Monthly Archives: June 2016

June 27, 2016 · 3:57 pm

The Ups and the Downs

Some days are harder than others. D-day, strangely, wasn’t. It was like watching a scary movie through your fingers. You can’t help watching, but if your do so through your fingers, you can keep the ghouls at bay. That’s what last week was for me. This week…

I have a confession; my first thought whenever I see a happy family is, “Fuck you.” It really is. On television, in person, on Facebook. How awful is that? It’s not directed at the happy family, but at my family’s fate. The words pop into my head instantly, and just as instantly dissipate. It brings a kind of relief, like slapping a hysterical person.

People die. There’s no way around it. We’re all going to experience loss at some  point in our lives. Parents lose children in far worse ways, under far worse circumstances. Had Chris not died, we might all be mourning him in a different way now. Maybe this, maybe that, maybe the other thing. Maybe nothing. Maybe doesn’t count for anything when the result is already in.

Frankie D and I had a perfect weekend, just the two of us. Beautiful weather, a little shopping, hanging out in the yard, playing Phase 10 (his favorite game) by moonlight. We had a great dinner out at our favorite place, got the yard ready for summer, put twinkle lights on the gazebo, and swam in the pool. Sunday night, I made clams and lobster tails on the grill, and corn on the cob. We watched the Game of Thrones finale. After a peaceful week last week, the weekend was the sigh at the end of a long, lovely day.

And now today…I find myself a bit weepy. Maybe that’s the consequence of all that peace. The ghouls held at bay got pissed. I think I’m pissed, too, because I have a good life. Better than most, I think, and yet saying that out loud feels so many kinds of wrong. Emotion and logic battle constantly. Happiness and sorrow. Hope and cynicism. That’s why I write these blog posts, to help sort through it all.

Peace.

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June 22, 2016 · 8:13 am

Triggers

Please note: I wrote this last week when D-day was still looming and freaking me out a little. I scheduled it for today, because this is where it belongs, but it doesn’t reflect my state of being. Rather than a quivering, keening, irrational mess, I find the peace I came home from France with still on me. It’s a bit intense, but…I’m okay. There are always tears. Every day. But this peace…it’s like he’s got his big arms wrapped around me. Pain can’t get past him. Whimsical, maybe, but…anyway. ❤ 

There is no avoiding triggers, because

I don’t know what they are

until they’re pulled

And the bullet flies

And the blood spills in trickles

or rushes

a waterfall from my body,

my brain tossing  memories:

chemical spatters on the wall where he once blew himself up

conducting experiments in the basement,

thrilled beyond words,

tamed–the crowding thoughts.

The roof he built

The tools he bought

The songs he sang

The love he gave

The sorrow and the sorrow and the sorrow he never meant to cause,

that added to the thoughts ever churning

a frenzy of joy and despair and back again.

A trigger is pulled, and down I go

Getting back up again is rote

Like breathing, like laughing, like remembering.

It’s been a year. It’s been a year. It’s been a god-damned bloody year.

The first of forever. And here I stand.

Braced against the next trigger pulled.

Willing to take that bullet.

Because, by now, I can.

~TLD

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Filed under poetry

June 15, 2016 · 2:51 pm

InD’tale Reviews

Seeking Carolina

4 1/2 stars

WOMEN’S FICTION:  Johanna Coco has returned to Bitterly, Connecticut to attend her grandmother’s funeral but misses it. Charlie McCallan finds her in the cemetery and brings her home. For Johanna, Charlie is everything in her past that she has tried to forget. For Charlie, Johanna is everything he wants in his future.

One would have thought that this was a straight love story, but the underlying sub-plot of finding Johanna’s mother, plus the mental illness that affects Johanna and her sister’s life choices, makes the story multifaceted and interesting. It is a love story revolving around the Coco daughters and their missing mother and the secret that their grandmother kept. To juggle more than one subplot to bring the love story, between a man and a woman, and among the women of the Coco family, forward is a feat in itself which Ms. Defino does very well. She has also allowed one to see the internal conflict of each of the characters in varying degrees (including that of the secondary characters) leading to a rich tapestry of the lives and loves of the people in Bitterly, Connecticut.

While the characterization was rich, the setting was limited only to the places where the characters went. Sometimes it came across like sets inside a studio. Nevertheless, the poetry that precedes every chapter more than makes up for this. Ms. Defino is one author to watch out for because of the beautiful stories she writes.

MP Ceja

Dreaming August

5 stars

WOMEN’S FICTION:  Benedetta “Benny” Grady is a widow who continues to pine for her dead husband. She religiously visits the cemetery and plants flowers around his grave, speaking to him and also to Mrs. Fargus and to August, each of whom died centuries ago. Benny has a secret, something that she only tells her dead husband and ghostly friends and would like to hide from one person she has fallen in love with – her husband’s best friend, Dan Greene. Dan has fallen for Benny and plans to woo her but she keeps on avoiding him until she finally gives in. But then Dan unearths her secret and it’s now his turn to move away.

Ms. DeFino is a remarkable storyteller. Her writing style is as beautiful as it is original. One wishes that they lived in Bitterly, Connecticut in order to know Benny and Dan, as well as a host of other secondary characters that give meat to the story. These characters have their own stories to tell and are not just included in the story as props. Readers will come to love August and Mrs. Fargus and get a glimpse of what life after death must be like. Their dialogue about the great beyond is as humorous as it is bittersweet. Ms. DeFino is definitely an author to watch!

MP Ceja

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June 13, 2016 · 2:21 pm

There And Back Again

Home again, home again. France was amazing from start to finish. Magical, even. The people, the places, the experiences will not be forgotten, even by my errant mind. I walked 50+ miles in the last week and some, ate entirely too much fabulous food (CHEESE! THE CHEESE!) drank a lot of coffee (not a single bad cup the whole time. Seriously good coffee) and come home no worse for wear…but for the blisters the size of silver dollars on my feet. They’ll heal.

French-Coffee

Being home again is good. Very good. I missed it, and my routine. I haven’t been so long without writing in twenty years. No lie. I’ve been writing daily since 1996, and haven’t gone more than a weekend or a week’s vacation without writing in all that time. This extended hiatus has been hard, to be honest. I’d be afraid I won’t be able to get back into the swing of things but that won’t happen. As I said to a friend yesterday–I have to at least pretend it’s hard once in a while.

I feared the world would come crashing in on me once I got home and “the day of days” smacked me in the face. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m still settling in, riding the French high, or that I have a beloved dollbaby house guest here this week, but the world remains intact. Yet the weekend looms. Father’s Day will never again be a day to celebrate fatherhood for me. It will ever be the last day of my son’s life. I’d hope it might change one day, years from now when the pain isn’t quite so raw, but I don’t see that happening. It will never be any less raw. After a year waiting for that to happen, I’m pretty certain it’s not going to. That’s not to invite a pity party. It’s simply a fact. An aspect of my life I’ll get accustomed too, that I have actually already become accustomed to. We wear our pain well, or poorly, but we wear it one way or another. I choose to wear it well rather than let it wear me down.

Now it’s time to get back to Nell and Ledanora in quaint, magical little Sprookskill, NY. They’ve been waiting for me.

Peace.

 

 

 

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