Parents

smells like teen spirit

She’s overboard and self-assured.

At least, that’s how I felt my first day moving into my college dorm room years ago.

Ok, we don’t necessarily need to point out exactly how long ago.

Today’s DWC is focused on the “end of an era.” It made me think back to my first day at college and what my parents might have been going through.  It was a much more crazy day than my character’s family dealt with.

Mine was filled with all types of stuff being hauled in and out of hallways. New students passing each other, bumping into each other, knocking boxes out from each other, all wide-eyed and pretending to be confident.

My high school friend and his parents were on the floor above me getting Randy* settled into his dorm.  Not fifty feet away from me, my future husband was moving into his.  I wouldn’t meet Pilot for three more weeks.

I wonder how many times my parents and I must have passed him and his parents in the hallways that first day.  It boggles the mind how my life literally changed directions, all under the same roof in a matter of months.

For my mom and dad, today’s DWC is for you.

*Name has been changed for privacy

Daily Writing Challenge

Day 22: Today is the end of an era in your characters life. How do they feel about this? What is happening today? Write a scene of your character on this day.

Looking around the tiny space, it still amazes me how all of that furniture fit in one room.  The shelves above and below the bed, the tiny desk, and the part mini refrigerator, part microwave combination.  Ellie began to hang her clothing in the closet. I helped setup some family photos while Henry setup her computer.

A flash appeared in my mind.  A five-year-old Ellie standing with her Sesame Street backpack and her pigtails in the middle of her kindergarten classroom.

“No, Mommy! Don’t go! I don’t want to be here!”

I crouched down to her eye level and gave her a squeeze.  “Honey, it’s going to be fine. You’re going to make new friends and your teacher Mrs. Johansen is nice.”

Ellie’s lip trembled. “But I want to go home!”

I gave her a squeeze.  “Ellie, this is your first day of school, and I know it can be scary. But I’ll be back at lunchtime and we’ll go out for a family lunch to celebrate!”

Henry picked Ellie up and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “That’s right, sweetie pie! We can go anywhere you want.”

Ellie’s eyes lit up. “Even the place with the big bird?”

Henry laughed, “Yes. We can go to Red Robin.”  He gave her a conspiratorial look, touching his forehead to hers.  “You might even get a balloon if you’re good for Ms. Johansen.” Ellie’s eyes widened as she gasped.

“I’ll be good Daddy! I promise!  Love you!” She said squirming to get to her cubby.

Henry laughed.  “Good girl!” he said setting her down.  “Now go put your backpack away in that special cubby Ms. Johansen picked just for you.”

I watched her pigtails bounce as she ran to halfway to her cubby, then stop.  She whipped around and ran back to me.

Ellie, my precious baby girl gave me a kiss on the cheek. She smelled like baby shampoo and Ellie-ness.  I squeezed her again as tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.

“Mommy, I can’t breathe!” she said, her voice muffled by my shoulder.

“Sorry honey. I hope it’s a terrific first day!”  I released her a little bit, kissing her forehead.

“Love you Mommy! Bye Daddy!”

I watched as she scampered away.  Now I was seeing Ellie standing in her college dorm room tentatively as if waiting for an answer.

“I’m sorry, honey. What was that?” I blinked.

Ellie rolled her eyes.  “I was just saying the RA’s are probably going to want us to assemble soon.”

“Oh.”  I paused.  “Are you sure you have enough pillows and blankets?  Winters get awfully cold here.”

“Mom, I’m fine. I have everything I need,” she said smiling at me, slinging her arm around my shoulder.  She glanced around.  “In fact, I think I have enough blankets to create a giant pillow fort for me and twelve roomates.”

“Louise, leave Ellie alone. She’s going to be fine,” Henry said taking my hand in his, gently pulling me away.

Ellie put her hands on her hips. “Besides, I’m going to come home and see you in a couple of weeks after orientation and after I get used to my class schedule,” shooing us out the door.  I broke free from Henry’s steering to give her one more hug.

Henry and I pulled away from the curb. A sniffle escaped as the car wound down the road.  As we continued, a tear escaped down my cheek.  Henry handed me the box of tissues.

“Oh, Louise. She’ll be fine.  You’ll be fine.”

I wiped the tears from my eyes. Glancing over at Henry, I swiped a tissue and handed him one.

