Shaking Hands With the Devil
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Image by Lothar Dieterich from Pixabay
Very few people can boast they shook hands with the Devil and walked away unscathed.
For me, the Sorcerer of the Caverns was that devil and the most cunning monster I’ve ever known. As the maestro behind the first adventures I would journey through in life, the experiences involving the Sorcerer were the most bizarre and the most incendiary.
After meeting him, my world blew apart. Yet nothing else would have delivered me to the open road that brought me here.
The wisdom I gained in those months would always serve me well.
Perhaps the most shocking lesson I learned was the bondage created through hate. The envy and loathing I had cultivated for the Patron’s Daughter had bound my soul with hers – and with that, my destiny.
Had I known the consequences, maybe I would have tried to find another release for those violent sentiments.
Then again, that may have been impossible.
The Sorcerer of the Caverns understood the ties made of animosity, and used that knowledge to his advantage.
His first promise to me was transformation. The Sorcerer swore he would make me beautiful.
But only if I could get him what he wanted.
Of course, the Sorcerer of the Caverns didn’t want to seduce an ugly peasant like me.
Beautiful and vicious, with a vanity that was both excessive and resolute, the Patron’s Daughter presented an unusual appetite for the Sorcerer.
But the greatest obstacle was her heart.
For centuries, the Sorcerer had ensnared his conquests through those desires that were beyond their reach. Because the Patron’s Daughter had been indulged and pampered all her life, she had no yearning.
With nothing to tempt her, such a girl would never sell her heart to satisfy a forbidden longing.
Image by Oberholster Venita from Pixabay
That’s where I came in.
The Sorcerer wanted to seduce the Patron’s Daughter, but I would have to give up my heart and deliver his conquest.
I laughed in his face.
“That’s ridiculous! I hate her.”
“I know you do.”
“I’m pretty sure she hates me too.”
“No,” the Sorcerer replied. “You don’t matter enough for hatred, Addie. Not in her eyes.”
A surge of ire burst in my breast, and that must have shown on my face because the Sorcerer smiled.
“And that’s what makes you perfect for this, Addie.”
Suddenly, it sunk in that my heart would be the payment.
I had never been one for sentiment, but I resisted.
I declared my heart shouldn’t be necessary since the Patron’s Daughter was the Sorcerer’s choice, and I risked death if anything went awry. I argued the best I could, but I lost.
The Sorcerer did not gain his immortality on his conquests, but lived for centuries feeding on virgin hearts.
Because he needed deception to seduce the Patron’s Daughter, he could never claim her heart after her virginity. Since the Sorcerer could never have the heart of the Patron’s Daughter, he had to take mine instead.
And I was definitely a virgin.
Image by engin akyurt from Pixabay
However, my resistance must have caught him off guard.
To convince me to sacrifice my heart, the Sorcerer promised another spell that I would only grow more beautiful as the years passed.
At the time, I thought that temptation frivolous. Youth never considers the vicious reality of old age, and vanity is seldom an indulgence of the ugly.
I gave in simply because the Sorcerer wouldn’t. I couldn’t appreciate the power and security of that piece of magic for decades.
Because of it, I’ve been spared the humiliation suffered by many of my sisters once they became women of a certain age.
Even with such extravagant promises, I didn’t accept right away.
I actually took a few days to think about it.
The possibility of beauty and grace was a dream that I had never had the audacity to fantasize for myself. But I couldn’t fathom how any of this should come to pass.
First, how could I ever lure the Patron’s Daughter to the Sorcerer?
Second, how could one as ancient and repellent as the Sorcerer possibly seduce her?
My reservations aside, I accepted his offer.
The next few days of backbreaking, thankless labor in the fields reminded me that I truly had nothing to lose.
This excerpt is from my work-in-progress, The Shepherd and the Courtesan. If you’d like to check out a previous excerpt, click HERE.
Freedom in Isolation
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The Patron always put off business for as long as he could.
He never confined himself to his study until the leaves changed color, and only then would he engage in the duties he found so tedious. This was the time of year when he reacquainted himself with the sounds of his household.
He could recognize the Cook from her heavy shuffle and the maids from their light-footed trots; his daughter’s personal maid and his manservant had similar glides, the tread of the latter heavier than the former. Their paces made a mesmerizing rhythm, making the dullness of his work more tolerable.
Late one afternoon, his concentration was interrupted by an unfamiliar tread coming from his daughter’s rooms.
The Patron looked to the ceiling and frowned.
This gait was long and steady with a firm step to the floor, its resonance echoing through the ceiling, whereas he knew his daughter for her near silent footfall.
Many times, a servant or merchant would be startled to turn around and find her standing there, for they hadn’t heard her approach.
The Patron looked at his watch. The girl was usually on a ride at this time before dinner. Whoever he heard above him couldn’t be her.
Stunned that an intruder should be in his home, the Patron rushed from his study and up the stairs.
He saw skirts and petticoats as he came up the second flight.
They swirled around breeches cuffed at her boots, reminding him of his daughter’s refusal to ride in a lady’s saddle, while the tread of a stranger echoed down the corridor.
In his haste, he almost collided with his daughter at the top of the stairs.
But the girl reeled away from him, her face pale. She recovered quickly and stepped back, crossing one foot behind the other and sweeping one side of her skirts to her waist.
Her composure restored, color returned to her cheeks as she came out of her curtsey, waiting for her father to allow her to pass.
Embarrassed, the Patron stepped aside.
The girl descended to the landing, and to his surprise, stopped before the portrait of his wife. She kissed her fingers and then pressed them on the lips in the portrait.
She glanced to the top of the staircase and flushed when she saw the Patron still watching her.
Yet all he noticed was that she now stood a shade taller than the woman in the painting, and he realized his daughter was the same age as his wife when he had met her.
He looked at her again.
The girl was actually glaring at him, the defiance in her eyes unnerving even as she curtseyed to him once more before continuing on her way.
The Patron didn’t return to his study.
He stayed upstairs, listening to the fade of his daughter’s gait as she left for the stables.
He came down a step and sat down, staring at the portrait, while the same question ran through his mind.
When had their daughter grown up?
There he stayed until his manservant startled him out of his reverie, reminding him to get ready for dinner.
The Patron watched his daughter closely after that day, and found it wasn’t just her walk that had changed.
All her life, people whispered what a tragic shame it was the girl didn’t take after her mother.
He agreed, although he tried to hide it.
The girl’s presence would have been easier to bear if she could have reminded him of his wife.
But he never saw anything, no matter how much he wanted to. Time had not refined her features, and she never acquired the languid poise of her mother.
Yet after that day, the Patron noticed the girl radiated an assurance that was unusual for women.
She possessed her own grace, moving with animal freedom.
The Patron also noticed she had grown more animated.
He found she chose satires and comedic novels for her reading, often biting her lower lip to suppress her chuckles.
She also began painting for the first time since her formal education came to an end, singing or humming while working watercolors onto canvas.
He often found her on the back portico of the house, where she had a splendid view of the young forest to the east.
The girl always stopped her brushstroke when he came, confusion clouding her features every time she saw him. But the coolness in her eyes was unsettling.
His daughter’s transformation intrigued the Patron.
He couldn’t understand how that had happened, for nothing had changed.
She was still despised everywhere she went.
Rooms fell silent on her entrance. People stared at her or ignored her just as they had for years.
But the girl was no longer stricken by it.
Instead, her indifference to what others thought of her was clear while she went through her day as alone as ever. She now had an air of contentment about her, happiness even.
After years of ostracism, she had become someone who didn’t need anybody.
If you enjoyed this excerpt, feel free to buy the ebook at this website HERE or on Amazon HERE.
If you do buy it through Amazon, I’d be eternally grateful for a review. Preferably a good one, of course.
Whirl a Girl
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Isn’t it fabulous when love is fair?
There once was a girl
Named Sally. She met a girl.
We’ll call her Halley.
Sally and Halley
So loved to dally. So much that
Halley left Sally
Back in the alley.
Yet Sally found gay girl whirl,
Where she loved to twirl.
Image by Myriam Zilles from Pixabay
The party was hot.
The fete made a raw tempest
Of yearning and pain.
But Sally? She danced and
Sang at the gay girl whirl. She
Turned grief to gladness,
Or so it seemed. No?
Sally put up a brave front,
Hid her heart broken
Image by Alexandr Ivanov from Pixabay
From Halley, who came
Later to the gay girl whirl.
Halley saw Sally
In the arms of Cal,
Short for Cally. And she swirled
Sally into a twirl.
Sally savored the
Illusion of liberty.
The sight of Halley
Made her flibberty.
Her heart pounded, her belly sank.
She blinked back the tears,
Image by Ulrike Mai from Pixabay
But Halley was near.
Halley saw Sally sobbing,
And went for the jeer.
High drama ensued.
Halley shooed the contender
Cally to the alley
Where Halley had left
Sally. At last, Sally came
back to her senses.
Image by inno kurnia from Pixabay
Dignity restored,
Sally told Halley to go
Rot in the alley.
Sally met Cally
And gave her shero a much
Deserved kiss, kiss, kiss.
