The Last Page

The rocking chair sits still and empty.  I lean against the doorframe and promise myself I’ll give it a fresh coat of paint one of these days.  I make this promise every evening, just as darkness descends over another day.

When the first star appears, that’s my cue to go back inside. As summer wears on it takes longer and longer for that star to appear. I let the screen door slam behind me and I listen for the two usual taps against the jamb. The rocker remains alone and the paint will peel for at least another promise.

The house is quiet save the snores of Moose. The old black lab sleeps on his side in the middle of the living room floor and chases rabbits in his dreams.  I turn on one lamp and leave the rest of the house dark.  It’s just me tonight, just like always. Aside from polite hellos and thank you’s I haven’t spoken with another human being in as many months as I have fingers and toes.

Cicadas buzz through closed windows, their calls so constant it’s as if their mates never answer. I pick up my book and notice there are only a few pages before the story is over. I mark the last page with a bookmark so I know when to stop.  The final pages are always where the characters either solve their problems or are dealt a final blow. Life seldom comes together in such a predictable manner, so I plan on leaving the fictional Miss Hatty Jenson dangling without an answer.

What was it my mother once said?  I tap my chin and think back to my eight-year-old self.  The little boy across the street had just kicked me in the shins and spit in my hair before he dashed away laughing. I limped home with tears in my eyes and bloodstains on my socks.  As I bawled in my mother’s arms, I kept asking her if he would be punished for what he’d done.  It only seemed fair that he should pay for being so mean.  Between her gentle cooing she whispered,  “Fate decides what will be and what will not somewhere between always and never.” Her answer seemed like a crock back then and life has proven to me more than once that the answer is never. The little boy is a bitter man and the little girl still cries.

Miss Jenson has just found out her betrothed is only marrying her for her money and she is heartbroken.  There are worse things, but judging from how little of her story remains she will never have to experience them.  I pause as Moose rolls on his back.  He’s a faithful old friend who has filled the void, but not all holes can be filled.  The house is still empty and the rocker remains unpainted.  This isn’t how I imagined things to go.  I don’t need a prince or even a happy ending . . . just a little certainty would be nice.

Never. When did fate get so vindictive?

My bright red bookmark is one page away.  This is where I read slower and more carefully so as not to overstep my boundary.  Miss Jenson now realizes her best friend’s infatuation with her fiancé as the cause for false rumors. She immediately recognizes the folly in doubting his love and sets off to catch him before he departs for far away shores . . . but, I will never know how it ends and Miss Jenson will forever be on the cusp of her conclusion.  I close the book and place it on my bookshelf next to all the rest.  Hundreds of books clutter rows of shelves, each with a bookmark holding the last page.

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c.b.w. 2011

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Note: This story was inspired by a previous post, Wonder Lines.  Inspiration really does arrive in the most unexpected places, even somewhere as strange as a random set of self-generated questions.

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c.b. 2012

Wreck This Journal: Memories

Wreck This Journal started as an individual experience, but it didn’t take long for my friends and family to get involved as well.  The phrase, “the more the merrier,” has never been more true.  As I look through my journal, I turn pages that hold multiple epiphanies and pages that hold memories for which I’ll always be grateful.  Creativity is as much an artistic endeavor as it is a human experience.

At one point in the journal, there is a page that says, “Give away your favorite page.”  I have been the lucky recipient of two favorite pages, both of which are securely fastened to my journal.  One comes from my good friend Rita, with whom I have fond memories of writing together and completing Wreck This Journal.  Her page always makes me smile as I think of the friendship, inspiration, and moments we have shared.  As a bonus, trees have always been a special source of inspiration for me (even as a child).  Fate always pulls us in the direction we need to go and Rita, my friend, I will always be thankful I fate brought me to you.

The second page comes from my grandmother and has recently taken on much more significance. When I first started this journal two years ago, I bought one for her too, so we could have something to do together.  She’d had a stroke the previous year, so it was important to keep her active and exercise her mind.  Besides that, my grandma loves to play and go nuts with crayons and markers (its my favorite thing about her).  Every Friday, I brought my journal to her house and we worked on our pages – laughing and experimenting happily the whole time.  When it came time for her to give up a favorite page, she gave me a page that asked her to “Sample various substances found in your home.”  She got it mixed up with the page where she was supposed collect random objects, but we had a good giggle over that mishap.  As we always say mistakes are “what makes it homemade,” (long story, family joke).

Grandma’s random objects are strange and have no relationship, but at the same time I can see her in every item she chose to attach to this page. She got the sandpaper from my grandpa’s tool bench where he builds his model trains, the safety pin came from her sewing “tomato” pin cushion, the button came from her sewing table, the Snicker’s wrapper came from the candy pile we devoured while working on our journals, the matchbook came from the kitchen drawer, the gum wrapper from her purse, and the copper “tag” came from her craft box.  Any stranger would deem these objects as worthless, but to me they are priceless.  Over the last year, I’ve watched my grandma slip away as age and dementia stole little pieces of her until there was hardly anything left.  I still go see her, but like everyone else in my family, I hold on for the little glimmers of her humor and feistiness that still poke through every once in a while.  When I see her page, it’s a nice reminder that when she’s gone, my memories of her will be beautiful and full of love.