“Oh, hell,” was all he said as he took my hand.  We watched Ellie’s figure which was waving goodbye to us shrink in the mirrors.

“She’s all grown up now, Henry.  What do we do?”

“Same thing we did before.”  He glanced at me and smiled.  “We send her off into the world, hope we’ve taught her enough to do the right things and pray she’ll always want to come back to us.”

death to the early bird and hand me my fucking coffee!

Just pass the coffee, will you?

If you haven’t noticed already, I’m a bit of a night owl. And that suits my purpose just fine. Some of my best work has happened at the odd hour of 3 o’clock in the morning. The blog says I may have made multiple posts on the same day, when in truth, I was up until the wee hours of the morning (also known as deep night, those hours between 12:00am-4:59am), writing a post, only to turn around and do another one later that evening.

Although, again noting no siblings, I look back on my youth. Remembering that I spent quite a bit of time in bed staring at the upper bunk.  My mind would drift as soft Christmas lights would change their blinking pattern and alternate their color combinations.  (Strung up Christmas twinkle lights were my version of a night light, and much prettier.)

Note to parents: Twinkle lights are awesome for dark-fearing children, because they can use the excuse that they love Christmas to their friends.

 Also, this was before the ‘fad’ that stringing up white lights along the edge of your ceiling was delegated as a ‘hipster’ thing to do.)

Many evenings were spent just lost in my thoughts. (Well, as deep a thought a youth can have, I suppose.) Replaying recent TV shows or movies in my head.  You could say this was the time I first began making up stories. Just me, under the safety of my Smurfs blanket making believe I was a princess, a spy, a farmer, whatever. There was a brief period of time when I aspired to become a fire truck.  Not a firefighter, the actual truck. (What, can I say? Sirens are awesome.)  Never had any issues with monsters under the bed.

Note to parents: The way to keep monsters out of your closet and away from under the bed? Show the kids how their closet is full. That the children themselves can barely fit in there, so how can a monster?  Roll out drawers for storage of off-season clothing fills up the space underneath the bed.

Monsters? What monsters? There’s no way a monster can fit under your bed with the enormous Christmas sweater Aunt Mabel knitted for you to wear next year.

What?

Yes…

Yes, you’re wearing the sweater…  Don’t argue with me young lady!

Aunt Mabel worked very hard on that sweater. Just because she has cataracts and made one sleeve a half of a foot longer than the other is not reason enough to ignore such a gift!

Bring back the sweater and those matches to me this instant, young lady!

Mornings, however, are the bane of my existence. I’ll admit to having the slightest, fleeting moment of homicide upon initial waking.  You know that woman, stumbling around in her bathrobe, hair sticking out worse than Einstein on a bad day, mumbling to herself and others around her the gentle, harmless sentence along the lines of:

Slowly hand me back my f****** coffee NOW and no one will be permanently scarred!

Yeah… Sorry about that. I was… um… not myself.

My ever faithful and dutiful husband, Pilot (sadly finding out he was part of THEM. The oh-so-dreaded “Morning Person” people), learned quite quickly that I require at least one hour of no agitation upon waking. On a time-crunched day, a reduced and painfully necessary reduction to 59 minutes of no agitation upon waking.  Don’t worry, he’s survived stitches before.

<Lightly shaking me awake to the vibration standard of 10.5 on the Richter Magnitude Scale.>

“Sweetie, it’s time to get up.”

Mmmm…

“Sweetie, your alarm is going off.”

Mmmm… <pulls covers up tighter, bats hand away from my shoulder>

“Sweetie, your alarm has been going off for ten minutes now, and… we have neighbors.”

Mmmm… <rolls over, shoves pillow on top of head.>

As you can tell by the timing of this post, I’m burning the midnight oil once again.

So, readers, I want to know!  Which are you?  A morning person, or a night owl? Are you the early bird who catches the worm, or a evening person who doesn’t have to deal with worms?

What are ways that help you get up in the morning?

Mine’s an alarm that sounds like an H-bomb warning system going off and provides a mild cardiac arrest each morning. Pilot has learned to accept this as exercise and getting his heart rate up a little bit extra each day.

Oh, and coffee.  Lots and lots of coffee.  (Did I mention I live in Seattle?)

Daily Writing Challenge

Day 7: FREE DAY! Write any scene you want!

