Tokonoma

Tokonoma definition: (in a Japanese house) a recess or alcove, typically a few inches above floor level, for displaying flowers, pictures, and ornaments. Usually changed daily to stimulate the senses.

A small white envelope waited just for me in the top drawer of my grandaddy’s desk. My small six-year-old hands could barely reach the envelope, but Grandaddy always stood back and watched while I tried. He knew how to build excitement over the smallest things. I already knew the envelope would be filled with butterfly and moth wings, but just what variety and how many was the mystery. Grandaddy worked for a car dealership that also did mechanical work. Whenever cars came in for a tune-up, Grandaddy checked the front grills for the beautiful creature’s wings so that they might live on in his grandaughter’s collection of stuff.

So began my fascination with what came to be known as gifts of nature. Visit any of the homes I have lived in over the years and you will find, rocks tucked into a bookcase, feathers in glass jars, and flowers that dried naturally in autumn’s cold winds placed just so on a dresser. When I had children they thought it at once cool and then later gross. My eye for nature’s gifts grew keener over the years. A discarded snake skin barely visible in the rubble beneath a tree was one of my coolest finds. None of my children seemed to have inherited my genetic wonder gene. So it has been a solitary pursuit for many years, until a year ago.

I first noticed the thigh bone of a chicken bleached white in a little wooden bowl reserved for white sea shells. If not for its slender shape, it may have gone unnoticed by me for some time so close was the color to the shells. Questioning my husband as to the origins of the bone, his slightly disgusted face told me he wasn’t the culprit. A few days later I was walking the dogs with my grandson and he asked if I had found the ‘human’ bone he left for me. He insisted the bone was a finger bone, washed up on the beach, probably left over from a shipwreck. And so, the bone holds it’s place of honor in the wooden bowl filled with white sea shells.

Since finding the bone, my grandson, now eight, has presented me with a perfectly preserved cicada carcass, a mummified tree frog, a black rock shaped like a heart, and a brilliant lime green acorn he found in a pile of ordinary brown acorns. On his birthday, I gave him a small white envelope, it held wings of the grill. He got an old glass salt shaker from his mom and carefully placed the wings inside, so he could see them all the time. The wings sit carefully placed on his window sill in an otherwise disorganized chaos of legos and other boy detritus.

I read about a tokonoma many years ago and always thought the relationship between the things of beauty found in nature littering my home was similar. I did not have an alcove specially set aside for all my treasures, but I loved the idea. Since I have found my fellow collector we have cleared a small alcove on a shelf: The alcove framed by two old volumes of Kipling holds our finds now. We add and take away from our tokonoma as we feel like it. It is ever changing and always beautiful. Recently, he found a large shark’s tooth scarcely peeking from the sand. He has the eye. He gets that from me!

Our current collection: A big and a small pinecone, a shark’s tooth, a beaver tooth, a smooth rock, a dried Japanese Lantern pod, a whelk, a starfish found dead after hurricane Matthew and a miniature pitcher of weeds.

Dear Brother

The following was my submission for the Yeah Write Fiction Super Challenge. The prompt was yearning/wear outrageous shoes. This piece did not make it to round two.  But I really like it. The following is the feedback that I received on it:

What the judges really liked about Dear Brother:

• J.R. and his troop sharing letters with those that had no one writing to them was an endearing touch. The way you incorporated the shoe prompt was different and clever.
• Good use of descriptive language. The letter was written in an authentic sounding voice.

Where the judges found room for improvement:

• The letter seemed at times to be more a way to inform the reader of J.R.’s situation than a genuine correspondence, especially at the beginning. The shoes were not an integral part of the story.
• This story feels too much like it’s a piece of a larger story that the reader doesn’t get the full benefit of. Not knowing or having a solid clue how the letter writer could be releated to the two named characters muddies things up for the reader.

Seems like what some liked others did not. I’d be interested in more objective feedback if anyone wants to share their thoughts!

Grandma asked, “honey, would you go to the root cellar and bring me a jar of the apple butter we put up last fall?”

I hated the root cellar but loved apple butter more. Heaving the cellar doors open, I stood before the dank maw. Gathering my courage for the first step, it would take me five steps down before I could reach the pull string that would illuminate the pit below. I made my quick jog over to the shelf lined with ancient newspapers and stacked with colorful jars. *Not looking left or right, fearful of meeting unwanted eyes, I snatched the jar neatly labeled in my grandmother’s hand. My eyes caught movement just as something grazed the top of my foot. A squeak of a scream escaped before I saw that it was a yellowed sheet of paper. Perhaps an abandoned recipe? I scooped it up and bee-lined it up the stairs, remembering to pull the string on the 5th step.