Sometimes it’s so nice
When life is fair and love goes
To the deserving.
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The Romance of Grace
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I chose a space against the eastern wall between two windows halfway to the stage, sat down and warmed up with the colored pencils Adrianna got for me.
They were much softer than the charcoal I always drew with.
I sketched the first moment I wanted to draw, using both imagination and memory to evoke the scene.
Celia fed the Wanderer delicious morsels on the divan, both of their faces glowing with joy;
the girls on mandolins had an air of innocence about them as they strummed their beautiful melody;
Astrid stood behind me and massaged my shoulders with her tiny, powerful hands, while my form was shadowy;
the fires peeked out from the bellies of fat chimineas and reflected the mottled pink marble to cast a rosy glow all over the scene.
Of course, Adrianna was in the drawing.
Even with her seductive dressing gown on, she had the air of a powerful high priestess, using her subtle wiles to maneuver the entire evening. In that moment of the sketch, the Wanderer and I were unguarded with our defenses down.
I examined the drawing, and chortled. Adrianna was indeed an artist, as the Butler had said, absolutely brilliant in her work.
When I looked up, the light in the room took my breath away.
The sun had gone down, and lavender twilight warmth permeated the room.
The last traces of day before darkness fell had always been a sensitive time for me.
In those moments, I knew I needed to find the right place to settle for the night if I hadn’t come across one already. If I had, I only had so much light left to build a fire, cook supper, and allow myself to relax and ponder the beauty before me.
Twilight was that time when I got out of my head and into my body, and used all my senses to absorb the world around me.
That twilight was the moment I realized I wasn’t alone in the cavernous theater.
To my left, I detected the scent of sweat along with the whisper sound of motion.
At the northern wall near the mirror was Adrianna.
Dressed in pristine white bloomers and camisole, her long thick hair hanging in a long braid to her waist, she took her evening exercise.
Stripped of her usual glamor, her simple garments seemed more intimate than the revealing, flesh-colored gown she had worn at dinner.
Adrianna seemed more human, more vulnerable, more easily seen.
Caught off balance with the unexpected yet again, I was embarrassed to see her like this while Adrianna was at ease.
She waved at me without missing a step in her ritual.
“I beg your pardon,” I said. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”
“Your presence is hardly an intrusion, my darling Shepherd. I saw you when I came in. You can join me if you want. I prefer to finish before dinner.”
With her arms outstretched, Adrianna swooped low as she spoke, bringing her right shoulder down; the length of her arm reached for the floor before she completed her turn with a rounded kick of her left leg in the air above her head.
Then her arms floated to her sides, as she sidestepped across the floor with long strides and a casual undulation in her hips.
Suddenly, she lunged forward with her right leg crooked at the knee, her left leg long behind her, her back arched and head thrown back as she stretched her arms toward her back leg.
Breathing in deeply and sighing audibly, she held the pose for a moment. Then she swung her left leg forward and up, knee bent to her chest before lunging to her left side, her arms swinging beyond her head as she reached for the air beyond her grasp.
The dance was both elegant and peculiar in the silence that echoed through the theater.
“I think I prefer to watch.”
“As you like, dear Shepherd.”
Adrianna laughed without missing a beat.
Her voice breathier than usual as she transitioned to the next leg of her choreography, abruptly coming out of the side lunge to jump high, bringing her knees to her chest before her feet came down with a soft thump.
What was it about a woman who had grace?
Her mastery of this quality was astonishing.
The legendary Courtesan became a dervish, moving with the agility and nimbleness of a woman more than half her age.
Within moments, I was forgotten.
Adrianna had retreated into a world where nothing existed beyond movement.
Her lovely face was blank as she twirled, lunged, leaped, and spun around the magnificent space of the theater.
No wonder Adrianna had maintained the youthful contours of her face and figure. Watching her move to her internal rhythms was captivating in the quietude of an empty theater.
She seemed to grow younger as the dance went on, years coming off her face that glowed from the bliss of freedom of motion. I admired the strength and concentration, yet also surrender, she needed to dance as she did.
Adrianna had never looked lovelier.
There was so much beauty in the serenity and ecstasy of her expression, in the incandescence of her sparkling golden eyes, the simplicity of the black and silver braid falling to her waist.
That image seared itself into my mind.
I had picked up my sketchpad and started drawing furiously before I knew what I was doing.
I only needed brief reminders of the curve of Adrianna’s cheek, the muscles in her calves, the line of her arms stretched out.
I continued drawing even when my subject moved with the speed of a wood sprite, too quick and wily to get caught.
I didn’t look at what I drew.
That’s how riveted I was with Adrianna’s dance of silence.
Haiku About the Random and the Glorious!
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Photo by yours truly…
Button jacket spins tale tale
A gag gift from my birthday
Fascinates as ART
Mismatched socks make me
Wonder if the washer dryer
Ate them to spite me
Tarot tells time test
Look to past and predict a
Future feeding hope
Photo by your truly
She took her ma’s gifts
All but the brass candle sticks
I miss Mama Sue
Photo by yours truly
You need to heal, said
My friend with conviction, let
Me scatter your space
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
I’m grateful for friends,
Amigas are loyalty
Beats false royalty
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
Pick your line, he said,
And ride the nipple deep pow,
It’s better than sex
The Deliverance of a Wild Stallion
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Image by Bhakti Iyata from Pixabay
Her initiation into love was vivid in her dreams.
The girl relived the bite of his lips, the caress of rough palms, the heat rising within her.
The Phantom had been good to his word.
The next time they coupled, he had taken his time, introducing her slowly to sensations in her body she never dreamed possible.
The girl whimpered from the memory.
But she was still caught unawares and bit her lip before the moan of flush tingled bliss split her open again.
Sprawling her arms, she turned on her back and awoke when her hand fell on his bony trunk.
The girl opened her eyes to the Sorcerer watching her.
He was already dressed, his robes falling over the edge of the bed while her garments were in a heap on the floor.
The girl pulled away, avoiding the Sorcerer’s eye as she reached for her rumpled gown. She was aghast when she saw red stains on the back of her skirts.
Glancing to the bed, she saw drops of blood on the sheets. Loathing filled her when she looked up and saw the Sorcerer holding her petticoats with a discreet smile.
“You have an hour before the rooster crows,” he said.
The girl laced up her boots and ran through the corridor as the loathing seeped into her bones and made it unbearable to be inside her flesh.
She was relieved to see the Gateway was already open when she came to the main hall.
The sky above was the deep lavender gray of a morning that was soon to come.
She couldn’t get out fast enough, sprinting up the spiral and burying any lingering thoughts about the night before. She was almost to the top when that deep voice echoed up the tunnel and arrested her.
“Tonight?”
The girl looked down at the Sorcerer. She forced herself to go numb when she looked into his colorless eyes and nodded.
“After everybody has gone to sleep, I’ll come to you then.”
The loathing made her flesh crawl when she came out of the Caverns.
Now outside, the girl pushed that sentiment away when she saw thick trees stretching in all directions.
She’d given no thought to her return when she left the house, and now had no idea the best route out of the woods.
She smiled at the thought that it would likely make no difference if she were caught coming back.
Then she realized she’d a fool to humiliate her father.
The girl ran through the woods, praying to her mother to get her back before the first servants woke up.
Finally, she came out to the north where the river severed the Ancient Grove from the expanse of the Abandoned Valley.
The giant gray stallion was at the river again.
In the dim light before sunrise, the glossy coat of shadows made him invisible until he moved, raising his long neck from the water.
The girl stopped when she saw him, the magnificent animal making her forget her distress for a moment.
He had been a colt when he ran away, yet he had already possessed the size and strength of a full-grown stallion as well as an untamable spirit.
The day he had been branded, the colt felled the stable hands who had seared the Patron’s crest into his flank and escaped to the Abandoned Valley where he had run wild ever since.
She remembered how badly she’d wanted to ride him and how insistent the Trainer had been when he refused.
“He’s almost more horse than I can handle,” he’d said. “So forget it, little Miss. This is one who will choose his master, if he ever does at all.”
She stood motionless, hardly daring to breathe, knowing the wild equine would flee if she made a move.
The stallion regarded her for a moment.
But instead of running for distant fields as she expected, he crossed the river, snuffling where the current was strongest.
When he reached the other side, the girl’s head was no higher than the lower half of his trunk.
Then the giant steed folded his front limbs and kneeled before her, low enough for the girl to climb on his back. Her legs didn’t stretch down half his flanks.
But the girl knew she would ride him perfectly well, clutching strands of his silvery mane and clicking her tongue.
Her breath caught in her throat when he lurched into a run.
She had ridden the fastest stallions in her father’s stable since she was a child, but she had never encountered power like this.
As the stallion ran her through the fields and orchards, the girl was cleansed of the loathing inside her, its poison purged into breath and motion.
It was the most exquisite ride of her life, and it ended too soon when the shadowy equine came to a stop at the edge of the garden, where newborn lilies were almost fully open.
Reluctantly the girl dismounted.
As soon as her feet touched the ground, her mount turned away.