The dry leaves crunched beneath their sneakers as the girls wandered along a compact dirt path. Hand in hand, they continued listening to birds chirp throughout the empty branches, beginning to settle in to their nests for the evening.

It was nice walking, Margaret preferred gentle quiet. Lorelei, not so much.  Usually Lorelei was babbling on about a new rock band or her friends from school. Whatever was bothering Lorelei tonight must have been weighing heavily on her mind. Margaret was patient. She knew that her sister would share when she was ready, and if it was causing Lorelei to be quiet for a change, it must have been serious.

“Mags?”

Lorelei’s voice appeared in Margaret’s mind familiar, but tonight was subdued. Her voice did not carry the cheerful spirit it typically held. Instead, tonight it was pensive and thoughtful.

“Yeah, Leelee?” Margaret looked over to her sister; eyebrows raised and tried to keep her face open.

“Do you remember mom and dad?” Lorelei had stopped and turned to face her now.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you remember them? What color their eyes were, what their voices sounded like?

Margaret thought for a moment. “Yeah, I do.”

Lorelei’s voice was small, and she was looking down at the ground now.  “I don’t sometimes.  Remember, I mean.” Margaret’s heart sunk deep into her chest.

“I was only five at the time.  Sometimes I try to think back, but their faces are starting to get fuzzy. Things like their noses, or their ears.”

Margaret put her other hand on Lorelei’s cheek and began to speak and try to console her sister. “Leelee-“

“What if by the time we’re adults I’ve forgotten them completely? It’ll be like they never existed or something!” Lorelei burst into tears and sniffed. Sliding her sleeve over her thumb, she wiped her nose with it.  Margaret pulled her handkerchief, their mother’s handkerchief, from her pocket and gently dabbed at Lorelei’s face.

“Leelee, do you remember when we were little and you took that entire bottle of caramel sauce and sprayed all of the walls in the house with it?”

Sniff. “Yeah.”  Lorelei looked up at her sister, her eyes puffy and slightly reddened from her tears.

“And what did mom and dad do?” Margaret looked pointedly at Lorelei with a small smile.  Lorelei burst out laughing.

“Daddy took my had and walked me over to mom and said, ‘Well, at least we know she’s determined! I was chasing her for a good ten minutes!’ And mom said, ‘I guess she just wanted the house filled with sweetness just like she is!’ ” Margaret and Lorelei were doubled over laughing at the memory, Lorelei wiping a tear away, this time not from sadness.

“You see?” Margaret put an arm around her sister.  “You haven’t forgotten them. As long as you remember they loved us no matter what, they’ll always be with us.”

if I could turn back time

Nostalgia is the name of the game today. Yeah, it caught me off guard, too.

Amara is the first baby to be born on my side of the family.  Last Tuesday, my cousin gave birth to a healthy, gorgeous, snuggly and lovable little girl. (Perhaps one could say I’m biased, but I don’t think so.) Watching my cousin, we’ll call her Red, go through the wonder of pregnancy and incredulous concept of childbirth has been amazing.  I couldn’t be more proud of Red. I’m in sheer awe and so full of joy I could burst from my desk chair right now.  Being the second-youngest of all my cousins, it’s strange to recognize we’re all adults now.  Amara’s birth sort of cinched that concept to me. We have reached the end of a generation in our family, and a new one has begun.

You’re probably wondering why I’m saying, “cousins” instead of siblings. That’s because I have none.  I’ve always wanted a younger sibling, to protect, teach, (and of course) bug the living daylights out of.  It wasn’t in the cards for me and my parents.  I’m adopted, myself. During the adoption process for a baby brother, my father was diagnosed with an inherited heart defect and diseases, negating their ability to adopt anymore children.  Now that I am an adult, married and receiving the daily interrogation from my mother, demanding why I have yet to give her a grandchild, it brings new perspective on how difficult that whole process must have been for my parents.

As a woman, I try to imagine being part of a young, happy couple ready to take on the world, (not too difficult to imagine anymore), and being told that becoming pregnant could endanger my life.  Not only was starting a family one of the dreams my parents had for themselves, but to be told that this particular dream could kill one of them? Coming to terms with that… Making the decision to spend what little money they had to adopt instead?  Wow.  In case you didn’t know, adoption is a long, arduous process with unending interviews, red tape, home visits.  And it’s a hell of a lot better than it used to be.  Basically every step’s purpose is to tell you EXACTLY what you’re doing wrong and need to fix, otherwise some stranger will deem you’re unfit as a parent.

