Requiescat in Pace (R.I.P.)

A New Year's Wish:

We stand at the graveside of the old year and look forward.

May we take our lessons and hold them close.

The pleasant, and the unpleasant.

Let us return to this place stronger and a circle of days wiser. And above all, let every resolution spur us to grow.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Long Climb

The year has turned.

The southern sun will begin its long climb north.

But like the delay of the seasons, maybe we too have yet to feel the dark's true depth.

Still, the sun climbs. And the days grow stronger.

What will the bright warmth return to you?

Happy Holidays

Northward heavens bow to night
Turn with the planets quiet flight
Satin skies remember snow
Red-berried holly, Earth's living glow



TO ALL WHO ARE CELEBRATING,
HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM JASON AND AINE!!

On the Radio

A funny little memory hit me the other night when I was driving home from the train station.

My family moved from Pennsylvania to New York State when I was around seven years old. Losing my friends and changing schools was pretty traumatic. I don't think I or my parents realized just how much at the time. (I know. We're off to a hilarious start with this post.)

Anyway, during one of the early trips back to Pennsylvania to visit my grandparents, I remember listening to a radio playing in the kitchen. It was Sunday morning, and everyone was busy doing their own thing. My grandmother picked the station. It was some local-yokel AM broadcast. A little music. A little talk. Lots of back woods high society.

Some kind of talk show caught my attention. I really don't remember why, but I decided right there that I was going to call in. God knows why. I was eight at the time, and I had never done anything like that before. I didn't even like that kind of spotlight.

I scribbled down the number and sneaked upstairs to make the call. My mother called for me, but I pretended not to hear. After a couple of tries, I got through to the DJ. He ate it up. I guess little kid voices didn't often call the show. I ended saying something dreadful about moving and how much it blew. After hanging up, I just went on with my business.

A few minutes later, probably after commercials, the radio aired my recorded piece. Everyone downstairs was clueless, except my grandmother, who perked up for a moment, then said, "is that Jason???" A mad rush to find me ensued. I admitted to making the call, then everyone hurried back into the kitchen to hear the rest of my interview. They only caught the very end. After all the good stuff.

When they asked me why I made the call, I shrugged. I'm still not sure why I did it. I guess I simply had the urge to have my feelings be heard.

Fast forward to now. Our daughter in Kindergarten told us about a shy, new girl who just moved from South Africa (which actually turned out to be South DAKOTA). I told her about how it felt to be the new kid and asked her to do me a personal favor. I asked her to be the first one to make an effort to be the new girl's friend.

I'm happy to say that this girl was just at our daughter's birthday party. She's still very shy, but she enjoyed herself. Her parents seemed to be happy about that. Maybe, many years from now, she'll remember our daughter and how she made it easier. I know I still remember those who did that for me.

Simplicity: Light

(Second in a series of vignettes exploring the basic needs of human life. Prior needs: Shelter.)


The softness of her pillow hardened sometime in the night.

Her cheek was numb. And her right ear. But she didn't move to relieve them.

After lying for hours, she opened her eyes to break the march of her obsessive thoughts.

Not enough light crept around the curtains for 9:30 in the morning. The color was wrong, and even the stillness beyond the walls sounded like deep, deep night.

In the shower, hot water slithered through her hair and down her back. Every switch was on, but the extra bulbs only thickened the orange light. The shadows lingered.

She dressed in soft clothes as the television talked winter storms, wind, and snow accumulations. Buses were parked at schools. Trucks flashed down empty roads spraying white fans of salt.

She sat.

The same spot as the day before.

Knees close. Back propped against the headboard.

Already, she felt the day aging. After lunch, the sun would rest on far away tree tops. It's rays would flatten and fade. Twilight would be long, and even that would seem precious when the darkness took hold.

She cried sometimes instead of sleeping. Now dawn failed her too. Nothing but grey squalls and gloom. She closed her eyes again.

The phone rang.

Her machine voice answered.

No one left a message.

The television flickered. Things circled in her mind. Minutes. Maybe hours.

The bare skin of her ankles took on the shade of stone.

"Honey?" he said.

His cheeks were splotched with cherry red.

She narrowed her eyes at him. Too confused to be startled.

"Hey," he said. "What's going on?"

"You're home?"

"The storm. Haven't you been watching?" He pointed to the continuous news. "It's a monster."

She focused on radar images. A gigantic mass drifted eastward. The trailing edge just cleared their city.

"I barely made it," he said. "I followed a snowplow. Thank God for four wheel drive. That got me the rest of the way."

She nodded.

"Of course, now it's letting up," he said. "Perfect timing."

She watched him smile.

It looked foreign.

"Come on," he said, tugging her.

"Where?"

"Come on. You'll see."

He pulled her enough to force her feet to take over.

Her steps dragged down the hall behind him.

"You have to see this," he said.

He pulled open the front door.

She didn't think to prepare.

Brilliant white needled her eyes. Winter sun igniting infernos of snow.

She shielded.

She shuddered a step backward.

"Cool, huh?" he said.

She dropped her fingers one by one.

Her lips parted.

