Once RemembeRED

One dark and stormy night, I found myself in the backseat of my Grandmother's car as we traveled along a gravel road.  We had all been at a picnic in some small town, and someone had carried me to the car after I fell asleep.   I could hear my brother snoring loudly from the front; this was before the era of carseats and seatbelts and airbags.  I lay quietly on my back, staring up at the rain rolling down the back window, when lightning flared across the sky. 

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It was close, and the thunder that followed drowned out the sound of the gravel road as well as my brother's snoring.  I stared, fascinated, as more lightning chased that thunder.  The rain hitting the windows distorted the power flashing between the clouds, but it was all magical to me.  I wanted to be outside in the rain, my arms raised as if to embrace the storm, and touch the lightning.  Then that power would race through me and it would be wonderful to feel powerful, instead of just a powerless little girl.

"Grandma?"  I didn't even have to sit up to know that she was hunched over, with white knuckles at the "ten and two" on the wheel. 

"What if you touch the lightning?" I spoke to my grandmother, but I was asking the sky.  "It's so pretty!"

My grandmother took a deep breath, and spoke in a rush.

"If you get struck by lightning your skin will turn black and fall off and all your hair falls out and your teeth too."  She went back to her quietly fierce driving as the car fishtailed a little on the gravel.

It didn't matter to me.  Something so beautiful, made of the purest light, had to be an angel of some sort, and I knew that angels would never hurt me.  I also knew that my grandmother would not let me leave the car to test my theory; there was nothing for a six year old to do.  Except dream about embracing lightning.


Prompt: Select an old blog post you’ve written and rewrite it as a memoir piece. You can focus on one element from it, or include them all, depending on what it’s about.   This is the post that I chose.

Inevitable

It is a known fact that teenagers are self-centered.  Every teen firmly believes they are center stage of the greatest saga of all time.  I was awkward in social situations, almost always said the wrong thing, and had a bad habit of falling down the stairs.  And yet I was no different in seeing myself as the star of my own show, even if it was a poorly rated show in danger of being cancelled by the network.   In hindsight, it was really not that big a deal that I had no date to the Prom. Certainly, it was not the most embarrassing 'traumatized for life' situation that I was ever forced to endure.  Except at the time, it was.

I wanted to go to the Prom and have a magical evening with Mr. Right Now!   My best friend Michelle even dragged me kicking and screaming to the Prom Committee meetings in hopes of finding me a date.   Her enthusiasm being infectious, I soon began brushing up on my dancing skills and looking for a dress.  I even made my mother take me to a mall in the next county so I could find the most perfect dress ever made...for under a hundred bucks(all my mom would give me).  The length of the dress made me feel even more awkward, but that was the style of the time.

Although I batted my eyelashes like crazy, no prom invitations came, and I became  a little desperate.  I felt cheated. Where was my grand Prom romance like they have in the movies?  I was finally asked to the Prom by a junior, at the last minute.  When we walked into the Prom and went to have our picture taken, my mood went even south. 

The girl standing in front of us was wearing my dress, AND she looked better wearing it.   I was about to yell at this girl for shopping at MY department store...until another girl drifted by with her date, and she was also wearing MY dress.  This one looked even better in that dress than I did.   As the three of us noticed each other, yet another girl walked past wearing our dress.  Four girls at the same Prom...wearing the same dress. 

Recipe for disaster...or at least an epic cat fight. 

We all just stared at each other, a four-way stare down.  Then one of us smiled and laughed and the tension broke as we all inevitably realized that we were not the stars of our own teen romance movies.  For tonight, at least, we were all stars gracing the stage in a comedy.  We shared a laugh then, at ourselves and the situation, and then we went our separate ways.   



Write On Edge RemembeRED prompt: Think back to your own adolescence. With the perspective of time, try to find the beauty or grace in an awkward adolescent situation, even if there is only a sliver to find.

Clearly The Fish Needed Some Excitement

Coworkers can make your job fun.  The other members of my office in the early nineties were fond of playing practical jokes, but they had given up on me. How was I supposed to know that you're supposed to scream, jump away, and act like you're having a heart attack when someone puts a rubber snake in your drawer?  It wasn't that I didn't get the joke.  I just never reacted the expected way.