Before stealing back inside her father’s house, the girl watched the wild gray stallion run for the Abandoned Valley, his massive shape emerging from the shadows as the first rays of gold and rose broke over the horizon.
This excerpt is out of my novel, Ella Bandita and the Wanderer. If you’d like to buy the ebook off the Free Flying Press website, Click Here.
Or if you’d like a free novelette that is Part 1 of the novel first - of which this scene is a part, Click Here.
An Intimate Tour of Courtesan Casa
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Image by Michelle Maria from Pixabay
The Butler’s tour of Adrianna’s Casa far surpassed my expectations.
What I agreed to do because I was restless and needed something to do seemed more like an odyssey through a strange and exotic place.
We started in the courtyard before the front door.
The spring snow from a few nights ago had already melted, gone as if it had never happened. On this afternoon, the air was crisp and fresh and the sky blue.
I inhaled. The phantom scent of roses was still in the air, just as it had been this morning when the Wanderer left.
“It always smells like roses here,” the Butler explained, as if he read my mind. “Even on the coldest day of winter.”
“How is that possible?”
The Butler shrugged.
“I don’t know. It’s an eccentric quirk of the Casa, I suppose. But Madame loves it. The roses will start blooming on the south side of the house in about a month. Then the progression of blossoms will open on the east and west around the same time, and finish in the north.”
“Are they planted all around the house? I didn’t see any bushes along the back patio.”
“The ring of roses extends through the garden, rather than edging the house. There’s a lovely maze of paths between the Casa and the dormitories.”
Image by Thanks for your Like • donations welcome from Pixabay
The Butler pointed to the four-tiered fountain that I hadn’t noticed yet.
It had been buried under snow on the day of our arrival, and the carriage must have hidden it when the Wanderer left.
The structure seemed upside down with the largest bowl on top and the smallest on the bottom.
Mischievous satyrs and playful nymphs carved into the marble cavorted along the pillars and bowls, evoking exuberance and lustiness.
“The most celebrated sculptor on the continent carved this fountain from a giant piece of marble. Once we’re certain the warmth will hold, we’ll fill it with water. Probably next month.”
“It’s stunning.”
I ran my hands along the shapes carved into the smooth stone, and wondered at the concentration it must have taken to chisel with such precision.
There was no room for error with a sculpture such as this.
“The fountain was a gift to Madame.”
“That’s a very significant gift. This must have taken him at least two years.”
“Three years. He works on multiple pieces at a time.”
“Was he one of her benefactors?”
“Benefactors?”
The Butler raised his brows and paused.
When I shrugged and nodded, he continued, his impassive expression broken with a knowing smirk.
“The sculptor was one of Madame’s finds. She introduced him at her salons, where he made important connections. Now he’s famous and his work is all over the continent. So who benefitted who here?”
“I see.”
“Good. And you will see much more. All the art here was gifted to Madame. Many people found their lucky star at the Casa.”
Image by Gavin Banns from Pixabay
“Like the musicians on the back patio?”
“They’re a bit different. Madame has sponsored them from the beginning to develop their talents. But she caught their potential immediately, from the first moment the girls picked up a guitar. They struggled to strum, yet still made a melody.”
The Butler smiled.
“That was a good day at the Casa. Madame always gets so excited when something unexpected like that happens.”
I nodded slowly and stared at the fountain again. How serene it would be once water flowed from its tiers.
“Isn’t it peaceful?” the Butler continued. “Some of the maids prefer to pray here rather than in a chapel or the church.”
I stared at the Butler in surprise.
“Several members of the staff are very devout.”
“How do they justify working here?”
The inscrutable dignity of the Butler disappeared when he burst out laughing.
The boisterous sound of mirth set me off balance; and the gleam in the Butler’s pale gray green eyes betrayed mischief and a strong sense of humor; and in an instant, the illusion of the perfect servant dissipated and revealed the man.
“You must be joking! Most of their prayers are to give thanks and show gratitude for their splendid fortune.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You really don’t know where you are, do you? A post with Madame is the most coveted servant position in the Capital City.”
I was taken aback.
But the Butler’s impenetrable demeanor returned and he waved me back inside the house.
As we stepped in, the marble floor cooled my feet, and I was overwhelmed again with the incessant pink, the warm glow of the foyer and the stairs.
For the first time, I noticed that the giant chandelier was held up with six chains.
Two stewards were standing on tall ladders and replacing the candles that had burnt out or were close enough to the end of their wicks.
“This chandelier is maintained twice a day,” the Butler explained. “In the morning and early evening before dark.”
“You run the entire household?”
“I do.”
“How long have you been in service here?”
“I came here twenty-five years ago right before the Mayor’s office changed to our current one.”
“You were in service to the Mayor?”
“I was.”
Image by Werner Weisser from Pixabay
Something must have happened. That was a tremendous loss of status to go from the Mayor’s Mansion to the Courtesan Casa, even if the mistress was a legend like Adrianna the Beautiful.
“Working for the Mayor does carry more prestige,” the Butler intoned, but this time I noticed the mischief in his voice.
I waited, knowing if I said anything I would end up feeling like a clod.
“But some scandalous disgrace did not bring me here. I left my post to work for Madame.”
“Why would you do such a thing?” I blurted. “Was the former Mayor that dreadful?”
“Not at all. He was merely typical.”
“I have no idea what typical is.”
“Extravagant demands for service and miserly wages for reward.”
“And working for a courtesan is not like that?”
“That’s not what I said, sir. Working for Madame is not like that.”
I recalled Adrianna snapping her fingers and flicking her wrist to command the maids and stewards, and even the Butler.
“From what I’ve seen, Adrianna seems very imperious.”
The Butler laughed again.
“That’s nothing but a show. Nobody takes that seriously.”
I waited for his chortles to subside, and recalled the expressions of her servants that night on the back patio.
I had to admit they seemed amused more than anything else. So her haughty manners were nothing more than affectations put on for the benefit of the guests.
“Working for Madame is a pleasure,” the Butler declared. “I would even say it’s a joy.”
“Really?”
“But of course. What isn’t wonderful about appreciation for what I do, and generous reward for my hard work? I could retire nicely right now if I wanted to.”
The Butler paused and peered at me pointedly.
“But I don’t want to.”
This excerpt is out of my work-in-progress, “The Shepherd and the Courtesan.” If you’d like to read a previous excerpts that would add clarity to this one, click here and here.
Hobo Punks Remembered - On the Road #22
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Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
In my last On the Road blog here, I mentioned at the end that I had interviewed a few hobo punks who I had met while traveling in Alaska with the potential to freelance an article to the Anchorage Press.
It is one of my most painful regrets of that road trip that I didn’t follow through on that. Because I did interview these people. Their stories were incredible, and they deserved to be known for that.
I probably had a gnarly case of road fatigue.
For all the excitement and adventure of the unknown and this odyssey, it was exhausting to pack up the Beast and move from town to town, where I didn’t have any roots or emotional investment.
I had it in me to interview them. Then that was it.
The main people I interviewed, Derrick and Kylie Greene (names changed for privacy) had settled down in Anchorage. At the time that I had met them, they had a young son, and Kiley was pregnant with their second child.
This was in the autumn of 2005. In the 90’s, there was an exodus of teenagers out of the homes into the streets. The core of the homeless teens were – and still are - those who left dangerous family environments and those who had gotten kicked out of their homes, usually for coming out as gay.
But then there were those who came from safe homes and were simply restless and probably didn’t fit in with the mainsteam conventional culture from which they came.
If I remember correctly, Kylie had been a hobo punk longer than Derrick. I think he had hit the road around 16 or 17, whereas she had been on the road from the time she was 13 or 14.
Originally from Louisiana, she said her mother and sister worried sick about her, and often begged her to come home, which she would never do no matter how dangerous life on the streets was.
“I remember one time me and a couple friends found a squat (an abandoned, empty building) as a place to crash. One night, these older homeless bums came in and saw us. We overheard them talking about how they were going to kill us to claim the space.”
Kylie shuddered as she remembered, and shook her head.
“We were so scared.”
Kylie and Derrick met through the network of hobo punks that hit the road. Both had a lot to say about the network of homeless youth on the road, how they managed with no money and very few resources beyond each other.
Safety happens in numbers. Hobo punks know this.
They talked about connecting with the Rainbow family, the nomadic tribe that travels from National Park to National Forest year round, when they needed more resources or the security that comes with a group.
They talked about hitchhiking and hopping trains, as the hobos of the Great Depression did to get around. They talked about living in squats, sleeping in encampments, panhandling, and receiving money and food from kind-hearted strangers.
“It gets harder as you get older,” Derrick said.
They also talked about the excessive alcohol and drug use that goes hand-in-glove with that lifestyle.
They talked about Punksgiving, celebrated at the same time as conventional Thanksgiving, and that people traveled from all over to come to it. In fact, I’m pretty sure, it was at a Punksgiving that Kylie and Derrick met.