Shadowy thoughts curled like smoke.

"Wanna go out?" he said.

But her hand was already on the storm door. Still in slippers, she stepped into the trailing edge of a snow drift.

There was no sound.

Only trivial cold.

Light bathed her body from every direction. It reflected and ricocheted hotter than a summer day.

She felt taller.

Her heart beat strong instead of hiding in her chest.

For the first time in endless weeks, she stood higher than the ground.

For the first time she saw herself breathing a lilac spring.

The Meaning of Words

I said a while back that if I were ever going to have a man crush, it would be Rob Thomas. In many of his songs, he weaves complex emotion with melody. Something I aspire to in writing. But I digress.

In this video, Rob Thomas explains the origin of the song "3 AM." As much as I knew I shouldn't listen, I did anyway. It's like a wreck on the highway, you just can't look away.



Words and their meaning.... What did the author intend to say? It's less of an issue in prose, but in poetry and songs, it's a potent question. And seductive.

Rob's lyrics meant something different to me than what he meant. I can't put my finger on it exactly, but it had something to do with two people not connecting. About the woman in the relationship spiraling down.

I have to admit that when I hear the "true" meaning behind a poem, it can intrude. But if you're like me, it's very hard to look away.

What do you think? How important is the author's intention? Do you want to know, or would you rather keep your own, private reading sacred?

Summer Road

Come away with me
In the night
Come away with me
And I will write you
A song

--Norah Jones, Come Away With Me

You were the summer to me. Every day. You were the motorcycle wind, and the bees, and the fields whose pollen softened the sun.

I slept with you in a meadow and woke touching stars. Time never moved, even when the mountains rolled beneath my feet.

I braved the sunset. I bared my skin to your talon eyes.

Under your wings, the rush became the blurring road.

Come away with me.

Again.

Because I can write you a song.

Tree of Life

(Bernita's Weirdly Contest is running until midnight Friday, December 14, 2007. Folks are competing for a signed anthology contained her published short story, "Stone Child." Here is my entry (limit of 250 words) based on the picture she posted of blasted oaks in Sherwood forest. Be sure to check out the other contest entries!)


TREE OF LIFE
by Jason Evans

The man listened to the breaths. They hitched and struggled as the evening light cooled.

"I remember the day we came here. I was eight. It was the first time I fought with you. The first time I let myself get mad."

The breaths relaxed again and smoothed.

"You said I was fishing wrong. I wanted to do it my way, so I threw the rod and stomped off. I was ridiculous, but you let me go. You didn't chase me."

Outside the window, the lake rippled with the last glow of day.

"If we weren't out here, I could do it myself. That's what kills me."

The breathing thinned.

A breeze stirred.

"You know, the first catheterization I did, the blood vessels on the monitor reminded me of that book. The one you read to me about the trees of Sherwood forest. So many tiny twigs at the end of crooked branches. When I fed the catheter through the heart, I imagined climbing those trees. I still think of that. Another cardiologist thinks of rivers. He likes to fish like you."

The clock chimed.

When it finished, the ticking was huge and alone.

"I called you that night. You sounded so proud of me."

A siren lifted over the silence. Dr. Paul opened the door to tires crackling on gravel. The paramedics were shimmering color smeared on bare trees.

They ran toward his father stretched on the lake house floor.

Dr. Paul held out his hand. "He's already gone."

Time to Clean My Cage

Thanks to one of the blogging community's most powerful new writers, Sarah Hina, it's time to roar! Canterbury Soul and Vesper, two of my twilight compatriots, also provoked me a little while back. The jungle is all a-tremble tonight.

About the award:

Seamus Kearney of Shameless Words believes in powerful writing, and he believes that it can be, and is, found in many places on the internet. This award was developed by him to put forth that belief and to encourage writers to roar.

The rules are simple and can be found at the original site. Please follow the link and pick up your award. The Shameless Lions Writing Circle.

The most fun about this award is that each recipient shares the key ingredients he or she sees in powerful writing. Here's mine:

1. Surgery. Above all, I believe writers exist to dissect the human psyche. Everyone is bombarded by the superficial. Writers burrow deeper. We don't settle for the simple smile or the simple tear. We slap our rafts down in the white water and dare it to whip us through the cut canyons. We get bloodied. We get wet. That's okay. The ride is worth it.

2. Wings (or if your genre dictates, those creepy flying monkeys). By the second or third sentence in a story, the wings of another world should swoop down and rip you off your sofa and carry you off to a brand new landscape. A story is a quantum leap into a parallel universe. If you feel your shoes scraping on the ground, you need to suck more helium.

3. The Artisan's Touch. Powerful writing is like a master craftsman's wares. Words are the pottery. Sentences are the hammered copper bowls. We have a whole dictionary as our palette (unabridged, if you dare). Great writing says it in new ways. It's the only way I know that scribbles of ink on a page can begin to glow.