One of my coworkers had a small fish tank next to her desk. One morning I greeted Donna as I returned from getting a cup of coffee, while she sat warming up her Apple II for the day. I walked around the corner and sat at my own desk just as the rest of the office began to arrive.

A couple of hours passed before Donna noticed a new pair of eyes staring at her from the depths of her fish tank.  I heard a shriek of surprise.

"Who put this gorilla in my fish tank?!!" 

This exclamation was followed by laughter; the normally taciturn Donna was actually laughing.  Everyone else had to come and see that, truly, there was a gorilla in the fish tank.  This was remarked upon as quite creative; no one had ever thought about putting anything in the fish tank as a practical joke. 

"Who did put the gorilla in the fish tank?"  The group exchanged bewildered looks.

"I did."  I smiled as I walked back to my desk, and I went back to work.

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Unfortunately for the poor fish, my coworkers tried to improve on my original prank.  A week later, Martie dropped a few glittery plaster Christmas ornaments into the fish tank as a prank...only to realize that plaster dissolves in water!  I walked into the office on that day to find a weeping Martie prostrate at a bemused Donna's feet, begging her forgiveness for killing her fish**. 

I smiled at Donna as I walked by; she smiled back, then rolled her eyes at Martie's wailing. 

**no fish were actually harmed, except they were glittery for awhile. 

 

RemembeRED Prompt: This week we’re asking you to write about a time that a prank, joke, or piece of gossip twisted out of control, producing unexpected results.  Unexpected doesn’t have to mean negative!

RemembeRED: Tense

Prompt:  A couple weeks ago, I came across one of those popular little sayings posted on a friend’s Facebook wall:

After I finished laughing, I started thinking. So often in our lives, defining moments occur when our past and our present or our future clash. For this week’s RemembeRED prompt, write a memoir post describing such a time and the results.  While writing, remember to bring us into the moment and let us experience it with you.

 

Looking back, I am surprised at how easy it was for me to let go of people that I had cared for, maybe even loved a little.   Was there something wrong with me that I did not behave this way?  It wasn't necessarily that my heart was broken, or that my relationships had ended on a particularly acrimonious note. It was simply that when I was done, I was done. My habits also seemed to be unusual when compared to my friends, who spent weeks getting over ex-boyfriends.  I wasn't trying to be hurtful to the other person, but a clean break seemed the best way to move on with my life.  I would cry a little, drink a little wine, then I was onto the next activity.  Done.

I was out on a first date with a guy named Scott.  He was a nice enough fellow, and for lack of a better word, I was bored with too many weekends by myself.  It couldn't hurt to have a dinner and conversation.  If I enjoyed myself, that would be great, but I would settle for not having to eat my own cooking for once.  We sat and drank our beers and made cautious small talk while our meal was prepared.

Then I felt a presence just behind my shoulder, and Scott looked up, then stood.   I turned in my seat to find an Ex. I had never run into an Ex before.  It was disconcerting, to say the least.   Ex was smiling at me, but there was a meanness in the eyes that looked into mine.  My brain scrambled; it had been awhile since our relationship had ended.

"It's great to see you," Ex said, grasping my shoulder with a possessiveness I found irritating rather than endearing.  "How have you been?"

"I have been just fine," I responded a bit feebly, unsure of what Miss Manners would advise in this situation. 

Introductions of my past to my present were probably in order.   "Ex, this is my friend Scott.  Scott, this is my friend Ex."   The two men gripped hands and proceeded to engage in some sort of dominance test. 

It took  me a second to realize that these two men were engaged in a contest, and I was the prize.
I looked at both of them, teeth gritted with the force of their grips. Was this a traditional pissing contest?  Whatever, the whole thing irritated me, and I lost my appetite for food, and for men.

I stood up and grabbed my purse.  My past and my present had to let go of their wrestling contest to allow me to pass between them.   They watched me walk out the door of the restaurant, and I waved at them as I drove away. 

When I am done, I am done. 

RemembeRED: Phoenix

After I lost my daughter, there was nothing. My body shut down for awhile, but even after I regained consciousness, my world was ashes. I really can't convey the totality of my despair; there aren't really any words.  We could never have a baby of our own.  All the purpose, all the things that once meant something, now meant nothing.  Hope is an essential part of who we are; we stop striving for that distant dream, and our spirit dies. The body sometimes sticks around, but it's just a shell.

