All posts by rebekahjmarshall

Health, Writing

Writer’s Retreat

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I rented a cabin on a river to do a 4-day Writer’s Retreat. I am on day 2 and have finally gotten into an actual honest-to-goodness project that resembles both productivity and creativity.

I took a break and looked back at some old posts on this blog. I found one from 4 years ago dreaming of doing a cabin in Colorado someday for the entire summer. That is still on my to-do list, but I don’t know if I would want to be without my sweet husband for 3 whole months. He has kind of grown on me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The lighting was too bright, so I created my own stained glass window.  Intermittent rain on a metal roof has been music to my ears. 

I have a little air conditioner and two fans creating the necessary chill factor to keep me comfortable and my favorite snacks and beverages to keep me fueled.  Of course hot tea is at the ready.

Nature has invaded my domicile twice now.  I’m hoping that is as bad as it gets.  Otherwise, the accommodations are quite satisfactory. 

BlackIce mock cover                                                                                    

This is the novel I have decided to focus on as my project.  It is an old one I wrote in 2008.  A colleague made the cover.  

I am on the editing and revising stage – about 1/4 of the way through.  Once done, I have to put together the front and back matter (dedication, copyright, about the author, etc.)  Then I plan to upload my first ever book for publishing.  It is actually coming together.

I’m thinking of different names for different genres – too confusing?

R. Marshall – YA

Mrs. Marshall – Children’s Books

Juanece – Romance

  • My thinking is that kids who love a chapter book about 3rd graders won’t accidentally stumble upon a wild adult romance novel.
  • Teens looking for age-appropriate adventure won’t get tricked into baby stuff.
  • It could possibly keep my different writing age groups separate and safe.  
  • Just something I’ve been mulling over for a while now.

Poetry, Writing

Goodbye, my dear friend

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-For Mary by Rebekah J. Marshall 1/20/19

Goodbye, my dear friend.

“The earth has arranged her skirts

and taken you back so tenderly.”

I know you have “vanished

into something better-”

“the dark hug of time.”

What is it like “after the last day?”

“Did you float into the sky?”

I know “you never intended

to be in this world,”

yet you still got on with

“building the universe.”

“Everything dies at last and too soon,’

so I will bathe in the

“moon’s bone-white eye”

while whispering

“prayers made of grass”

until “all the locks click open.”

No matter how “humble the effort,”

I will “move my grains on a hillside”

one by one if need be

for “neither power nor powerlessness

will have me entirely”

and “I am willing to be dazzled.”

Yes, “my spirit carries within it the thorn,”

but I “keep on trudging.”

And every so often

“green leaves emerge from the tips of my fingers.”

A “fox on his feet of silk” found

“a bride married to amazement.”

I “have changed my life,”

“announced my place in the family of things,”

and “invented the dance with the wind,” for

“death is a little way away from everywhere.”

This is the very reason that

“every morning the world is created.”

Thank you for living

“your one wild and precious life.”

I will “remember your beloved name”

until I am “washed out of my bones”

because “death isn’t darkness after all,

but so much light wrapping itself around us.”     

Health, Poetry, Writing

Medication Experiment

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I am taking medication

to relieve pain.

It is an experiment.

Does it help?

Am I better?

All I know is that

my mind is free to

feel joy:

for my best friend’s

IRS windfall,

my husband

on his way home,

our dog

not escaped,

the tea pot

boiling,

another episode of House

cued up,

my bed

waiting for me.

These are not new,

but my ability to

appreciate them is.

My pleasure is sincere.

The pain is still there.

I am not cured.

No marathons are in my future.

But there is a tiny space,

a slight cushion of awareness,

a sliver of hope that wasn’t

present before.

Like the absence of

intensity has given breathing room,

possibility of expansion,

a moment of focus on something

other than merely coping.

The pain is not gone,

but neither is my mind.

 

RJMarshall 6/2/16

Essays, Writing

Lay offs

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My company had lay offs.  Several people’s last day is this Friday.  I am sad and feel guilty for having my own job.  I have tried to help them as best I can with offering letters of reference, help with resume writing and cover letter writing.  (I’m an English teacher.)  I’ve offered tissues and emotional support as people have cried and talked about job options, fear, and stress.

I had some concern that I could lose my job, so felt immense relief when I did not get the call into the boss’s office on the day of lay offs.  Then I felt guilty for that relief.  Who am I to still have a job when perfectly hard-working other people now do not?  The whole thing just makes me so sad.

My prayers and positive thoughts go out to all those struggling with this problem right now.  I have been there and truly know how it feels…the fear, the concern, the doubt, the questions of self-worth…

A pay check does not define self-worth.  Another person’s opinion does not define our worth.  A good review, a bad review, a positive appraisal, a crappy appraisal…they are just snapshots – neither accurate nor truth, merely opinion.  I need this pep talk as much as the next person.  The opinion I value most is my own:  my own conscience, sense of ethics, peace of mind…no one can take those away from me.