Happy to hand over the apple butter to my grandma and be back in her airy, bright kitchen my heartbeat returned to normal. Hard to imagine this warm, fine smelling room sits over the soggy cellar. I sat down at the table covered with a cherry patterned oil cloth. Unfurling the fragile paper, a letter appeared in place of the expected recipe. I am a fast reader for my age, a quick skim and I could barely get the words out to ask Grandma about the letter.

“Grandma, I found this in the cellar.” I thought reading it to her would be the best way to begin before hammering her with my questions.

Distracted, she barely glanced over her shoulder at me. She certainly did not see what I held in my hands…yet.

Dear brother,

I now take some small measure of joy to write a few lines home about where we ar and what we ar doing. Our men have retreated back over the river. Many ar dead or near about. The enemy devils have gave us a time. We have lost at Chancellorsville.

I will spare you the particulars of my trials. I miss home more than I considered when I set out on this two years ago, eager and confident to make handiwork of Johnny Reb. I thought to be home by 6 months. If a dawning idea had come upon me I would have lingered more over mother’s fine roast. Just one taste now would last me through til I get back home. I hope that I will one day return home to you and mother and father. I am sorrowful thinking otherwise. I know you ar near a man now and ar a great help to mother and father and our kin folks thereabouts. When I next see you I expect we will greet as strangers. I fear we will not know each other by site. Tho only two years have passed.

My hair has gone to gray I am told and I know it to be shaggy as no hair cuts are to be had. My feet have grown so much that my boots pinched fearsome. I had to cast them off last spring. Some bits of leather lying about inspired me to collect them. When I had enough, I made for myself a considerable good pair of moccasins. The adjunct said we were due a train with supplies, boots and the like. That was 9 months ago. I am not ashamed to say that I put a dead man’s boots to good use. His feet and legs was missing from his body when I found them. I have heard and seen of a man blown out of his shoes but never did I think I would find a perfectly fine pair of legs stuck in my size boots with no body to care if I took them. I hope dear brother you do not think me wearing a dead man’s boots too scandalous. These are the things we all do now and learn them tolerable in this godforsaken endeavor.

If you ar able, send word to Elizabeth that I am still living. Her photo and locket ar lost these many months. And if your face will not become too red tell her I long for the day we meet again under our old pecan.

Time for leisure is very short and putting pen to paper even shorter. I depend on you little brother to carry this news and my letter to those who may care. Do not let Elizabeth read it tho, she is too delicate and will worry overmuch.

I cannot say how long we will stay in this place. Get mother to send me some socks soon as she can. Write soon with news from home. We have made a letter circle of sorts. All the men pine for home. We share what letters we get with them that don’t get none.

Respects and truest affection,
your brother
J R Osborne

By the time I finished reading, Grandma was sitting with me, her face pale behind trembling hands.

“Grandma Elizabeth! What’s wrong? Who is J R Osborne?”

Straw Hat

I wrote a longer version of this story almost eight years ago for a family reunion. My daughter did the illustrations. We printed it using Shutterfly and read it to the children (well really everyone, we just targeted the children). It was our way of sharing some stories of our family with the next generation in a way that might not bore them to tears. Each person that encountered Olivia read their portion of the story. There was a chapter for my mom and my aunt now both omitted for the sake of those not familiar with our family. Their stories have been incorporated into this newer version, however. This story is the basis for some of the flavor of my blog, I Just Made That Up, or It Really Happened. I have never shared it on my blog. Now the time has come, we have added more children to our family and i would like to improve the original before I add more to it. I’d like to take advantage of my writing friends and my Yeah Write friends for editing, suggestions, what works, what doesn’t. To that end, I am submitting this to Moonshine, because there are no rules to length and genre right?  Thanks for reading!

Olivia spied the old straw hat hanging in her grandmother’s house. It was just what she needed to finish her playing-outside-costume on that sunny, hot day. Olivia’s neck was adorned with a flower chain fashioned from morning glories and her wrists sparkled with golden bracelets. She grabbed the hat and placed it on top of her silky brown hair and skipped out of the house. She couldn’t wait to see what adventures waited.

A thrill of excitement hit Olivia as she spotted Aunt Hannah in the garden. She twirled and whirled her way over to her Aunt wondering what magical thing she might have found in the garden. Her Aunt was always looking for bugs, toads, and lizards and usually had some scary thing to show her.
“Hey Aunt Hannah, what are you doing?” Olivia bounced up and asked.

“Well look at you, Miss Olivia! ” Aunt Hannah’s blue eyes sparkled with laughter as she let Olivia behold the June Bugs collected in the purple beach bucket.