One Sunday afternoon years after, I stepped out of our car and saw a man riding a dragon in the blue sky.  As we gazed into the bright blue, my husband and I agreed that it was a very unusual cloud formation  Watching that cloud,  a quiet voice whispered in my head, telling me that everything would be all right. 

Then my doctor mentioned that there were new treatments for pre eclampsia.  We had one embryo left, just one. The fertility clinic told us that we would have to find a perinatologist before they would implant the embryo.  We had to find a bank that would give us a loan.  We had to find someone to administer the intramuscular injections.  I had to overcome a fear of needles and learn to inject myself with blood thinners each night.

Hope is a phoenix.  It often rises, the tiniest glimmer, crawling from the ashes of many an immolated desire.  Every step of the way, every potential obstacle, that small voice would call to me, coaxing me out of the bleakness of my despair little by little.  This is what you need to do, this is where you need to be, this is who you were meant to be.   Even when my son was born early, and I gazed at his tiny body, hooked up to machines and tubes, there was a flame in my heart, and an assuring presence within me. "And all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."**

And so it was.


**Julian of Norwich said that.   

RemembeRED: Comparisons

Prompt:  This week we’d like you to write about a time you found yourself comparing yourself, unfavorably, with someone else.  Focus on how the comparison affected you, negatively or positively.

Anita and I came from very different worlds, although we were born 14 days apart.  We met in our very first Psycho-educational Assessment class, and for awhile we ended up working in the same school district.  We are friends.  She is a great person. 

She's perfect. 

Everybody says this about Anita, that she's perfect.  And she is.  Anita  is one of the hardest working people I know.  She stays up late into the night, writing reports.  She shows up to work early.  Anita always knows just what to say.  She never gets angry, but is always calm and reasonable.

She made it all look so easy, being perfect.  If she could do it, why couldn't I?  

I tried to stay up, writing reports.  I still didn't finish. And I was late to work the next day because I overslept.

I tried to say the right thing; I ended up saying the wrong thing.  Sometimes silence may not be the right thing, but it is often the best thing.

I tried to keep calm and reasonable, but I've never been able to suffer fools.  It's a character flaw.  I ended up more angry than when I started.     

I am not perfect.  I will never be perfect.  I'm not Anita. 

With that small epiphany, I felt liberated. I stopped trying to be Anita.  Instead, I started focusing on being myself.  That has made all the difference.  

RemembeRED: Crystal

Prompt: One person’s Humpty Dumpty is another person’s omelet. In 400 words or less, write about a time when something was irrecoverably broken and the ensuing scramble.



While my father had been stationed in Germany, my mother had acquired a collection of water glasses, white wine glasses, red wine glasses, champagne flutes, sherry glasses, brandy snifters, etc.   My mother had a china cabinet to display all of her fragile finery, even though we hardly ever used any of it.  Before she married, my mother had never before had the opportunity to own china or silver or those other marks of status among women of the time, and those glasses were special to her.  My brother and I didn't know that at the time.  What we did know is that if we touched her crystal, we should be prepared to meet Jesus that very moment. 

It was extremely cold as the movers brought all of the boxes into the house on Lansdowne Way the day we moved to Maryland. There might even have been a hint of snow in the air.   My mother was sitting in the dining room, unwrapping her crystal carefully.  I offered to help her unwrap the glasses, out of habit. I expected her to refuse, as she usually did.  Instead, she told me to take a seat.  I was handed a roll of plain gray paper.

My mother was trusting me with her crystal!  We sat together and carefully unrolled snifters, flutes, and glasses, placing them all on the dining room table.  I remained vigilant as I unraveled the paper on a stemmed water glass.  I held the glass carefully in my hand.  I placed it gently on the table, as I had done with all the other glasses I had unwrapped.

A loud CRACK! reverberated throughout the house. I froze, still holding the top part of the glass. 
The rest of my mother's precious crystal water glass was on the table. 

I turned to my mother, eyes wide in horror, ready to throw myself at her feet to beg for mercy, or at least a quick death.  She was staring at the part of the glass that had been left on the table.   Then she sighed heavily. 

