Life

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Today’s Accomplishments

It’s been 5+ years since my last blog post. Much has happened since then but I won’t try to catch up now. Today, I…

… Cleaned the gutters. To be truthful, I hired a recommended pro to clean them. I just wrote the check. The growing forest of tiny maple trees that yesterday clogged the front expanse and back corners of my gutters is now gone. Cleared away. During thunderstorms I can rest easy, at least until fall.

… Met with my dietician to review what I have been eating, should be eating, how much of it, along with a few helpful tips to keep me on track. Good motivation for the coming months, if only I can stick to it. I also learned she’s retiring next month. Good news for her, not so much for me. I’ll miss our meetings.

… Answered a couple emails to friends. I keep vowing to surprise folks and start sending handwritten letters with ink on real stationery, mailed in envelopes with stamps, as we once did. Just haven’t gotten there yet. I love old-fashioned, penned letters. If enough of us sent them, perhaps we’d keep the U.S. Post Office in business.

… Pulled more weeds from my backyard jungle. Yesterday I weeded for a few hours, until my back began to ache. My gutter guy gave me the name of someone who specializes in garden weeds and lawn care. The thing is, I’d really like to do it myself. I feel better than I have in years and it’s good exercise. Still, it’s nice to have an alternative. I’ll keep the man’s name handy. When I tired of pulling weeds today I…

… Sat on my deck. I savored the sun, breezes, and perfection of blue skies and a 78 degree temperature. While sunning I read more chapters of John Grisham’s CAMINO ISLAND. It’s an interesting book about the world of literary and art thievery, different from Grisham’s usual thrillers about lawyers but still a quick read, a page-turner.

… Opened my laptop and typed “WordPress.com”.  Back in June 2008, when blogs were all the rage, I started this one — Stringing Beads. It began as a journal about me and the things I love — writing, family, love, life. The posts lessened after Tom’s death. My last post was around Valentines Day 2014, a re-hash of my last Valentine to him.  I stopped blogging.  Facebook became an outlet. Today when I opened WordPress, I found I needed to figure it all out again. I’d forgotten to renew my domain name. It was subsequently sold to a Texan.  I got a new one through WP and began refreshing my mind about how to blog.

Stringing Beads is now at debmaher.net.  Whether blogs are still “hot” or not, I hope you’ll follow my new posts, and perhaps skim back through a few of the old (in Archives tag, above). Comments are always welcome.

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My Brother Tim

May is the month of warm breezes, blue skies, and fragrant lilacs. It is also the month Timmy was born. My big brother was seven and I was four when Tim burst into our lives, a blond bouncing wonder of a boy. Seventeen months later our baby sister appeared and our small house was filled. Just as my older brother and I were inseparable, so too were Tim and our baby sister.

From the beginning, Tim exuded a teasing, electric energy. It was readily apparent in how he laughed and in how he played. His laughs were wholehearted belly laughs. He loved grown-up things, donning dad’s work helmet and boots, racing his fire engine, riding his tricycle. For him, life was an exhilarating adventure filled with ever new possibilities. He never walked when he could run, as if he knew he had to reach and gather every ounce of enjoyment from each day.

Baby Tim

Family stories are almost legend…how he once climbed out on the porch roof when he was three…how he raced his tricycle into and up a sloping tree.  If he liked something, he wanted to touch and play with it whether it was playful puppies or swimming goldfish.

The morning of July 2nd was hot and promised to get hotter.  We had no air conditioning so doors and windows were open, in hopes of a catching an errant breeze.  Mom was working in the kitchen.  My older brother was eating a bowl of cereal when he happened to glance outside. Mom later told us that his face drained of color.  “The car,” he said.  It was rolling down the hill. They raced outside to see our twenty-one month old sister standing alone in the car’s front seat.

Paula and Tim

The driver’s door was open.  Timmy lay on the street.  He’d fallen, or jumped…no one knows exactly.  The car rolled over him.  Mom found him and lifted his crushed body.  A passing motorist raced them to the hospital. Our four-year old brother Tim died on the operating table.

Death changes life.  The death of a child changes life forever.

All people experience grief. It is part of being human, part of the price we pay for being sentient, for having a soul.

But we also live through true joy, such as my nephew Tim, my sister’s son, experienced three days ago when his son was born.  A new generation.  As he held his newborn son, I have to think that his Uncle Tim was looking down on both his namesake and on his newborn grand-nephew with a huge grin.

As writers we need to draw on life’s grief and on life’s joy and feed these raw emotions to our characters.  We need to make them a part of their lives.  It is how our fictional characters become real.  In this way, our stories become a gift we can pass to others.   ∞

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The Will to Write

The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will. — Vince Lombardi

Legendary Green Bay Packers’ Coach Vince Lombardi understood success and he understood what it took to achieve it.  It takes willpower to coach a team to the SuperBowl and win – twice.  Willpower, and always keeping an eye on the ultimate goal.

It also takes willpower to write and publish a book then another, and another.  Raw, butt-breaking, stick-to-it willpower.   Best-selling author Madeline Hunter once said that she had never seen a writer who persevered not eventually publish. Since then, I have observed others and seen first-hand the truth of her words.  Writers who persevere do eventually publish.

When I think on my experiences in writing my first book, I’m awed that I ever finished it. It was a daunting job, even with the assistance of a decent critique group.  My second book came easier.  My third, written in only eight months, seemed even simpler, although the middle is still mush.  Perhaps if I had pushed myself harder to polish and actually sell those early efforts, I would have had more success with those that followed.  But, somewhere along the way I let life intrude.  Again, again and yet again. 😦

About a year ago I received a medical wake-up call.  It made me examine my life and where I was headed.  I started eating healthier. Over the next several months, I lost a whole lot of weight, and gained a whole new wardrobe. 😀   My husband and I had long talked about a dream trip.  In October we flew to Paris.  But where is my writing in all of this?  It can’t just sit idle.

I’ve had this innate need to write for too long to let it just fade into oblivion.  I won’t allow my obituary to say “An amateur writer, she wrote several novels that were never published.”  I ache to churn out characters and stories that will not just lie buried in some computer file, but will be read and enjoyed by many.

So I’m writing again, daily.  My newly created characters are talking to me.  They’re taking actions that reveal who they are.  They’re getting into trouble.  Forcing me to plot just how I’m going to get them to the point where they finally declare their love.  Just now I’d be thrilled if they’d even talk to each other in a civil manner.  Regardless of the grief they cause, I am writing about their lives and will continue until their story is told.

I will finish this book.   Writers who persevere do eventually publish. ∞