Image by Ryan McGuire From Pixabay
They showed me a group photo of an early Punksgiving before they married. Everybody in the picture hammed it up. Kylie had her ginger hair in a Mohawk and wore brown overalls, Derrick had his hair slicked back, and I recognized the guy I found in Seward who told me where to find them.
Once they settled down in Anchorage, they’ve been the hosts for Punksgiving. And it was no easy feat for those hobo punks to get to Anchorage from the lower 48 (the rest of the United States, except Hawaii).
That was becoming problematic for them.
Although it was part of their tribal values to open their homes to their hobo punk family, then they’d have far too many people in their house expecting to be able to stay. They’d drink all day, not help with the bills, housework, look for a job, or anything.
And they were in Anchorage in late November, where winter was always well under way.
This honest, humble working class family were especially conscious of the difficulty of this. They were torn between the past and the present and the needs for their future, especially because they had a four-year-old son and Kylie was pregnant again.
“It’s gotten harder as we’ve gotten older,” Derrick said. “It just doesn’t work to keep partying like that and not doing anything.”
“Derrick became a journeyman at his job this year,” Kylie continued. “And things have just changed for us. We don’t know how much longer we can continue to host Punksgiving because it causes a lot of problems.”
I asked them if they missed their former way of life. They both nodded.
“Yeah,” Kylie said. “But it was just getting too hard. People don’t want to help you out so much when you’re not so young and cute anymore. It’s harder to get rides and money and food and stuff that you just need.”
Both of them were only 24-25 years of age at the time of my interview.
In the long run, Derrick and Kylie were the fortunate ones.
Life on the road is hard, especially the way they lived it. It’s a way of life that the young and restless still engage in. Several years ago, I met a young woman who had lost her leg in an injury where she was hopping a train.
Image by lannyboy89 From Pixabay
Derrick and Kylie stopped before life on the road ate them alive.
It’s a real shame that I didn’t buckle down and write that article right after I interviewed them. I recorded the conversation but lost that tape – yes, tape as in cassette tape – years ago.
If I could recall this much 14 years later, how vivid would that article have been if I had written fresh and inspired?
I wonder if Derrick and Kylie still miss the freedom of those rough and ready days as hobo punks.
I imagine that they take road trips whenever they can, and I bet they are usually willing to give a hitchhiker a ride.
If you’d like to read the On the Road blog which preceded this one, click here.
Time to Get Back to Work
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Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay
The Victorians had some rigid and bizarre rituals for mourning.
Widows had to embody mourning for at least 2 years, wearing nothing but black before being able to mute to gray, then mauve, and white.
But never mind the fashions, their absence at anything remotely social was ruthlessly expected. Anything less than total isolation was not acceptable.
That must have been torture, no matter how much the women loved their husbands.
Image by Anna Veronika from Pixabay
By the way, I’m not a recent widow and nobody close to me has died. My engagement ended this past summer when I left my fiancée. So perhaps this beginning hints of melodrama.
That said, modern times do not have adequate rituals for grieving, much less the elaborate ones nobody can afford through time or money.
Even if I had invested in a dream that would never come true – and would have been a nightmare if I had stayed, this breakup is the death of an imagined future. Even if I wasn’t happy, I was counting on this future, as you can see from this blog here, posted not even 5 months ago.
Oh! Bitter, bitter irony!
There is a grieving process in breakups that suspends sociability and productivity.
I was in a really bizarre space emotionally right after I left. I could only handle spending time with people I knew well.
Any time I was in a social situation that entailed mingling with others for the first time, I couldn’t connect with anybody. It was as if I existed just outside my body.
Image by Grae Dickason from Pixabay
But besides sociability, my writing momentum came to a screeching halt.
Before I left, I had been working with a very talented illustrator for a children’s fairy tale, “Why Roses Have Thorns.” See previous blogs about Natalya here and here.
She had just finished all the illustrations, and had set me up with an editor friend who was working on the manuscript.
I still need to go back and look over those edits to go for a final polish, because I haven’t done shit since the break up.
Needless to say, that second draft of “The Shepherd and the Courtesan” that I was so proud of? I’ve only touched it once since last July.
Thank Goddess that I had enough blogs scheduled for about a month because that kept me consistent.
Since then, many blogs in the last two months are excerpts from my novel and my work-in-progress, as well as journal entries from my DIY booktour/roadtrip in 2005-2006.
I even dug up a couple of blogs from a year ago and re-posted when I was truly desperate and couldn’t think of anything to write about.
I post 3x/week. So out of 3 months; that makes at least 36 blogs. Out of those 36, only 6 (including this one) are fresh pieces.
Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay
This does not include the writing prompts. I’ve made 6 sets of 6 writing prompts since early September. I guess I went a little nuts on those because they don’t require my concentration, and that is the beauty of them.
I don’t need to stick to an overarching theme as I do a reflective article. I only have to put a pithy description or chunk of dialogue. Then whoever is grabbed by one prompt or the other runs with it, and comes up with their own themes.
Today is the 3-month mark of the day I left my fiancée. We were together almost 4 years. In the grand scheme of relationships, that’s not very long.
In the scheme of toxic relationships, which had we been the last 2 years we were together, I consider myself lucky that this only lasted 4 years. So many people stay much longer when they should have left much sooner.
That said, I’m still smarting over the lost time, even if I learned a lot and grew a lot.
A friend told me her measuring stick for processing the end of a relationship was 1 month for every year together and then it’s time to get back on track. She said it took her about a year to recover from the end of a 12-year relationship.
In about 22 days, I will hit that benchmark.
I can feel myself thawing out of the numbness that had consumed me until I went to a Tantra Festival (I’ll write about that later. I promise) at the end of August. Ideas are flowing and I’m getting restless.
Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay
Natalya even got in touch a couple of days ago with an offer of her marketing services.
Things are warming up.
It’s time to get back to work.
First Rule of Seduction
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Image by Alexandr Ivanov from Pixabay
She stared into the long white palm of the Sorcerer, bony fingers reaching for her. The clutch inside her chest was excruciating.
An impulse came over her urging her to run up the spiral before the Sorcerer could lock her in the Caverns, and she nearly gave in to the call of fear.
Then the scent of lilies wafted in her nostrils, the melodious voice of her mother singing in her mind.
“I will be with you always.”
And the girl knew her heart was safe as she placed her hand in his.
The Sorcerer reached inside the neck of his robes and pulled out his own stargaze.
But the only colors were blue and white once the candles’ flame touched the crystal facets. The essence swirled around her, making the girl shiver.
She tried to pull her hand back, but the Sorcerer kept his hold on her.
“Push out your breath,” he said.
She had no choice.
The air was drawn out of her when the Sorcerer inhaled long and deep. He didn’t stop until she was drained.
Otherwise the girl felt nothing when she gave up her heart, just the emptiness inside her once it was gone, and a gnawing similar to the one that consumed her when she’d feasted with him two days before.
She blinked and her hand dropped to her side.
When she looked again, her heart rested in the hand of the Sorcerer, motionless and silent.
For once, she found the lifelessness of her heart reassuring when he tied it up in a black velvet bag and placed it on the highest shelf carved in the Cavern walls.
Then the Sorcerer turned to her with a smile and nodded to a corridor leading away from the main hall to what must be his bedroom chambers.
The black walls glowed from fire torches which lit the way.
He beckoned her to follow with a wave of his fingers, but the girl stared at his back sauntering to the hallway and didn’t move.
The Sorcerer noticed and turned around.
“You already made your choice, Girl. It’s too late to change your mind now.”
“Didn’t you promise to teach me the arts of seduction?”
“Yes, and I will. So?”
“So, you know I find you repugnant. Don’t you?”
The Sorcerer raised his brows and shrugged.
“Make me desire you,” the girl taunted. “Isn’t that what seduction is?”
She didn’t expect to evade the Sorcerer and the decision she had made, but her stomach lurched when he smiled.
His long yellowed teeth gleamed.
“As you wish.”
He pulled a large vial from his robes.
The girl thought the liquid must be melted rubies for when the Sorcerer held the vial to a torch it lit up the jewel tones.
He snapped his fingers, calling forth the shadowy servants from the black stone.
They carried a large iron cauldron between them, which they set down before their master, smoke billowing from the center.
The Sorcerer circled the pot, muttering in a language the girl had never heard.
Then he spilled one drop from the vial and the brew inside the cauldron roiled, engulfing the Sorcerer in fog.
As thick as the cloud was, the girl could see the silhouette inside.
The form of the Sorcerer changed shape.
The mist dissipated in puffs, revealing a man who bore no resemblance to the ancient Sorcerer.
He was young and strong with powerful shoulders and muscular limbs, wearing the ragged clothes of a vagabond.
The only thing missing was his rucksack.
“No,” she whispered. “This isn’t possible.”
She blinked, trying to dispel what had to be a mirage.
But the guise the Sorcerer had taken on remained and the girl thought she might faint.
His wheat colored hair was damp as it always was after a long ride, the smile of even, white teeth as brilliant as she remembered.
“Well look at you, little Miss,” he said. “You’re all grown up.”
Even his voice had not changed.
Its rumbling timbre, the playful drawling accent touched by dialects of the places of the world he’d seen.