For the mothers out there, I’m not trying to compare childbirth to adoption. Childbirth is an experience that nothing can compare to the torturous pains of contractions. The point of all this, is the idea that life is so much chance and opportunity.  Sure, you can have all the talent and skill in the world, but if you’re hit by a bus the next day, where does that get you?

I think of my parents sitting across a desk from a stranger, being told that because of a medical condition, they’re not allowed to have any more children. Again. First because of my mother’s health, the second time, my father’s.  It took my parents several years of patience and waiting before winning the jackpot with Pilot. Pilot is part of an enormous family. He has an older sister, 10 years difference, and an older brother, 12 years difference, both married with three children, each. Our parents meshed well, even finding out my father’s family and Pilot’s mother’s family come from the same small village in Germany.  (Pilot’s eyes became round as sauces as he turned to look at me during this conversation of family enlightenment, to which I quickly dissolved his fear saying, “It’s ok, honey. I’m adopted. Even if we were technically related, it’s not by blood.”)

My mother and Pilot get on well together, and l believe she’s come to accept him as her own son. The son she never had.  You’ll notice I don’t mention my father here. He passed away a little more than a few years ago from his heart defect, but he lived to age 60. I think of all those years, another little boy could have had my dad as a father. Whoever was at that agency made a huge mistake. I can recall countless fishing trips on Lake Washington (including the time we ran out of gas, but that’s another story), learning how to change my first tire (yes, girls don’t have to be helpless when it comes to the dreaded automobile), tasting delicious smoked salmon he’d just brought in. These are experiences I wish I could have shared with an “automatic” buddy. My never-was-brother.

Don’t worry, it’s not all doom and gloom.  Pilot and I have been together for 10 years now. We were lucky he and my dad had their own healthy relationship, along with mutual respect before my dad passed on. I will always be grateful for that. The older generation is moving on, I’m (hopefully slowly) merging into the older generation, and a new generation is blooming.

So, now what?  Holding baby Amara this weekend, and definitely not getting enough snuggles and forehead-kisses in, I think about her having two amazing older step siblings.  I wanted to be able to learn more about this deep connection. These Daily Writing Challenges (DWC’s) sparked the idea of a siblings-focused story.

Of course, they’ll both be romances, but the heart of each book is about these two sisters’ relationship.  Here’s a bit that I might be incorporating into the stories later on.

Daily Writing Challenge

Day 5: Your character is getting ready in the morning. Write a scene of their morning (or even mid day) routine.

Feeling the warmth of sunshine touching my cheek, another cheerful Saturday greets me as I slowly open my eyes. Taking a moment to let them adjust from the bright white that first appears, right before everything warps back into focus. The sound of my clock radio is tuned to a station that plays classics. Ah, Summer Breeze. Yeah, it definitely makes me feel fine. Pushing back the covers, setting my feet down, I feel worn, familiar yarn under my feet.  It’s a rug my sister made for me as a Christmas present. A hook-and-latch kit with Snoopy on it.  (Did I mention my sister was 10 at the time?)  I glance at the clock. Eight fifteen. I have to meet Margaret at the Suds & Duds to help open by nine.

Filtering sunlight into the room, I gently nudge the sheer Tiffany blue curtains apart and peer out. A sigh escapes my lips as I lean my chin on my fist. Same old Saturday mornings. The mailman driving off, Mrs. Stevens is tending to her rosebushes, Old Man Matthews picking up his newspaper in his bathrobe again… Ew.

Suddenly, loud rock music starts blaring from next door.  August Brandt steps out from under the shadow of the raised garage door, carrying a sloshing bucket of suds and a scrubbing mitten. I can’t help but stare as he moves over to his Jeep. Bobbing his head lightly in tune with the beat, he sets the solution down. Reaching for the hose, he’s about to start rinsing it off when he glances up in my direction. Oh, crud. He saw me staring.

I can feel the blush raising up my neck, as I straighten up quickly. A slow, knowing smile starts making its way across his face, and before a I know it, he’s sending me a big grin, oh great he’s sending me a wave now. Quickly wiggling a few fingers, I step back from the window.

Great. I’m supposed to leave and meet Margaret in… now half an hour, and he’s probably still going to be out there.