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Articles from the past:
Proverbs 31 Revised for the 21st Century
Cloud Nine (a short story)
On the Priority Scale, is Writing a 1 or a 10?
Editing is in My Future
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Proverbs 31 Revised for the 21st Century
Several years ago, the Bible study group that I belonged to examined “The Proverbs 31 Woman.” For those who haven’t quite memorized all of the Biblical Book of Proverbs, let me explain that the 31st (and final) chapter of Proverbs describes “a wife of noble character” who is endowed with seemingly superhuman characteristics. If you look at the verses closely, she seems to spend an awful lot of time making cloth for her family, her bed, and general resale, etc. But she also plants a vineyard, imports food, feeds the poor, instructs the household, and literally never sleeps or even rests. I get tired just reading the verses. There is NO WAY any one woman could do all these things.
One of the members of my Bible study group, however, had a different way to look at it. Instead of seeing all the things in the verses that we cannot seem to be able to do, she looked at things she already did for her family and saw how they fit into the pattern of the “noble wife.” That is certainly a more encouraging approach. But still, there is a lot in those verses about “grasping the spindle” and “making linen garments” and other things American women just don’t do much anymore. So I thought I’d try to update the verses a little to see how they might apply to a suburban wife of the 21st century:
A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth more than a Nintendo system with Rock Band and Wii Fit all bundled together.
Her husband trusts her with all the credit cards
and the remote control.
She brings him excellent credit ratings all the days of her life.
She selects volunteer cutting assignments from the kindergarten teacher
and works with eager hands.
She is like merchant ships
bringing in food from the store with the best coupon deals that week.
She gets up before the clock radio kicks on;
and microwaves sausage patties for her family.
She considers a lottery ticket and buys it;
out of her Bunco winnings she enters a basket bingo and wins a birthday gift
for her mother-in-law.
She works out at the gym vigorously;
her arms are strong enough that she doesn’t have too much of that hanging flab
when she raises her forearms.
She sees that she’s getting a good return on her 401K rollover,
and her lamp always goes out at a reasonable time (but she can turn it back on if
the kids need something or the dog starts whining.)
In her hand she holds the steering wheel,
and grasps the box of Cheez-Its to hand out to the kids in the carpool.
When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
for she has arranged to go in late for work on days when schools open on a two-hour delay.
She makes her bed most days even if no one’s coming over.
Her husband is respected at the city sports stadium,
where he takes his seat among the season ticketholders.
She makes allergen free brownies
and sells them at the bake sale;
and supplies the scout troop with sodas for the party.
She is clothed with strength and dignity, or at least sweats that are clean, with not too many paint spatters.
She can laugh at the ridiculously high heating bill.
She speaks with wisdom,
and can faithfully instruct her family on how to change the bag in the vacuum cleaner.
She watches over the affairs of her children text messaging each other in the same room
and does not eat anything from the Cheesecake Factory.
Her children arise and, though they call her really bad names, at least they’re up in time
to get ready for school.
Her husband praises her
(from his seat with the season ticket holders):
“Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.”
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
but a woman who has read this far in my bad paraphrase deserves to be praised.
Give her the reward she has earned:
A rest.
(In other words, that’s the end).
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This month won't feature an article about fitting writing into everyday life. Instead, I'm posting a short story I wrote some years ago. My mom liked it, but I don't think anyone else really did. It was not written about her specifically, but it is about the everyday hero that she typified beautifully.
Cloud Nine
When she woke, Alice realized that she was no longer floating. What a relief! She had spent the better part of the afternoon bobbing up against the ceiling like an untethered helium balloon, and found the experience rather unnerving. And the worst of it was that she had to watch her own lifeless body down below on the rigid hospital bed as doctors poked and prodded and her sister cried -- her own death performed like some sort of ghastly circus. All the while she remained powerless to do anything. She couldn’t even leave.
But now she had gone. Or so it seemed. From where she lay, she could see white walls all around and sense an emptiness that reminded her of the sterile atmosphere of the oncology unit at St. Joseph’s. But the hospital smell was now noticeably absent. Instead, the aroma of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies hung almost palpably in the air, mingled with a freshness, like the clean air of a mountaintop.
The walls weren’t really white, either. Their surface was luminescent, gently reflecting colors of light as though made of pearls. Were they even walls? As she watched, the shimmering surface appeared to move in the rhythmic motion, as though gently breathing.
She bit her lip, steeling herself for the pain as she reached forward to touch the strange surface.
No pain. The searing ache which had accompanied her every movement for so long was gone. She tried the move again, and again felt no pain. Alice stood and stretched, then jumped for the sheer joy of movement. But when she looked down and saw another chair not too far from her own, she froze in awe. Then she giggled.
