Another of my stories is posted this morning at Substack. You don’t have to pay nor do you have to subscribe to Substack to read it. Though Good Golly, why wouldn’t you subscribe? Not only can you read me, you can also read Heather Cox Richardson and Joyce Vance and tens of thousands of others…
I remember writing this story when we lived in Racine and our kids were still kids. When he was in 4th or 5th grade, our son often challenged himself to get around the house without actually stepping on the floor. You know, bouncing from furniture to coffee table to the divider between the kitchen and family room. Once I started to walk down our hallway and he was up by the ceiling; his feet on one wall and his hands on the others as he inched along. I painted our house years later and felt such melancholy about those faint shoe prints at the top of the wall.
What I am saying is that much of this story was written in my basement office while kids bounced around upstairs. I can still hear the thud of their feet, the kid practicing her flute, the chatter of afterschool TV, our dog running like a nut, cats meowing at each other.
I wrote a lot in my life. I also did all the other stuff we humans did and do. Belonged to some organizations, raised the kids, had friends, cleaned the house, cooked supper, read a lot, took the books back to the library, and oh yeah, had actual jobs.
One of the things I hate about literature is that the writer only shows you the parts of characters’ lives that are relevant to the plot. You get that awesome sense of momentum as if there is only one thing to figure out, only one thing happening. Good stories seldom include the typhoons of distractions in our human lives.
Yesterday a friend’s car broke in an inconvenient place at an inconvenient time. I hugged her because trying to get smoothly through a day so often becomes such an inconvenient plot.
Anyways, go read my story if you haven’t read it before. Len just read it and says he had completely forgotten how it ends.
I hope most of the distractions in your life today come together in a nice Saturday kind of plotline
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