The Horse Trainer who had come as a Vagabond.
The girl shook her head, unable to speak.
She tried to back away from the handsome young man, but he walked a wide berth around her.
She turned, frantic to keep her back to this phantom of flesh and blood.
The sight of him filled her with both alarm and sadness.
How could this be possible?
Her throat closed up and the girl wanted to cry.
But that urge was distant, calling to her from a place outside herself while the empty space inside her breast throbbed.
She hugged her arms close while the Phantom of the Horse Trainer moved in a pace at a time.
Once he came near, there was no relief when she looked into his eyes and saw they were the same.
The colorless gaze of the Sorcerer had warmed into golden brown eyes which sparkled just as she remembered.
“Get away from me!” she cried, hurling her fists against his chest. “You’re not him! I know you’re not him!”
The Phantom grabbed her wrists with one hand and pulled her close.
“First rule of seduction,” he whispered in her ear. “Find the secret yearning of the one you desire and give her what she wants.”
This excerpt is out of my novel, “Ella Bandita and the Wanderer.” If you’d like to purchase an ebook, you can through my website HERE, or you can through Amazon HERE.
A Little Benevolent Coercion Never Hurts
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Adrianna was everything charming and gracious when she heard I chose to stay.
She even offered her carriage to deliver the Wanderer to the patron who had been keeping my flock at the price of two sheep a day.
Pulled by a team of four horses, the trip would take two days, and by the time the Wanderer collected my flock, I would be down fourteen sheep.
Adrianna and I stood next to each other in the courtyard, where the lavish carriage stood.
The Wanderer held Celia in a long embrace.
Apparently, Adrianna’s protégée had stayed with the Wanderer in his rooms the two days I was trapped in the DreamTime purgatory. I must have been in a dead sleep if their noisy lovemaking didn’t wake me.
Finally, the Wanderer kissed Celia on the forehead, stroked the side of her face, and let her go gently.
When Celia turned, I was pleasantly surprised to see the hint of tears in her eyes.
She stopped and curtseyed to us before passing back into the Casa.
I wondered if Celia used rose water as a perfume.
I caught a hint of roses as she passed, but the scent lingered long after she had gone into the house. I frowned and looked around.
Adrianna noticed too. She leaned her head back and smiled, her nostrils flickering as she inhaled.
Before I could ask her about it, the Wanderer approached.
“I’m not particularly fond of good-byes,” he said. “So I guess I’ll see you in a month or so.”
“Oh, you’ll see me much sooner than that,” I said.
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” Adrianna quipped.
The Wanderer chortled.
“Either way, Adrianna, I’m flexible. Maybe send word out every week or so, and I’ll roam circles around the Capital City with his flock.”
He kissed her on both cheeks.
“Adieu. And thank you so much for the splendid hospitality, and the comfortable ride. I feel like a new man.”
“You are a new man, darling Wanderer. The pleasure was mine. Not as much pleasure as Celia got to enjoy, but I loved having you as a guest.”
The Wanderer chuckled again.
I clasped his hand and the Wanderer pulled me in an embrace. I was surprised at how comforting it felt to be held by my friend. Really, this man was more than a brother to me.
“Don’t worry about the Shepherd,” Adrianna said flippantly. “By the time I’m through with him, he may be too coddled to return to the natural life.”
“I highly doubt that, Adrianna.”
With a salute, the Wanderer stepped into the carriage.
Adrianna and I stood there and waved, the scent of roses growing stronger as the carriage disappeared from view. My heart was heavy once he had gone.
“You are truly blessed in friendship, Shepherd.”
“I know.”
“I’m very pleased you’re staying. I didn’t think you would.”
I nodded.
“I take it the Wanderer talked you into this.”
“That is one way to look at it.”
The elder Courtesan threw her head back and laughed.
And yet again, I was disconcerted by the mannerism that seemed especially peculiar on her.
“Did the Wanderer blackmail you?”
“I wouldn’t go quite that far.”
“But you are not here willingly?”
I hesitated, and then shrugged.
“No, I’m not.”
Instead of taking offense, Adrianna sniggered. Her beautiful golden eyes sparkled.
“Nothing quite like a little benevolent coercion, is there?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“As I said, Shepherd, you are truly blessed in friendship.”
As annoyed as I was with the Wanderer, I laughed with her. I couldn’t remember any other time I had been so adroitly backed into a corner.
“While you are here, my Casa is your Casa.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me just yet. I have appointments in town that will keep me away most of the day. I hope you can forgive me, for I never desert my guests. But I honestly didn’t expect you to stay.”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Adrianna. I know how to entertain myself.”
The Courtesan paused, her head angled to one side as she peered at me with a strange half smile on her mouth.
“That makes a refreshing change.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Most men I know lack self-containment. They need excessive amounts of attention.”
Adrianna took my hand and squeezed it.
“The Butler loves to give tours of the house and grounds if you get bored, and there’s much you haven’t seen. But now, I must get ready. I’ll see you tonight for dinner on the back patio.”
“Again?”
“Of course. It’s my favorite place to dine.”
What a strange woman she was, this legendary Courtesan.
“Do you ever miss the bracing challenges of hardship?”
“Never,” Adrianna replied. “Dinner is at eight.”
This excerpt is out of my work-in-progress, “The Shepherd and the Courtesan.”
If you’d like to see an earlier excerpt from this work, click HERE.
Feminine Archetype Riff
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Maiden-Mother-Crone-Virgin-Vixen-Virago. Maiden-Mother-Crone-Virgin-Vixen-Virago. The litany of the feminine archetypes almost sounds like a nursery rhyme, doesn’t it?
We’re obsessed with the Maiden in American culture.
Maiden
Virgins are the belles of the balls, and the Vixens are the she-devils who devour the balls. The Mother plays a secondary role, there to support or to suppress. The Crone plays a minor role, and the Virago gets scarcely a mention.
This last is the greatest shame.
Of course, I’m speaking in generalities, and there are plenty of exceptions to this rule.
For instance, “Ocean’s 8: definitely had some pretty strong Virago power, which Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett rocked beautifully. There was even a Crone in the failing dress designer, who had some classic moments. But there were plenty of vampy Vixens going around. I’m sure there had to be or perhaps the film wouldn’t have been made.
That said, there is so much power and mystery in our feminine archetypes, with so many layers. Yet we only scratch the surface without going deeper, and thus cheat ourselves in literature and film.
Maiden, Mother, and Crone are the archetypes that represent the various phases women go through, given a full life span. These phases are pretty self-explanatory.
A woman doesn’t need to actually have kids to be in the Mother phase. We go through it one way or another – as aunties, mentors, and teachers.
Mother
But how many women do we know personally and in the media who desperately try to hold on to the phase of the Maiden and avoid the Crone phase like the plague?
How tragic is that? And why?
When the woman wears the Crone with pride, she’s often respected for it – like Frances McDormand, who gave a beautiful interview where she explained why she never got plastic surgery because it would erase her life from her face.
Also, Olympia Dukakis, whose career hit her peak in her Crone years, and is STILL getting work because of it (Tales of the City).
“Grace and Frankie” is one of the funniest comedy series on Netflix. What’s it about? Two Crones whose husbands leave them to marry each other.
Crone
“The Golden Girls” ran for 8 full seasons. One of my college roommates, a frat boy, really loved that show. But he had to justify it to his frat boy friends by complaining that he hated liking that show because “it was about women.”
That statement alone is fodder for another blog post. Most people get more interesting with the passage of time due to EXPERIENCE, and the ones who don’t lack the qualities to develop wisdom. So it’s absurd that anybody would have to apologize or feel defensive about liking quality writing and great characters.
So why do we obsess over the Maiden, whose feminine power has yet to be fully grown?
Virgin
Maybe about to be devoured by lion?
This post may come across as rather peculiar of me, given that as a writer, my central character in the Ella Bandita stories is an eternal Maiden, a Vixen destroyer who stopped aging at the age of 20. This, of course, also makes her a Virago in the most unflattering light.
But!
Yes, but…
As much as that may seem enviable, Ella Bandita is tragic. She is frozen in time while everybody around her grows older and eventually dies. She is trapped in her destroyer phase because she is also very ALONE, and she knows it.
This brings me to the next triad of archetypes, those that imply character, personality, identity.
Virgin, Vixen, Virago. We’re all familiar with Virgins and Vixens because they get plenty of airtime in books, shows, theater, and movies. But what I dislike about this is that the dichotomy sets it up to pit women against each other.
For instance, “Something Borrowed” is a romcom that I didn’t particularly care for, yet illustrates this dichotomy between the Virgin and Vixen beautifully. Kate Hudson is the Vixen best friend who snags Ginnifer Goodwin’s crush from right under her nose - and with her permission - because the Virgin didn’t have the backbone to speak up for what she wanted until the Vixen and her love interest were engaged. Of course, the Virgin ultimately gets the guy and their friendship is destroyed.
There was even a competitive Virgin-Vixen subplot in the teenage boy’s coming out tale, “Love, Simon.”