"Just turn that glass upside down next to that piece, so they stay together," she said.  She then handed me another rolled up paper, and went back to unwrapping the one in her lap.   I sat and stared at her, open-mouthed, for another couple of seconds, concerned.

Then I warily started unwrapping the next glass. 

RemembeRED: A Little Wine

Prompt:  You are to write a 400 word memoir piece in which one of the following features prominently:

Wine, coffee, or chocolate. Or, as I like to call it, The Holy Trinity. 

Memoir involves crafting a true story. So, please conjure a moment for us….include dialogue, body language, and/or conflict. Set the scene using vivid word choices, or perhaps a metaphor.
Focus on the feeling you’re attempting to convey.

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I would sometimes travel to Dallas to visit my friend Laura.  We would generally hang out at blues bars, go to the movies, and eat tons of good food. This time was different.  We got into her car and drove in an easterly direction, into the midst of the Piney Woods, to Tyler.  We were on a mission.  We were going to a winery with two friends we had met online. 

Tyler, Texas is not exactly what one would call Wine Country.  As we pulled into the drive leading up to the winery, I could see a few small hills undulating away from the winery, but only one of those hills was covered with grapevines.  We ended up sitting on the deck outside, to accommodate our smoker friend Melanie.  There we sat, laughing about the last time we had met for drinks, sipping a cabernet laced with ginger and snacking on a variety of cheeses Melanie had brought with us.  Melanie was a very animated talker, waving her cigarette in a small circle to illustrate her story and pointing to add emphasis like punctuation. Then Silvia would tell a story of her own, her own hands conducting an unseen orchestra.  I have no idea what we talked about, specifically; that is the way it is sometimes.  We laughed our way through one bottle pretty quickly, and then started giggling through another.

The weather was chillier than I had expected, and I did not bring a jacket.  In the middle of a story requiring adagio, Silvia suddenly paused.

"I cannot think with your nipples going in two different directions!" she said, giggling  "You're distracting me!"

Of course we all looked, and she was absolutely right.  One nipple was pointing up, and one was pointing in a more southeasterly direction.   As I adjusted the girls, it popped into my slightly inebriated state that my breasts had a a Mad Eye Moody thing going on.  I thought it, and then I said it. I immediately wanted to take it back; because it was a weird thing to say.  But it was also a Me thing to say.

Maybe too Me? 

For a second we all looked at each other, measuring.  Then Laura snorted, and the rest of us dissolved into laughter as Melanie refilled our glasses.

Maybe not. 

RemembeRED: Mentors

Prompt: Do you have a mentor, or are you a mentor for someone else?  Now write about an experience with your mentor (or the person to whom you are a mentor) that shows us what that relationship means to you.  




Abnormal psychology is one of the required classes for a psychology major, but I would have taken the class even if it wasn't my major.  The professor sort of reminded me of a larger version of Teddy Roosevelt, with the mustache and the little round glasses.  His name was Ed.  He not only talked about the disorders of the mind, he talked about actual people with those disorders, such as the artist Louis Wain. Somehow, that made the symptoms we learned seem more real than they would have been with just a text book and a lecture.  I thought that Ed was a great professor,  then I moved on to the next class.

After I graduated and taught high school for a year, I realized that I didn't want to be a teacher. I impulsively quit my job.  Then I freaked out a little, because I had never done anything quite that impulsive before.  I didn't have a clue what I was going to do from that point on.  I flailed about, looking for a job, but really I was looking for a direction. Then I ran into Ed.  I don't remember where.  But he remembered me, and since he was the kind of person that people told all their problems to, I found myself unloading about my lack of a career goal and my seemingly directionless life. It was as if I opened my mouth and an avalanche of words that I had never spoken came pouring out.  I may have even cried.  Ed listened to it all, although he must have had other things to do. 

Ed suggested that I look into a post graduate degree in school psychology, and explained a little about the field when I looked puzzled.  I could work with kids who had disabilities, Ed told me.   He said that it would be the perfect career for me.  I was intrigued by the idea, but I needed to think about it.  Ed gave me his card and told me to call if I was interested. 

