from the A & P, Meg.  Since we can’t have it on Friday, you’ll have to come for lunch tomorrow. I don’t much like fish and I want to make an occasion of it. So, I’ll expect you at one.”

“One?  Alright, Millie.  Only because it’s you. Don’t you dare have any one else there.”

“Just us, Meg.”

“Just the two neighbor widows.”

“Just two old friends.”

Thursday morning Meg is up at 6:30, same as she’s done for years.  She doesn’t look at the empty side of her bed.  She slips on her blue chenille robe and heads down the stairs to make coffee.  One slice of toast, with a little butter and jam.  The coffee perks in the glass button of the aluminum pot on the stove.   Meg turns off the gas, gets the milk and sugar and pours herself a cup.  She will wait until the coffee cools before pouring the rest down the sink.  She thinks she might buy one of the small percolators she has seen in the A &P.  The right size for one person.  Maybe.  Or maybe I’ll just learn how to measure out enough for me.

As she washes up the few dishes, round and round with the dishcloth on the small plate that only had crumbs to dirty it, she sees the note, as if it is right in front of her, as close as the faucet.  Typed unevenly:  Banfry— 82-19 Forest Parkway.  Blue shutters, loose knob on front porch banister. Careful.   Tucked under Gerald’s undershirts, wrapped in a handkerchief.  The Holy Family on a prayer card was lying on top of the note.  Gerald’s touch of protection.  For her.  Whatever he did, he did for her.

The running water has been getting hotter as she stands with the cloth in her hand, watering the flowers on the plate.  Just before it scalds her she pulls away.

She sweeps the kitchen floor, dusts the living and dining rooms, then starts up the varnished banister.  Once upstairs she goes into the little bedroom that Gerald had used as an office.  Papers are piled on the narrow bed against the wall. She sits in the chair at his desk.

She is too tired to cry.  Wrung out.  She never did ask him if he were guilty or innocent.  He didn’t use those words.  He used the word ‘betrayed’.    Betrayed by his assistant, someone he trusted.  After they took him that night, during the trial and when he was sentenced, the papers were full of him.  Oh, how the mighty have fallen.  The whispers in church, in the shops on the avenue.  The sympathetic smiles, the sneers.  They almost looked the same.  But she always rose above.  Always held her head up.  She would not play victim for them.  She would not be disgraced.

There are always those who love to see a local hero fall.  Too big for his britches.  Tsk, tsk-ing  from their comfortable well-stocked kitchens, with their tight mouths and even tighter hearts.

  Better the trouble that follows death than the trouble that follows shame.

Nasty, narrow minded fools!

All the years he was on fire for justice for the working man, the oppressed, those on the edges of the world who cleaned up after the rest of us.

She thought of all the good he did.  All the jobs he saved.  The working conditions and wages improved.  The speeches he made that got them fired up and emboldened to change things, to claim their rights.  She was proud of him then.  She will be proud of him now.

Meg arranged things in her mind over the years that her husband was framed.  Framed by the District Attorney looking to make a name for himself.  Framed by the Mafia, angry that they couldn’t make him fall in line.  Framed for holding out so long when others caved to the pressure.

They don’t know how long he resisted.  How long he would not get dirty.  Even with the threats against his life.  But this message she had found last week was different.  He knew they were watching the house, watching her.  How many years had that note been in his bureau?  Before they beat him in the backyard?

That gave her a chill.  He was brave.  He was protecting me.  I will protect him.  My beloved. My husband.

Over the years, though, she saw him wear down, the fire go out of his words.  Little resentments at the lack of gratitude, the men who did nothing to further their own state but expected him to carry their burden.  The deserving poor.  She knew that sometimes he said the deserving poor with the emphasis on deserving rather than poor. Yes, she could see that sometimes, when he was tired and spent, when he had no money left because he had given so much away, sometimes, then he fell from his ideals and thought they deserved to be poor.  For drinking their paychecks and living in squalor.  For not wanting something better for their children.  For not seeing a bigger picture.  And then he would recover and begin again.

Meg sits there a little while longer.  She smiles and wipes away a few tears, good tears.  He was vain.  Oh, yes, he was vain.  He liked a new suit.  He liked his shoes polished and sharp.  A good silk tie with a gold bar.  He liked the way he sounded, the echo in the halls and the roar of applause, the standing ovations, the press write-ups.  He liked seeing himself on the front page with the mayor.  Yes, he was vain.