Vixen
Last, but not least, is the Virago. She has been the most underrepresented of the 3 V’s. When she is, the image is usually unflattering.
“Virago: A domineering, violent, or bad-tempered woman.” See what I mean. Violent Ella Bandita is very bad-tempered in the first novel.
“A woman of masculine strength or spirit; a female warrior.” An improvement. If Katniss from the Hunger Games starts a trend, perhaps the Virago is getting some of her due.
“A woman of stature, great strength, and courage who is not feminine in the conventional ways.” Now that’s more like it. Xena, Warrior Princess comes to mind.
Virago
The Virago often presents as a female warrior, but what I like about this last definition is that the interpretation of it can be broad and flexible, can go far beyond the female warrior archetype to include women who simply want to live on their own terms.
One of my favorite fictional characters, Sissy Hankshaw, the hitchhiking maestra from “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” is definitely a Virago. At the beginning of the story, she’s even a Virgin Virago until she’s pathetically seduced by Julian, a fussy psychiatrist. Her main interest in him is only because he’s born a Mohawk native, but everything about his character is from the White Society he conformed to. He threatens her freedom with these stifling conventions as he pressures her to be ‘normal’ and she loses one of her oversize thumbs as a result.
“As do many strong people, she had fallen victim to the tyranny of the weak.” Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues.
Another Virago is the one who saves Sissy’s butt, Jellybean Bonanza. As cute as she is, she’s fighting her own battles of trying to create a space where girls can find freedom and become Cowgirls.
The references come from the novel, NOT the movie, which I’ve never seen. I did not hear good things about it, and the novel is magnificent.
Feminine characters are intriguing, mysterious, powerful, and fascinating; yet only if they are given room to expand into the full breadth of their potential. As writers, we owe it to ourselves and to the world to explore that.
Rant over. That’s all for now.
Tripping Through Wonderland and Hobo Punks - On the Road #21
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Hey y'all,
Every time I think my little road-tripping book tour has hit a lull, something happens.
Way back on my first stop in Homer, a free-spirit that found his way to my Arabian Nights booth-style set up, whose roommate had listened to a story and bought a book, mentioned that he was selling "the key to art."
And pray tell, what is your key to art?
Oh, a concoction of chocolate and mushrooms.
It had been years since I jumped down the rabbit hole.
Since he supported my endeavors, I felt obliged (and happily so) to support his. And then I didn't use the key to art to open the door to new dimensions until last night.
But that's okay...
My date from last week had never done mushrooms before. Since he expressed curiosity and willingness, I offered to share “the key to art” (and other dimensions) with him, excited to have somebody to share them with.
Anyway, he and I ate the magic chocolate, and walked to the park near the neighborhood of Turnagain, in Anchorage.
It wasn't long before we crossed paths with the professional, purposeful couple wearing matching jeans, matching down jackets, and matching boots purposefully striding their way back home, hunched over in joyless discomfort.
They had had their healthful walk in the outdoors and were ready to return to where they could be at ease.
Indoors.
Then we came across the group that halloed into the dark and walked past us with their faces to the breeze and their shoulders back. It was clear that they were enjoying the cold and themselves in the cold.
After the woods, we wandered in the very pristine neighborhood of Turnagain with their artistic houses.
Thus our voyeuristic trip began as the mushrooms hit a peak.
Being from the South where most of the really nice neighborhoods were in areas that had been built a long time ago, it was something to see the expression of affluence in a city that is still growing into its personality.
Many of the homes were showy and I couldn't get over all the huge picture windows, with tasteful lighting whether people were up and about, at home, or away.
Looking into somebody else's world, we saw fine art displayed in tastefully decorated homes. It was as if their privileged way of life was on display to anybody who cared to look.
"Looky here! See my fabulous home! My beautiful art, luxurious furniture, and unique knick knacks. Wouldn't ya just love to live here? Aren't ya jealous?"
It was Life as a Peepshow, now you see me, now you don't.
Occasionally, we'd see signs of human activity, a mother dancing the boogie woogie to show off her moves to her son, her head obscured by the glass, with a bird's eye view of her gyrating torso.
We also passed houses with normal windows, as well as bushes to hide from the stares of the nosy, mushroom-tripping voyeurs like me and my date. But for the most part the houses in the neighborhood screamed:
"Here I am! I have arrived!”
There was a car that kept creeping past us. The neighborhood watch wondered what we were up to.
We were clearly not one of the Joneses. So were we casing the neighborhood? Looking to defile one of the virginal showpieces with our criminal intent?
Then there was the house with the huge yard, and the only thing on display was the blue room in the basement.
I overstepped the boundaries, and entered the yard to get a better look. And that’s when we got caught.
But the guy who did was even more of an oddball in that neighborhood as we were. But he was perfect for us in the state we were in.
His name was Bradley.
He was clad in tight faded black jeans, a black Carrhart jacket, a grubby black tee shirt, camouflaged by a red and black checked scarf, a gold chain with a medallion, shiny black cowboy boots, a faded American flag bandanna wrapped around his head, and metallic pink sunglasses (it was night) perched from his ears to his crown.
He was very compact, no taller than five foot four and he had the scratchy vocals of a skid-row drunk.
Bradley was the lost soul younger brother living in the basement of his brother's and his brother's girlfriend's house. He smelled like an Altoid factory.
He came out of the blue basement to find out who we were and what we were about. While he was there, he indulged in a forbidden cigarette and told us about himself and how he came to be there.
I couldn't stop staring at him as he talked incessantly of clearing out the yard we’d just invaded.
It had been crowded with the abandoned vans, trucks, and other vehicular junk the brother’s girlfriend's deceased father left behind.
Apparently, the dead dad had been a hoarder when he was alive, and his daughter was having a hard time letting go of her daddy's excess baggage.
"She will not get rid of the abandoned airplane parts in the back yard. This was her father's house. She has four or five houses all over. She calls me brother-in-law, but I don't see my brother getting married. He says she's the one though."
The car that had been following us for our walk redoubled its vigilance after this interaction.
I figured the neighbors must have been grateful to have the yard cleared out of the junkyard effects, even if they gritted their teeth at the presence of Bradley.
Whoever that woman was, his brother’s girlfriend must have been really in love. Chances were, Bradley was probably very helpful.
On a professional note, an unexpected thing has happened.
I may have an opportunity to freelance an article to the Anchorage Press, so I'm interviewing people who used to be the homeless teenagers in major cities with a liberal bent across the country - who have done their fair share of squatting, hitchhiking, and train hopping.
I found out there is a large community of hobo punks from Anchorage on out because they've found a niche here.
They have one hell of a story, kind of nice to focus on telling the tale that belongs to other people.
It’s been a couple of years since I've been in reporting mode, but it's a good change.
The Press has at least nibbled on the bait, keep your fingers crossed for me. Will they bite?
I'll be back in Juneau from October 25th to November 1st when I go to the lower forty-eight. Look forward to seeing everybody...
Peace,
Montgomery
PS If you’d like to read the blog post where I met my date that I later tripped on mushrooms with, click here.
Please. Mama, Please.
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Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay
The portrait was the size of life.
It hung between floors on the wall of the landing facing the upper stairs. The woman on the canvas was exactly as she had been when she was alive.
Lamps always burned around her, so she could be seen day or night.
She stood facing the artist, butter yellow gown falling in graceful folds from her chest to her feet. Her pale blonde hair hung loose, free around her shoulders and arms. Her lips were curved in the impish smile that had enchanted the Patron.
Her body was straight, head leaning over one shoulder, chin tucked in, almost shy.
Her eyes sparkled, looking beyond the man painting her likeness. Her forearms encircled her middle, white hands resting on the stomach still lying flat, her dreamy eyes seeing deep within, thinking only of the baby growing inside.
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
It had been years since she sat before her mother.
The girl held the stargaze in hand while she stared into the eyes of a woman immortalized in a moment of precious time.
The subject of the painting embraced her belly, yet still held traces of the wild maiden she was leaving behind for the motherhood to come.
There was no shadow of death coming for her when the portrait was made, only joy for the life she carried inside.
The edges of the crystal chafed the girl’s fingers, reminding her of the Sorcerer.
Day passed into night, but she never left the stairs facing her mother.
Images of the morning intruded on her vigil, the memory of the Patron’s expression before he looked away ripped through her.
“Take this stargaze and go home to your father,” the Sorcerer had said.
She could almost hear that deep voice whispering in her ear.
“If you decide to keep living the life you’ve always known…or not…”
The girl remembered how her reflection had distorted the moving water when she looked at herself from the river’s edge.
For a moment, she felt it; the resolution to jump and surrender to nothing, and again she had the relief that it could all be over soon.
But the grip inside her breast made her double over when she thought about dying.
Nothing had changed for her and she knew nothing ever would.
But the numbness was gone, along with the anguish that drove her to the river.
Something had changed.
She wanted to live.
The girl gazed into her mother’s eyes.
Even so many years after her death, there was still so much life in that gaze, the passion she had for living, and the desire to pass that gift on to her unborn child.
The girl gripped the crystal, her fingers slick from rivulets of blood. Then she thought about the Sorcerer and his offer, searching for a hint of judgment from the woman in the portrait.