I called.  I had to jump through all of the hoops to get into the graduate program, but Ed was always there, pointing me in the right direction.  He guided me through my first administration of an IQ test and made sure that my reports were not too long-winded.  He even helped me get my job.  I could always talk to him during those years, and he always listened. 

I miss that.

RemembeRED: Rare Gems

Prompt:  This week, we’d like you to explore friendship. You can talk about a current friendship or one from your past, a friend you met over kindergarten snacks or happy hour at your first job. Examine your emotional interest in the friendship and the role it plays, or played, in your life.



The Army is a hard place for a kid.  Your dad or mom gets tossed around, sometimes in an arbitrary manner, and the family has to go with them, even if it means ripping their roots right out of the ground.  Just about the time I would get comfortable with a place, just about the second that I made a new friend, my dad would come home and announce that we were moving yet again. 

The friends I had just made would tell me that they would miss me.  They would cry and they would promise to write every day.  My family would drive off, and I would be in the backseat with the addresses of all of those friends who promised to write me every day. 

They never did. 

I wrote them letters for awhile, homesick, hoping to hear anything except the silence of an empty mailbox.  One day I just stopped looking.  I gave up expecting that anyone meant it when they said they would remember me, or that our friendship had meant something, so that the next time my family had to move again, I wouldn't get hurt.

Then I met Cathy.  She was much cooler than I was, which meant that she had nicer glasses and was allowed to wear real blue jeans.  We were in a few classes together, and somehow she decided that we should be friends.  I was skeptical, but she slowly won me over, and before I knew it, she was my best friend.  Almost as soon as I realized that, my dad came home and announced that we were moving to Washington, D.C.

I was heartbroken. Again.  My last day at Kirby Junior High,  Cathy and I walked to the bus together, holding hands, even though it wasn't cool to do that.  She started crying, and said that she would miss me and she promised to write.  I started crying as well, and I hugged her as hard as I could, because I expected that would be the very last time I ever saw Cathy again.  A halfhearted optimist at heart, I wrote her a letter once we were settled in our next home. 

And she wrote me a letter back.  She really was my friend.

Remembered: Cleaning House

Prompt: Think of a time that you “cleaned house.” Consider the subtext—we’re not writing about Windex here. We’re writing about relationships. Or feelings. Or a captured moment in time.

It's at this time of the year that I mourn a bit. Sorry if I upset anyone.


I finally made myself clean off the shelf in the closet one day a few years ago. I pulled everything that I hadn't wanted to see onto the floor. I opened the special box that I had purchased just for the occasion. I placed the tissue box next to me. Then I went through the pile, and I cried as I laid each item gently into the box.

The sonogram pictures.

The sonogram videotape, each tiny heartbeat visible, so fierce.

A small hand painted box containing a tiny hat and a small gold ring; a birth gift for a child who never saw it. I think that she would have liked that ring.

A silk rose, white. It was placed on my hospital room door to let the nurses know.

The birth/death certificate, signed by the doctor on December 9, 2003.

I placed all these painful memories in that special box, running my hands over them, reading them, touching them. As if I could turn back time for that moment and have it turn out differently.

Then I closed the box, but not my heart.

RemembeRED: Crash

Write on Edge Prompt: Your word is below. Take the next ten minutes to write about the first single memory that word calls up. Focus on the emotions and the experience, spend ten minutes really exploring that memory. Then wrap it up, publish, and come back to link up. I had difficulty with this prompt, mostly because as soon as I read it I had to go to work, where I had exactly 7.3 seconds to myself between interruptions, phone calls, and conferences. I didn't even get to eat lunch, which I feel is a crime against humanity. Anyway, this is all that came to mind, which is weird.

Crash

My mom walked into the ER room where I sat in a drafty hospital gown, thankful that they let me keep my socks on. She looked exactly like she had been pulled out of bed and dressed in a hurry. My mother prided herself on dressing appropriately for any occasion.

"I got halfway here and couldn't remember if you really called or if I was just dreaming," she said after visually verifying that I was indeed still in one piece.

"How often do people call you in the middle of the night to ask for a ride home from the hospital, Mom?" I felt that a bit of sarcasm was justified under the circumstances, even if it did go right over my mom's head.