Meg and Gerald had a deal, an unspoken pact.  She didn’t ask.  He didn’t offer to explain.  For better or for worse.  The better was worth the worse. She will remember that.

Meg takes the crimpers out of her hair and carefully places them in her top drawer.  Purposefully, carefully she works her fingers through her hair that is more silver than it was last Easter.  She hadn’t noticed it so much until now.   She rather likes it; it suits her.   She slips her navy dress with the white piping from the cushioned pink hanger, then chooses two stockings from her lingerie drawer.  She unwinds the red lipstick from its gold tube and dabs, dabs, smacks her lips, then blends it with her right pinky. She smoothes the front of her dress,  sweeps two fingers of white cream that smells of roses and caresses it into her hands, corrects a twist in her left stocking. She is almost ready.

Meg walks down the stairs to the living room, standing taller than she has these several days.  Her black wool coat, white silk scarf tucked artfully over the lapel, and gloves pulled over her fingers.  Now she is ready.

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Readers:  last week I posted a short piece from my novel-in-progress.  Since I received several encouraging comments and e-mails I thought I’d test drive the first piece  of Chapter Two.  The setting is New York, 1954.  The protagonist in this chapter is my main character’s grandmother.  If this goes over well, I will post the second half of this chapter next week.  Let me know.  Comments appreciated.  

March 1954

Meg runs her hand over the bristles of the green mohair couch, back and forth, back and forth. How many years had they sat here, reading the paper, curled up with a book, her head on his chest, his arm around her shoulder? Stiffer than velvet, yet soft and inviting. Quite a remarkable fabric, she thinks.

She sits in the curve where back turns into arm, draped in Gerald’s sweater. His scent is in the wool, his shaving cream, his aftershave, him. She knows this will dissipate, but she doesn’t want to preserve it in a bureau drawer.

Mass cards and late arriving funeral bouquets clutter the house. Just two days ago he was laid out here, where the couch has been returned, under the bay window, drapes pulled closed behind the bier and the casket covered in a blanket of flowers. His head, mostly bald, with silver hair that ran from ear to ear in a partial tonsure flattened and lacquered by the beautician’s craft, lips daubed a pasty pink, wrinkles dusted with heavy powder, and glasses over his closed eyes. Why do they put glasses on a man who can’t see? Did he fall asleep in his best suit in this box, with a satin pillow and a rosary entwined in waxen fingers?

They came and arranged it all. Calls made, by whom, she’s not quite sure, but someone called and someone took care of these things. All done so smoothly, quickly, neatly, and there, her husband is in the living room, laid out for all to see. She answered questions and gave them a suit, she thinks she did, maybe it was Philip or John.  A shirt, a tie, cufflinks. All fixed up. So dapper, so right, so wrong.

That night, he came in from work, tired, a bit gray in the cheeks and under his eyes. He tried to eat the chicken Meg had roasted for them. He managed a few bites and said I need to lie down, Meg. I’ll just go the couch. Meg kissed him on the head and squeezed his hand. He was wearing the sweater. It was chilly that night.

Someone sent a large carnation shamrock, sprayed in an odious green paint. It was delivered this morning, but she would let it in no further than the vestibule. It stands on a wire easel draped with a purple ribbon and gold cardboard letters that spell out Friend, adorned with a few cardboard shamrocks for good measure.

Her irritation with this leprechaun schlock gives way to the realization that it was sent with good intent. Someone whose name probably ends in a few vowels thought it would be just the right thing. But no, the card says Condolences from O’Malley’s Pub. Every St. Patrick’s Day they color the beer green and affect some unidentifiable brogue. Gerald held union meetings there. She can’t stand the sight, or the smell, of it. She can’t look at another mass card or read another letter of condolence, a testimonial to what a great man, what a blessing her husband was.

She is alone in the house where they raised their sons, entertained on so many Saturday nights, held meetings that ended with strikes planned and from which riots erupted and other men, maybe not great in the eyes of the world, were hurt, and some killed. Alone in the house where they first heard FDR announce the war which took her sons off.  Alone in the house where the commotion in the yard shook her out of sleep the night the Mob goons came looking for Gerald, met him at the back door and left him bloody and bruised. Just a warning, they told him, next time, next time you won’t be so lucky, you stupid Mick.