But there was none.
Instead her mother was radiant.
Her likeness seemed to stretch beyond the paint to come back to life.
The girl closed her eyes and shook her head.
When she opened them again, the woman in the portrait glowed even more, the glaze of dreams gone from her expression.
Then the girl heard a soft soprano teasing at the edge of her hearing, a mother beseeching her daughter to come closer, closer.
There was that squeeze inside her breast again. The girl wondered if she was losing her mind.
“Mama?” she whispered, shaking her head in an attempt to regain her senses.
“Come to me, my child.”
The voice was louder, ringing with the clarity of a silver bell, and the painted gaze grew intense.
A wave of heat wrapped around the girl, a blanket she couldn’t touch.
Then she caught the scent of lilies, her mother’s favorite flowers and she sobbed.
She knew she could be going mad, but she didn’t care.
In that moment, the girl no longer felt alone. Coming down the stairs to stand before the portrait, she now stood two fingers taller than her mother, but became like a child when she reached out to her.
“Please,” she whispered, staring into the pale blue eyes. “Mama, please show me a way to protect my heart.”
The skin was so soft when she touched the painting, stroking the backs of the hands embracing the unborn inside her.
The girl sobbed again.
So this is what it was like to touch her mother.
Beyond the veil of death, the soprano sang a lullaby to ease the torment of her mind, coaxing the girl to lie down and sleep.
Fatigue settled over her and she did as she was bid, stretching out across the landing and resting her head at the painted feet.
The sweet cling of lilies guided the girl to where her mother waited.
“My darling,” the soft voice whispered. “I will be with you always.”
That promise was all she needed to let go. The loving words were the last she heard before the girl drifted away into dreams.
The Bitch is Dead
/
It was only a dream.
I kept reassuring myself as I fell into the kaleidoscope of images created from memories of the distant past and recent days coupled with the fears from a wounded psyche.
Terror intruded on déja vu, and scenes replayed with tinges of frightening possibility.
Random pieces from the past broke apart as shards of a shattered mirror, rearranged in freakish patterns of the darkest recesses of my heart and soul, and made an insidious nightmare in this journey through the DreamTime.
“Is she dead?”
Adrianna’s low, creamy voice rang out in my dream as her image came into focus.
She stood in a ring of fire that blazed pink flames. She was ferociously lovely with her sparkling amber eyes larger than life as she stared hungrily at me.
“I have hated her for years. So how did Ella Bandita die?”
Adrianna disappeared in the blink of an eye and I was back in that horrific tower of stolen hearts.
The racket of their dissonant pulses echoed insanity to the peak as hundreds of hearts spiraled up the walls. They beat to different rhythms in unpleasant pitches, and created the most ghastly sounds I’ve ever heard.
In the center of the tower stood my Woman, now known as Ella Bandita. She looked serene and relaxed, while the whirlwind of stolen hearts pumped their ear-splitting melody all around her.
Woman shook her head slowly, then threw her head back and laughed.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“You’ve really gotten yourself in a mess now, Shepherd. Wasn’t I enough trouble for you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about your fancy Courtesan.”
“Adrianna? Do you know her?”
“I know the type. She won’t stop until she gets what she wants.”
“Woman, she wants you dead.”
She threw her head back and laughed again, her large teeth gleaming.
“I know she does. Adrianna the Beautiful has lusted for my blood for a long, long time.”
“But why?”
“It doesn’t matter why.”
Then I was in darkness and away from the tower.
But I still heard the hideous noise of the heartbeats until I came to the next scene.
The Wanderer and I stood before the Mayor, inside the parlor where he received the general public.
The chamber was stifling with massive, dark furniture throughout and somber tapestries lining the walls.
His astonishment at the sight of us made me ashamed.
I suddenly remembered that the Mayor’s son, Anthony, had been one of Ella Bandita’s victims.
Suddenly, a vision of Adrianna the Beautiful in the rosy glow of her back patio came to mind.
Her large feral eyes glittered and her mouth grimaced.
“Is Ella Bandita dead?” she snarled. “We all want her dead.”
Then I catapulted back to the past of more than twenty years ago.
I traveled with my flock of forty sheep to the Capital City, where I went every year to pay my tariffs for new lambs born, and profits from sheep sold.
As happened on an annual basis, I was cursed to come across young Anthony, the Mayor’s son, who took great delight in torturing young boys considerably younger, smaller, and weaker than himself.
As I always did, I pulled Anthony off the helpless child he was beating on. And as occurred yearly, the loutish youth threatened to send his father after me and have me thrown in prison.
Of course, that never happened.
Just like Anthony was never punished for bullying younger children.
Adrianna appeared again, lounging on one of the divans on her back patio, a blazing fire behind her. Her wildcat eyes glittered.
“What about young Anthony?” she taunted. “Doesn’t Anthony deserve vengeance?”
“Hell no!” I retorted. “That vicious little brute got exactly what he deserved!”
Then I returned to the day I had heard Anthony, the Mayor’s son, had fallen victim to the predatory Thief of Hearts as a young man.
I had come to the Capital City on my yearly stop to pay my tariffs, and everybody was talking about it.
Two merchants in line ahead of me gloated in low voices that would not be heard beyond the few people around them.
“I’m sorry for our kind Mayor,” one muttered. “But if anybody had such a miserable fate coming to him, it’s Anthony.”
“I know what you mean,” said the other. “He was awfully horrid to my son ten years ago.”
“Mine too,” said the first. “He won’t be pounding little boys or slapping young ladies around any time soon. Have you seen him?”
“Yes,” said the other, who couldn’t stop sniggering. “He’s an imbecile! A drooling mess of a fool!”
“That’s what I call just desserts!”
“Sometimes Ella Bandita truly is a conquering hero!”
Silently, I agreed.
Although I was shocked at the news, I hadn’t even a shred of pity for Anthony.
I savored the same grim satisfaction of the merchants ahead of me in City Hall that Anthony would never be able to harm another vulnerable being again.
Then I reappeared inside the heavy formality of the receiving parlor in the Mayor’s mansion.
Blissfully unaware of the Mayor’s loss, the Wanderer succinctly explained who he was and what he had been, the talking Wolf bewitched by Ella Bandita who had traveled with me for years.
That the Mayor was both surprised and disappointed was clear in his facial expression and his words.
“It’s a miracle that you’ve been liberated from her evil!” the Mayor exclaimed. “But is this the only news of Ella Bandita you came to share?”
“No,” I said, stepping forward.
I brought the crystal stargaze out from my pocket and allowed it to drop from my palm, where the odious charm swung wildly from its broken chain.
The whirlwind of color swirled around the parlor before I whipped the pendant back into my palm.
“The Thief of Hearts is no more,” I declared.
The Things We Take With Us When We Die... - On the Road #20
/
OH!
The woman lamented at not having her camera at the ready to capture such an amazing moment.
I knew I should have looked more for it.
The colors set the mountain on fire, the migrating cranes purring above her head, and the up close and personal appearances of the Dall sheep convinced her of it.
Of course I'd have no camera on this day, and I'll forget everything...she thought for a moment and then a vision of her grandfather appeared in her mind.
Only if you choose to, he replied quietly.
If I choose to? What do you mean, grandfather?
Open your heart to let it in and etch it into your soul.
The woman laughed.
Don't laugh, my child with what is best. Etch it into your soul and you can take it with you when you die. Can't take your pictures with you, now can you?
Grandfather! I'd just like some good photos to show my friends.
So you can show off.
The woman shrugged.
That's one reason I'm sure, but also so it can stir up memories later. I especially like to stir up good memories when I feel sad...it gives me hope
Etch it in your soul and you will never forget while you're alive. That's much better than any picture.
Really, Grandfather...
No, do you have a record of the first time you felt a crush? Bet you can still remember the feeling of electricity searing you from the inside out.
The woman nodded.
Do you remember your first kiss? Your first love? The first time a work of art made you stop and absorb it? The first time you felt your body surrender to music and the dance that ensued as a result? Good times with friends? The first time you traveled to a country not your own? Happy Birthdays that are extra special? Every feeling of success you've ever had to work for?
Yes, of course I remember.
Do you have photos, movies, and recordings of every special moment of your life?
No.
And you're telling me that you can't transport yourself back to those moments?
Yes, Grandfather, of course I can.
That's the stuff, child, that you take with you when you die.
What of the bad and the sad, Grandfather?
What of them, dear? They are part of life.
I remember those at will too.
What in hell are you doin' that for? Dump 'em. Go brew a pot of coffee and savor the smell while it's percolating. Make sweet potato bread and lick the bowl of leftovers while the spices permeate your kitchen.
Easier said than done.
It's as easy to do as to say. Your choice. Why fill yourself up with bitter memories of those who take, betray, take some more, and betray some more? The mistakes we make and the villains we meet are the waste of a life fully lived. Do you resist taking a shit when the urge strikes you?
The woman laughed. Of course not.