I was extremely tired, stiff, and in a bit of pain. Earlier in the evening the car I was riding in was hit, and I ended up not only getting my first involuntary ride in an ambulance, but having the bejeesus scared out of me by the ER doctor, who swore that he saw a fracture in some part of my vertebrae mysteriously named "C7" and put me through the torture of a CT-Scan for nothing. After that roller coaster ride, I just wanted to go home. I climbed off the bed, gathered up the discharge papers and handed them to my mother.

"Can you hand me my clothes?" I held out my hand. My mom turned picked up my jeans and my bodysuit and handed them to me.

"You didn't have any underwear?" She was confused.

"No Mom," I replied, pulling the bodysuit on. "I did not have any underwear." You can't wear underwear with a body suit; it looks like you have a diaper on. I pulled up my jeans and found my boots.

"Why weren't you wearing underwear?" My mom had not moved on. She was part of the generation raised on the idea that clean underwear must be worn in case one had to go to the hospital. I wanted to laugh, which was probably a bit of hysteria, but I knew that her feelings would be hurt.

"Let it go, Mom." I headed for the door. "Nobody ever said anything about not wearing underwear to the emergency room."

RemembeRED: Waiting for the Believers

Prompt: Where is your quiet place? What does it look like? What happens there?

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I sometimes find myself in Catholic churches before the other worshipers arrive. This is my quiet place. When there are people in a church, the air vibrates with the intensity of prayer and the energy generated by so many devotional hearts beating. There is no quiet during the Mass; paper rattles, clothing rustles, and children forget to use their inside voices. My mind usually begins darting from noise to noise in an effort to identify them all, and the entire service is over before I realize it.

The second I step over the threshold, I am cocooned in the silence. I calmly sit in a pew near the back, close my eyes and pull the tranquil air into my lungs. There is no hurrying to "get things done". There is no "have to". The stillness is a cat curled around itself, dreaming of simple pleasures, but I am no mouse to be devoured. I breathe in and out as the tension in my shoulders eases and my mind halts the constant hamster wheel race. Sometimes I pray. Sometimes I think. In this quiet place, I can just be.

Be still, and know that I am God.

RemebeRED: The Spark

Prompt: Recreate a pivotal conversation with us this week.

"Okay, that's it. You can sit up now."

My Ob-Gyn pulled off his gloves, and I sat up, clutching my paper coverings around me. The nurse was gathering up all of the items that usually accompany my annual exam and placing them in a tray. Dr. S. rolled his chair over to the counter and began writing in my chart. I stared at my bare feet, shivering a little in the chilly office. Though Dr. S. had been my doctor for twenty years, recent visits had been devoid of the usual doctor-patient small talk. He was a reminder, someone who brought everything from 2003 back in horrific detail.

"So when are you planning on getting pregnant?" The doctor interrupted my foot inspection with his comment. He was flipping through the pages on my chart.

I stared at him, the anger that was always just below the surface stirring. Better to be angry than cry, I thought.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"When are you planning on getting pregnant?" Dr. S. repeated, looking at me expectantly.

"You told me that I could not get pregnant again," My hands clenched into fists and my voice rose, verged on hysterical. "You said that it would kill me if I were to get pregnant again."

"That was two years ago," he said, waving a hand dismissively.

"What the heck is that supposed to mean?" Teeth clenched, I was prepared to punch my own doctor in the face for what appeared to be his insensitivity. It did not bode well for our doctor-patient relationship.

"They've done research, there are new drugs on the market," Dr. S continued, ignoring my belligerence.

"Really?" My voice was laced with sarcasm.

"Start taking an aspirin a day," he smiled. "Blood clots may be the culprit."

"You are telling me that I CAN try to get pregnant again? You're telling me that you've changed your mind?" My anger had drained away, as had the urge to cry. Those emotions were replaced by a little spark.

"Get dressed, and we will talk some more," Dr. S. and the nurse left the room. I sat there, stunned, hugging that spark to my chest as if my life depended on it.


***It would take almost two more years after that day, lots of ups and downs, but that spark is now my son.

RemembeRED: Mistake

Prompt: In the spirit of relationships that we all knew wouldn’t work, we’d like for you to write about one you knew was doomed from the start. It could be yours or a close friend or family member.

