Crossing the T

When you've got the blues...

When you've got the blues, play it as beautifully as this. 'Cause when you do, the worlds blues fade away, far away. 

George Lewis, your Burgundy Street Blues still years later, takes the blues way far away.

With gratitude...

Their words are better than mine could ever be....I only say I do not forget, and many of us remember today with tears, with hope, with gratitude, with a flag flying as our deep-in-the-heart symbol of our debt to you.

http://fearless1stmarines.vox.com/library/post/mnf-w-commanding-generals-memorial-day-message.html

http://fearless1stmarines.vox.com/library/post/rct-1-hq-co-commander-letter-to-friends.html

A million flags, each holding one's heart for you....

Posing and Pausing...

Ok, I know I know, I'm a hypocrite. I complain of bloggers, yet I blog. ;-)  But the blogosphere is swamped with foul people who pose as writers, but are revealed to be liars -- like Michael Moore who steals other people's work and writes what is aptly termed war porn.  It's the many beautiful, inspiring stories of our troops, heroes and freedom that are left untold or less frequently told, which spurred me to write in the first place. I'm not sure I've done much good (but glad to have made some new friends which is always worth it!!)   

With regards to my blogging, I'm going to have to pause, take a hiatus until I finish my book.  And find a new job.  I can't promise that either the book or the next job will be worth writing home about.  In fact they probably won't be.  But they both need to be completed.  Quickly.

In the meantime, if I write here, it will be under duress -- about some topic that is causing me to lose sleep until I write about it.  :-) 

Fearless First...

It pays to be fearless.  I suppose none of us really are.  But I think our troops do qualify. Despite fear, they do put themselves in harms way.  Or more accurately, as I wrote before, they put harm on the run.   

Here's the Fearless First Marines, who write of progress, of good news, of dedication, of tough news, of sorrow, or hope, of people they have come to know, and some I'm sure they wish they hadn't. These guys have put together a great site -- and it's worth the read. I check in often.  It's good writing and informative. 

I have to admit, even though I write this blog, I'm not really a big fan of blogs. So many seem to rant unproductively. Or degrade into some sort of brain-dead sophomoric, adolescent stupor, as even Powerline's John Hinderaker does.

But the Fearless First site is well done, solid, accurate....consistently...

My next "vacation", North Korea Resort Life

I wouldn't mind going here for my next vacation, a resort in North Korea.  Just to help flood that crazy country with people who know freedom.  They can't stop the flood forever...

Here's a video of getting to the resort.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid86195573/bclid132209461/bctid1556110335

And a link to the article about the visit. The article shares the fact that you can take a picture of an image of North Korea's psycho leader, but the "authorities" will inspect it to make sure you didn't chop off his head. As the reporter writes, "One day, I saw a remarkable mosaic, a portrait of Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung composed of 250,000 tiny colored stones. Just as I snapped a photo, a whistle blew. Two hotel employees came over and asked for my camera. Later, a Hyundai Asan staffer explained my potential offense: Chopping off the leaders' heads. Fortunately, I had captured the whole mosaic and was allowed to keep the shot." 

It reveals rampant killers are paranoid that others will do to them, what they have done to so many.

Maybe I can sneak in some tricky little camera and take a picture of that mosaic with Kimmie Jong Il's head chopped off.  Then I'd post it here.

Not enough time...except for Mom

I have too little time this evening to write enough about all that I have felt, read, seen, heard in the last week.

The stories are dense and there is just not enough time to share it all. In these limits of fatigue, I am reminded that too many stories, so poignant, are often left untold. So although I wish I could write more, I have to settle for what little I can write. 

So tonight I write briefly, to hope for a friend whose boyfriend's affections are distracted, his fading tenderness I hope won't leave a hurtful ending. Another friend whose ex-boyfriend is calling with hurtful, abusive words -- why he wants to punch her in the gut even more I'll never know.  I heard stories last week to remind me that sorrows of broken affections sting deep - like jelly fish, broken loves can sneak up invisible, then paralyze you. Like I said before, we come with strings attached, gratefully.