They were sitting on this couch that other night, the night they came, lights flashing in the black and white outside the door. A detective flipped a badge and entered their home. He may as well have stolen all their silver and china while he was there. He stood on her floral patterned rug, the rug where her sons ran their trucks and built their block castles when they were little boys.  He left a muddy foot print on the vines in the pattern. The detective read out some words from the paper he was holding while a uniform put cuffs on her husband, led him out on that cold night, coat draped around his shoulders, his head bare against the wind. Words like embezzlement, misappropriation of funds from the union accounts, were a distant echo, like whispers off stage in someone else’s play. It must all be a misunderstanding, a lie. None of this was possible. Who would have accused him of such a thing? Gone two years. Now gone forever.

All the years this house was filled with life, with tears, with joys, and not yet three days before the body of her husband was laid out in grand fashion. Lines of mourners and gawkers filed through while Meg and her sons took hands and cheeks offered in sympathy. So much chatter filling every corner of the house, guests eating the food that friends and neighbors brought, drinking what the men carried in crates and set up on the kitchen table. Some women took a measure of the quality of the drapes, the furniture, the silver laid out on the table for their use. He did pretty well for himself, didn’t he? Not such a common man as those he blathered about, now, was he? The kinder ones buzzed What a shame, what a shame through their house, their home. After all she’s been through, then he’s taken, leaving her alone again. Poor Meg. Poor Meg.

The doorbell rings. She sees through the blinds that it is the florist, but she will not get up. After a minute he goes, leaving another bouquet, another testimonial. Mail has piled up in the vestibule. How many days has she just let it fall through the slot, not able to touch it? Bills mixed in with sympathy cards, newspapers on the porch. Her sons had to get back to work and their wives are busy with their small children. She doesn’t want them here anyway. She wants to sit, just sit and cry without anyone saying oh dear it will be all right. She wants to scream It won’t be all right and just let me cry, haven’t I the right?

She realizes she has been on the couch for more than two hours. A cup of tea is what she needs. Pushing off the couch Meg goes through the swinging kitchen door, fills the kettle, turns on the gas, lights the stove with a match, then sets up a cup. The kettle whistles just as Millie puts her hand to knock on the back door. Millie is the only one Meg will welcome.

“I’ve taken your papers in, and put the flowers in my cellar. We don’t want anyone thinkin’ the house is empty and come breakin’ in surprising you to your death, now do we?” Meg gives Millie a tired smile and gets out another cup for tea.

“I’m givin’ you one week Meg. And then I’m takin’ you out.” Millie looks for Meg to disagree, to protest, but Meg smiles and says “have your tea, Millie. Oh, can your son take that awful shamrock to a pub on the boulevard? It might sell a few more beers to the thirsty men staying out all night.”

“Sure, Meg. Frank’ll come by after supper. He’ll take it to Woodys.”

Part two next week.

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This is an excerpt from my novel, which has been long in coming to birth and written entirely out of order, depending on where my muse decides to deposit me.

Youth is cruel.  And full of judgment, arrogance.

When you are young and healthy and your nerves still stay inside your skin and your body does what you want it to with out creaking or aching you look at older people and know, not just promise, but know, that will never be you. You will never have back fat leaping over your bra.   You will never take pills for depression or anxiety.  You will never drink too much to soften the pain.  You will always be productive and healthy and have the right attitude.

But then you get older. Little by little the round belly that was so easy to keep at bay stubbornly refuses to retract.   Your eyesight is just a little blurry. When you cannot read the tiny print in the magazine, you hear yourself speak the same complaint your grandmother did so long ago.

And that pain, that anxiety, that anger, that someone as healthy and level headed as you, find you need a pill, need a drink, need someone to talk to because life is just not working out the way you had planned.  And for some infuriating reason you find it harder and harder to get out of bed in the morning. You cannot sleep through the night and there is this vague weight pressing down on you so breathing is a little more difficult, but the doctor says there is nothing wrong with your lungs.

Then one day you look in the mirror and you see your mother. You understand that by the time you thought you could complain and judge her, you have become her. And then you are sorry and wish you could talk with her, but she is gone. So you pray.  Pray all the time, waking sleeping driving, you pray all the time. Then you realize that you are grateful for all the prayers you had to memorize as a child because they come to your aid when you have no other words; they are your plea.

Somewhere along the line you realize that if you lost as much as your mother did, you would not be able to move or function or keep it together either. You’d try, but you’d realize that you have joined a club that has been acquiring members since Adam and Eve.  The adult club where loss and pain and suffering are the price of admission. They were kicked out of the garden and suffered the loss of their darling child Abel. You know that these losses were what entitled them to become adults.  O happy fault!  O necessary fall of man!!  Easter Vigil finally makes sense.