Olivia squealed with delight and shrieked, “ewwwww, what are those?”

“June bugs, I’m picking them off my roses because they like to eat them. Hey, I know that Hat!” Aunt Hannah said wiping her brow.

Olivia turned a pirouette and said, “Don’t I look pretty?”

“You look very pretty. That old hat that you have on your head belongs to a memory I have. “Before you were born, your great-great-grandmother, Lucille, wore that hat in her garden. Later in the evening, resting on her porch, her straw hat fanned the cool night air around her face.”

Her Aunt took the battered hat from Olivia and fanned Olivia’s small face, “Feel the breeze, Olivia? If I close my eyes I can almost smell the cool Georgia night air.”
Olivia closed her eyes but she only smelled, well nothing really. “No, Aunt Hannah, I don’t smell anything.”

Her Aunt smiled at her and said, “that’s okay, it’s an old memory and I have only just given it to you.”

Olivia’s round brown eyes landed on the green-blue iridescent flash of a June bug, jamming the hat back on her head, she ran along.

Around the corner of the yard, Olivia ran, and bumped right into her to her Aunt Claire’s chair. “Olivia, you look just like a movie star!”

Olivia giggled because to her, Aunt Claire was so glamorous, “Aunt Claire, can I get tanned with you?”

Claire replied, “of course, put some sun lotion on so you don’t burn.”

Just then a quick breeze skittered the straw hat right off Olivia’s head, her Aunt’s sun-browned arm reached out and caught the hat.

“Hey, I know that hat, it belongs to a memory I have.” Olivia finished putting the lotion on her lanky arms and legs while her aunt told the story.

“When my mother, your grandmother, Ma Kay, was young she liked to walk down to her friend Beverly’s house to sunbathe on the roof of the porch. In those days they used baby oil on their skin to tan and lemons in their hair to lighten it. MaKay’s grandmother scolded the girls often, believing a young lady should have creamy white skin and natural hair. Many times MaKay would find her grandmother trying to tie this old straw hat onto her head before she went out to play.”

Before handing the hat back to Olivia, Aunt Claire held it up to her nose and breathed deeply, her eyes closed, her head tipped back in the sun. “Smell that Olivia? Baby-oil and lemons?”

But Olivia still did not smell anything. Aunt Claire smiled and said, “That’s okay, it’s an old memory and I have only just given it to you.” Hearing her mother’s laughter, Olivia ran off to find her.

“Olivia, you are just the girl I was looking for,” her mother said.

Olivia began climbing up on the picnic table and jumping off over and over again, “Mother do you like my playing outside costume?”

Her mother smiled at her warmly and with a soft, sweet voice said, “I do love your costume, it’s the perfect thing to wear while planting seeds, would you help me with these?”

Olivia climbed onto the picnic table bench, rolled up her sleeves, pushed back her old straw hat, bracelets flashed in the sunlight, eager to begin helping her mom push the seeds into the dirt filled pots.

Reaching for a watering can Olivia’s hat brushed her mother’s arm and her mother said, “Hey, I know that hat, it belongs to a story I remember. A long time before you were born, when I was a girl just about your age, I helped my great-grandmother, Lucille, plant tomato seeds in little pots in the house. It was early spring, which meant it was still cold out. But my great-grandmother wanted to have tomatoes big enough to plant outside when the weather turned warm again, so we started our little plants from seed there at the kitchen counter. After we planted them I would go over to her house every day to water them and see if they had sprouted yet. It seemed like forever until they sprouted but when they did, they grew so fast and before I knew it the time had come to plant them outside. My great-grandmother showed me how to plant them in the cool damp earth, how to fertilize them with crystal blue miracle gro, and how to pick off the “suckers” so that the tomatoes would grow strong and tall.”

Mother’s long beautiful fingers lightly touched the brim of the hat on Olivia’s head, she closed her eyes and said, “Smell that Olivia? It smells just like sweet damp earth, and the fresh green smell of tomato leaves.”

But Olivia couldn’t smell it, she shook her head, no.

Mother just smiled and said, “That’s okay, it’s an old memory and I have only just given it to you.” Now Olivia, ran off to find her grandmother, MaKay.

Spying MaKay under a plum tree, she snuck up on her and yelled, “BOO!” The basket of plums she had collected scattered to the ground.

“Olivia you scared me!”

MaKay reached out to tickle her while they bent to gather up the plums. Olivia’s hat fell on the ground and MaKay picked it up, flipped it over and began to put plums inside the hat.

“Hey, what are you doing? That’s part of my playing outside costume!”