Poetry, Writing

Creative Project

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My best friend convinced me to participate in a project combining my poems with her photographs.  I sent her this poem and she found the perfect photograph to go with it.

Lifted gently from my bed,

I dangle in your arms

safe and peaceful

riding dreams of breezy nonchalance

inside acorns of emotion.

Tiny kernels of light

speck frozen in vision’s grasp

just on the edge of horizon

the edge of reality

the edge of self.

A merging of wellness

and pain, fate and chance…

simplified seconds that

encapsulate infinity

between beats of my heart.

Each outward breath fills the universe

with life, spaces out the stars,

until the drawing in again

collapses solar systems,

visits death on the unsuspecting.

And as I lay me down you keep

my soul, my LORD,

my love in sleep.

-Rebekah J. Marshall

bitties

Photograph by Erica Smith. http://thebitties.squarespace.com/new-blog/

 

Poetry, Writing

Creative Project

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rose dying

Photograph by Erica Smith.  http://thebitties.squarespace.com/

My best friend convinced me to participate in a project combining my poems with her photographs.  She sent me this rose and I had to write a paragraph about it.

Aging gracefully is overrated –

probably perported

by the stoic who know no other way.

Can’t a compromise be reached

between classy and ridiculous?

Let me wear sandals in winter

and white in the fall if I

have the notion.

I’ll refrain from telling you your business

if you forgive my lapses of social etiquette.

Let me grow round and happy,

be silly in love like a school girl,

and I’ll still sip tea on Sunday afternoons

as expected.

I happen to enjoy tea

anytime

anywhere

for any reason.

But you can think it is because

I am being proper

if that makes you happy.

And we can both be content

in the end because we

lived lives full of what

we deemed valuable.

All of our loveliness will shrivel,

but the fragrance of our souls

will linger in the smiles of our

children and grandchildren

and the stories they tell of us.

I want my story memories

to be adventures

full of laughter,

not faded photographs

posed with ankles crossed,

pearls placed just so.

-Rebekah J. Marshall

 

Essays, Writing

Mother of the Year

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So…disregard my last post.  Apparently, my daughter appreciates and loves me with all her heart.  She even claims to be following in my footsteps in her attempts to be a good parent to her own daughter.

She gave me a beautiful little collection of gifts for Mother’s Day and wrote sweet lines in a Wonder Woman card.  She even went to the effort to have my granddaughter “write”/scribble in a card.  I was moved to tears.

In her forgetfulness, she dropped it off at my house, but accidentally left it in a spare room instead of putting it somewhere I would find easily.  She finally asked if I liked my presents via text and I was quite confused.  Was she joking?  Did her text count as a present?  I’m not even really a present person – or at least I didn’t think I was.  I like words, sweet words in a card, letters, songs and stories, or good conversation over tea.  That is what makes me feel loved and cared for.  That, and acts of service (if we’re talking the love languages.)

Once the confusion was cleared up, I had the best belated Mother’s Day ever.  She quoted the poem “Walk a little slower, Mom, for my feet are small.  I’m following in your footsteps and I don’t want to fall…”  The card featured Wonder Woman and said “Superheroes don’t always have a secret identity…sometimes they just go by Mom.”

She gave me some cute little jewelry items and a plaque that says, “The Best Moms get Promoted to Grandma.”  My favorite is a journal.  Inside she taped ticket stubs of movies we went to over the years as she was growing up.  It was very thoughtful and took some planning.  It was movies like Race to Witch Mountain, various Twilight movies, Harry Potter movies, The Help, Salt, Pitch Perfect, etc.  Then, sprinkled throughout the journal are fortunes from fortune cookies she saved over the years and quotes from wrappers of Dove candies and various other types of saying.  On one page she drew a lovely little turtle mama holding her turtle baby on her back.  I’ve always called her my baby turtle.

I’m still glad I broke down that dilapidated old rocking chair.  It was an eye sore and a hazard.  It is time for rose colored lenses, as one of her quotes says in the journal.  I am ready to start making my life beautiful, and some of that beauty might just come from re-framing my perspectives.

 

Essays, Writing

Mother’s Day Fail

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These are the remaining pieces of a symbol of my failure as a parent.  Let me explain…

Prior to the birth of my first child 20 years ago, I had this idea of taking photos in a rocking chair.  It was similar to my dreams of keeping photo albums of my kids, making quilts of their little outfits, framing their artwork to hang around the house, being a stay-at-home mom, and homeschooling.  Ummm…much of that did not happen, at least not to any success.  However, I did buy a rocking chair that I found second hand and spruced it up with pillows.  For the first few months and years of my kids lives, pictures were taken.  I have no idea where they are.  I’ll find them someday.  The chair followed us from house to house, but the picture idea was forgotten over time.  I chalk it up to laziness, forgetfulness, uncooperative non-participants in my household, but mostly, weariness.