You know, like the rising of the dawn, you know that these pains of life, these sins that happen to you and by you, are somehow necessary.  They bring you to your knees.  And that’s, later, you hope, later, you will realize that your knees is the proper place to be.  The only place to get perspective and the grace to carry on.  Not despite the pain, but because of the pain.

It dawns on you that all the programs you watched on how to stay young and defy the laws of nature are comical.  To stay young is to stay immature, to stay childish.    But still, you apply that cream of great promise each night and roll a serum under your eyes each morning.  You understand that this is a joke.  This is a lie.  But you do it anyway.  And know that the wrinkles on your soul and the graying of your once fresh, pink, glowing baby soul cannot be reached by creams in a jar.

And that’s okay.  And that’s okay.  You think it should be a surprise, but you are pleased that it is not.  That you always knew that this graying, this wrinkling and battering of the soul are what have to happen. Then you can move on.  And be kinder to yourself.  And be kinder to your parents.  And to all who have hurt you.  And then you can thank them.  Yes, thank them.  And this is not as much of a surprise at you thought it might be when you read that kind of thing in sappy articles in magazines with angels on the cover.

Little by little, you come to realize that this is the miracle you prayed for in such utter desolation and pain.  This understanding, this grace, to accept and then be grateful for the pain.  And to abide; not analyze or dissect or even understand.  Just abide.

I  once heard Richard Burton on a television interview say that his former wife, Elizabeth Taylor, never had an unexpressed thought.   Thinking that was clever, I parked it away in the rolodex of my brain.   Granted not a very safe place if I  ever wanted to retrieve it.

I like to talk.  I love a good conversation.  My oldest son and I talked for two and half hours on the phone the other day.   We talked about music and literature and life. We covered a lot of ground, and not just the top layer.  It was great. I often judge the level of enjoyment of an outing or event by how much I enjoyed the conversation— that’s my idea of a good time.

However– I don’t  get the trend of  saying everything– about anything anytime anyplace. The tsunami of words that washes over us everyday will surely wipe out independent, reflective thought if we engage in it.

Is quiet reflection out of fashion?  Is a reserve of thought and observation something which needs to be cured?

Here I am writing a blog and my observation of the day is that maybe we should keep some things to ourselves, to savor and develop, to reflect upon— to keep our own counsel.  To know when discretion is the better part of blather.

Blather– what a wonderful word.  I believe it is an Irish-ism, at least I hope so.  Coming from a people who can talk the snow off an iceberg or the green off a Christmas tree, even those blessed with the gift of gab had enough sense to know when to keep those lovely syllables to themselves.

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Do you ever see those kids on the median of a parkway trying to beat the traffic and make it to the other side?

I always cringe and pray that they make it over without becoming road splat.

So, why, oh why, was that the image that came to me when I was trying to picture the experience of being hit by inspiration?

I’ll back up a little.  I spent a good part of Friday morning talking with my son Michael who lives across the country. Good part in many senses of the word. We so often end up talking art and literature and we we talked for quite a while– so yeah, a good part of the morning.

He’s a musician and a song writer and a lyricist (among his many talents– I know, I sound like his mother–but so what)  so we can discuss all kinds of English Major stuff that other people usually walk away from and find a football game to watch.  Naturally, we ended up on the topic of ‘where do some of these ideas, words, music come from’?  We agree that it is a grace, a gift, a visitation if I may be so bold, and it is wonderful.  Some get big doses of this transmission—Mozart, Shakespeare and Willy Nelson come to mind– but for a more humble recipient of the occasional glimpses of grace that I receive—I am grateful.  It is why we keep doing this.  Even if our craft never sees publication or more than a little audience, it is still good.  Sacraments are the outward sign of God’s grace, so I was taught in first grade (thank you, Sr Mary Norbert) so in the small ‘s’ use of sacraments, these moments are sacramental.

Michael and I talked about both the gift end of receiving the grace and the showing up end–that is, you generally have to show up to work in some sense (though not always–that’s the nature of gift) to receive those flashes, those sounds, those words and phrase that flow through your fingertips.

And that is where the picture of a kid trying to cross traffic popped to mind.  But in this analogy, messy though it is, you hope to get hit–not by a car–but by a slam of words, music, lyrics, art.

Which raises a question.  If I am noticing the kid on the median, then somehow he was ‘lucky’ enough to make it from the other side of the road safely.  Hmm,  that could fall into another category, not so good, as tempting angels.  Got to think about that.  Later.

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• Next
• Fresh Start?
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