MaKay replied, “Of course it is. Hey, this hat belongs to a memory I have. I once used this very hat to put plums in at my grandmother, Lucille’s house. She always let me pick plums from her trees when it was time to make plum jelly. We filled up so many pans and buckets of plums that sometimes we had to use this old hat to hold more. After we washed all the plums for my grandmother, she would bring them in. The kitchen and soon the whole house would be filled with the sweet candy smell of simmering plum jelly.”

About to take the hat back from MaKay, Olivia said, “MaKay, I bet if you hold this hat and close our eyes you will smell something.”

Playing along, almost afraid of what smell Olivia had in mind, MaKay leaned in, closed her eyes and smelled. “Olivia, I smell plums do you?”

Olivia did smell plums but only because MaKay had just poured some out, so she said, “I don’t think I smell old plums from your grandmother’s yard.”

MaKay smiled and said, “That’s okay, it’s an old memory and I have only just given it to you.” About that time, Olivia noticed the porch swing was moving so she ambled over to investigate.

Olivia was feeling a little sad that she could not smell any old memories in her now enchanted straw hat. Sadness banished quickly when she realized her sister and cousin were hiding under the swing. As she got closer she realized they weren’t hiding at all, just trying to catch a little green lizard. When Olivia’s sister, Mia saw her, her mouth dropped open glimpsing the beauty of Olivia’s playing-outside-costume. Her cousin Autry’s boyish grin had nothing to do with Olivia’s finery and everything to do with the lizard pursuit. Unable to ignore the temptation to catch a lizard in their bright green lizard-catching-net, both girls forgot about the costume. The three set off on their imaginary safari looking for the elusive lizard. They crawled through sweet smelling jasmine, lifted up scratchy dry dune grass, and combed the freshly cut green lawn. They never did find that lizard again. Instead, they ended up in a heap leaning against the side of the house giggling. Olivia slipped some of the shiny bracelets onto her sister’s arm. Autry plucked one of the flowers from Olivia’s chain and inhaled deeply before trying to eat it. Boys are weird thought Olivia.

Mia wanted the hat too, so she took it off her sister’s head and placed it on her own. At that moment, a slow smile turned the corners of Olivia’s mouth up. Reaching over to straighten the hat on Mia’s head, Olivia asked the little ones, “Can you smell the jasmine and green grass on that hat?”

Both Mia and Autry sniffed the hat, “we don’t smell nothing but straw.”

Olivia just smiled and said, “That’s okay, it’s just a memory and I have only just given it to you.”

The Rescue

I nod my head in agreement and silently we slip past the gate. The insistent darkness ensures our cover but makes our progress slow.  Rustling to our left, we keep going. There is no turning back now. Weeks of planning brought us this close.  Urgency and fear pump through my system.

Finding the stairs was no easy task, the slight change in the dark landscape our only clue. Once on the stairs, we are able to let our guard down for a moment. We are the only ones that know the stairs exist. Our safe spot, should things start to go to hell.

Safe now to flip on the torch, wanting one last review of the blueprints. Up the steps, a quick left, into the hall and fifty feet to room 313. Garbed in work clothes, like outside contractors, we are invisible to the passing doctors,nurses and the ever-present secret guards. We reach the door without incident.

Inside, a sparse bulb over the sink washes everything in blue.  Her familiar shape beneath the drab sheet moves only in the rhythm of slow and steady breath. I was selected to be the one to carry her as I had strength on my side. Our work clothes now lay in a discarded heap. Smoothing the new nurse uniform into place, I slip to the side of the bed.The plain but soft sheet becomes a compact cocoon around her. So thorough is her sleep, she does not even stir cradled now in my strong enough arms.

Our steps echo in the sterile hall joined by a third set of steps as a distracted doctor passes by.

A door opening just behind us, “Damn, Sevan! Either he is early or we are off our schedule.

Velan daring a look back, “It’s a guard,” he whispers.

Thirty- feet from the safety of the stairs, the guard shouts, “Ho!”

The secret guards, not so secret in their white head to toe uniforms, watch everything, popping up everywhere. They are chosen for training as children. If they pass the exams, a life of spying is their reward. Each one equipped with lasers, snappers that record live pictures of events, and implanted chips. The chips set off shrieking alarms anytime a guard is assaulted or vaporized.

Velan shouts to me, “Go! Go! Go!” as he spins back around, lasers in both hands. The acrid smell of ozone assaults me. A second later the steady shrill alarm confirms that the guard vaporized. We haven’t much time now. In an instant, two more guards block our way. Running toward them, dropping to the floor, feet first I slide right by them. My burden still sleeping. Hugging the wall now to stay clear, I hear the click of Velan’s lasers. Twenty feet now, Velan on my heels. Bricks begin sliding out of the walls on each side. They create a maze designed to slow our escape. Banging into a previously not there wall stops my progress, blood fills my throat, my nose is broken. Velan runs by leading the way, by some empyrean luck we reach the portal. Velan strikes the wall and the portal opens.

