I Won!

My story, "Traps," has won Honorable Mention in the Memphis Magazine Fiction Competition!

For many years I have hungered to have my writing recognized in Memphis. I live in a city and a region where I am surrounded by creative writing talent. Chief among my desires has been the longing to be recognized as a winner in the Memphis Magazine Annual Fiction Competition. Toward that goal I have submitted four short stories over the years and twice aborted work on a piece of short fiction. Some stories just cannot get their clothes on and their hair combed in time for the deadline.

This past year I was more intentional about reading quality fiction, paying attention to style, syntax, tone, point of view and character development. I attended the Iowa Writer's Conference at the University of Iowa where I received pointed instruction on writing fiction. I also made a decision, one year ago, to begin thinking of myself as a writer. A woman, a mother, a partner, a friend. Sometimes a gardener and many times a dreamer. But most of all I have rounded a corner to a place where I see myself writing. There are so many stories to be written.

I am deeply honored by this recognition. The $500.00 prize will be a pleasure to receive. But most of all I am basking in the affirmation. My creative work matters. I am hugging myself with joy!

Pantum

Mom quit eating,
Stopped opening her mouth for the spoon.
She's forgotten how to suck through a straw.
Her tongue is dry like beach sand.

Stopped opening her mouth for the spoon.
Should we tilt her head and pour food in?
Her tongue is dry like beach sand.
The air is taking over.

Should we tilt her head and pour food in?
Seems more like rape than nurture.
The air is taking over.
What's inside is the same as what's outside.

Seems more like rape than nurture
Forcing pureed fruits and vegetables in.
What's inside is the same as what's outside.
She's becoming one with the dust motes floating,
old hymns she has always sung.

Forcing pureed fruits, vegetables in
We rob her of the only power she has left.
She's becoming one with the dust motes floating,
old hymns she has always sung.

Let her go.
Like a melody on the sunbeams
that pave a highway through the window.
Let her go with the next refreshing breeze.

Sunday Morning in Plains, GA

We had the honor and the privilege of meeting and spending some time with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. This is now and always will be a highmark moment in our life. By way of explanation as to how Anna, my partner, and I were able to have this good fortune, my brother is the president at Georgia Southwestern University in Americus, Georgia. In that position he has come to know and work with the Carters. The Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers is located on the campus of Georgia Southwestern. And the Carters value the school. So it was a family affair a few weeks ago when we visited my brother, Kendall and his wife, Connie. All of us went to Sunday school and worship at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains. President Carter teaches the adult Bible class during Sunday school. He is an excellent teacher. He is one of those teachers who cares deeply about the subject he's teaching. As a student I felt safe in his class, the way you feel when the teacher is both intelligent and gifted at teaching. President Carter has studied the Bible for so long and well that he feels right at home with the material. He has a genuine desire to make the Bible accessible to the student. He's interesting and makes the lesson relevant. I was so proud when he invited me to pray as the class began. Gave me a chance to share my own gift.

I admire Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. They are authentic and principled people. I appreciate the ways that they have used their faith and their power to make the world a better place.

We ate lunch with them at Mama's Kitchen in Plains. They are easy to be with, like good neighbors. There is nothing ostentatious about the Carters. Both Jimmy and Rosalynn had buttermilk to drink with their turnip greens, fried okra, sliced tomatoes and cornbread. They admire the woman who owns and operates Mama's Kitchen. Jimmy introduced us to her before we left the restaurant. She was snapping beans in the front room. It was clear that the Carters have enjoyed a long and mutual relationship with this successful business woman. Real people among real people.

The picture was made after dinner and outside Mama's Kitchen. Left to Right: Kendall Blanchard, Rosalynn Carter, Anna Neal, Elaine Blanchard and Connie Blanchard.

I'm grateful to my brother and his wife for making this happen. And I'm grateful to the Carters for sharing their time and wonderful spirits with us. It's reassuring to meet them. Meeting them created a notalgia in my heart for the days when I still trusted the people in politics and power.

Lessons in Value

The magazine I had to have, made a trip across town to purchase it, remains unopened and unread. It is almost a year old now, wearing a thick jacket of dust and cat hair. The shirt I ordered, knowing I should be ashamed to be paying that kind of price for threads, has never been washed because I only wore it for an hour before I was convinced it made me look both old and fat. The self-help book that I knew would open doors to freedom, doors in my soul that had never been opened before, is under a stack of self-help books that cannot read themselves. The elliptical machine that I purchased with last year's income tax return was supposed to tighten my thighs and strengthen my abs. I would soon be sleek and sexy. But even a two thousand dollar piece of exercise equipment has no effect on my muscles unless I use it, actually turn it on and step into its paddles.