It was supposed to be her fairy tale.

Her dream come true, happily ever after, and all those other tall tales that girls grow up hearing.

Cathy and I often joked that if one of us thought the other was making a mistake in our choice of groom, we would slap the bride on her wedding day. Which would be silly, of course. Why wait until then, after all the deposits have become nonrefundable? Besides, walking down the aisle with a red hand print on the cheek would completely ruin the pictures. At least, that is how our discussions played out as we giggled in the darkness of our dorm room.

I couldn't exactly articulate what bothered me when I finally met her fiance'. He seemed too perfect, too polished, too charming. He felt wrong somehow, a mirage. I swallowed my unfocused trepidations; the fact that my 'spidey-sense' was tingling wasn't reason enough to speak up. I wanted my best friend to be happy. She looked deliriously ecstatic to me, and the two of them looked like the perfect storybook couple.

Now here it was, her wedding day.

The bridesmaids had our hair done all poufy, and we were hairpinned to death. We wore the obligatory ugly bridesmaids dress, and tried not to put a run in our hose before the ceremony. I helped Cathy adjust her dress and fussed over her. All the while, a part of me wanted to slap her, because she couldn't see what she was marrying. How could she not see?

My job during the ceremony, as the Maid of Honor, was to adjust the Bride's train, hold the bouquet, and to hang onto the groom's ring until it was required. I wanted to hurl that ring farther than I could possibly throw it, but this was Cathy's day. She had made her choice, and as her friend I had to accept that. So I did.

But when the time came to hand the Groom's ring to her, it leapt right out of my hand, hit the floor and bounced with an audible 'clink' that seemed to reverberate in the quiet church.

RemembeRED: Special Recipe

Share with me a special recipe, but don’t just list out ingredients.


It was a day for family. The three of us had gathered in the kitchen, Zane and his father leaned over the bright orange pumpkin that had been specially chosen to be the very first family Halloween Jack-O-Lantern. While Zane supervised his father with the sharp and pointy knives, I cleaned up slippery pumpkin seeds for roasting. I had made up my own recipe. Butter, honey, ginger, sugar, and cinnamon mixed together with the seeds, then spread onto a cookie sheet. The kitchen began to smell like cinnamon, and that is a smell I associate with my family. I contentedly listened as my son sang a song about the color 'orange' and my husband painstakingly carved out the face of our Jack-O-Lantern. I began to think about what I could make for Thanksgiving, and how we could all gather again in the kitchen to decorate cookies for Christmas.

"Um, what are you burning?" Larry suddenly interrupted my happy reverie.

"I'm not burning anything!" I frowned at him. Then I looked at the oven, only to see a curl of smoke emanating from the back burner*. Zane sternly lectured me about being careful as I pulled out the smoking cookie sheet, laughing. My husband, also laughing, opened the kitchen windows and turned on the fan. About half of the seeds were burnt, when I was able to survey the damage. The rest were encased in a candy coating very similar to buttered toffee. Delicious. Not exactly what my completely made up recipe intended, but recipes are just a guideline anyway. For me, the day was all about family.

*For the record, this is only the tenth time that I have set my kitchen on fire. Never on purpose, of course! I am just that good.

RemembeRED: Costume

Prompt: reach back to a costume that made an impression. This is late because I am sickly today. For the record, I hate being sickly.

My mother helped me pull her short, bright red, mini over my head and over her bra stuffed with tissues. She zipped it up over the white blouse that she made me put on underneath, because it was October in Germany, and cold. I think the skirt of the mini came to my knees; I was too distracted by my fake chest and the idea that I would someday have breasts that size. Black high heels, impossibly tall to my eyes, were waiting next to the door when we were finished.

Then came one of my mother's short black wigs, held firmly in place with hairpins that my mother seemed to be trying to jab into my skull. Wigs were expensive, and for my mother to allow me to wear one of hers was a very big deal indeed. My mom would have stapled the wig to my head if it had been possible, so it wouldn't accidentally fall off.

Makeup was next. My mother dabbed a coral rouge on my cheeks in an exaggerated circling motion. Next came the frosty sky blue eye shadow from eyelash to eye brows, followed by liquid kohl eyeliner and mascara. My mother smeared my mouth with bright red lipstick, and I was ready to hit the streets in the costume of a 'streetwalker'.