Many, many of the writers/bloggers I would recognize have already received this award. I do have the opportunity to name a couple more (although they may have received the award too). I hereby bestow the Roar Award on:

ELECTRIC ORCHID HUNTER. An amazing blog. He posts when inspiration strikes, and what he might lose in volume is more than made up in quality. He shares his biology background in order to teach, make us think, and show us facets of the world we might not otherwise see. In addition, he's a hell of a writer.

ANGELIQUE. A freelance writer who posts life observations, family foibles, and curiosities in the world. When she turns to fiction, her crisp, direct style delivers a bright energy. Always a pleasure to read.

I'm proud to be part of this community. Keep pushing against conventions, never run from an idea, and take no prisoners!

Safe Places

What do you sing
When you're not allowed to be?
Knives beneath blankets
Dissect what you believe?

Hand me disappointments
I'll stab myself if you please
Scratch cartoons in memories
Toast to the disease

I'm the sum of reflexes
Unnecessarily tuned
Tornados taste safe places
Surrendered all to you

Simplicity: Shelter

(First in a series of vignettes exploring the basic needs of human life.)


Frost mist poured into the valley during the night. In the darkness, sleet sizzled in wave after wave. It illuminated the ground, especially the low places. But as we slept, the southern winds reached north, and the ice melted into rain.

I waited for dawn in the forest that morning, my breaths puffs of fog. Drops pattered on the fallen leaves. A squirrel rummaged in the glistening colors without a sound.

When the cold chewed through the length of my bones, I rose on stiff legs and began to walk the trails. A flock of turkeys pushed ahead. Their necks swayed as they ran.

And still the rain came.

I couldn't feel the wet anymore, or the cemented clothes. Just weight. My strides straining to lift my feet off the ground.

Up the slope.

Climbing.

The exertion became embers, became heat, became steam billowing up my back. Sharp breaths turned raspy. Raw cold cracked my throat.

The ground leveled, and my pace quickened along the cabin walkway stones. Inside, I unzipped the hours of rain as lazy flames rolled in the woodstove. A tinge of bitter smoke spiced the air.

The children played while I rested. A warm leg, then a soft hand nestled close under the blanket. Outside the window, the crisp light shined grey.

I touched the paneled wall. It was dry and warmed by the fire.

So different. Here versus there. Only inches apart.

Nothing but wood frame.

Nails. A wall.

How easily we create worlds.

And outside realities fall.

Aim

silence planetary
like dark matter moons
broken from orbit
drifting

i forget you're there behind me

you know I could sleep?
but the blackness
can be a wall
you walk into
or cold steel jolts
into the back of my head
knocks supernovas pistol whipped
waiting
please pull the trigger
please
even if it clicks
I can wet myself
possibly with blood
but the bullet
fancies itself
whole

I beg
with the gun
squeezing my lungs
fluids drip
in shivering pools
bitter cold

i remember you're there behind me

Book Souls: Garden of Darkness by Anne Frasier

(Every book has a soul. Something which defines its message, its focus, the reason for its creation. Today's soul searching guest is Anne Frasier's latest novel, GARDEN OF DARKNESS, release date December 4, 2007.)

What does it mean to be haunted?

Most people think of houses. Most people think of creaking stairs, apparitions, and babies crying in empty cribs.

I think hauntings are relationships, an interplay of two forces. On the one hand, there is the paranormal element. Someone or something which is compelled to remain. On other hand, there someone reaching out and pulling the past into the present. Like the proverbial tree falling unheard in the forest, without the haunted, the haunting cannot exist.

In Garden of Darkness, Anne Frasier continues the story of Tuonela, Wisconsin, where 100 years ago, mass hysteria and murders swirled around a dark leader suspected of being a vampire. The victims still move through the present day town on a whispering wind. Perhaps that's why the residents can never leave. Like growing up with the sound of the ocean or the wind through mountain trees, the voices imprint on the townspeople. To leave would be to miss an integral part of themselves.

Rachel Burton hears the Tuonela dead more strongly than most. She is the town's medical examiner, and the murders have begun again. Here, as she performs an autopsy on the latest body, she listens to the undercurrents beneath the hum of the exhaust fan:

She hated the fan.

Sometimes when it ran she heard voices buried below the din. Like a roomful of people talking and mumbling, their words indistinct. Just an audio illusion that had to do with the unnatural harmonics and white noise.

You let us in.

That's what the people seemed to be saying. Or had those faraway voices always existed, and the continuous roar and hum of the fan somehow opened a door?

Sh, sh, sh.

Rachel forced her thoughts away from the fan and the murmur.

She heard a movement behind her, but when she looked nothing was there.

Anne Frasier writes haunted characters, but they are not passive, running from fright to fright. They play a vital role in the threats against them. Just as your shadow is part of you, the evil tip-toeing behind Anne's characters must be there. Darkness is an essential energy of their existence.

That's what the soul of Garden of Darkness is to me. A bridge between tragedies. The living and the dead thrust out their hands to grasp each other. They all may be destroyed, or they may be saved. The only thing we know is that they will do so together.

Anne has been in the process of moving into an old, renovated church and has not been around the internet much, but you can still stop by her blog, Static, and wish her well on her new release. And the next time you're in a book store, be sure to pick up a copy!