I remember, 1983, when I purchased my first new car. I had had used cars, cars that took me from home to work and away on vacation from time to time. But in 1983, I went to the lot and purchased a Nissan wagon, never owned by another. I expected to feel like a new born behind the wheel of this trouble-free vehicle. Some people might feel anxious about unpaid debts while I was in my new car. Some people might be crying over a marriage that should never have been while I was feeling the breeze from the open window in my deep blue Nissan wagon. Some people might be drinking and smoking themselves to death even as my new car purred into action each time I needed to go somewhere. But I was not some people anymore. I was a woman with a new car, a car without mechanical problems, a car nobody else had mistreated. I expected to feel the taste of slick success and to keep that taste forever in my mouth. I was in control and now my life would begin to matter. Yet, on the first day in the life of being not just some people, as I rushed late out the door with my crying child who was unhappy with her hair and her incomplete homework, I tripped on the driveway and suffered a grass stain on my dress pants. The husband I could not get away from, try as I might, was glued to the recliner and already smoking a joint. I thought I felt a bad cold creeping up the back of my throat as I slid into the driver's seat. Not much had changed. The new car seemed to mock me!I thought I saw a weird sneer on its dashboard. I was still the same some body among some people who hope to one day buy the thing that can save us from ourselves. Certainly not enough had changed with the purchase of my new car to make the monthly payment feel personally affirming. Writing the check and licking the envelope each month I remembered how little the car could do.

That was so long ago. I might have learned an important lesson even then and might have saved much money by now, socked back cash to use when I'm really old and weary of lessons I have difficulty learning right away. And yet, now that I am fifty-five, I notice how much I enjoy sitting by the window in the morning, just after I wake up, coffee cup in fist, and before I go to shower. I watch the morning doves land on the feeder, the flowers lifting their faces toward the warmth of the sun and I listen. I listen to the sounds of nothing in particular while I watch for anything at all. I breathe while I pet my little dog. I move my feet just a bit so everything that is me feels uninhibited, relaxed and open to receive. There's so much more in the morning than I ever knew when I was young and scared of being just a somebody among some people. The yard springs to life with butter flies, squirrels and sparrows. I am among them and connected, related even as I am related to my cousin Nancy who lives in Florida and goes out to the barn each morning to feed buckets of oats to her two alert and loyal horses. Money cannot buy the things I really need, the family and friends who color the background of my story, the answered prayers I celebrate and the times I've felt useful and free to need others, to be needed.

Still I know myself well enough to know that even tomorrow I might go rushing down the main road of town on my way to buy a thing that seems to promise new horizons for me, a fresh outlook, a deeper appreciation for who I am and what I can do while I am here. It might be a pair of shoes, a potted plant or a bracelet. It might be a gift for my daughter. At fifty-five I have learned it is best not to judge myself too harshly, not to expect that I will be more than some people in the neighborhood. We all catch glimpses of the glory and we all get stuck in the mud. From beginning to end. I look to the morning for refreshment and inspiration. Some morning I might wake up to find that I no longer need money or anything that it can buy.

Florida State Storytellers Camp

I recently returned home from a week in Florida. I spent time with cousins in Jacksonville, reconnecting, and walking along the beach. Then I rented a car and drove further south where I visited another cousin, Nancy. She lives off the beaten track in Eustis where blue birds sit on her fence posts, horses add to the front yard scenery and adorable donkeys live in the pasture across the fence. I saw an eagle flying across a lake and landing on its nest in the top of a tall pine. I visited the home of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in Cross Creek. And I took several hikes through nature centers: Lake Griffin Sate Park and Trout Lake Nature Center.

I attended the Florida Storytelling Camp and Conference while I was there. I heard some excellent stories, had a chance to tell a few stories and met some wonderful people. The storytellers in Florida seem well connected and deeply attached to the significance of sharing tales.

My personal favorite among the featured tellers was Michael Parent. So much pizzazz in his personality. He can tell a wonderful story, play musical instruments and juggle-- all at the same time! Great entertainment! Great sense of humor. Most impressive, he's just plain friendly.

There's something about people who tell stories. We have come to recognize that "the story" is so much more than entertainment. As storytellers we are nurse, therapist, archivist, pastor, prophet, teacher, environmentalist, anthropologist and artist. As important as that seems, we are insignificant without someone to receive our stories, an audience to listen with imagination.

Being away from home inspires my imagination. Seeing family and remembering old times together is reassuring. Making new friends and connecting with new places increases my sense of personal power. I am still growing, learning, becoming more.
But the very best part of any travel tale is the moment I return home and find that all is well. My place on the earth remains.

"Uncounted," The Documentary

If you have not yet seen "Uncounted," please find a way to do so. Your vote is supposed to count and you expect it to count toward the candidate you support. But the voting machines are not reliable and they can be manipulated. They have been manipulated. Our democracy depends on the fair process of elections. This is not paranoid ranting. See the film. Then call your state and federal representatives. Insist that a paper ballot be available for each one of our votes in November.

www.UncountedTheMovie.com

Religion and Violence

I attended the Trinity Institute Conference on Religion and Violence last week. The speakers were all informative and interesting.(James Cone, Susannah Heschel, James Carroll and Tariq Ramadan) I left the conference aware that each one of us can contribute to the peace process-- or we can add to the rigid walls that divide us from our neighbors and feed the hungry powers that destroy us. It does not require an academic degree, ordination or religious affiliation to make a difference for the sake of goodness. We each come from the womb--perfectly alive and willing to embrace and be embraced by the love that got us all together in the first place. It takes training for us to truly believe we are better or worse, more deserving of good things or less deserving of good things, than the person next door or across the ocean. Adequate religious training and a transcendant faith return us to the place where we know that all people are created in the image of God and all people deserve to live in peace and prosperity.