Then don't be such a sucker. Let your bowels do their job and dump your memories of them. Make something pretty. Go on a hike, listen to the water flow, feel the mist of a waterfall on your face, go molest some silk, dropping it a notch in luxury with your grubby human hands. Fill yourself up with the stuff that you'd want with you later.
The woman smiled as she hiked along the mountains aglow with the colors of fall, the rain stopped, the clouds lifted and blue of the sky competed with the setting sun as she walked down the path she came up.
It would be a good night for the aurora.
Etch it in your soul...
PS I think this was one of my favorite entries of the booktour/roadtrip. I was hiking in Denali and forgot my camera. Fitting really, because I did not take any pictures of that trip, which I both regret and kind of respect. But on that hike, all these amazing things happened, and I felt like an idiot for not bringing my camera. But a memory of a woman I met on one of my tours when I worked as a hiking guide made me see it differently. She was so moved by the experience and the beauty of SE Alaska that she said on the hike back: “These are the things we take with us when we die.” Remembering that on that hike, I really took the time to absorb the day and wrote this lyrical piece to my friends and family on my email list. If you’d like to see the previous post about that book tour/roadtrip, click HERE.
The Long Game is Built on Relationships
/
Hey y’all,
Much has changed in the world of publishing and self-publishing. This past weekend, I attended the Willamette Writers’ Conference in Portland, Oregon. This was my first Conference in several years.
About 10-12 years ago, I went to quite a few.
At that time, I was hungry for an agent or an editor or both because, like most of us who had been writing for many years, it was my dream to get published.
By my 3rd Conference, I was a pro at finding where the agents and editors would be, at angling for an opportune conversation where I could pitch my story that was not yet a novel.
I had an agenda.
So did every other writer who was at the same conference.
We were sharks circling a handful of meaty minnows. It was exhausting for us, and it was highly unpleasant for the agents and editors who attended these conferences. There wasn’t an agent or editor at any conference I went to who didn’t have some over-the-top stories of being stalked by 100’s of writers – some more overzealous than others.
One of the classes I went to this weekend taught me that my mindset back then had been a mistake.
Since I am committed to the self-published path, I hadn’t signed up for any pitches. I couldn’t care less about who the agents and editors were – unless they were freelance and good, because I need one. I went to this WW Conference because they had a lot of classes on self-publishing and marketing tips.
I was there for what I needed to learn.
Russell Nohelty taught most of the classes on self-publishing, building an audience, and making a profit. His core theme surprised me though. In his class on building an audience from scratch and on pitching, what he had to say came down to one thing. Connection.
“Publishing is a long game. And it is a game that is built on relationships.”
In his talk on building an audience, Russell said he spends about 10 hours a week communicating with some of his fan base. He asks questions about themselves, their lives, their favorite books, movies, shows, hobbies, and interests.
“Instead of treating them like a $20 bill, I find out who they are as 3-dimensional humans. Be a human treating somebody else like a human. Then go out and find other humans who have similar interests to the human who likes your stuff. Chances are you will find more.”
When I went to his pitch class, he said pretty much the same thing.
“Go into the pitch session and take a minute to find out what the agents like, and what they are looking for. Treat them like a human, not an opportunity. Even if they don’t want what you are looking for, you might have something like that later. And in the meantime, you’ve made a friend because you’ve treated them like a human. And if they can’t help you, they might direct you to somebody who could.”
And in that class is when Russell said.
“This is a long game. And it’s built on relationships. Chances are none of you will sell your book or your script from this conference. But you can make connections. From those connections, you could make some friends. That is what will serve you in the long game.”
As I listened, I cringed a little when I thought back to those early conferences, my sharp eyes, and restlessness that probably made the agent or editor very uneasy. I was not being a human trying to connect with another human. I was a predator looking for something to feast on. When I think back on those conferences, I’m pretty embarrassed.
My agenda mindset may have accounted for some less than fabulous perceptions I had ultimately of the publishing industry. Yet in defense of hungry writers stalking agents and editors for a chance, the Monolith of Traditional Publishing set it up that way when it became a business rather than a forum for the art of the written word.
Ours is an aggressive culture that is very focused on the outward trappings of success measured in tangible units like money, and less tangible ideals of elitism and exclusion. Something happens to creativity when the focus is on money, not the finished piece of art, whether this is writing or painting or music or theater or film or dance. When the focus is on getting in, getting up, and getting more, how can the creative juices flow? How can new ideas and fresh perspectives flourish when the pressure is on to make money, Money, MONEY?
To backtrack to the Conferences I had gone to more than a decade ago…
My journey through the Conferences started during my DIY booktour/roadtrip, an odyssey of self-publishing.
With the Beast filled with 100’s of my self-published copies of “Ella Bandita and other stories,” I went to the San Diego Writers’ Conference in the spring of 2006. Yet the advice given to me was: Do NOT bring attention to the fact that I had self-published.
There was a strong stigma to being a self-published author, and I was told that would be the kiss of death for anybody who was somebody in New York publishing.
Marla Miller, an editor and writer who had her non-fiction published, but still couldn’t get her fiction published, was very blunt in talking about how publishing was a tough business and we all had to play the game.
A lot of classes talked about all the rules and regulations, the have-to-do-this and the don’t-you-dare-do-that RULES TO LIVE BY, for any of us to have even a snowball’s chance in Hell of ever getting published.
Oh, and the market for fiction was shrinking faster than a receding glacier.
The pressure was on. Those who were in the Industry were all-powerful. Those who had been published in that Industry had oversized egos.
They were the cool kids and the writers (unpublished) were the outsiders. Of course, many of the cool kids were very nice people.
Most of them were quite reserved – obviously necessary for the sake of self-preservation with all the hungry writers stalking them. But it wasn’t long before I began to feel like the pathetic geek trying to get the cool kids to accept me.
That really sucked.
And frankly, I think the dynamic of in-group vs. outcast is grossly inappropriate.
Writers are, as a general rule, odd and eccentric people.
Most of us were not in popular crowds in high school, college, or even adulthood. We were the introverts, the watchers, the geeks, and the freaks.
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club) said in a fantastic speech: “I believe writers became writers because we were the ones who were never invited to the party.”
This was at the last Willamette Writers Conference I went to several years ago. Of course, this pithy line was part of a hilarious story he shared about an exclusive yacht party he’d been invited to because he was now “THE Chuck Palahniuk, Famous Author.”
But he was so right it hurt. A publishing industry constructed on popularity dynamics becomes an environment where the creative minds of voyeuristic screwballs cannot and will not thrive.
I remember many of the agents and editors wanted something that was “a lot like Jodi Picoult.” A lot were looking for Urban Fantasy, which was really hot at that time. One agent suggested I rewrite my pre-Industrial Revolution fairy tale of Ella Bandita into an Urban Fantasy, and maybe she’d be interested.
What did I write that was a lot like what somebody else had written? We were encouraged to define ourselves as effective copycats of somebody else who had already succeeded.
They were looking for the next hot book to be the next runaway bestseller. It was all about money.
The world was addicted to self-help. A non-fiction book on how to lose 100 pounds in 6 months or less, or how to get rich in 3 years, would have a shot. But the fiction market was shriveling up.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with ambition, wanting to do a good job, wanting to be successful, or even wanting to make a profit. But there has to be a limit and there has to be balance.
And if the publishing houses want profitable stories, they need to nourish and support the weirdoes who will be the ones to bring them something different – that might actually become that next runaway bestseller. But you have to support them, not choke them. Creative minds don’t flourish under pressure like that.
Also, the upstart Amazon was stirring things up at this time.
With the burgeoning ebook market, Amazon was coming out with guns blazing and suddenly, there was an endless vista of possibility for self-published authors.
Many agents and editors expressed nervousness about what was happening, because of course, Amazon was totally undercutting the Monolith of New York Publishing and their overpriced books.
One agent compared Amazon and the state of publishing as the Wild West where anything goes because it was lawless.
In other words, New York Publishing was no longer all-powerful and invincible. What was going on at that time would change the world forever, when it came to publishing and even better, doing away with the stigma of self-publishing.
Now, it’s a badge of courage to claim yourself as an Indie Author. It also sounds more rock star.
Of course, publishing and those who played in that arena have adapted to the changing market and what needs to be done. The Big 6 publishers are still going strong.
But there are now hybrid authors who do both traditional and self-publishing. Even those with Big Publishing Houses behind them still have to do all the promotion that Indie Author has to.
Back to this past weekend…
Since I didn’t go to any of the panels with agents and editors lined up like ducks in a row, I have no idea the current attitude of the players from the Big Publishing World. So there’s no way to compare then and now.
It was refreshing to go to a Conference, and not give a hoot who the agents and editors were - unless they were freelance editors, but stalking was not necessary. I can simply hire one.
I’m sure there were writers stalking agents, but none of those sharks was me.
Instead I focused on the classes geared towards Indie Authors, what I could learn, and the only thing I kept an eye out for were other writers who needed a writers’ group.
I found them too. In the classes geared towards Indie Authors. Our first meeting is at the end of the month.
So, in this long game built on relationships, perhaps now, I’m on the right path.
Thanks for reading!
Peace,
Montgomery