“Now I know I’m in heaven.”
On the chair next to her lay the sleeping form of Drake McKean, star of so many movies and her secret dreams.
A laughing voice suddenly boomed out, “You’re not in heaven yet!”
Alice spun around, but could see no one talking. The voice had not come from the sleeping man. But the sound apparently roused him. His eyelids fluttered open slowly. “You can auction off the bike, you know,” he mumbled, closing his eyes again. “Even though it’s a wreck. Someone will pay good money for it, since it was mine.”
Alice waited a moment to see if he would open his eyes again.
“What bike?”
His eyes snapped open. “Where’s Mick? Why won’t you let him in here? I know to you, he’s just my agent, but to me he’s family, and he should be here with me now as . . . am I dead?”
Alice giggled again as his outraged expression changed to that adorable puzzled look she knew so well from the big screen. “I think you are. At least, I’m pretty sure I am.”
“Oh.” He gazed around, and soon reached out toward the walls, or whatever they were, just as she had done a few minutes before. She felt content merely to watch his movements. It was Drake McKean, here in the room with her, and no one else. Except that they weren’t really in a room.
“Good morning,” the unseen voice boomed again, reminding her that they weren’t alone, either.
“Who are you?” The actor rolled smoothly off his chair, poised as if to do battle with a full squadron of aliens, or Mafia thugs, or whatever the script called for that day.
The voice laughed again. “It is good to see you feeling well again. As I mentioned a moment ago, you’ve not reached heaven yet, but your cloud will dock in just a few minutes. When it does, you simply follow the light. I must warn you, though, there’s quite a crowd awaiting your arrival. It seems your exploits on Earth have been followed with more than a little admiration. In fact, I might even go so far as to say you’ve got a fan club waiting. Now, relax and enjoy the rest of your flight, and please remain seated until the cloud comes to a complete stop.”
Drake flashed his trademark mischievous smile, but it was soon supplanted by a sigh that matched her own.
So much for having him all to herself. In her daydreams, she would meet him unexpectedly and they would just talk, he as interested in her mundane life as she in his tales of action and glamour. After they had become friends, then the relationship would naturally become more intimate and. . .
But now, when she had come so close, she would never even get that chance to talk.
“Well, just a few minutes before we get there, huh? I’m Drake McKean.” He offered his hand.
“I know.” She looked at his outstretched hand stupidly for a moment before extending her own. His grip felt warm and snug; her fingers tingled from his touch.
“May I ask who I have the pleasure of accompanying to heaven?”
This seemed like a line from one of his movies but it was not; and it was not a beautiful actress but she, Alice Brougham, who answered. And they did talk, just as she had imagined in her dreams. First about the illness and motorcycle accident that had ended their earthly lives. Then about those lives. His mother had been a grade-school teacher, like her, and they laughed over stories of children’s exploits. He had planned to become a teacher himself, but in college had found acting to be more fun, and eventually, much more lucrative.
“And I could never go back to teaching.” His sigh of regret was genuine.
“Why?”
“The fame. I couldn’t be a person anymore. I was a persona. I couldn’t do the things that ordinary people do.”
“Such as?”
“Okay, what would you do, back when you were alive, I mean, and before you were sick, if you found you suddenly had a morning of free time?”
“Hmm. I suppose I might go out and get a really fresh bagel and coffee, and sit outside somewhere with a good book.”
“Well I could never do that. People would come up to me, maybe not for an autograph, just to talk. And they’d be nice and all, but how much of that book do you think I’d get read?”
Alice smiled, nodding her understanding.
“And the coffee would sit while I shook hands, until it was cold. I hate cold coffee.” He sighed again. “I know it sounds petty of me, after I’ve been given so much. But I just wanted the chance to rest and be normal again. And now, even here, it looks like that won’t happen.”
“I’m sorry.” Alice felt sorry because he seemed so sad, but she still couldn’t see that fame would be the grave hardship he seemed to think it was. He had forgotten, or perhaps never known, what it felt like to have no one interested in your life at all.
“When did we stop moving?”
“Oh, I hadn’t noticed.” Alice stood, suddenly wondering what to do with her hands.
Drake sprang to his feet and waved toward the bright light. “After you.”
“Um, would you mind going first?” Better to let him get ahead so as to not disappoint the fans that had gathered to see Drake make his entrance. But, once she squeezed past the mob of his fans, heaven would be a wonderful experience, wouldn’t it? She would go look for Grandma Mabel. Or maybe a bagel shop.
“Here they come!”
“Can you see them?”
A crowd appeared through the fading mist. There was much waving and laughter and excited voices.
“Oh, look, she’s moving aside to let that man go first. She’s always so thoughtful.”
