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anovelweblog's Blog
November 23, 2009
- Call me I, and this is the story of my life. I am you. I am me. I am everyone. Perhaps this is not my story at all, but everyone's story. I can only claim my small part. Let me explain who I am and why I write to you.Many people these days do not read books. Oh, we still read--emails, news, each other (in the form of blogs). Maybe we pick up a magazine now and then. But, nothing has the same ...
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November 3, 2009
- The most important thing my Grandmother White taught me—she never spoke in words. If a person had put a glass in front of my grandmother and asked her if it was half-full or half-empty, I think she would've been too preoccupied by the fact that the glass was dirty and would have to be washed to answer the question.To understand what she taught me, it's important to explain who she was and who ...
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October 27, 2009
- The night winds, cold and howling, rattled my patio door. The clock’s hands had slipped past midnight and were on their way towards the early morning when I heard a tapping, or was it a rapping, on the glass of my patio door. Startled, I woke to discover my glass of rum had spilled onto the carpeting, and a throbbing haze clouded ...
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October 22, 2009
- Bowling Green, Ohio used to be in the heart of the Great Black Swamp. Huge ditches drain the surrounding farmland, and brazen mosquitoes snicker as they cough off the fog machines meant to kill them. These mosquitoes are a breed unto themselves—they are the true natives of this swamp now masquerading as a Midwestern city.I grew up on Byall Avenue, which is located just off the Main Street ...
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October 21, 2009
- We would meet by the brick wall in front of my house on sweaty summer nights, hop on our Schwinns, and ride around the block looking for dead things to poke with sticks, stray cats to pet and name, evidence of a life only found in our untamed imaginations. We wouldn’t speak much. We wouldn’t have to. Our mutual escape into a world of monsters, swords, and adventure would say more than ...
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October 18, 2009
- We knew, my older brother Matt and I, that my father had enlisted in the Air Force in 1963. He told us that he had wanted to get away from home, out from under his father, and so, instead of waiting to be drafted, he simply marched downtown and enlisted. My grandfather had served in the Air Force twenty years before, during World War II, stationed in India. I don’t know what he did there—the ...
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October 12, 2009
- In Creative Writing classes, I was taught that you should never write stories that begin: “Bob was just a typical guy,” or “It was an ordinary day.” We claim that such beginnings “bore” the reader from the very first line. If the day is “ordinary,” then why tell the tale? If Bob is “typical,” then why do we want to read about him? And, yet, my own personal story would begin no ...
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October 9, 2009
- The other day someone said the phrase I keep hearing repeated more and more—“you’re middle-aged.”At 35, I suppose a case could be argued. The grey hairs glint in the light. Extra weight clings tenaciously to my tummy. I see lines and wrinkles where the skin was once soft and smooth. My body shows the effects of aging—a process millions of people throughout thousands of years have tried ...
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October 6, 2009
- The blood stains my fingertips, drips like a hot wax down my arms. My breath quickens. Pupils dilate. Here I sit, ready to confess my crime.I am the murderer of minutes.Have you ever noticed how easy it is to “kill” Time? Life feels like a giant waiting room, each of us leafing through our distractions until we are finally called to the back.I work, go to school, run errands—deepening the ...
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October 4, 2009
- For some reason, I thought of my Grandpa White tonight. He died 26 years ago of a heart attack. Family lore says the clock on the fireplace mantel stopped at the exact minute he died. Maybe it did. He slumped in the chair, his dead weight dropped to the floor, and the clock hands clasped in grief…He was obsessed with clocks of all kinds—wristwatches, pocket watches, grandfather clocks, ...
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October 2, 2009
- I am about to confess one of my deepest regrets in life: I did not attend my Grandma Moor’s funeral. The most natural question is: “why not?” The answer is very simple: it was easier not to go.It was easier on me. Yes, I lived ten hours away in Iowa. I was teaching and taking summer classes. I would’ve had to miss several classes to make the drive, or else chug plenty of black coffee and ...
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September 29, 2009
- The checkout clerk scowled, slid my bread, apples, and tampons across the scanner. Blip. Blip. A monotone reminder of how much money she probably wasn’t getting paid. She had dark circles under eyes and did not look up when I stepped forward. There was no cheery, “How are you today? Did you find everything all right?” I’m not sure how old she was, but she looked like she was ...
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September 24, 2009
- People grieve the way they wished to be grieved.At least in my experience. We hold on to the pain for as long as we can because we think that letting go of the pain means letting go of the person—we’re afraid that it means the worst part of grief and one of many people’s greatest fears: to be forgotten.If we stop crying and dwelling on past memories, we are afraid that it will mean that we ...
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September 22, 2009
- One of the most often quoted verses in the Bible appears in Psalms 119: “Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”The idea here is that God’s Word would be able to illuminate a follower’s choices and directions in life, helping to bring such a person into the “light” of God’s Truth. This verse assures us that God’s Word won’t steer us wrong, so it becomes ...
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September 20, 2009
- When I was a little girl, at recess, I would go to the rusty swings and kick myself back and forth. Not the “high” swinging joy of the other children. Just a couple of kicks to keep me swaying. The swings made a distinctive whiny screech, melodic, haunting. From my childhood home, you could hear those old chains scream loudly, almost echo throughout the nearby neighborhoods.At recess, I used ...
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