I know my Wreck This Journal posts are usually much more lighthearted, but when art and human condition collide, emotions tend to run deep.  Yes, its crazy to rip, tear, mutilate, and destroy, but at the core is one simple truth – All of this nonsense really does mean something.

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For previous Wreck This Journal posts, please visit my sidebar and Tag Cloud.  Stay inspired!

c.b. 2012

The Jane Austen Incident

Every Friday I head down to the bookstore to read and enjoy a cup of coffee.  There is something rather cathartic about a hot cup of caffeine and the escape of a really good book. A corner table flanking the main aisle serves as my favorite place to sit.  I’m always happy to find it empty as if everyone knows that’s my spot.  Without fail I arrive at around six o’clock and leave by seven-thirty.  This little ritual may seem pretty boring, but sometimes the extraordinary realm of fate chooses to reveal itself in the most mundane of places.

One evening, I sat at my table with my customary coffee and a copy of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park.  In the midst of escaping to Fanny Price’s world of English propriety, my mind began to wander to a conversation I had with a friend about a book he had just finished reading: Villette by Charlotte Brontë.  The memory was so intense it was difficult to pay attention to Fanny’s burgeoning fascination with Edmund Bertram.  I struggled to focus for another chapter, but a growing need began to occupy my every thought.  I had to find a copy of Villette.  Not in the next day or two, but right at that moment.

When I looked at the time, seven-thirty was a mere five minutes away.  I packed up my stuff and headed towards the “B’s” in the fiction section.  Sure enough, there was a lone copy of Brontë’s enormous novel.  It should have been a simple spot and grab sort of purchase, but when I look for one book I inevitably look for more.  I wandered over to the classic literature display and perused books by D.H. Lawrence, Charles Dickens, and Dante.  For some reason, I decided I couldn’t live without a compilation of Anton Chekov’s short stories.

At the cash wrap, the girl took one look at my books and told me I should go get a third.  As it turned out, classics were on sale: Buy two, get one free.  So, like any savvy shopper, I went back to look a for free book.  For a normal person, this would be easy, but for a bibliophile the “books I want” list is immeasurably long.  At first I thought of grabbing another Brontë book or indulging in my newfound love of Eastern European writers, but none of them satisfied the need that still burned in the back of my brain.

Jane Austen.  It was so obvious I felt like an idiot for not thinking of it sooner.  The only book missing in my collection of her works was Northanger Abbey.  I snatched it off the shelf and hurried back to the cash wrap.  It was getting late.

By the time I got to my car, I was running a very uncharacteristic fifteen minutes late.  Nothing seemed amiss when I drove to the main road and entered the on-ramp to the freeway.  I figured I’d be home in no time, until the car in front of me came to a sudden halt.  All four lanes of the freeway were at a virtual standstill and I was stuck in the middle of it.  Inch by inch, traffic merged into the emergency lane.  Only a really bad accident would warrant such extreme measures.  Still, nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.

Sprawled across the width of the freeway were six mangled cars.  Three were crushed so severely it was impossible to tell the make and model.  The shock of it caught my breath as I fought back the tears.  There was no question in my mind that at least one life had ended, for one car had been ripped into two pieces.

It took a moment to realize the police were still setting up a perimeter, the on ramp had not yet been closed, and the first ambulance was just arriving.  The accident was only minutes old.  Perhaps, the same few minutes it took for me to go back and find Jane Austen.

c.b. 2011

Dawn

As darkness fades
sunbeams breathe
Renewed by fate
destiny divides
Wrapped in white
cloaked in black

Revel in life
or die inside
Walk with joy
or crawl in pain
A line between
leaves one choice

c.b. 2011

Wreck This Journal: Leap!

Sometimes I wonder if my muse and fate have an alliance going.  Whenever I question my next move or let a nasty little thing called doubt creep into my mind, something happens to give me a good old-fashioned kick in the butt.  In this case, fate and my muse arranged for this week’s Wreck This Journal page to catch my attention.  The instructions essentially call for flinging my journal from a high place.

Luckily, I live in a two story house with a vault ceiling.  The second floor hallway is open with a view of the living room, which means there is plenty of room for a little journal flinging.  Once I checked to make sure there were no cats or dogs anywhere near the “drop zone” I sent my journal over the edge.  To make things a bit more interesting, I threw it so it would flip a few times on the way down.  My journal flew like a stone and hit an end table before it landed on the floor.

The flipping action kept the book from closing on the way down, so a few pages were bent and the binding took yet another hit.  Other than that, the damage was relatively minor.  I documented my journal’s descent with a little doodle and some crayons.   While I sat drawing a set of stairs and the splat of my journal on the floor, the epiphany of this whole experience became very clear.

Life is all about taking that leap.   Whether it be jumping on a plane to explore all the places on my bucket list or diving headfirst into the challenge of teaching high school, I’ve always believed every good thing worth having requires a little courage and gumption. Even when the cliff is so high the bottom can’t be seen . . . I’ve got to buck up and jump!  The same is true with my current endeavor into the realm of writing.  My novel is done, my query letter is written, and a synopsis is on the horizon.  I have to stop doubting and procrastinating.  It’s time to jump.  Before the month of November is done, I’m going to send out at least three query letters.

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For previous posts in this series, look for “Wreck This Journal” on my sidebar in “Recent Posts” or in my tag cloud.

c.b. 2011