Have a great holiday.

Kyla

Maybe your happy ending could have been about leaving that writing camp ;o). I can’t believe they kicked you out! Seems kind of harsh for a summer camp. There was a story I wrote about a young woman who has a major conflict with her mother. I wanted them to make up at the end, but I realized that the mother just wouldn’t make that possible. The story still ends on a good note, but not the one I’d originally planned. Sometimes stories just want to be what they want to be, and who am I to argue?

Absolutely. I wrote a story about a sculptor who has ALS. The metaphor was how biological matter dies but continues on in other forms, such as limestone and marble. I got the idea from a tree near my house. It was gray and gnarled, and had four thin trunks grown up from the ground. At each of the large knots on the trunks, pink flowers had bloomed. Every May it looks like a hand with flowers growing out of the joints.

Good blog! You’ve given me a great idea for messing with my neighbors ;o).

I’m gay, so I’ve been in many situations where I’ve been out of my comfort zone. The scariest was getting off a bus in downtown Albany after spending the day at the pride festival in NYC. There was a group of 5 men milling around not far away. While we were waiting for another bus to take us back to our car, a very drunk man came walking up the street past us, and he began calling us names like “dyke” and ” bull daggers” which didn’t bother us too much except that the other 5 men started joining in. There was no one around except us. The threat of violence was terrifying. Luckily the bus came before anything happened and we were able to go on our way.

On a more positive note, I worked in a nursing home when I was in college. At 18, I didn’t have a lot of experience being around elderly folks, let alone folks with Alzheimer’s. It was a bit scary at first because some of the patients were quite far along in the disease and would mumble or be somewhat threatening. Also, most of them were much bigger than me, so there was the fear of dropping someone. What I learned was that each of these people had been vital, interesting and interested people in their lives. Some were able to tell me about it themselves (one of my patients was a make-up artist who worked with Max Factor). Others were too far gone, but I read their intake histories and began to see who they had been. I began to see that there were glimmers of their previous selves in them still. One lady looked very much like my mother and had the same name. She smiled and mumbled incessantly when she was awake. One day when I was feeding her I said, “Mrs. X, you’re so pretty.” and she said, “I know that!” And then she was gone again.

Hope you had a good holiday season! In answer to your question, all the time. And I guess that’s true of everyone in the sense that any knowledge of the world is based on what we’ve learned and memory is part of that. But specific memories of experiences — working in a nursing home or a factory, chance meetings I’ve had with people, trips I’ve taken, etc. — definitely work their way in. Take care.

KT