“Pray do let the portal close before we have any followers.” Velan pants.

All three of us through, we turn and watch the portal close, one final look to make sure no one pursued into the stairwell. The tips of white boots, our last glimpse before we are alone in the safety of the stairs.

The provisions we brought with us would have to last several days, time enough for the grounds search to be complete. Our time spent in the safety zone would also allow the drugs to get out of her system. Then we could make our treacherous journey back home.  Several hours into our wait, she begins to stir. Paper thin eyelids tremble as her eyes begin to move; flickering open now and then before lazily staying open. I lean in, her eyes blank. Valen rubs her arm silently.  Focus returns with each flex of her pupils both eyes trained on my face. Measured seconds pass, haltingly she moves her eyes to Valen.

She croaks a whisper, “Valen? Sevan?”  

Velan nods, “Yes it’s us, Mattar, did you think your sons would let them keep you?”

I smile at our dear Mattar, “rest now.”

photo credit – stairs to nowhere forest of dean

Hurricane

Mid the churning mist, the evil eye,
Nestled in the seeming soft whorl,
Sets his sights on fragile earth,
Sweeping all in his gaze,
We ready and brace,
Water, milk, bread,
Hurricane
Matthew
Time

Drunks, Wolves, and Clara

Nutcracker try-out announcements were posted on Monday. Amilia, my nine-year-old granddaughter was cast as Clara. Our family went a little crazy with plans. My very important step-sister, a senior partner in her large law firm in Baltimore booked a flight. Other’s arranged small work vacations.  We will board our dogs for the first time ever as there will be no available family member to dog-sit. The first weekend in December will be historical for our family.

“Mama, how you feelin’?” Trying to control the tremor in my voice, I’m pretty sure I sound perfectly normal.

“Oh you know, the usual, can’t sleep, my eyes sting, and I just cain’t seem to find my appetite.” My seventy-six-year-old mother begins most conversations with the same complaints.

“I’m sorry Mama.” No use offering suggestions anymore.

More chit-chat leads to the crux of the phone call. “Y’all going up to Charlotte for the Nutcracker?” She asks so sweetly and I want to scream, of course, what the fuck do you think? An extreme reaction you may think, but that is just because you may not be familiar with  “southern mama guilt.”

She is really on a fishing expedition. Exploring the waters to make sure she will be the center of attention and not some other usurping fish. Her list of infringers is long as it includes anyone who commands attraction away from her. My husband is the Supreme King of her list. They no longer co-exist in any situation. His attendance at any event demands her retreat. He is more popular in her mind.

A comparison of two people: One, a female, raised by drunks. One, a male, raised by human wolves. The female learns to attract love by gaining attention, she craves the love of her unconcerned parents and so seeks it in other places. She discovers boys; coyness and sticky sweetness win them. She has a female child.  At last, an object who returns love in just the way she desperately needs. The male seeks approval from his parents, finds none. He turns inward with self-loathing and outward with braggadocious behaviour. He is put out on his own far too early for a human child, he seeks approval through hard work. If no approval is forthcoming he will bare his teeth. He finds a mate who soothes his wounds and loves him as he is.

“Yes, I think my mother plans to attend.” My husband has begun his quizzing, I try to keep it casual.

“Fine, but I don’t have to make nice do I?”

“Well, I was hoping to avoid any unease at least for Amilia’s sake. It’s her night after all. This isn’t about you or my mother, this is about our granddaughter dancing the lead role.” I am bolder with my retort to my husband.

“Is she sitting near us?” He puts it plainly out there.

“Likely, I spoke to Katherine (our daughter, Amilia’s mom), and she says she has gotten a block of seat tickets.”  My stomach starts the standard flip-flop.

In two months, two rows of twenty related people will be sitting together for the first time in several years. We will watch Amilia perform the role of Clara. It will be the season of Christmas for us. The season of goodwill toward men, (and women). We as a family will watch our darling girl.

I am nervous as a cat,caught between guilt/mother and loyalty/husband. This and that have led to years of separation between my husband and mother. Well, really, between my mother and a few others. Before December arrives, I want to put everyone into a deep sleep so that they will dream of sugarplums, snowflakes, and battles where right wins; then, wake to find Christmas has arrived in the form of one tiny dancer who can unite us all. Damn the wolves, the drunks, the guilt, the subtle and the bold intentions. Let January be full of happy family history.