Good news x 3!
What a week it's been. I received the following 3 pieces of news and I'm still soaring!

1) My piece "Overheard at playgroup" has been accepted by the online journal Literary Mama (www.literarymama.com) and wil be published in their Jan. '05 issue! You can read the piece below. I'm thrilled that they thought my piece worthy of their journal!

2) My travel story "Living the joiurney one day at a time" was awarded Honorable Mention in the Travel Nonfiction Contest for 2004 held by The Preservation Foundation, Inc! (http://www.storyhouse.org/pamelaha.html). I'm so completely pleased and honored! This was my first attempt to document a journey that previoiusly existed only in my memory and compilation of notes in my travel journals. Please read my story at one of the links in my blog or at the URL listed.

3) I have been asked for an interivew by a writer building a story for Health Magazine (http://www.health.com/health/) on my experience becoming a gymnast again at age 40. I had written a piece that was published in Sept. by adultgymnastics.com (http://www.adultgymnastics.com/articles/rediscover.htm) about the life changing effect that getting involved with sport had on my life. The Health Magazine writer spotted it and will interview me for her own piece in the magazine. Needless to day, I am just head-over-heals in excitement about it! I'll let you know when the article will be published!

All I can say is thank you, Lord for an amazing week (and that people like to read!)

Nothing in particular
It keeps staring at me, yielding nothing. Guarded. Rigid. Belying neither mocking nor kindness. Nothing.

Imperceptible ticking floats in the air. I’m not focusing on the sound, just aware of it from time to time, the tick tock tick tock becoming words write, write, write, write. A command. A union contract negotiator couldn’t have moved us past our positions. My empty computer screen continues its unblinking stare as my fingers sleep on their beds labeled a s d f j k l ;. I’m going to have to break this impasse myself.

All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. I type it, glad to at last hear the staccato taps, the evidence of even faux creativity meeting keyboard. Type where your mind leads, I remind myself. Today’s keyboard song is coming in fits and starts, unlike previous pieces, when not-quite syncopated clicks and clacks joined the deliberate thuds of deletions to create a staccato serenade. When I type I pretend I’m playing the piano and try to keep the rhythms going as long and as fast as I can. Slow typing indicates I’m tired or have nothing to say or both.

I give up on inspiration and try perspiration but even after my heart reaches it’s target range and my pores release well-earned sweat, I return to the keyboard where my fingers sit arched and ready for a good race. They remain at the starting gate, waiting for the firecracker pop of the gun. It doesn’t sound and there they wait, poised and still. Ticking taunts continue to float into my consciousness along with the sound of my own heartbeat, still recovering from a stair master drill. If inspiration doesn’t arrive soon I’ll do some stretching.

I have four loads of laundry to finish and really want to get them done today because I need to paint the children’s furniture. I just had to save a few hundred dollars and buy something used. Now I have to find time to finish the painting - and mend the broken toys in the bin upstairs - and hem those new hot pink pants my daughter received for her birthday in June - and wash the coffee stains off the baseboard trim that I just noticed on my way my computer. It’s bath night, too. Maybe I can trick the girls into thinking it’s bedtime a half hour early. I’ve been so tired lately. Perhaps I have taken on too much.

On Friday, the end of the work week arrived promptly at 4:45 and I sped away from the office with only one thought on my mind: Thank God There’s Friday. Free time lay before me and I could see the potential of all I could accomplish, my tasks laid out one by one before me. I can do all that. I was certain I could. Like taking a long walk on the beach û I knew I could reach the pier way down there if I just kept moving.

Now, it’s Sunday afternoon and I know I won’t reach the pier. I may not even reach the shower. Maybe I’ll be able to fold the clothes, get another coat of paint on the furniture and corral my kids into the bath but I’ll have to forget about the rest, including the inspiration that never arrived.

I could really go to school today; after all, I’m exhibiting all the signs of recovery: the disappearance of my fever, the return of a hearty appetite, boredom. I want to stay in bed, though, and spend the day doing not much of anything besides eating, sleeping and watching Colombo.

It is with some guilt that I pretend to be sleeping when my mother knocks lightly on my bedroom door and then, hearing no response, walks in and comes over to my bed. She quietly leans forward and presses her palm against my forehead, still warm from the comforter that had been purposely covering it until her knock. I open my eyes slowly, as if she’s woken me and she asks me how do you feel, honey? Looking up at her groggily I tell her I feel better but not well enough to go back to school. She says that’s ok and that she has to leave for work now and that she loves me and dad will be home since the restaurant is closed today. She’ll call later to see how I’m doing, she adds before closing my door.

I inhale the Esteé Lauder scent she’s left in the room and wonder why she always wears such strong perfumes. It’s years before Esteé lauder releases “Beautiful” the first perfume she wore that I ever liked. She’s wearing “White Linen” and it makes my eyes sting a little every time she wears it. But I like that she’s left this scented memory of herself in my room. She’s downstairs now and I can hear her quick steps as she moves through the kitchen toward the front door, keys jingling with each step. There are murmured conversations between her and my dad. I’m not conscious of words just the different tones in their voices. Hers, a mezzo soprano, tense and defensive. His, an alto tenor, loud and inquisitive. Somehow I’m happy for her that she’s gone. I think how I’ve hardly ever been home alone with my father.

Thirty of us joined the track team and this was our first practice. I didn’t know everyone on the bus but could recognize the sports regulars.

How’s it going, some of them said to me.

Good, I replied, not having much more to say. Not particularly interested in track and field I joined to lose weight. I took a seat at the back of the bus and stared out the window as we headed toward the track.

Soon the bus pulled along side the curb and the coach announced we would have to run the two-mile circuit to the track and that he’d be giving us our times as we arrived. Sluggish and quickly out of breath after just four minutes or running I wondered if I had made the wrong choice by signing up but after another minute I fell into a rhythm and actually started to enjoy the run. This ought to be good for losing another pound, I figured.

As I approached the track I was surprised to see there was only one person ahead of me, Melissa, and that I was arriving last. The coach yelled out our arrival times as we passed him. Mine was 15 minutes. Hers was 14 minutes 45 seconds.

It feels good to stop, Melissa said to me, between breaths as she passed me for a cool down lap. Still out of breath, I didn’t answer her, but simply nodded my head. I stood hunched over with hands on hips, gulping air and staring at the gravel, angry at myself for having come in last. Calling loudly through his megaphone the coach said that we could take a short break and we’d start up again in 15 minutes.

The athletic clique grabbed snacks stood together on the track. I decided I hadn’t earned the right to eat and sat by myself under a tree. I set a punishment that I couldn’t eat until practice was over and silenced a hunger pang with some water which revived me.

Not hungry? I heard a girl’s voice. I peered from behind the tree and, guarding my eyes from the sun, I looked toward the voice. Melissa sat down on the grass and didn’t say anything else but finished her apple, the rhythmic crunches of which reminded me I was still hungry and made my mouth water. I’ll just skip this meal, I made a deal with myself. Challenges to myself to eat less began every meal and sometimes I wasn’t quite sure what indicated failure - deciding to eat or deciding not to. All I knew was that not eating felt somehow like winning.

I watched Melissa eat her apple. I had always assumed Melissa was a loner like me. She was never hanging out with anyone and she usually walked to classes alone. Before today I hadn’t known her to be involved in any sports and was surprised to see her boarding the track and field bus with the rest of us. We all said hi to her but that was all.

I don’t know what everyone else was thinking but all I could think of when I saw here was her glass eye. Couldn’t running make the eye fall out, I wondered, trying not to stare. When the coach told us we’d be running to the track I figured Melissa would be last, not me.