Parenting never turned out to be as much fun as I imagined.  My co-parent ex-husband and I could not agree on anything, my kids found all of my ideas unpalatable, and I had to work two jobs just to pay the bills, which left very little time for arts and crafts.  Also, turns out, I hate arts and crafts, scrap booking, photography, homeschooling, and quilting.

Long story short, my kids are adults now and trying to make it as grown ups.  They resent me for never letting them have t.v., forcing religion on them, being poor, and who knows what else, but I know they also love and respect me.  I am the one they call in the middle of the night when they need someone the most.  They texted me for Mother’s Day.  They are not really at a place in their lives where I can expect gifts or cards or dinner out.  They are in survival mode.

Instead, I spent all day in my pajamas watching Netflix, writing, reading, and sipping hot tea on my back porch as it rained softly.  The eyesore that used to be my rocking chair sat in pieces taunting me for the first few hours.  I asked my husband if he knew what happened and he said that the back of the chair just slid off.  I’m not sure how the back of a chair just slides off, but that’s what he said.  It struck me that tomorrow would be recycle day and if I could fit the pieces of the rocking chair into the recycle bin, I could dispose of it.

Without thinking, I began tearing it apart.  I expected to feel sad, angry, disappointed, or some such other negative feeling.  Instead, I really didn’t feel much of anything.  I think part of me is tired of feeling regret, shame, and anger about the past.  Maybe I am numb.  Maybe I’m in denial and will feel something later.  I think I’ve just accepted that in the area of parenting, I have failed more than I have succeeded.  So, the rocking chair is disposed of and I’m planning to find a softer, more comfortable outdoorsy chair that I can share with my sweet new husband and my adorable granddaughter.

And if either of my kids decide to come over for a visit sometime, maybe they’ll let me take a picture of them in my new chair.

 

 

Essays, Writing

David Sedaris

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I had so much fun attending a reading by David Sedaris last night.  I was up in the highest most dizzying section of Bass Concert Hall -row X- suffering from occasional waves of claustrophobia.  To my left was my good friend Debbie, who sent me the link to the event in the first place knowing my love of all things Sedaris.  To my right was my patient husband, humoring me with his presence since I accompanied him to an event of one of his favorite authors Neil Gaiman.

Debbie laughed hysterically, having never read anything by David Sedaris and finding his humor both offensive and alternately laugh-out-loud funny.  She was dabbing at the tears forced by her laughter the whole time.  My husband chuckled a few times, and only took away a horrible joke I would never ever repeat, even on threat of death.  Really, that was your favorite bit?  I was appalled.  David would be proud.  I laughed so hard at one point that I was unable to catch my breath and panicked a bit because I could imagine myself passing out and catapulting multiple stories to my death.  My husband said the railing 10 feet down would stop my descent.  That’s comforting.

Mr. Sedaris came out wearing culottes.  My first comment of the evening was, “Is that a kilt?”  Nope.  He proceeded to explain that these were one of his finds on a shopping trip to Tokyo.  He enjoys finding the oddest pieces on his shopping adventures.  Then he writes about them, especially pleased if he gets odd looks or comments from passers-by.  I looked up how to spell culottes and they are defined as “women’s trousers, knee-length, usually cut to resemble a skirt.”  Yep, that is exactly what he was wearing.

We didn’t stay for the book signing.  I’ve done that before and it is underrated.  He is a character, but I would rather admire him from afar than have actual personal contact.  When I met him at a book signing years ago before he got so famous, I gave him a copy of one of my short stories, merely for his entertainment.  He wrote me back, a postcard, saying he read the story on the plane flight home and found it entertaining.  I got a kick out of that.

He has many critics, I’m sure.  He can’t be politically correct to save his life.  He cusses, has absolutely no filter, reads pages of his diary that make even die-hard fans squirm in their seats, then poses questions and ideas that make people want to throw rotten tomatoes at him.  I love that he is that brave, that honest, that humble.  He doesn’t take himself seriously at all.  He doesn’t really seem to care what anyone thinks of him.  He just tells funny stories of the world as he sees it and that makes me happy.

I am nowhere near as brave, as curious, as fascinated by the macabre, or as willing to let my freak flag fly as David Sedaris, but I am certainly a voyeur who enjoys reading about his adventures.  I appreciate his humor, his opinions, his observations, and his ridiculousness, and am thoroughly entertained by it all.

me talk pretty

This is my favorite book by David Sedaris so far.  They are all great, but I laughed out loud the most while reading this one…and have returned to it the most to share with others.