I had NO idea what the heck a 'streetwalker' was at the time. I was just happy that, for a precious few moments, I had my mother all to myself. I proudly walked out into the living room to show off my costume before my brother the Rabbit and I went out into the night.

RemebeRED: Diving into Fall

Prompt: For you, what does autumn evoke?


Pat was a self-assured star receiver with eyes the color of a summer sky. I was a gawky teenager with poor social skills. We were just taking a walk together. His younger brother and a friend were chasing a few steps behind us. The darkness led brisk little bursts of wind to push us down the sidewalk; the air was already crisp with the cold front that was due later that weekend. Many of the houses had large piles of leaves in front, carefully raked and ready to be bagged.

One yard held the Mount Everest of leaves in front. The pile loomed, and it made me anxious. What was in that pile? I didn't want to walk near it, and I started to give it a wide berth. Pat stopped. When I glanced back at him, I could see the glint of his braces as he grinned at me. It was the grin of a person who would always try to go over the obstacle instead of around it. The grin of a person who would laugh at adversity, embracing it as an equal.

It was one of those grins that could steal a girl's heart when she wasn't looking.

Pat dove right into the middle of that pile of leaves like he was diving into a pool of water. I was amazed at his fearlessness. He surfaced on the other side of the pile, coming up for air in an explosion of leaves. Pat hit the leaves with one hand like they were water and he was splashing me. My fears disappeared into the night with my laughter. It would be a daydream crush, wispy and insubstantial, not meant to survive the passage of time. But just then, it didn't matter.

RemembeRED: Deadline

Prompt: In “On Writing” Stephen King wrote, “The scariest moment is always just before you start. After that, things can only get better.”


I stared at the white sheet of paper ensnared in my Smith-Corona typewriter.

It was the night before my research paper was due.

That page was as blank as my mind.

I had a topic: F. Scott Fitzgerald and the parallels of his life to his novels. I had checked out all the books, compiled all the research, completed my index cards with the correct citations. I just had no intention of actually writing the paper. I felt that it was a stupid assignment*.

My senior English teacher had informed me that morning that if I did not turn in this assignment, I would not be walking the stage at graduation. It was a major grade and a zero in a major grade was an automatic failure. While I didn't really care about walking the stage, anything that interfered with my college career would not be acceptable to my parents. I said a bad word under my breath as I left the classroom.

Now, I said that word again as I stared at that blinding whiteness.

Just like that, a research paper became everything.

I barricaded myself in my room with the family typewriter. It was electric, and it had one of those balls with all the letters on it. It was shiny, which was distracting even then. And it 'self' corrected!

Twenty minutes later, I still had the white paper staring at me.

I finally typed something. It was my name, my teacher, and the date.

Still, I felt this was a good start. Then my teenager brain figured out that I just had to complete the assignment. It didn't matter what grade I got, only that I finished. So I finished the assignment without thinking much about it at all.

I got an A. So much for thinking!



*I was, and still am, one of those people who need to understand the necessity of a task before doing it. I need the WHY before anything else. If I don't see a point to it, I don't want to do it. This one 'minor' character flaw gave my teachers raging fits, but the way I saw it, if a teacher couldn't explain the 'why' then it wasn't worth learning. I have stubbornness issues.

RemembeRED:: Conjure

Prompt: Writing short posts is an excellent way to flex your word choice muscles. Which word is the most clear? Poignant? Direct? This week I want you to conjure something. An object, a person, a feeling, a color, a season- whatever you like.



Roiling, whirling, dizzy...I hold very still, taking shallow breaths. The ceiling dips, and turns, then spins. The floor turns in the opposite direction, the deck of a ship pummeled by gigantic waves.

Eyes closed, maybe? Breathe deeply, perhaps?

The bed is a roller coaster, with loops that turn upside down and right side up and seem to fling your stomach into weightlessness before pulling you back to earth.

Cramp in the gut while the bed becomes a barrel rolling fast down a hill and into a river.

A belch escapes, then another. Swallow that viscuous saliva back, jaw clenched. Deep breath through gritted teeth.

I hurl myself out of bed and pray that I make it.