“Yes, it’s just like the time at the carnival, moving aside to let those girls ride with their friends.”
What in the world were they talking about? Alice knew all of Drake’s movies, and none of them involved carnivals.
“It’s like when she let her older sister win at Scrabble so she would think she was smarter.”
Alice smiled as she looked at Drake. She used to do that, too. It made her sister so happy.
"Did you see her last trip on the expressway? She signaled every lane change, let another car move into her lane at the toll booth, and even said hello to the toll collector.”
What movie was that from? And why were they saying “she”? Surely they couldn’t be talking about her.
“My favorite was watching her clean out the refrigerator at work after hours.”
“Ooh, I couldn’t watch! That was too gross.”
“I really liked watching her come home from work. She would always pet the dog first thing, even when she really had to go to the bathroom.”
Alice stopped walking. The crowd was talking about her. But how did they know all this stuff?
“I liked it when she used the dryer in her dorm at college. Whenever someone else had left their clothes in, she took them out and folded them before she put in her own.
Alice bit her lip and looked down, feeling as if her whole life had been suddenly ripped open and every detail shaken out like feathers from a pillow. Was there nothing these people didn’t know?
A warm hand grasped her shoulder. “Come on. Your fans want you to join them for coffee.” Drake smiled at her with the exuberant joy of a schoolboy suddenly let on holiday.
As she looked into his face, a flicker of hope started to warm her inside. The warmth swelled to a glow as she sensed the excitement and admiration of the crowd surging ever closer.
And she had never minded cold coffee.
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Dedicated to Betty Dolan, 1934-2008
copyright 2008 Kate Dolan
On the Priority Scale, is Writing a 1 or a 10?
As I sat down to write this, I automatically felt like there must be something I’d forgotten to do. How could I have time to write this afternoon when I didn’t yesterday? What am I missing? What should I be doing instead of writing?
Now it’s a holiday today, so that explains the extra free time. But it doesn’t explain the nagging guilt. Yes, I’m caught up on laundry. I’ve got a busy week starting tomorrow, though, shouldn’t I get a little ahead? Maybe wash some towels? Change the sheets on my son’s bed? Or there are the 800 pictures on my digital camera. I haven’t printed or deleted a single one since I got the camera last Christmas. My relatives think the kids have stopped growing. My mother-in-law has waited over eight months for pictures of the addition we put on our house. Don’t I care that I am neglecting my picture duties again?
Or how about the school talent show? It’s not until May, but I have a planning meeting coming up. Shouldn’t I be planning?
Why is it that so often everything else seems more important than my writing?
I know the answer. Other things seem more important because I let them. There are times when I make writing a priority, like when I doing a writing challenge, or face a deadline. The words come first and everyone sleeps on dirty sheets. So far, no one has died from my periods of housekeeping laxity. But putting the writing first shouldn’t be a “special” event. I have been a professional writer for more than fifteen years. I know writing, even writing like this that isn’t under contract and doesn’t pay a dime, has to come first on a regular basis.
Admittedly, a crying child comes first. A child who needs to be driven to jump rope practice or a basketball game comes second. And then writing. Other things can wait. Laundry does not go stale. Pictures are not an essential element of my life.
Writing is. And if I remember that, then I should be able to keep the guilt at bay and make time to do what I need to do before it’s time to drive to another basketball game.
Editing is in My Future
Working on my second mystery in the Karen Maxwell series, I felt unjustifiably relieved when I finished the first draft and moved on to the editing and rewriting phase. I say unjustifiably because there was no reason whatsoever for me to feel relieved. Writing the first draft is actually the easy part. It’s the revision that’s really tough.
I don’t mind changing words, though sometimes that can be a bit tedious. The real problem I have is with changing the story. I seem to have this sort of Pontius Pilate attitude toward my creation: What I have written, I have written. That’s the way it happened. I can’t imagine what would happen if Karen went on a date in the second scene because that didn’t happen. At least not in my mind. And what I have a hard time remembering is that it is all in my mind. It’s all fiction. It can change.
I guess it seems to me that trying to change what happened in the story (after I’ve written a first draft) is like trying to change what has already happened in my own past. What I need to see is that it’s really more like trying to change my future - something that may be difficult, but which is certainly within my control. For example, I have a nasty temper that is likely to flare up at any time. I can’t erase the angry outbursts of the past. But I can control the ones waiting to erupt later on today. Is it easy? No. If it was, I wouldn’t have so many angry outbursts in my past.
I can change my characters’ lives just as I can change my own, with a lot of effort. And I know I need something more—I need to ask for help from God. If I ask for help, I get it. I just keep forgetting to ask. So here I am, not only asking God to guide my writing, but also asking him to help me to remember to ask him to guide my writing.
And everything else in my life. |
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