Yesterday, I felt someone close to me whose life is fading, saw a wave goodbye even when the arm's muscles couldn't offer one. I saw so much frailty yesterday, and in seeing frailty, it makes me feel frail. Reminds me how fragile we all really are.  How life's journey goes too fast.  Yesterday I also heard the heart of an older woman, still in love with a man who caused her pain. Who, in all life's bitter struggles with rejection and loss had come to know forgiveness. In our frailty, it seems, God offers us our redemption. Yet, then, yesterday too, I felt a daughter's heart whose mother's forlorn and abandoned journey leaves a sting, even on a sunny day - and I wonder where is that mother's redemption when the evil of apathy and lies has come to roost to solidly?

In all this last week, I got a call from a number far away. A voice mail, telling me to call back. When I talk to this person, I get lambasted for still being single. For not visiting enough. For not calling back fast enough. Half the time, I can't even understand what this person is saying. But she always asks why I'm not dating, never taking the time to hear my story. This time I didn't answer. I ignored it. I couldn't muster the time, the energy. I couldn't take the time, wondered if I ever should. 

But today, Mother's Day, I took the time, I ate some waffles smothered in raspberries, syrup, whipped cream, with my Mom, my dad, my family, my adorable nephews. I am blessed to have a great family, to have parents whose love did mean love forever. A Mom who is a great Mom.  As a kid my friends often said to me they were jealous of me -- I had a cool Mom, nice parents.  I heard this from more than one friend, "Your Mom remembers more about my life than my own."  And today she proved again, why. My mom today came with flowers for me. I'm not even a Mom.  She knows my life has taken some unexpected turns in life and love, and she came with flowers for me. On Mother's Day.

Oh my word...

My last post was about my words when they go right, at least somewhat right for one person.

But tonight, I was reminded of when my words were all wrong.   

I have prayers for understanding...but I think on this particular story, I may never really understand.

Sometimes before life's story has all panned out we want our canvas painted with all the shadows revealed, all the inner secrets exposed, with the intertwined plots of our particular story played out in moving color. But instead, sometimes we are left with an ending and none of the chapters in between ever written. We're left with unsolved mysteries. A friendship lost. A goodbye we didn't think needed to be said. And no sure reason why. We beg, we pray, we plead to know the missing chapters. Instead, I think sometimes life can feel like a cover without a book, an ending without the middle.

It is that very mystery that inspired the fiction piece I'm working on --  lives and hearts crash together sometimes for reasons we may never even realize or know. But it is also that ending-without-the-middle that choked my creativity earlier this year.  Stopped the story in its tracks.

It is why we need, even in all life's victories and sorrows, the family and friends who, when the clock strikes twelve, push us forward. Help us write more and better chapters in our love and friendships, even when the pages previous seem snatched from our hearts.

Midnight Strikes Twelve (o' 2)...

Last August, I was in trouble.

By October, even bigger trouble.

When Midnight Stuck Twelve on December 31, 2007 -- I came up short of words in 2007.  I only had 35,848 words of the 90,000 target I had. I was way short. That's like thinking you successfully landed on an aircraft carrier because you only were a half a mile off when you tried to touch down.

But I sent it off to my "reader" -- the person who has encouraged me to write this novel. Who cornered me. Who triggered my start. He's not the man who fires the starting gun on the Olympic 100 meter dash, but the one that gives you the courage to get down on the starting block and take off running at times when you feel like you just don't have the guts, when you know everyone is already off and running, when so many have a head start on you, when some already sped across the finish line and are relishing the cheers.

My reader is a distant uncle. An Australian. A former professor.  An avid reader. A poignant speaker. With trepidation, I kept my bet and sent him what I did write, the 35,484 words. I knew I'd get positive thoughts (because he's just an encouraging man), but also a good solid dose of professorial grading reality, even the bad stuff.  He just left a message today that he thought it was STUPENDOUS.  That my writing put him in tears in a couple of places. 

He put me in tears. But I was bouncing off the walls too.

I had given up really.  I didn't make my goal in December and then was hit with the distractions of broken dreams earlier this year, and I stopped writing. Pursuing another dream when one dream is broken is tough. I didn't.  But that was stupid of me.

But today, he insisted, he wants the ending. He's hooked.

I'm sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo HAPPY!!!!

Of course, he is going to hit on the professorial critique too. I got home too late to call back, and hear a good dose of what needs to better than it is.  But I realized it was stupid to shut my word faucet off. Broken dreams are no excuse. Someone is asking me to write. I simply must.

I'll be picking up and finishing to the initial 90,000 goal. The book is about crashing destinies, that's all I'll say. The devil's in the details. And the details aren't for sharing, yet.